The Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus 2025

Lo, how the savage crew / Of our proud sins hath rent / The heart of our all-gracious God, / That heart so innocent.

The soldier’s quivering lance / Our guilt it was that drave, / Our wicked deeds that to its point / Such cruel sharpness gave.

O wounded heart, whence sprang / The Church, the Saviour’s bride; / Thou door of our salvation’s ark / Set in its mystic side.

The Adoration of the Five Wounds of Jesus, depicted in a prayerbook made for Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg by the Flemish artist Simon Bening, ca. 1525-30.

Thou holy fount, whence flows / The sacred sevenfold flood, / Where we our filthy robes may cleanse / In the Lamb’s saving blood:

By sorrowful relapse, / thee will we rend no more; / But like the flames, those types of love, / Strive heavenward to soar.

Father and Son supreme / And Spirit, hear our cry; / Whose is the kingdom, praise and power, / Through all eternity. Amen.

(The hymn for Vespers of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus; English translation by Fr Edward Caswall (1814-78))

En, ut superba críminum / Et saeva nostrórum cohors / Cor sauciávit ínnocens / Merentis haud tale Dei!

Vibrantis hastam mílitis / Peccáta nostra dírigunt, / Ferrumque dirae cúspidis / Mortále crimen acuit. 

Ex Corde scisso Ecclesia, / Christo jugáta, náscitur: / Hoc ostium arcae in látere est / Genti ad salútem pósitum.

Ex hoc perennis gratia, / Ceu septiformis fluvius, / Stolas ut illic sórdidas / Lavémus Agni in sánguine.

Turpe est redíre ad crímina, / Quae Cor beátum lácerent: / Sed æmulémur córdibus / Flammas amóris índices.

Jesu, tibi sit gloria, / Qui Corde fundis gratiam, / Cum Patre, et almo Spíritu, / In sempiterna saecula. Amen.