Haurietis Aquas - On the Sacred Heart

23. It is of course beyond doubt that the Sacred Books never make express mention of a special worship of veneration and love made to the physical Heart of the Incarnate Word as the symbol of His burning love. But if this must certainly be admitted, it cannot cause us surprise nor in any way lead us to doubt the divine love for us which is the principal object of this devotion; since that love is proclaimed and insisted upon in the Old and in the New Testament by the kind of images which strongly arouse our emotions. Since these images were presented in the Sacred Writings foretelling the coming of the Son of God made man, they can be considered as a token of the noblest symbol and witness of that divine love, that is, of the most Sacred and Adorable Heart of the divine Redeemer.

24. We do not think it essential to our subject to cite at length passages from the Old Testament books which contain truths divinely revealed in ancient times. We consider it sufficient to call to mind that the covenant made between God and the people and sanctified by peace offerings—the first Law of which was written on two tablets and made known by Moses (17) and explained by the prophets -was an agreement established not only on the strong foundation of God’s supreme dominion and of man’s duty of obedience but was also based and nourished on more noble considerations of love. The ultimate reason for obeying God, for the people of Israel, was not the fear of divine vengeance which the rumble of thunder and the lightning flashing from the top of Mount Sinai struck into their souls, but was rather the love they owed to God. "Hear, O Israel ! The Lord our God is one Lord. Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with thy whole heart, and thy whole soul, and thy whole strength. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart" (18).

25. We do not wonder then, that Moses and the prophets, whom the Angelic Doctor rightly names the "elders" of the chosen people (19), perceived clearly that the foundation of the whole Law lay on this commandment of love, and described all the circumstances and relationships which should exist between God and His people by metaphors drawn from the natural love of a father and his children, or a man and his wife, rather than from the harsh imagery derived from the supreme dominion of God or the obligation of subjecting ourselves in fear. And so, to take an example, when Moses himself was singing his famous hymn in honor of the people restored to freedom from the slavery of Egypt, and wished to indicate it had come about by the power of God; he used these symbolic and touching expressions: "As the eagle enticing her young to fly, and hovering over them, (God) spread his wings, and hath taken him (Israel) and carried him on his shoulders" (20).

26. But perhaps none of the holy prophets has expressed and revealed as clearly and vividly as Hosea the love with which God always watches over His people. In writings of this prophet, who is outstanding among the minor prophets for the sublimity of his concise language, God declares that His love for the chosen people, combining justice and a holy anxiety, is like the love of a merciful and loving father or of a husband whose honor is offended. This love is not diminished or withdrawn in the face of the perfidy or the horrible crimes of those who betray it. If it inflicts just chastisements on the guilty, it is not for the purpose of rejecting them or of abandoning them to themselves; but rather to bring about the repentance and the purification of the unfaithful spouse and ungrateful children, and to bind them once more to itself with renewed and yet stronger bonds of love. "Because Israel was a child, and I loved him; and I called my son out of Egypt. . .And I was like a foster father to Ephraim, and I carried them in my arms, and they knew not that I healed them. I will draw them with the cords of Adam, with the bonds of love. . .I will heal their wounds, I will love them; for My wrath is turned away from them. I will be as a dew, Israel shall spring up as a lily, and his root shall shoot forth as that of Libanus" (21).

27. Similar sentiments are uttered by the prophet Isaiah when he introduces a conversation in the form of question and answer, as it were, between God and the chosen people: "And Zion said, ‘the Lord hath forsaken me; the Lord hath forgotten me.’ Can a woman forget her infant so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? And if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee" (22).

28. No less moving are the words which the author of the Canticle of Canticles, employing comparisons from conjugal affection, describes symbolically the bonds of mutual love by which God and his chosen people are united to each other: "As the lily among thorns, so is My love among the daughters. . .I to My beloved and My beloved to Me, who feeds among the lilies. . .Put Me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is hard as hell, the lamps thereof are lamps of fire and flames" (23).

29. This most tender, forgiving and patient love of God, though it deems unworthy the people of Israel as they add sin to sin, nevertheless at no time casts them off entirely. And though it seems strong and exalted indeed, yet it was only an advance symbol of that burning charity which mankind’ s promised Redeemer, from His most loving Heart, was destined to open to all and which was to be the type of His love for us and the foundation of the new covenant.

30. Assuredly, when He who is the only begotten of the Father and the Word made flesh "full of grace and truth" (24) had come to men weighed down with many sins and miseries it was He alone, from that human nature united hypostatically to the divine Person, who could open to the human race the "fountain of living water" which would irrigate the parched land and transform it into a fruitful and flourishing garden.

31. That this most wondrous effect would come to pass as a result of the merciful and everlasting love of God the prophet Jeremiah seems to foretell in a manner in these words: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore I have drawn thee taking pity on thee. . .Behold the days shall come, says the Lord, and I shall make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. . .this will be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, says the Lord; I will give My law in their bowels, and will write it in their heart, and I will be their God and they shall be My people. . .for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more" (25).

32. But it is only in the Gospels that we find definitely and clearly set out the new covenant between God and man; for that covenant which Moses had made between the people of Israel and God was a mere symbol and a sign of the covenant foretold by the prophet Jeremiah. We say that this new covenant is that very thing which was established and effected by the work of the Incarnate Word who is the source of divine grace. This covenant is therefore to be considered incomparably more excellent and more solid because it was ratified, not as in the past by the blood of goats and calves, but by the most precious Blood of Him whom these same innocent animals, devoid of reason, had already prefigured: "The Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world" (26).

33. The Christian covenant, much more than that of the old, clearly appears as an agreement based not on slavery or on fear, but as one ratified by that friendship which ought to exist between a father and his children, as one nourished and strengthened by a more generous outpouring of divine grace and truth according to the saying of St. John the Evangelist: "And of his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the Law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (27).

