In this second week of Advent 2025, we read a meditation by Father Dehon on the Heart of Jesus. It is dated December 4, 1919, and is taken from his spiritual work, “L’Année avec le Sacré-Cœur” (The Year with the Sacred Heart).
December 4 – Analogies with the Heart of Jesus Throughout Creation
“In sole posuit tabernaculum suum; et ipse tanquam sponsus procedens de thalamo suo, exultavit ut gigas ad currendam viam… nec est qui se abscondat a calore ejus” (Ps 19:6-7)
“He has set His tabernacle in the sun; and He, as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, has rejoiced as a giant to run the way… and there is none that can hide himself from His heat.” (Ps 19:6-7)
First Prelude. Several times, Blessed Margaret Mary saw the Heart of Jesus resembling the sun, darting its rays onto hearts in proportion to their disposition.
Second Prelude. Divine Heart of Jesus, burning Sun of love, set my heart ablaze; powerful Source of grace, make my soul fruitful.
FIRST POINT: Plant Vegetation Also Has an Analogy with the Trinity and the Heart of Jesus.
In vegetative life, the root functions as the heart. It draws up the sap and sends it to be purified in the leaves, only to descend again, warmer and more vivifying. Vegetative life purifies, warms, and makes the sap fruitful, just as the life of the Holy Trinity produces light, love, and strength.
The sap is similar to blood; it carries life to the branches, producing flowers and fruits. In the same way, the grace of the Heart of Jesus carries life everywhere and produces the flowers and fruits of virtues.
I want to receive this sap, but I must draw it from its true source, the Heart of Jesus, which is the root of all supernatural life. “You shall draw waters with joy,” says Isaiah, “out of the Saviour’s fountains” [Is 12:3]. The Heart of Jesus shall be for me the fruitful source and the strengthening sun.
SECOND POINT: The Sun Has Magnificent Analogies with the Heart of Jesus.
God, who made the human heart—the spiritual heart and the heart of flesh—the masterpiece of inanimate nature, made the sun the masterpiece of animate nature. How magnificent is this star! The pagans took it for a God. In creating it, God wished to give us a dazzling image of the Sacred Heart.
The sun also has analogies with the Trinity! It lights, it warms, it makes fruitful, just as the Divine Persons do spiritually.
The Sacred Heart often manifested itself to Blessed Margaret Mary in the brilliance of the sun.
“Once, when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed,” she says, “Our Lord Jesus Christ presented Himself to me, all radiant with glory, with His five Wounds shining like five suns.”
“Another time, on the day of the Visitation (July 2, 1688), the loving Heart of Jesus appeared to me on a throne of fire, radiating on all sides and brighter than the sun. It was in the midst of the flames of His pure love. His Wound was casting forth its ardent and luminous rays.”
“On the First Fridays,” she says again, “the Sacred Heart was represented to me as a sun, shining with a brilliant light, whose ardent rays fell directly onto my heart. He cast them everywhere and upon every heart, but in a very different way, according to the dispositions of those upon whom the rays fell; for the souls of the reprobate hardened even more, just as mud hardens in the sun’s rays; and, on the contrary, the hearts of the just became purer and softened like wax.”
The Divine Sun brings life, growth, flowers, and fruits everywhere, provided that souls are well-disposed.
Heart of Jesus, Divine Sun, whose rays carry the light of faith and the fire of charity into hearts, enlighten my poor heart, warm it, and do not allow it to remain insensitive to Your action.
THIRD POINT: The Ocean Is Also a Symbol of the Heart of Jesus.
It is the great reservoir of all the fertilizing waters. Warmed by the sun, it sends its vapors to condense in the air and fall everywhere as rain that waters and fertilizes the soil. A part of the clouds increases the mountain snows to descend afterwards through streams, rivers, and large waterways, which form the arteries and veins of the continents. One can also see in this circulation an image of the Trinity.
The Heart of Jesus is the ocean of all graces. The sun of His love draws from this divine ocean all the gifts that fall as fruitful rains upon well-disposed hearts.
Just as the waters return to the ocean which purifies them before sending them back to the earth, so too the defective actions of men return to the Heart of Jesus, who also purifies them through the merits of His passion, the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and His infinite mercy.
Elijah saw this cloud of grace which would rise from the ocean of mercy to make the world fruitful: “nubecula parva ascendebat de mari” (A little cloud rose out of the sea) (1 Kgs 18:44).
May my heart not remain arid and deserted under this shower of graces!
Resolutions. – Constant union with the Heart of Jesus, to receive the sap that flows from it, the rays that will warm my heart, and the rain of graces that will make my soul fruitful.
Colloquy with the Heart of Jesus, Divine Sun and burning furnace of charity.
