Origin of the Devotion
This is best given in Teresa's
own words, written in obedience to her spiritual director (her sentences are quite long!) It seems Lady Kerr's biography might
be mistaken concerning the first revelation. A schoolteacher friend, Margaret Ashworth, testifies to Teresa's describing
the devotion for the first time in 1874 or 1875. However, an important spiritual experience occurred in the
little village school house at Neston, on the feast of the Sacred Heart 1879. Earlier in the day Teresa had felt a great sense
of unworthiness and humility until Our Lord had consoled her. Then towards evening she retired to her room in a deep recollection:
"I was considering the excessive love of the Sacred Heart
and offering to my Divine Spouse this same love to make amends for our coldness, and His constancy and infinite riches to
make up for our poverty and misery, when our divine Lord suddenly represented to me the Divinity as a very large bright crystal
stone in which all things are reflected or are, past present and to come, in such a manner that all things are present to
Him. This immense precious stone sent forth streams of richly coloured lights brighter beyond comparison than ten thousand
suns, which I understood represented the infinite attributes of God. This great jewel also seemed to be covered with innumerable
eyes which I understood represented the Wisdom and Knowledge of God….Our Blessed Lord showed me this Divine Wisdom
as the guiding power which regulated the motions and affections of the Sacred Heart, showing me that it had the same effect
and power over its least action, and raising it, as the sun draws up the vapour from the ocean. He gave me to understand that
an especial devotion and veneration should be paid to the Sacred Head of Our Lord as the Seat of divine Wisdom and guiding
power of the Sacred Heart, and so complete this heavenly devotion."
Most of the subsequent (and frequent) revelations took place in St Alexander's Church in Bootle (tragically destroyed in the Blitz, May 1941).
Teresa's writings abound with explanations of the devotion, referring to directions from Our Lord
or responding to questions from her spiritual directors (only a very small selection can be given here). More-often-than-not
her words take on the form of impromptu prayers. On April 27th 1880 she writes in a tone of triumph as though still
half rapt in ecstasy:
"Our divine Lord
says the time is at hand when the Wisdom of the Father shall be adored and the Love of God for man shall be revealed in the
Light which shineth in darkness and enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. It is the Will of our dear Blessed
Lord that His Sacred Head be adored as the Seat of Divine Wisdom: not the Sacred Head alone, (I mean as we worship His sacred
hands and feet) no, but the Head as the shrine of the powers of the Soul and the faculties of the Mind and in these the Wisdom
which guided every affection of the Sacred Heart and the motions of the whole Being of Jesus our Lord and God. It is not His
divine Will that the attributes or abstracts of the soul or mind, or that divine Wisdom which guided, governed and directed
all in Him (the God Man) should have a distinct worship, but that they should all be specially honoured and His sacred Head
adored as their Temple. And Our dear Blessed Lord has shown me too how the head is also the centre of all the senses of the
body, and that this devotion is the completion, not only of the devotion of the Sacred Heart, but the crowning and perfection
of all devotions….Our dear Blessed Lord did not positively state the precise time that this should be made a public
devotion but He gave me to understand that whoever should venerate His sacred Head in this manner should draw down on themselves
the choicest gifts of Heaven."
Feast
Day
"As I told
you our dear B. lord expressly asked me to tell you from Him that He wished His most Sacred Head to be publicly worshipped
and honoured as the Seat of Divine Wisdom, and said too that the Friday, octave day of the feast of the Sacred Heart, should
be dedicated as a festival day in its honour, and special reparation and atonement be then offered to Him."
Promises for those who honour the Sacred
Head
On
June 15th 1880 she writes: "Our dear B. lord showed me the great glory that would be given to the adorable
Trinity and to His sacred Humanity through this devotion."
September 10th 1880: "….And He gave me to understand that He
would crown with a peculiar glory all those who furthered this Devotion. He would clothe with glory before angels and men
in the courts of heaven those who clothed Him in glory on earth and would crown them in everlasting bliss. I saw the glory
prepared for three of four concerned therein and I was amazed at the greatness of their reward for I felt that our B. Lord
and His holy Mother considered this homage to wipe out the outrage offered to the most wise and holy God when He was crowned
and mocked in derision and scorn and clothed as a fool. It would seem that now those thorns would blossom, I mean that He
would wish now to be crowned and acknowledged as the Wisdom of the Father, the true King of Kings."
For a time of intellectual crisis in the Church
June, 1883:
"He showed me how man outrages the divine Wisdom by the abuse of the three powers
of His immortal soul and by his sins - stamps out as far as he can the image of the triune God in himself and by mad folly
tries also to rob nature of its God… … Man too darkens his understanding by his infidelity. Take away the sun
and we cannot have light or heat. Take away faith which is the light of the soul and all is decay and desolation, if we have
not faith we cannot serve or love God… … It is worldly wisdom which is folly that is drawing down souls into
an abyss of darkness which is Hell, and as of old when the heart of man set his affections against God, the Sacred Heart of
Jesus really human yet divine, because (united to the Person of God the Son) belonging to God the Son made Man, was the atoning
object and Jesus revealed the burning love of His Sacred Heart and complained of man's coldness and demanded a reparation
and condolence, and souls were warmed in that furnace of divine love and souls burnt again with charity towards the God of
Love - now too when infidelity and pride of intellect and open rebellion against God and His revealed law, self will and self-conceit
is filling the minds of men and drawing them away from the sweet yoke of Jesus and binding them with the cold heavy chains
of self-seeking, private judgment, and abandoning all right to be governed and wishing to govern oneself, disobedience to
God and His holy Church - that same Jesus the incarnate Word, the Wisdom of the Father who became obedient even unto the death
of the cross, again gives us an antidote, an object which can and does, and will in every way make up and repays a hundredfold
the debt that is contracted to the infinite justice of God."
Conversion of England
The
Ascension 1881:
"When I knelt to adore
the thrice Blessed Trinity for all the glory of the sacred Humanity, I was caught up as it were and dissolved in the excessive
heat and glory of the Sun of divine Justice, and I heard sounds of praise and songs of joy in the heavens which echoed and
re-echoed from the earth, and they were hymns of thanksgiving and adoration of the Seat of divine Wisdom. Then I saw reflected
in the large crystal the glory which the ever blessed Trinity would receive from the devotion to the Sacred Head and the numberless
souls that would be guided by its light to the bosom of the true Church and eventually to the throne of God. I understand
too that this should be the one great means of the conversion of poor dear England, and that it was not far distant when she
would bow her understanding to the obedience of faith and repair in some manner through this devotion the great evil of her
apostasy, and that Mary's name and Mary's Son should be more honoured than ever they had been dishonoured by our people."
July 16th 1881:
"He urged me to pray for true light, faith and wisdom for all especially
heretics and poor sinners, and made me feel that the people of our dear land should shine in the brightness of this true light
and bring back more souls through this devotion than they had scattered through the darkness of their infidelity. And it seemed
to me that Mary prayed with me and reminded Him her Divine Son that this England is called her Dower and He filled her hands
with graces and blessing for us and a new glory as it were shone around her, the reflection of the glory that surrounds the
Seat of Divine Wisdom."
