Devotion to the Sacred Head | Devotion To The Sacr

Why devotion to the Head of Jesus?

We might be used to the idea of devotion to the Heart of Jesus...

...but a devotion to his Head? It sounds a bit weird at first. Yet it makes complete sense.

Those around Jesus sometimes honoured his head with oil. Or they perversely sought to dishonour him with a crown of thorns. His head represented his authority as Messiah and king.

For Christian believers, Jesus is true man and true God. He is also, as 'first-born' of creation, the Alpha and Omega - the primordial pattern of all human nature and the capstone of the cosmos. His head is the physical 'place' where we encounter the ultimate wisdom of God in creation.

This page points to the source of this devotion in Scripture, Tradition and human reason.

It also attempts to show what practising the devotion involves.

Where does devotion to the Sacred Head come from?

Devotion to the Sacred Heart did not actually begin in the seventeenth century with the visions of St Margaret Mary Alacoque. Its roots can be found in the biblical concept of the heart, in Jesus' words and in devotion to the wound in the side of Christ that gave birth to the Church and the sacraments. It developed in the lives and writings of many saints, from St Mechtilde (d. 1298), St Gertrude (d. 1302) and St Bonaventure (d.1274), for example, through to the Jesuits, St Francis de Sales (1622) and St John Eudes (d.1680).

Likewise if we want to find the roots of devotion to the Sacred Head, we might look for concepts of the personification of divine wisdom, the meaning of the Christ or anointed one and to the idea of Jesus' headship in the Scriptures. Through the writings of the early Fathers, later saints and mystics, and through art and culture over the centuries, we can how these have developed into a deepening recognition of Our Lord's human head as the shrine of divine wisdom.

Wisdom in the Bible

The Old Testament

God alone is truly wise and his wisdom is shown in his creation.

As God's revelation unfolds through the Scriptures, Wisdom comes to be personified as a heavenly being.

Christian tradition has seen this theme as pointing ahead to the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

"Wisdom has built herself a house" (Proverbs 9:1)

The New Testament

The beginning of John's Gospel declares Jesus Christ to be the Logos (Wisdom or Word) of God through whom everything in the Universe is created and who becomes physical for us.

The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us (Jn 1)

In the writings of St Paul, Jesus Christ is described as the living embodiment of God's wisdom and the fulfilment of Creation.

He is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation,

for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers - all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things and in him all things hold together (Col 1:15-17)

Our oldest image of Christ honours the Sacred Head

It might not be the most beautiful, but perhaps the oldest image of Christ we have was discovered in the village of Hinton St Mary in Dorset, UK (now in the British Museum).

This Roman mosaic dates from around 350 AD and portrays the Sacred Head of Jesus as the source of eternal life (the pomegranates).

Listen to a BBC article

The witness of King Alfred the Great

848-899 AD

King Alfred's famous devotion to the wisdom of Christ led him to promote a nation-wide legal system, scholarship and education.

The Alfred Jewel (discovered in Somerset in 1693) was commissioned by the king as an aestel or reading-pointer for a bishop.

It is said to represent Christ as the personification of wisdom.

Pantokrator

From the sixth century Jesus has been represented as the Almighty, Ruler and Sustainer of Creation through illustrations of his head in glory.

The Deësis mosaic of Hagia Sofia (Holy Wisdom) in Istanbul dates from around 1261.

It depicts the Sacred Head of Christ with the very greatest artistry of the time.

The Primacy of Christ in Creation

Why did God become man? Was it just to die for us and redeem us from sin?

Although it has never been clearly spelt out, Christians have always held that God would have become man as the highpoint of creation. He comes to be our pattern of life, to reveal himself and his love and to sweep us up to his own divine life.

So we can expect God to become human even if there had never been any sin, as heir to the vineyard of creation (Mk 12:1-12).

Because of our sin, when Jesus comes, he bears it all for us; instead of being honoured as was his due, he allowed his Sacred Head to be crowned with thorns. He bore witness to his original mission, loved us through and beyond our sin and had the last word on sin and death through his resurrection.

Modern science

With our increasing scientific knowledge, we understand ever more clearly how our universe fits together and how our brains have developed to interact with the rest of our bodies.

We can say in fact that this ancient, unfolding cosmos bears witness to God's wisdom above all in the human brain. It is the medium for the spiritual soul (mind) to relate to the world and to God.

The heads of clever men and women are even now discovering how the universe formed and enabling us to travel beyond our world.

But the heads of saintly men and women have contemplated the heights and depths of the things of God beyond this material universe.

Since God has made us like this, it makes sense that God should choose to have a human head too - so that he can communicate with us in the way that we can fully appreciate. So in a sense, we need God to have a human head. We can say we are made in the image and likeness of that Head.

The Sacred Head of Jesus Christ is truly the pinnacle of his creation and the living centre of Divine Wisdom.

It is this that directs all the love of God to us through his heart.

The crowning of all devotions

By paying devotion to Christ's physical head we can honour the fulness of Jesus Christ in all his divine and human wisdom. It this wisdom that governs and directs all the movements and love of his Sacred Heart.

In many ways this is not a new devotion, but finds its roots in Scripture and Tradition. What's more, we could call it the crowning of the devotion to the Sacred Heart; in fact the crowning and perfection of all devotions.

Although she is not (yet) canonised many believe Teresa Higginson to be a very great saint; it was she who brought attention to this devotion in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

She showed that in our own day, with all its rejection of divine wisdom, we will find a God-given antidote to the intellectual confusion and moral chaos of our times though a devotion to the Sacred Head of Jesus Christ.