THE POLITICS OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

Today we consider a neglected aspect of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that is, its political aspect.  For this essay, I am indebted to a favorite author, Solange Hertz.  In her book, “Utopia Nowhere“,  Solange Hertz proves the importance of the political aspect in a most elegant manner, beginning with her assertion that devotion to the Sacred Heart was established on Golgotha when the Roman Centurion Longinus plunged his lance into the Heart of Jesus, the Heart of “The King of the Jews”, as Pilate’s notice proclaimed.

Longinus, the official representative of the ruling power, thereby performed a political act which stands to this day as a necessary reminder of the battle between the dark powers that rule this world and the power of Christ the King:

“Devotion to His Sacred Heart is therefore no sentimental devotion to be pursued only in private. Essentially, it is a political commitment. The Sacred Heart of Christ the King is source and center of the Christian state, human manifestation of the divine Monarchy from which all monarchy takes its name. Its temporal dimensions extend into eternity. Only when viewed from this perspective can the true purpose of Sacred Heart devotion be discerned. Otherwise it is simply a super-excellent practice among many others designed by God to bring the individual into greater intimacy with Him.

“Sacred Heart devotion does this, to be sure, but its objective is ultimately and fundamentally political in the real sense of the word politics. It was forged by the divine Wisdom to bring not only the individual, but whole nations into intimacy with God.” [“Utopia Nowhere”].

Although devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was evident throughout the long history of the Church, and especially in the lives of many of the mystics of the Church in the Middle Ages, it was not until Our Lord’s revelations to the Visitation nun, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1689 that we began to see the vigorous political thrust of the Sacred Heart.  From Hertz:

“The substance of our Lord’s message had been conveyed in six letters written by St. Margaret Mary, five of them to her former Superior, Mother de Saumaise, and the last one to her Jesuit spiritual director, Fr. Croiset. The second letter, dated June 17, 1689, begins by speaking of some great political designs of our Lord:

“… which can be executed only by His almighty power … It seems to me He wishes to enter with pomp and magnificence into the homes of princes and kings so as to be honored there to the same degree that He was outraged, despised and humiliated in His Passion, and to receive as much pleasure on seeing the world’s great ones reduced and humbled before Him as He felt bitterness on seeing Himself reduced to nothing at their feet.

“And here are the words I heard regarding our King: ‘Inform the eldest son of My Sacred Heart that … he will secure his birth into grace and glory by the consecration he will make of himself to My adorable Heart … and through his mediation, that of the great ones of the earth. He (the Sacred Heart) wishes to reign in his palace, to be painted on his standards and to be graven on his arms to render them victorious over all his enemies, by bringing these proud, arrogant heads under his heel and effect his triumph over all the enemies of the Church.’

“There were other requests. In the saint’s fifth letter, dated August 28 of the same year, she says our Lord desired a building to be erected in which would be displayed an image of the divine Heart, to which the King and his entire court would formally consecrate themselves. The King, furthermore, chosen by our Lord as “His faithful friend,” was to ensure that a special Mass in His honor would be authorized by the Holy See and a formal cultus established.

“In return the King was promised divine protection against his “enemies, both visible and invisible.” It is now known that these invisible enemies were the occult forces of Freemasonry set into motion by the “merchants of light.” Already they had crossed the Channel from England and were gathering strength in France. And speaking of channels, our Lord made it clear that the Jesuit Fr. de la Chaize, Louis XIV’s confessor, had been chosen by God to see to the execution of His designs.”

The Role of the Jesuits

St Margaret Mary explained, “By virtue of the power He had given him [Father de la Chaize], over the heart of our great King, the success of the matter depended on him.” And yet, incredibly, even Jesuit scholars have determined that Fr. de la Chaize never relayed Our Lord’s message to the King.  Hertz suggests that it was Jesuit obedience that withheld him, as it is known that the Father General, Fr. Thyrsus Gonzalez de Santalla was hostile to devotion to the Sacred Heart, as it is documented that he censured and banished  Father Croiset, St. Margaret Mary’s devout confessor for having written an account of the revelations.

To what can we describe such a thing? It seems another instance of the workings of the mystery of iniquity. Thus, the devotion so dear to Our Lord was allowed to languish, and the cause was simply obedience to disobedience. This has worked so well for the ancient enemy, sad to say.

