In traditional Catholic piety, each month is dedicated to a particular aspect of Christ or Christian discipleship. June is the month of the Sacred Heart, a devotion I love, even while its most common images are often unfortunate exercises in the worst of saccharine piety.
Here are two columns about that (and why you shouldn't let the bad art keep you from what is a profound devotion). There's 4 Things the Sacred Heart Says Without Words, which sets up the problem nicely:
The Sacred Heart used to bother me. I found the pictures of Jesus with his heart hovering in front of his shirt weird. I also found most expressions of Sacred Heart piety archaic-sounding and off-putting.
I liked Jesus. I just didn’t see the point of focusing on his cardiovascular system.
The author then explains why he took a second look. An older piece in the same vein includes lots of pope quotes in case you need heavier hitters to be convinced.
Several years ago a young seminarian friend led a group on a walking tour of a part of Rome none of us knew well, and he introduced me to the practice of seeking out the image of the Sacred Heart in every Church. It's a relatively late devotion (1673 for the famous apparitions to St. Mary Margaret, though the devotion is older), and didn't become a universal feast on the Roman calendar until 1856, yet rare are the Churches where you won't find such an image. I've adopted my friend's practice and this is now my personal version of "Where's Waldo?" (And it's amazing where He turns up --even at Graceland!)
This is all a long introduction to why I've thought to post a series of worthy images of the Sacred Heart. (Or if not worthy, than at least interesting in some cases). I'll begin with the above, which probably can't be topped, actually. I just discovered it, and the accompanying article about the artist and the artistic movement involved are well worth a read.
