“Now the passage, ‘All my bones are poured out and scattered like water; my heart is becoming like wax melting in the midst of my belly,’ foretold what would happen on that night when they came to the Mount of Olives to arrest Him. For in the memoirs of the Apostles and their successors, it is written that His sweat poured out like drops of blood as He prayed and said: ‘If it be possible let this cup pass from Me.’ His heart and bones were evidently quaking, and His heart was like wax melting in His bosom, so we may understand that the Father wished His Son to endure in reality these sufferings for us and may not declare that, since He was the Son of God, He had no feeling of what was done and inflicted upon Him.” St. Justin Martyr (2nd century)
“The second Adam with bowed head slept on the cross, in order that a spouse might be formed for Him from that which flowed from His side as He slept. Death, by which the dead come to life again! What could be more cleansing than this blood? What more healing than this wound?” St. Augustine of Hippo (4th-5th centuries, Doctor of the Church)
“Jesus, dear as He inclines His head in death; dear, in the extending of His arms; dear in the opening of His side. Opened so that there is revealed to us the riches of His goodness, the charity, that is, of His heart towards us.” St. Anselm (11th-12th centuries, Doctor of the Church)
“Abandon yourself for Him, learning from this Jesus Who in order to give you the life of grace gave up His bodily life. And as a sign of His generosity He opened up His whole self by creating a bath within His open side after He had died, to show us His love. Do you want to live in security? Then hide yourself within this side and see that you are never found outside this opened heart – though once you enter you will discover such joy and sweetness that you will never want to leave. For it is an open storehouse filled with spices, overflowing with mercy. And that mercy gives grace and leads to everlasting life, where there is life without death, satiety without boredom, hunger without pain, perfect and complete joy with no bitterness at all. There our appetite and taste are satisfied.” St. Catherine of Siena (14th century, Doctor of the Church)
“The Sacred Heart was full of most tender love: there was no bitterness in it; no cruelty and injustice that he received moved it to feelings other than those of compassion and affection.” St. Claude de la Columbiere (17th century)
“Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus must not be constrained; our Lord wishes His love to insinuate itself into our hearts sweetly and gently, penetrating gradually like oil, spreading by degrees like the perfume of precious balm.” St. Margaret Mary Alocoque (17th century)
“May the Heart of Jesus be the center of our lives, our mystical cell, our ark of refuge.” St. Gaspar del Bufalo
(18th-19th centuries)
“In the heart of Jesus, which was pierced, the kingdom of heaven and the land of earth are bound together. Here is for us the source of life. This heart is the heart of the Triune Divinity, and the center of all human hearts… it conceals us in itself in the Father’s bosom and floods us with the Holy Spirit. This heart, it beats for us in a small tabernacle where it remains mysteriously hidden in that still, white Host.” St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (19th-20th centuries)
“Every time I hear anyone speak of the Sacred Heart of Jesus or of the Blessed Sacrament I feel an indescribable joy. It is as if a wave of precious memories, sweet affections and joyful hopes swept over my poor person, making me tremble with happiness and filling my soul with tenderness. These are loving appeals from Jesus Who wants me whole-heartedly there, at the source of all goodness, His Sacred Heart, throbbing mysteriously behind the Eucharistic veils. The devotion to the Sacred Heart has grown with me all my life.” Pope St. John XXIII (19th-20th centuries)
”The executioners expected Jesus to cry, for everyone pinned to the gibbet of the Cross has done it before him. Cicero recorded that at times it was necessary to cut out the tongues of those who were crucified to stop their terrible blasphemies. Hence the executioners expected a word, but not the kind of word that they heard. Like some fragrant trees which bathe in the very axe which gashes them, the great Heart of the Tree of Love poured out from its depths something less a cry than a prayer-the soft, sweet, low prayer of pardon and forgiveness.” Ven. Fulton Sheen (19th-20th centuries)