Vatican City, May 22, 2006 / 22:00 pm
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Pope Pius XII's Encyclical "Haurietis aquas" on devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Benedict XVI addressed a letter to Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach S.J., superior general of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits),
The feast of the Sacred Heart will be celebrated this year on June 23. The Devotion of the Sacred Heart was spread through the works of Saint Claude-La Colombiere a Jesuit, the spiritual director of Saint Marguerite-Marie Alacoque.
"Fifty years on, Christians still have the ever present task of continuing to deepen their relationship with the Heart of Jesus so as to revive, within themselves, faith in God's salvific love," He said stressing the special role the Jesuits have in spreading the devotion.
Through the Sacred Heart, it is "this mystery of God's love for us," Pope Benedict continues, which "not only constitutes the content of veneration and devotion for the Heart of Jesus, it is, in the same way, the content of all true Christian spirituality and devotion. ... In fact, being Christian is only possible with our gaze fixed on the cross of our Redeemer."