Feast of The Sacred Heart of Jesus (Part Two)

Italic Text taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal or, where indicated, 
      Abbot Gueranger's "The Liturgical Year".
Non-Italic Text and Images taken from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia,
      unless otherwise accredited.

[This Feast was held on Friday, 15 June 2012 - Editor].

Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi.
Double of the First Class with Privileged Octave of the Third Order.
White Vestments.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647 - 1690)

English: 

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque Contemplating the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Italiano: 

Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque Contempla il Sacro Cuore di Gesù.

Polski: 

Św. Małgorzata Maria Alacoque adoruje Najświętsze Serce Jezusa.

Artist: Giaquito Corrado.

Date: 1765.

Source: Lib-Art.com

This Heart, say these two Saints, is an altar on which Christ offers Himself to the Father as a perfect and most acceptable victim. It is a golden censer from which rise, towards the Father, as many clouds of incense as there are kinds of men for whom Christ suffered.

In this Heart, the praise and thanks we give to God and all our good works are ennobled and become acceptable to the Father.

But, in order to make this worship public and recognised, Providence first raised up Saint John Eudes, who, in 1670, composed an Office and a Mass of The Sacred Heart for the so-called Congregation of the Eudists.

Providence then chose one of the spiritual daughters of Saint Francis of Sales, Saint Margaret-Mary Alacoque, to whom Jesus showed His Heart at Paray-le-Monial, on 16 June 1675, the Sunday after Corpus Christi, and asked her to institute a Feast of The Sacred Heart on the Friday following the Octave of Corpus Christi.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Sacro cuore di Jesu, painting on the altar in the Northern side chapel 

of Il Gesu, in Rome, circa 1740,

by Pompeo Batoni.

Source: http://www.enid.uib.no/texts/achen_l.htm

Lastly, God employed, for the propagation of this devotion, Blessed Claude de la Colombiere. He belonged to the Company of Jesus, "the whole of which inherited his zeal in the propagation of the devotion to The Sacred Heart" [the quoted portion is from Dom Gueranger's "The Liturgical Year, Volume 10, Book 1: The Feast of The Sacred Heart"].

[Dom Gueranger writes, in the above tome, on The Feast of The Sacred Heart of Jesus: "A new ray of light shines today in the heaven of Holy Church, and its light brings warmth. The Divine Master given to us by our Redeemer, that is, the Paraclete Spirit, who has come down into this world, continues His teachings to us in the Sacred Liturgy. The earliest of these, His Divine Teachings, was the mystery of the Trinity; and we have worshipped the Blessed Three: We have been taught who God is, we know Him in His own nature, we have been admitted, by faith, into the sanctuary of the infinite Essence.

Image of Prosper Gueranger by Claude-Ferdinand Gaillard (1874)

"Then, this Spirit, the mighty wind of Pentecost, opened to our Souls new aspects of the truth, which it is His mission to make the world remember; and His revelation left us prostrate before the Sacred Host, the Memorial which God Himself has left us of all His wonderful works.

"Today, it is the Sacred Heart of the Word made flesh that this Holy Spirit puts before us, that we may know and love and adore it."]

In 1765, Pope Clement XIII, gave his approbation to the Feast and the Office of The Sacred Heart, and, in 1856, Pope Pius IX, extended it to the universal Church. In 1929, Pope Pius XI composed a new Mass and Office for this Feast and gave it a Privileged Octave of the Third Order.

The Solemnity of The Sacred Heart sums up all the phases of the life of Jesus, recalled in the Liturgy from Advent to the Feast of Corpus Christi.

It constitutes an admirable triptych, giving us, in abridgement, all the Mysteries (Joyous, Sorrowful and Glorious) of the Saviour's life devoted to the love of God and men. This Feast is, indeed, placed on a height from which may be contemplated the redeeming labours of the Saviour on Earth and the glorious victories He will, by the working of the Holy Ghost, achieve in Souls until the end of the world.

PART THREE FOLLOWS