The Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Year of Mercy
by Sr Ann Catherine Swailes
If you were producing a film, and wanted to convey that the central characters were Catholic, one of the easiest ways of doing so would be to show a shot of a picture on the wall of the family home, depicting a long-haired, bearded man in a red cloak, with a stylised heart visible on his white tunic; a heart which, on closer examination, would most likely prove to be surrounded with flames and adorned with a crown of thorns. The imagery of the Sacred Heart, in other words is easily recognisable as a “Catholic thing”, along with rosary beads, for instance, or crucifixes.