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A hallmark of the Sacred Heart devotion is its visual nature, as "images played a primary role in formulating and propagating the devotion throughout its existence" (Seydl, The Sacred Heart 43). The catalyst for launching the cult of the Sacred Heart as a global Catholic devotion was a series of revelations made by the Lord, from December 1673 to June 1675, to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), a young nun at the Paray-leMonial monastery of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary. Among Jesus's instructions to Margaret Mary was that the image of His Heart be publicly exposed: "Since He is the source of all blessings, He will shower them on every place where an image of this Sacred Heart shall be honored, because His love urges Him to dispense the inexhaustible treasures of His sanctifying and salutary graces to all souls of good will" (Alacoque 203; cf. 47, 50, and 230). Graphic representations of Jesus's Heart became ubiquitous, so much so that by the eve of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), "the Sacred Heart had become the virtually defining symbol of Roman Catholicism" (Wright, Sacred Heart A).
Margaret Mary herself designed and supervised the first way the Sacred Heart was pictured, which was as an emblematic image, as she saw it in a vision.
I saw this divine Heart as on a throne of flames, more brilliant than the sun and transparent as crystal. It had Its adorable wound [made by the soldier's spear (John 19:34)] and was encircled with a crown of thorns, which signified the pricks our sins caused Him. It was surmounted by a cross which signified that, from the first moment of His Incarnation, that is, from the time this Sacred Heart was formed, the cross was planted in It ... (Alacoque 229)1
Moreover, the Heart was inscribed with the word CARITAS. It was this image that Margaret Mary placed on a little altar to serve as a focal point for her novices' prayer and reparation for the first celebration of the Sacred Heart in June 1685 (Figure 1). Although elements such as little hearts intertwined in the crown of thorns-a coded symbol of communal engagement in the devotion (see Morgan, The Sacred Heart 11)-were subsequently added to the...