Festival of the Sacred Heart of Jesus ( lat. Sollemnitas Sacratissimi Cordis Iesu ) is celebrated on Friday, the 19th day after Pentecost and, accordingly, on the eighth day after the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. The theme of the holiday is the love of God revealed to us in His heart, gratitude for it and granted salvation. It is Jesus who is the source of the atonement and atonement of merciful and healing love, which helps us to grow ourselves in love for Christ, and through him in love for all our neighbors.
It should be noted that the biblical understanding of the word « heart » does not coincide with the generally accepted modern interpretation. In modern culture, the heart is a symbol of feelings, while in the Jewish language, and, accordingly, thinking, the heart means the deep essence of a person, as well as his intentions and decisions. God gave people « heart to think » ( Sire 17.6 ). The human heart — is the source of a conscious personality, thinking and free, the place of final decisions and the unwritten Law of God.
Before the cult of the Heart of Jesus appeared, the love of God was especially personified in the image of Christ the Good Shepherd. In the Middle Ages, Christ's wounds, a head crowned with thorns, were revered in a special way.
In the 16th century, especially thanks to the Order of the Jesuits, the cult of the Heart of Jesus reaches its climax. In 1672, John Ed served with the permission of the bishop the first holy Mass about the Heart of the Lord Jesus. John Ed was a confessor of Margarita Maria Alakok, who in a vision revealed the desire of Jesus to people to honor His Heart in a special way.
For a hundred years, the Apostolic Capital has been slowing down with the official establishment of a new holiday. The first permission was obtained by Polish bishops from Pope Clement XII in 1765, and in 1856 Pius IX introduced the liturgical celebration of the Blessed Heart of Jesus as a must for the whole Church. Leo XIII deepened his understanding of the consecration of the Blessed Heart, illustrating the relationship between his veneration and the salvation of the world. The holiday was assigned to them by the highest — the first — class in the hierarchy of church holidays. After the reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council, the holiday retained its high status.
In the triumph of the Heart of Jesus, after the sacrament, a prayer is read, which expresses a request that the Heart of Jesus, in which the world reveals the true nature of God, teach us to see Christ in our brothers. The heart of Jesus was pierced on the cross and became the source of the Sacraments of the Church. Blood and water flowed from it, pointing to Baptism and Eucharist, without which it is impossible to lead a righteous life and communicate with God.