“To be a good Catholic and remain in a state of grace, man needs to admire each of the virtues extolled in the litanies of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.”
Newsroom(06/28/2025, Gaudium Press) To be a good Catholic and remain in a state of grace, man needs to admire each of the virtues extolled in the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, for they are essential for the spiritual life. In his earthly existence, the Lord gave outstanding, flagrant and beautiful examples of these virtues; indelible examples that will enlighten the world throughout the history of humanity on earth, and of the blessed in Heaven for all eternity.
There is, however, one invocation especially worthy of mention and little commented on: Heart of Jesus, King and center of all hearts.
Lord of our will
What is the difference between being King and being the center of all hearts?
Since the Lord is true God and true man, he is King of all creation and, consequently, of mankind. But there are differences between reigning over men and reigning in hearts.
A monarch is capable of effectively exercising power by right; however, if he does not manifest the virtues and qualities proper to royalty, he may be frowned upon and even detested by his people. Hence reigning in hearts is far superior to reigning only over people.
According to an ancient symbology, the heart represents human affectivity. Thus, the aforementioned invocation means that Jesus has the right and, in fact, the power to attract the affection and affection of all men. (…)
Thus, it is incumbent upon the human will to recognize the duty to love him, and it is also incumbent upon us to practice the volitional act ordered to that love, even if at times we find ourselves in aridity and in a complete lack of sensitivity of affection and affection – a test, by the way, frequent in the spiritual life.
It is important that we have a firm, tempered will, which knows what it should want and wants what it should want, which is convinced that the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the King and center of all wills and, therefore, has the right that all men seriously tend towards him with the capital element of love which is the will.
An often unrecognized kingship
In the Garden of Olives, Jesus complained to the Apostles because they could not watch with Him for an hour. Twice He came out to meet them bathed in blood, which had transpired because of their state of affliction and which should have instilled compassion in them. But the disciples’ sensibilities were not moved. They woke up, saw him, and continued to sleep….
However, the worst evil consisted in the fact that they did not have the firm will and resolution to keep Him company, to console Him and then to follow Him to the top of Calvary. The subsequent episodes clearly demonstrate this.
Now, the Lord had the right to be King of those hearts. But in reality he was not, because they did not recognize his kingship, they did not love him as they should have. (…)
Reign of Mary, Kingdom of the Heart of Jesus
So when will the reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus materialize on earth? Evidently, in the Reign of Mary. One Kingdom leads to the other. Indeed, Our Lady is completely centred on Christ. To establish her Kingdom is to establish that of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
By the insistent prayers of the Blessed Virgin, which already now, and especially in her Kingdom, will become extraordinarily powerful, men will be granted not only the greatest degrees of sensitivity towards the Heart of Jesus, but also an extraordinary firmness of will in relation to his regal designs. That is to say, Christ being our King by right, we will take before Him the attitude of subjects before His monarch, even if to defend His reign we have to give our lives fighting on the steps of the throne.
The role of firm convictions
It is necessary to add that no one will have a firm will if he does not have firm convictions. Whoever does not have an unshakable faith in the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church will be incapable of great resolutions. When the hour of sacrifice and holocaust comes, there will be a shock. In fact, if a threat comes upon the instinct to conserve life or the goods that are convenient to him – such as wealth, reputation, social position, health – the tendency will be to save them for the benefit of the interested party. Selfishness is the hypertrophy of this instinct (…).
But Christ being our King by right, He will be our King in fact if we are convinced of the truths of our faith and willing to give ourselves to Him entirely.
These are hearts made after the Heart of Jesus. He gave us every possible proof of being our arch-model, having made his sacrifice to the point of crying out from the top of the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Mt 27:46) and then exhaling. The Lord’s words to the good thief-“Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk 23:43)-show his certainty and determination to see it through to the end, through the worst obstacles and the greatest difficulties.
Wellspring of graces and mercies
Even more. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the source from which the graces radiate by which we are able to acquire that certainty and that strength of will which man, by himself, is incapable of possessing when he has supernatural ends in view; he achieves it only with the help of grace.
The sensitive aspect of the symbol contributes to this: the Heart of Jesus is the receptacle full of mercy and affection for those who beseech Him for these graces. It desires to grant them and is waiting, in the infinity of its riches, for someone to ask for a part or the fullness of them – depending on the capacity of the recipient – to respond immediately.
Then the Lord, King by right, becomes King in fact. If men were like this -and it does not matter if they are all of them numerically speaking, but the part with the greatest influence and irradiation in society, the one capable of directing wills-, the Kingdom of Mary will be implanted.
Axis from which everything approaches or departs
It is now time to analyze the other term of the invocation, which says: center of all hearts. The word center – not the geometrical one, since it is a metaphor – suggests the idea of a multitude of hearts with a point of attraction according to which they all move to accept or reject something. Although we may not realize it, the movements of the private life of each one, as well as those of history, develop around the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Let us imagine a gigantic magnet around which are arranged an immense quantity of iron filings and a wind blowing over them. The wind tends to scatter the filings, while the magnet seeks to attract them.
Suppose that each of the filings were endowed with intelligence and free will, and at all times, because of the wind and the attraction, felt compelled to choose whether to move toward or away from the magnet. This is an image of the meaning of the words King and center of all hearts. Thus, at every moment of our life, we are either moving closer to or further away from the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is the meaning of every act we perform.
Who blows that wind that disperses and tries to take us away from the Lord? Evidently, it is Satan. We must be continually walking towards the center, that is, towards God, opposing the attraction exerted by the devil. By right, the Lord is the magnet.
And He is so also in the sense that He exercises a power of attraction over all hearts. But He gives man free will. If he rejects it, he will sin and, if he does not repent, he may go to hell.
(Excerpts, with adaptations, from a lecture by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira. São Paulo, 7/6/1991).
Compiled by Teresa Joseph
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