RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Sacramentals Sacred Heart
mitted against him in the most holy sacrament, and that the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi should be set apart for this devotion." Further revelations confirmed this, and the convent became a seat of the devotion. Colombiere and his successors Croiset and Rolin labored to spread it, and Croiset published the first book on the subject at Lyons in 1691. The new devotion was not well received in Rome; Croiset's book was put on the Index in 1704, while in 1697 the request of the Salesians for a festival of the Sacred Heart with proper office had been refused by the Congregation of Rites, a refusal which was renewed in 1707 and 1727. Meantime, through confraternities (see below) the devotion spread through German Switzerland into Germany. Languet, then bishop of Soissons and later archbishop of Sens, defended it in his biography of Marguerite Marie; and the Jesuit Gallifet published the more important De cultu sacrosancti cordis Dei (Rome, 1726). Miracles were claimed as a result of it; kings and queens besought the pope to grant a proper mass and office for the festival, which was at last conceded, on the express understanding that the cultus was paid to the heart of Jesus only as the symbol of his love. Determined opposition was made to the devotion under the influence of Scipione de' Ricci (q.v.), bishop of Pistoja, and of the rationalizing tendency which at the end of the eighteenth century had spread from Tuscany through a large part of Italy, and a prolonged literary warfare was carried on by the two parties.
The accession of Pius VI. in 1775 marked a turning-point. The bull Auctorem fidei of 1794 gave additional sanction to the devotion. The Jesuits had long pushed it vigorously, and after the restoration of the order, they continued to work, with the result that one diocese after another asked permission to celebrate the festival, and an increasing number of indulgences was attached to the devotion. Both had become practically universal when Pius IX. (Aug. 23, 1856) established the festival as a greater double for the whole Church; and the beatification of Marguerite Marie in 1864 was another step in the same direction. At the Vatican Council of 1870, the majority of the bishops asked for the elevation of the feast to the rank of a double (i.e., a feast at which the antiphon is said both before and after the psalm) of the first class (i.e., one which takes precedence in case two feasts fall on the same day) with octave (i.e., lasting through eight days, with special emphasis upon the celebration on the last day), but it was then granted only to the Jesuit order, in recognition of their services in spreading the devotion. The rank was extended to the whole Church, though without an octave, by Leo XIII. in 1889. The devotion has constantly strengthened its hold on the great body of Roman Catholics; and the cautious expressions at first used have given place to a full acceptance of the literal, material heart of Jesus as its object.
II. Societies under the Name of the Sacred Heart: The first Confraternity of the Sacred Heart was founded at Paray-le-Monial in 1693; and by 1727 there were already as many as 400. That erected by Gallifet in 1729 in the church of St. Theodore at Rome became an archconfraternity in 1732. The
number of confraternities was 1,089 in 1765, 6,676 in 1865, and is now over 10,000. A special confraternity is that founded at Bourg in France in 1863, whose members are divided so that each has a particular hour set apart for the adoration of the Sacred Heart and intercessory prayer which adoration and prayer thus become continuous. The most important of the confraternities which make a point of intercessory prayer is the League of the Sacred Heart or Apostleship of Prayer, founded in 1844 at Vals in France by the Jesuit Pere Gautrelet, and provided with new constitutions by Leo XIII. in 1879. In 1895 it had 50,000 branches all over the world, with more than twenty million members. The organ of the league, The Messenger of the Sacred Heart, is published monthly in fourteen languages. Another important society is the French Dames du sacre cceur, founded in Paris in 1800 by Madeleine Sophie Barat (d. 1865), under the influence of the Jesuit Pere Varin. It serves the double purpose of venerating the Sacred Heart and the education of girls. The statutes, drawn up by Varin, are modeled on those of the Jesuits. The candidate for admission spends three to six months in the house as a postulant; then follows a two years' novitiate, and then (since 1826) the taking of simple vows, an additional vow of stability, i.e., lifelong adherence to the congregation, being made. Besides the professed sisters, there are sceurs coadjutrices for the household duties, and sceurs commissionaires for the necessary intercourse with the outside world. The superior is chosen for life, and resides at the mother-house in Paris, the former Hotel de Biron in the Rue de Varennes. A general chapter every six years watches over the strict observance of the constitutions. A peculiarity of this congregation is that the members retain their original names, with the prefix of " Madame." The costume is a black dress, a cap with a white frill, and a black veil. In 1839 they had 40 houses, in 1851, 65; in 1864, 86, with 3,500 members; in 1880, 105, with 4,700 members, divided into 18 vicariates. In 1910 the order numbered 212 houses and 7,800 members. Three vicariates or provinces are established in the United States with 39 houses and 1 , 140 sisters. The influence exerted by them has been of no slight importance in the revival of Roman Catholicism, especially of an ultramontane or Jesuit cast. (T. Kolde.)
Bibliography: F. S. Hattler, Geschichte des Festes und der Andacht zum Herzen-Jesu, Vienna, 1875; idem, Die bildliche Darstellung des gbttlichen Herzens und der Herz-Jesu- Idee, Innsbruck, 1894; J. de Gallifet, Ueber die Andacht zum hochheiligen Herzen . Jesu Christi, ib. 1884; H. E. Manning, The Divine Glory of the Sacred Heart, London, 1873; idem, The Glories of the Sacred Heart, ib. 1876; K. Martin, Die Lehre und Uebung der Andacht zum gottlichen Herzen Jesu, Cologne, 1876; N. Nilles, De rationibus festorum sacratissimi cordis Jesu et . Maria, 2 vols., Innsbruck, 1885; H. J. Nix, Cultus cordis Jesu,
Freiburg, 1891; H. Reusch, Index der verbotenen Bilcher, ii. 983 sqq., Bonn, 1885; idem, Die deutsche Bischofe und der Aberglaube, pp. 81 sqq., ib. 1879; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen, vol. iii. passim; F. Beringer, Die Ablasse, ihr Wesen und Gebrauch, Paderborn, 1895.
SACRED HEART OF JESUS AND MARY, CONGREGATION OF. See Picpus, Congregation of.
Sacred Music