When Pedro Arrupe, S.J. (1907–91), the superior general who shepherded the Society of Jesus through the close of the Second Vatican Council and beyond, spoke of the Sacred Heart, he often used an analogy certain to get listeners’ attention. He compared the Sacred Heart to atomic power.
A homily Arrupe delivered in 1970 offers an example of how he used explosive imagery to describe the source of Christian peace. At that time, many influential Catholics, both within and outside the Society, were claiming that the reforms of Vatican II required that Sacred Heart devotion and other expressions of popular piety be consigned to the past. Arrupe, acutely aware of such arguments, aimed with his homily to show that the present time—marked, in his words, “by chaotic confusion and at the same time by a cultural evolution”—desperately needed the love of Christ that is symbolized by his heart.
“Today,” Arrupe said, “when so many new sources of energy are being discovered, when we stand amazed at all the triumphs of scientific research in atomic physics and in the energy of the atom that may transform the whole universe, we do not sufficiently realize that all human power and natural energy is nothing when compared with the super-atomic energy of this love of Christ, who by giving his life vivifies the world.”
No doubt, Arrupe’s Jesuit listeners found his comparison of the Sacred Heart to atomic energy far more intriguing than they would have if they heard it from another homilist. They knew that their superior general, nearly a quarter-century earlier, had personally witnessed the destruction caused by the atomic bomb that the United States detonated over Hiroshima.
It was Father Arrupe’s intense desire for union with the heart of Christ that gave him strength as he ministered to victims of the Hiroshima attack.
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Dawn Eden Goldstein is the author of several books, including Father Ed: The Story of Bill W.’s Spiritual Sponsor (Orbis Books, 2022) and is currently writing a biography of Louis J. Twomey, S.J.
With thanks to America and Dawn Eden Goldstein, where this article originally appeared.
