From the Heart of the Shepherd

From the bulletin for The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (2026 June 28)

June 21, 2026 Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Last week I attempted to describe a phenomenon of history by which mankind tends to overcorrect for past excesses and “throw the baby out with the bathwater” in its efforts to progress beyond the perceived failings of its fathers. In the context of the Liturgical Movement in the first half of the 20th Century, one of those “babies” that was in danger of being tossed out was none other than the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

As we saw last week, the goal of the Liturgical Movement was to restore the liturgy in the Roman Rite to its original purity, removing the layers of “sediment” that had piled up over the centuries which impeded the lay faithful, and even the ordained clergy, from conscious and active participation in the paschal mystery. Liturgy scholars developed a suspicion against all that seemed unbiblical, or rooted in sentimentalism, or was otherwise overly-subjective. Private, devotional prayer was deemed a distraction to public, liturgical prayer. And some set their sights and pruning shears on the Sacred Heart. It was unbiblical! Some claimed, tracing its roots back to private revelation (to St. Margaret Mary). It was overly-sentimental! Others said, perhaps pointing to the saccharine imagery associated with the devotion, or the emotional expression that often accompanied its practice. Others went even further to call it heretical, judging that worshiping the human heart of the Savior was, nevertheless, worship of a created thing, and not the worship of the Creator. 

These were serious charges. Demanding a serious response. That response came in no less a form than a papal encyclical, published by Pope Pius XII seventy years ago this year. In Haurietis aquas, the Roman pontiff himself takes pains to show that devotion to the Sacred Heart is hardly a distraction or a later development within Christianity. Rightly understood, the Pope teaches, devotion to the human heart of our incarnate God preeminently biblical, inaugurated by our Savior Himself, who invites His followers to learn of His meek and humble heart, drink of the living water that flows from His heart, and who was revealed to be the very Spring of Salvation the day His Heart was pierced for our offenses on the Cross. Nor can the devotion be thought of as “optional” by Christians: “[I]t is beyond question,” he writes, “that this devotion is an act of religion of high order; it demands of us a complete and unreserved determination to devote and consecrate ourselves to the love of the divine Redeemer, Whose wounded Heart is its living token and symbol. It is equally clear, but at a higher level, that this same devotion provides us with a most powerful means of repaying the divine Lord by our own” (HA 6). And quoting the words of one of his predecessors, Pius XII calls devotion to the Sacred Heart “a summary of all our religion” and “a guide to a more perfect life” (HA 15). 

What about the charge that the devotion leads to sentimentalism? In an article written on the 25th anniversary of the encyclical, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger gives a remarkable reply. Without denying the objective content of the devotion (the love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, the concrete practices of Eucharistic worship and reparation that the devotion encourages) he takes the bull by the horns and defends the importance of emotion in human life and worship. The emotions are rooted in the passive aspect of human nature; they flow from our sensitivity to the world around us, and our perception of the same. Mysteriously, the Sacred Heart devotion reveals God’s “passive” side. That is to say, Christ’s sensitivity to our welfare and our response to His love. More deeply, Ratzinger recognizes that reason can only go so far; the heart–and with it the emotions, the intuition–is capable of seeing things that escape the intellect. Capable of seeing the Person. The Sacred Heart devotion begins, as it were, not so much in the understanding, as in the heart’s “unknowing” but contemplative gaze, in “beholding the Pierced One” who has loved us to folly, a sight that elicits only one possible response: total love, utter gratitude, spontaneous and energetic devotion. Surely, such a love is much more than mere emotion. But because it is an all-encompassing reality, it will include the emotions. And the reason. The soul and the body. The entire person, subjective and objective aspects and whatever else may pertain to him or her. 

So no, says Pope Pius XII, we should not, we cannot toss this Baby out with the bathwater. This “baby” is the heart of our whole religion, from whose side flows the river of the Water of Life. 

From the Heart of the Shepherd: Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time