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I'm not deep into thought about the Sacred Heart. Of course in some sense even the greatest devotee would have to admit that when we speak of the heart as the "seat" of love, we're being metaphorical, figurative.

So it kind of comes down to a devotion to IHS as the incarnate, human vehicle and revelation of God's love.

(Any Catholics who think I need correction, please jump in and straighten me out.)

But to follow that line: The burning heart, crowned with thorns, despite the garishness of many portrayals, is a fine way, I think to present the Incarnation in a human of the love of God. Many of us tend to "spiritualize" Divine Love into something a little removed from real life, and to de-emotionalize IHS. I know my habits of thought need to be reined in and guided away from that gnostic tendency.

So the thought held out to us is like this: What is it like when YOU love intensely? Your body is involved. Your breathing, your heartbeat, your sensoria, sometimes your digestion all seem to take part in your love. An INTEGRATED human love will not be a phenomenon experienced only as "cold" will and intellect -- because we, when we are fully human are soul AND body.

So we may imagine IHS burning, panting, with love, feeling the surges of emotion that we feel; we can see Him driven, almost, to the Cross NOT by cold determination, but by the union of passion and will that might lead a mother to sacrifice herself for her child.

In us, that kind of Eros is often contaminated by a desire to possess, to consume. Blessed and clear-eyed parents know the yearning which includes a yearning to set free, to cease anything like possession.

To the extent that any love is purely benign, it seems it must include suffering because it must renounce the possession for which it also longs. Sure, at the end, possession is destructive, as we can see in a 40 year old "mama's boy". So acceptance of pain now forestalls the kind of dull throb of pain secondary to the spiritual sepsis of clinging to what must be set free.

So we have a kind of fresh pain, a still bleeding pain, a vital pain, rather than a morbid.

I freely, eagerly admit to a kind of gory garishness in catholic imagery. But all that in a way contributes to keeping the babes from eating meat until they have had enough milk. If all one does is look at the pictures, one is repulsed. At the very kindest, they are maudlin in the extreme.

But when one thinks that "the love which moves the Sun and other stars" was incarnate and became a human being in all humanity's organic vitality, then you -- well, then I -- forgive the painting because one sees through it to the idea it represents.

Since IHS is now ascended it is fair to say that God, in the Son, in IHS, loves you with a human, albeit risen, heart.

I don't think that's such a bad thing to think.