The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1876-06-18
NEW PUBLICATIONS..

This is not n&evotional work. The Cardinal
expressly stasee that he has confined himself to
the dogmatio side Of the question but he also
firmly believes that when divine truth is fully
and duly apprehended 1t generates devotion.
Hepee 1t 10 the best of devotional works, in the
sense that explaining the dogma, holding up it's
claims upon our reason, faith and reverence, we
may realize the glories of the Sacred Heart and
shus be drawn to know and then to love it.
| Devotion TO the Sacred Heart is, according to
the Cardinal, the centre of all dogmas, q neoes-
sary consequence in the belief of the Inoarna-
tion aud test Of true Christianity.
| To those devout Catholics who, with m
humble but nevertheless ignorant zeal, shrink
| from devotion to that Heart which they think
was but an organ of flesh, Q receptacle of blood,
| this work will be gift from the Holy Ghost,
| enlightening their minds. convincing their
reason and captivating their love.
In matters as profound and holy as this of
| the Sacred Heart, We think it best to quote the
words of the learned Cardinal himself:
"Ths love and sanotity of God are here
spoken Of under the symbol of heart. Aud
| this, I may say, is the eternal heart Of God.
But the hesrt of Jesus is heart of hesh-s
heart taken from the substance of His Blessed
Mother-a symbol, indeed, because iS best sym.
bolizes and manifests the eternal love of God;
but it is more than this, it Is also reaity.n
Now these words are key to the whole
work, which becomes Q luminous explanation
of that part Of the Faith which has perplexed
many good aud wise souls.
Even DR.. Brownson failed at hrst to see the
truth and fitness of this devotion, and seemed
somewhat bewildered at the 1apidity with
which it spread throughout Christendom. No
doubt his grand mind, as humble as it was
learned, soon understood the perfect beauty of
the devotion and the perfect truth of the
dogma; but to inferior minds. such as ours, it
needs book like the one before MS to make
us understand the mysteries of God.
Here we learn that the Sacred Humanity as-
sumed By the Son of God is deified-the face Of
Jesus was the face Of God, the hands of Jesus
were the hands Of God, the heart of Jesus was
the heart of God. That face, those hands, that
heart were, and still are, the object of mans
alteration; and this Sacred Heart, the heart of
God, which loves us with an infinite love- is to be
worshipped with divine alteration. It never for
one moment was separated from the Divinity,
and hence the human heart Of Jesus was the
heart of God, "livingland life-giving adored
with divine worship in Heaven and on earth,
at the right hand of His Father, and in His
real presence in the Most Holy Sacrament of
the Altar.
Perhaps there is no subject SO imperfeotly un-
derstood even among Catholics as this devotion
to the Sacred Heart. Good and learned men
obiectng, that to worship the human heart of
Our Lord was to worship mere flesh, forgetting
or perhaps ignoring that His Humanity was
deided by the assumption of human nature into
the unity of the Divine Person of the Eternal
Son of God, and hence every portion of Our
Lords Humanity, whether it be his thorn
crowned brow, His nail-pierced hands, his
bleeding feet, his open side, are all objects of
our alteration, how much more, then, His
loving Heart, which loved us with all the
ardor of an eternal love, and with all the ten
derness of our humanity"
To sum up, the Church teaches that the
knowledge and worship of the Sacred Heart 10
test of our belief in the Incarnation, and rs
the world around us is fast becoming anti
Christian, it behooves US to learn the reason of
the the faith that is in ns, 30 that "our know
ledge being full and perfect our alteration may
be SO also"
Louise LGteau, the Eestattca Of BoiS d'Haine; Her
L;fe, Stgmdt0 and Ecstdces. By DR.. Lefebvye.
Westchester, N. Y: The Catholic Protectory.
New Orleans G. D. Elder.
This work, by the learned DIR. Lefebvre ad-
mirably translated into English by j. 8. Shop
ard, is simply medical report of the condition
of the young girl, now twenty. six years of age
who bears upon her person the marks of Our
Ssviour'S crucifxion, and who from her cottage
home in the heart of Belgium, manifests to an
unbelieving world the powers end mercy of
God.
For Eve months DIR. Lefebvre watched over
this young girl, during which time he states
that he took upwards of one hundred medical
friends to examine the phenomens. The wit
nesses examined, the tests applied, and the
authorities given, are sufficient to convince
every reasonable mind that Louise Lateau's
condition cannot be explained by the ordinary
rules OF science, nor be brought under any Or
| dinary known laws of nature.
This is the conclusion to which the intelli-
gent minds of Europe and America have at last
arrived, for the probability of fraud and i'm
i hal laid