Hertz affirms that the tradition of the French Visitation nuns holds it for certain that Louis XIV did nevertheless learn of the desires of the Sacred Heart through other sources. We know that Louis XIV was already privately practicing the devotion as preached by St. John Eudes, to whom he had allocated 2000 pounds for France’s first chapel to be dedicated to the Sacred Heart. Hertz is certain that the King would have, as piety dictated, submitted St. Margaret Mary’s requests to his spiritual director for approval, with a view to acting on them, but it is clear that no approval was given. Once again, obedience to those who are disobedient to Christ.

In her essay, Hertz stresses an important point, “The divine communications had been directed to Louis XIV’s person [as Monarch], but not to him as an individual. Had this been the case the extraordinary means used would have been entirely disproportionate. It was Louis as King who was addressed.”

What we are to understand from this is that God made a request of the French Monarch, not a personal request to one single person, King Louis XIV, but to the French Monarchy to re-establish the ancient and sacred compact between the French Monarchy and the Church. instituted by King Clovis. Let’s delve a bit deeper here, for this has significance for us today.

Fr. Bainvel, theologian of the Sacred Heart, writes:

“The three objects of the message [of the Sacred Heart]: the church, the consecration, the flag are by their very nature national, durable and perpetual; the triumph over the enemies of God and the Church resulting from the accomplishment of the message is even more national, inasmuch as it involves the whole future of France and her providential Catholic mission, her vocation and her raison d’ être.”

“In the person of the King all his successors and the nation itself are addressed. The entire court was to take part in the consecration. God’s gifts being without repentance, no time limit was set, and presumably God still waits. Thus, we see that Our Lord Jesus Christ still awaits the obedience of the French Monarch to His demands, as He awaits the obedience of the Pope and Bishops to the demands of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, His most Beloved Mother.

Why the King of France?

Mrs. Hertz explains the importance of obedience by the King of France: The answer lies ultimately in the divine predilection, but proximately it lies in the fact that under the new dispensation of grace, the French kings are the new line of David, eldest sons of the Sacred Heart, rulers of the “eldest daughter of the Church.” A long and venerable tradition supports this belief.

Pope Gregory IX as it were canonized it when he wrote in a famous letter to the King St. Louis:

“France is God’s very kingdom … The enemies of France are the enemies of Christ … The tribe of Judah was the prefiguration of the kingdom of France … The Redeemer chose the blessed kingdom of France as special executive of His divine will.”

“Christendom proper did not begin with the conversion of Constantine. Decisive as this was, the Roman Empire had remained basically pagan in political concept, despite a Christian head and a preponderantly Christian population. It was an empire based on human justice. From the Cross God proclaimed an empire based on love.” [Solange Hertz, “Utopia Nowhere”]

King Clovis Reigns under the Banner of Christ the King

Politically, as we have seen, Christendom began with the baptism of Clovis, King of the Salk Franks, a monarch who, like Constantine, owed his conversion to a divinely accorded military victory. Under the influence of Queen Clothilde and the Catholic Bishop of Reims, St. Remi, Clovis promised to become a Christian in return for the defeat of the Alemani at Tolbiac. In gratitude he dictated a constitution whose opening words are “The Illustrious Nation of the Franks, having God himself for Founder” and which formally recognizes France as perpetual preserve of Christ the King.

This was the new Israel, the first nation on earth to be founded from its inception on Christian principles.  Praying that “the Lord Jesus Christ direct those who govern it in the paths of piety,” the document closed with, “Long live Christ who loves the Franks! Long live the King of the Franks, who is Christ’s Lieutenant!” According to Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims, the Baptism of Clovis and his subjects on Christmas Day, 496, was marked by a supernatural manifestation. The Church was suddenly filled with dazzling light and a voice was heard saying, “Peace be to you! It is I. Be not afraid. Persevere in My favor!”  Whereupon St. Remi, filled with the spirit of prophecy, turned to the King with these words:

“Know, my son, that the Kingdom of France is predestined by God for the defense of the Roman Church, which is the only true Church of Christ. This Kingdom will one day be greater than all Kingdoms and will embrace the outer limits of the Roman Empire … It will last to the end of time … It will be victorious as long as it is faithful to the Roman faith but it will be severely chastised whenever it is faithless to its vocation.”

St. Pius X  told Cardinal Lucon, Archbishop of Reims in 1907:

“The Baptism of Clovis marked the birth of a great nation: the Tribe of Judah of the New Era, which always prospered as long as she was faithful to orthodoxy, as long as she maintained the union of the Priesthood with the government, as long as she proved herself, not in word, but in act, the Eldest Daughter of the Church.”

