Tuesday, June 21, 2011

The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Jesuits (Part 6)



We have seen how the Jesuits, having been selected by Our Lord Himself to spread devotion to His Sacred Heart, and after having dedicated themselves to this work with great success for almost three hundred years, have in recent decades largely dropped this mission, though without explanation (see here , herehere and here).

St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, was himself deeply devoted to the adoration of the Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist.  The following is taken from "The Sacred Heart and the Eucharist" by Fr. John Hardon, SJ (full text here):

"In 1540, a few weeks before the Institute of the Society of Jesus was formally approved by Paul III, [St. Ignatius Loyola] wrote to the citizens of his native town of Azpeitia, exhorting them to a greater devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. “I beg and entreat you,” he said, “by the love of God and by the respect which we owe Him, to apply yourselves to serve Our Lord Jesus Christ with all the fidelity of which you are capable, and to venerate His Divine Majesty with the deepest respect, above all in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, in which He is hidden in all the greatness of His divine and human natures, wherein He is present as entirely, as powerfully and as infinitely as He is in heaven.”'

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