“But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs,  but one soldier thrust his lance into His side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.” St. John the Apostle and Evangelist (1^st century)

“Christ is our salvation…For the sake of His disciples He deemed it advisable to keep His scars, that thereby the wound in their hearts might be healed.” St. Augustine (4^th-5^th centuries, Doctor of the Church)

“In recognizing that we are nothing we humble ourselves. And in humbling ourselves we enter that flaming, consumed Heart, opened up like a window without shutters, never to be closed.” St. Catherine of Siena (14^th century, Doctor of the Church)

“O you wound upon the precious side, which came more truly from the love of man than from the cruel spear! O gate of heaven, window of paradise…rose of ineffable beauty, ruby of price inestimable, entrance to the heart of Christ…pledge of life everlasting!” St. Peter of Alcantara (15th-16th centuries)

“Stand alongside the sacred grotto, where our Savior teaches us so many virtues by His silence. And what does He say to us? While He immolates Himself for the love of us, His little heart must set ours on fire. See how lovingly He carries your name within that divine heart that beats out of affectionate desire for your growth in virtue and does not send a single sigh toward His Father in which you do not share, nor a single aspiration that is not aimed at your happiness.” St. Francis de Sales (16^th-17^th centuries, Doctor of the Church)

“There is nothing a child wants more, waking or sleeping, than its father’s lap, its mother’s breast. So, if ever you experience this simple, pure, childlike trust in our Lord’s presence, dear Theotimus, stay there. Do not try to make any conscious acts, whether of intellect or will. That simple trustful love, that loving spiritual slumber in the Saviour’s arms, contains to a superlative degree all the things you care for, all the things you go in search of here, there and everywhere. Better to sleep in the Sacred Heart than to be wakeful anywhere else!” St. Francis de Sales

“Let us take refuge in the Wound of the Sacred Side like a poor traveler, who seeks a safe harbor in which to shelter from the rocks and tempests of the stormy sea of this life, for here below we are continually exposed to the shipwreck, unless we have the help of our all-wise Pilot.” St. Margaret Mary (17th century)

“Devotion to the Sacred Heart has a twofold object: it honors first with adoration and public worship the Heart of flesh of Jesus Christ, and secondly the infinite love with which the Heart has burned for us since its creation, and with which it is still consumed in the Sacrament of our altars.” St. Peter Julian Eymard (19^th century)

“O most sacred, most loving Heart of Jesus, You are concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and You beat for us still.” Bl. John Henry Newman (19^th century)

“Some years ago a girl wrote to me telling me that at the age of eighteen she went to her first dance, in company with her cousin. After the dance, her cousin dropped her at the gate. Her house was some distance from the gate, and in the distance between the gate and the front porch, she was attacked by a stranger. In due time, she found herself with a child. The only ones who would believe her were her mother and her pastor. Neighbor women said, ‘Oh, isn’t it terrible; the poor woman has one bad daughter.’ Some girls in the choir would not allow her to sing because she was wicked. She told me all of this torture that she endured, and she said, ‘What’s the answer?’ I wrote back to her and I said, ‘My dear girl, all of this suffering has come upon you because you bore the sin of one man. If you ever bore the sins of ten men, you probably would suffer ten times more. And if you ever took upon yourself the sins of a hundred men, the sufferings would be a hundred times worse. And if you ever took upon yourself the sins of all the world, you might have had a bloody sweat.’ That’s where your sin was, and mine: in that bloody sweat on Calvary, in this human nature that so loved us that we call it the Sacred Heart.” Ven. Fulton Sheen (19^th-20^th centuries)

“At the moment that the lance was run into the side of our Blessed Lord, this veil of the temple was rent, not from bottom to top, for a man could do that, but rent from top to bottom. The holy of holies, which the people were never allowed to see (except for the high priest on the Day of Atonement) was opened. This was merely the earthly counterpart of something else that was opened…The holy of holies, which was only a symbol, was opened and revealed to human eyes. The holy of holies, the heart of Christ, was opened on the hill of Calvary.” Ven. Fulton Sheen