page_title: Sacred Heart
section_title: Saint Gertrude
hierarchical_section_title: Sacred Heart / History of the devotion / Early devotion / Saint Gertrude
context_page_description: The devotion to the Sacred Heart is one of the most widely practised and well-known Catholic devotions, wherein the heart of Jesus is viewed as a symbol of "God's boundless and passionate love for mankind". This devotion is predominantly used in the Catholic Church, followed by high-church Anglicans, Lutherans and some Western Rite Orthodox. In the Latin Church, the liturgical Solemnities of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is celebrated the first Friday after the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, or 19 days after Pentecost Sunday.The 12 promises of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus are also extremely popular.
  The devotion is especially concerned with what the Church deems to be the long-suffering love and compassion of the heart of Christ towards humanity.
context_section_description: Saint Gertrude the Great was an early devotee of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Book 2 of the Herald of Divine Love vividly describes Gertrude's visions, which show a considerable elaboration on the hitherto ill-defined veneration of Christ's heart. St Bernard articulated this in his commentary on the Song of Songs. The women of Helfta—Gertrude foremost, who surely knew Bernard's commentary, and to a somewhat lesser extent the two Mechthildes—experienced this devotion centrally in their mystical visions.
  In the sixteenth century, the devotion passed from the domain of mysticism into that of Christian asceticism. It was established as a devotion with prayers already formulated and special exercises, found in the writings of Lanspergius (d. 1539) of the Carthusians of Cologne, the Benedictine Louis de Blois (d. 1566) Abbot of Liessies in Hainaut, John of Avila (d. 1569), and Francis de Sales (d. 1622).
  The historical record from that time shows an early bringing to light of the devotion. Ascetic writers spoke of it, especially those of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). The image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was everywhere in evidence, largely due to the Franciscan devotion to the Five Wounds and to the Jesuits placing the image on the title-page of their books and on the walls of their churches.
  The first to establish the theological basis for the devotion was Polish Jesuit Kasper Drużbicki (1590–1662) in his book Meta cordium – Cor Jesu (The goal of hearts – Heart of Jesus). Not much later Jean Eudes wrote an Office, and promoted a feast for it. Père Eudes was the apostle of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but in his devotion to the Immaculate Heart there was a share for the Heart of Jesus. Little by little, the devotion to the two Hearts became distinct, and on 31 August 1670 the first feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated in the Grand Seminary of Rennes. Coutances followed suit on October 20, a day with which the Eudist feast was from then on to be connected. The feast soon spread to other dioceses, and the devotion was likewise adopted in various religious communities. It gradually came into contact with the devotion begun by Margaret Mary Alacoque at Paray-le-Monial, and the two merged.
caption: Mystic Ecstasy of St. Gertrude the Great – worshipper of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ God (picture by Pietro Liberi, at the Abbey of Santa Giustina, Padua, Italy)
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