Feast of the (Good Shepherd's) Sacred Heart

I'll admit it - I am an aesthetic (if only occasionally truly ascetic) snob. The hardest part of the devotion to the Sacred Heart is that it tends to be represented in the worst of religious art, and devotional religious art is quite bad enough in itself.
If only I had a talent for drawing...

Yet this is a lovely feast - a reminder of the divine creative power, ever transforming us. I shall admit that I am not exactly one for Margaret Mary's visions, if only because I am highly cautious about visions of any kind. I preferred the writings of Bonaventure which I read this morning, in which he speaks (in very honest terms, since the middle ages were a time of more open expression than the post-Freudian) of the blood and water from Jesus' heart - and the sign of redemption.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart was always based on reparation, but the problem with that lovely term is that we forget that it means being restored and tend to think it has to do with some Jansenist remnant of punishing ourselves (or thinking of Jesus of Nazareth as having been punished for us.) Somehow, it is easier to shudder at an image of Jesus broken on the cross than to face our own brokenness.

Earlier this week, I once again was looking at the portion of Augustine's Confessions in which he reminds us that 'our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.' Heaven knows that seeing the dark side was a tendency that Augustine had in some measure, yet the older I get, the more I realise how very much Augustine was expressing awe and gratitude for the workings of grace in his life.

I know that some of the less spiritually minded young tend to be disappointed by the Confessions, expecting all sorts of titillation in the text - they naturally will find none. In fact, once would think (accurately!) that about the worst thing Augustine ever did was steal pears in an act of mindless defiance (I may get back to that theme, which I love, though perhaps not today.) Augustine may have been excessive in seeing grace as irresistible, but it may only be in middle age that one knows that, looking back on one's life (even if one was not a particularly distinguished sinner, we all have a few pears at the core), that grace was leading us constantly, and the Good Shepherd coming after us before we even knew we wanted to be rescued.

I've no idea why, but I have an image in my mind, as I think of Love, of Michelangelo's image of God's creating Adam. Love is always creative power - awesome in its intensity. The Franciscan John Duns Scotus would beautifully develop the idea that Love is sanctifying grace - all love, for God and neighbour, is a reflection of the Trinity indwelling in creation. Except perhaps in the case of a few extraordinary lovers, the lives of humanity will ever be rising up after a fall of one type or another. The more devout we are, the worse it gets, because we have such a way of canonising our weaknesses - all the more dangerous when we disguise them as virtues.

We turn to God to be restored. He constantly re-creates us in his image. Augustine would bemoan his failings (and, unfortunately, write of the fear of punishment he never could lose), yet look back on his life and see how God was there even when he was turning his own search in the wrong direction. Francis of Assisi could torture himself till his dying day with excessive fear and mortification, though he, too, saw all of creation as glorifying God just by being what it was intended to be.

I was annoyed, when I read a 'new' translation of the Revelations of Julian of Norwich. In Julian's original writings, the first edition says "what a wretch I am," the latter, 20 years later, "what a wretch I was." It is a hymn of praise from one who delights in God's creative, transforming power! Why, in this politically correct version, the 'wretch' was turned into 'this humble woman' is beyond me - it sounds self-congratulatory. The 'wretch' was not a manifestation of self-hatred, such as pop psychology would render it in the days when self-esteem is supreme. Far from this - Julian was in awe of the God who transformed her, and who delighted in creation - so much so that sin would be a glory in heaven because divine power had transformed it into greater virtue.