We have pointed out elsewhere that in his “Book of Destiny”, Fr Herman Bernard Kramer stated that the Lord God, in His providence made use of the barbarian invasions, in part, to purge the Church of its secularism and  errors, most notably the Arian heresy. Thus, we see the hand of God raising up the Frankish nation from barbarity to a grand, Roman Catholic civilization. By her fidelity to Christ she earned the glories of St. Charlemagne and St. Louis. And when she lapsed, her very survival was threatened. When we are become so vulnerable, God always sends us assistance, if we will only heed Him.

In Hertz’ words:

“And so, God intervened by sending St. Joan of Arc to deliver her. It is well known how Joan defeated the English pretender, restored a doubting Charles VII to his throne and was burned at the stake for her trouble. The essence of her mission, however, was revitalizing the pact of Tolbiac originally made between our Lord and His Lieutenant the King of France. She accomplished this by insisting on the coronation and anointing of Charles at Reims according to the ancient tradition. That done, the famous triple donation took place. She asked the King to hand over his palace to her along with his newly recovered kingdom, so that she might then formally return France to Christ. The grateful King agreed, and both transactions were drawn up and publicly notarized.

“Whereupon Joan, according to one account, addressed the assembled lords in a loud voice and declared in Christ’s name, “I, the Lord Eternal, give France to King Charles!”

“Commenting on this performance, all of it properly recorded, Pierre Virion says, “Without any argument, devoid of all theoretical considerations, Joan accomplished a clearly political act, showing us politics inseparable from religion, and power without wraps, just as it is, taking its origin from divine authority.”

In a theological study entitled La Mission de Sainte Jeanne, Fr. Clerissac concluded that:

“The proper objective of her mission … was to remind the world … that there is a supernatural politics of God, truly at work, dominating the politics of earthly powers, and a Christian body of law which applies and maintains the essential law of this politics, namely the salvation of peoples by means of Christ’s Church.”

Even after St. Joan of Arc, in a little more than a century, France’s monarchy failed again. When the Moslem ruler, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent threatened to overtake Europe, instead of standing with the Christian monarchs, France’s King Francis I is reported to have sent his ring to the infidel Sultan as a gesture of peace. And at the Battle of Lepanto, the French were conspicuous by their absence. We note here especially the similarity in the actions of cowardly King Francis I and the disgusting subservience of this current pontiff to the same muslim invaders.

Hertz notes that  King Charles IX displayed a  fatal indulgence to the enemies of the faith, initiating the gradual protestantizing of French politics, which ended by definitively turning France against Spain, and Catholic against Catholic. Under Louis XIV the situation deteriorated,  with the grip of protestantism increasing. Thus it was that the Sacred Heart of Jesus intervened at Paray-le-monial.

The Sacred Heart’s appearance at such a time, with demands so political, is clear evidence that He regarded France’s former alliances with heaven still very much in force. Furthermore, the extent and nature of the disasters which overtook the whole world after France disregarded these demands testify to the key position she occupies in Christendom. There is much food for thought in all this, isn’t there?

We all know the rest of the tragic history. All those in any way responsible for our Lord’s rejection suffered punishment. The Society of Jesus, the special instrument chosen by God to propagate devotion to the Sacred Heart, suffered total suppression by order of Clement XIV in 1773. Although it was reconstituted in 1814, it deteriorated spiritually to the point at which we see it today, an effeminate laughingstock with its poster-boy the brutally “humble” first Jesuit Pope.

Devotion to Christ the King and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus are intertwined with devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It is an egregious error to  play one against the other. Pope Pius XI, influenced by the Rampolla faction, ignored the message of Fatima and fervently promoted devotion to Christ the King and the Sacred Heart of Jesus while brushing aside the requests of Our Lady of Fatima. Yet these three are inseparable. To this end, we do well to observe our family devotions to the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, granting them their proper dignity and honor as befits their Divine Royalty, and consoling them for the sad indifference of the modernist, apostate conciliar Church.

previously  posted on : June 5, 2019  by : evensong

Remember – Our Lady needs us to obey:  First Saturdays of Reparation, daily rosary, at least 5 mysteries, wear her brown scapular and live your Total Consecration to her Immaculate Heart, offering daily duties in reparation and for the conversion of poor sinners.

†  Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of our hearts, Mother of the Church, do thou offer to the Eternal Father the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the conversion of poor sinners, especially our Pontiff.

†  Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy kingdom come! Viva Cristo Rey!
†  Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
†  St. Joseph, protect us, protect our families, protect our priests.
†  St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

Please pray for a pope and bishops who will obey the Mother of God and  Consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary!

~ by evensong for love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, King.
Vouchsafe that I may praise thee, O Sacred Virgin! Give me strength against thine enemies!