34. Since we have been introduced, venerable brethren, to the innermost mystery of the infinite charity of the Word Incarnate by these words of the disciple "whom Jesus loved and who also leaned on His breast at the supper" (28), it seems meet and just, right and availing unto salvation, to pause for a short time in sweet contemplation of this mystery so that, enlightened by that light which shines from the Gospel and makes clearer the mystery itself, we also may be able to obtain the realization of the desire of which the Apostle of the Gentiles speaks in writing to the Ephesians. "That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts, that being rooted and founded in charity you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth; to know also the charity of Christ which surpasses all knowledge, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God" (29).

35. The mystery of the divine redemption is primarily and by its very nature a mystery of love, that is, of the perfect love of Christ for His heavenly Father to whom the sacrifice of the Cross, offered in a spirit of love and obedience, presents the most abundant and infinite satisfaction due for the sins of the human race; "By suffering out of love and obedience, Christ gave more to God than was required to compensate for the offense of the whole human race" (30).

36. It is also a mystery of the love of the Most Holy Trinity and of the divine Redeemer towards all men. Because they were entirely unable to make adequate satisfaction for their sins (31), Christ, through the infinite treasure of His merits acquired for us by the shedding of His precious Blood, was able to restore completely that pact of friendship between God and man which had been broken, first by the grievous fall of Adam in the earthly paradise and then by the countless sins of the chosen people.

37. Since our divine Redeemer as our lawful and perfect Mediator, out of His ardent love for us, restored complete harmony between the duties and obligations of the human race and the rights of God, He is therefore responsible for the existence of that wonderful reconciliation of divine justice and divine mercy which constitutes the sublime mystery of our salvation. On this point the Angelic Doctor wisely comments: "That man should be delivered by Christ’s Passion was in keeping with both His mercy and His justice. With His justice, because by His Passion Christ made satisfaction for the sins of the human race, and so man was set free by Christ’s justice; and with His mercy, for since man of himself could not satisfy for the sin of all human nature, God gave him His Son to satisfy for him. And this came of a more copious mercy than if he had forgiven sins without satisfaction: Hence St. Paul says: ‘God, who is rich in mercy, by reason of His very great love wherewith He has loved us even when we were dead by reason of our sins, brought us to life together with Christ’" (32).

38. But in order that we really may be able, so far as it is permitted to mortal men, "to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth" (33) of the hidden love of the Incarnate Word for His heavenly Father and for men infected by the taint of sins, we must note well that His love was not entirely the spiritual love proper to God inasmuch as "God is a spirit" (34). Undoubtedly the love with which God loved our forefathers and the Hebrew people was of this nature. For this reason the expressions of human, intimate, and paternal love which we find in the Psalms, the writings of the prophets, and in the Canticle of Canticles are tokens and symbols of the true but entirely spiritual love with which God continued to sustain the human race. On the other hand, the love which breathes from the Gospel, from the letters of the Apostles and the pages of the Apocalypse, all of which portray the love of the Heart of Jesus Christ, expresses not only divine love but also human sentiments of love. All who profess themselves Catholics accept this without question.

39. For the Word of God did not assume a feigned and unsubstantial body, as already in the first century of Christianity some heretics declared and who were condemned in these solemn words of St. John the Apostle: "For many seducers are gone out into the world, who do confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. Here is a seducer and the antichrist" (35), but He united to His divine Person a truly human nature, individual, whole and perfect, which was conceived in the most pure womb of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit (36).

40. Nothing, then, was wanting to the human nature which the Word of God united to Himself. Consequently He assumed it in no diminished way, in no different sense in what concerns the spiritual and the corporeal: that is, it was endowed with intellect and will and the other internal and external faculties of perception, and likewise with the desires and all the natural impulses of the senses. All this the Catholic Church teaches as solemnly defined and ratified by the Roman Pontiffs and the general councils. "Whole and entire in what is His own, whole and entire in what is ours" (37). "Perfect in His Godhead and likewise perfect in His humanity" (38). "Complete God is man, complete man is God" (39).

41. Hence, since there can be no doubt that Jesus Christ received a true body and had all the affections proper to the same, among which love surpassed all the rest, it is likewise beyond doubt that He was endowed with a physical heart like ours; for without this noblest part of the body the ordinary emotions of human life are impossible. Therefore the Heart of Jesus Christ, hypostatically united to the divine Person of the Word, certainly beat with love and with the other emotions- but these, joined to a human will full of divine charity and to the infinite love itself which the Son shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit, were in such complete unity and agreement that never among these three loves was there any contradiction of or disharmony (40).

42. However, even though the Word of God took to Himself a true and perfect human nature, and made and fashioned for Himself a heart of flesh, which, no less than ours could suffer and be pierced, unless this fact is considered in the light of the hypostatic and substantial union and in the light of its complement, the fact of man’ s redemption, it can be a stumbling block and foolishness to some, just as Jesus Christ, nailed to the Cross, actually was to the Jewish race and to the Gentiles (41).

43. The official teachings of the Catholic faith, in complete agreement with Scripture, assure us that the only begotten Son of God took a human nature capable of suffering and death especially because He desired, as He hung from the Cross, to offer a bloody sacrifice in order to complete the work of man’s salvation. This the Apostle of the Gentiles teaches in another way: "For both He that sanctifies, and they who are sanctified are all of one. For which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, ‘I will declare thy name to My brethren’. . .And again, ‘Behold I and My children, whom God hath given Me.’ Therefore, because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also in like manner hath been partaker of the same. . .Wherefore it behooved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest before God, that He might be a propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that wherein He Himself hath suffered and been tempted He is able to succor them who are tempted" (42).