New Prize-Winning Art Glorifies Christ's Sacred Heart
Dappled Things and the Benedict XVI Institute announce winners of the Sacred Heart Arts Competition: "Glorify His All-Loving Heart."
Fittingly, on June 7, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, during this month the Roman Catholic Church dedicates to the Sacred Heart, Dappled Things magazine, Quarterly of Ideas, Art, and Faith; and the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship announced the winners of their jointly sponsored Sacred Heart Art Competition here: “Glorify His All-Loving Heart”: Winners of the Sacred Heart Art Competition."
“Our Lord Jesus Christ,” as St. Margaret Mary Alacoque tells us, “desires that we should, for sanctifying ourselves, glorify His all-loving Heart; for it was His Heart that suffered the most in His Sacred Humanity.” Jesus promised this great saint—whose visions persuaded the Church to promulgate this devotion, "I will bless the homes where an image of My Heart shall be exposed and honored."
The sponsors of the Dappled Things competition saw a need for better images of the Sacred Heart because more and more Catholics are returning to the old devotions that some incorrectly think were banned after Vatican II. Many want to honor God’s love for us by displaying (enthroning) an image of the Sacred Heart in a prominent location in their homes, schools, workplaces, and other locations, and they don’t want to settle for one of the commonly available over-sentimentalized images that can impede devotion instead of enhancing it.
What’s an Enthronement of the Sacred Heart?
An enthronement is not just the casual hanging of the image in a prominent location, but it is a ceremony performed reverently, ideally after a time of prayerful preparation and reception of the Eucharist. During an enthronement, a priest, preferably, or the head of the home, workplace, or school leads the ceremony. If the ceremony is performed by a lay person, the image must be blessed beforehand by a priest.
During the ceremony, the home, workplace, or school is blessed with holy water, and the participants are led in prayers meant to consecrate not just the location, but also the hearts of those who live, work, and visit there. Enthronement acknowledges Christ as King. Our acknowledging His image as we pass where it is honored in a central location, perhaps by bowing our head or bending a knee, reminds us that our love belongs to Him, and also that His Love is with us always.
Cardinal Raymond Burke gave several sermons that speak of the practice of the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart, including this one here. At least one copy of an out-of-print hardcover book he wrote that is impressively bound in red leather titled Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was available at the Flors Mariae website here as of June 8, 2024. The Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus booklet that we used is here.
Following are some photos from the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart, Consecration, and House Blessing at my home in 2013.
Adoring the Infinite Love of the Trinity in Christ's Divine and Human Heart
The Church teaches that what we adore in contemplating Christ’s Sacred Heart is God’s humanly unimaginable infinite love for us, both the uncreated love of the Divine Word and the love of His human heart, since both Divine and human loves motivated Christ's sacrifice on the cross for us and for His Spouse the Church.
"You shall draw waters with joy out of the Savior's fountain." Isaiah 12:3.
“Haurietis Aquas” (Latin for "You will draw waters") is an encyclical of Venerable Pope Pius XII. Pius XII published this encyclical on May 15, 1956, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Blessed Pope Pius IX. Then in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a letter commemorating the 50th Anniversary of “Haeritas aquas” titled, “We Adore Jesus’ Pierced Heart.”
The following numbered quotations are from “Haeritas aquas.”
“75. The Sacred Heart of Jesus shares in a most intimate way in the life of the Incarnate Word, and has been thus assumed as a kind of instrument of the Divinity. It is therefore beyond all doubt that, in the carrying out of works of grace and divine omnipotence, His Heart. . . is also a legitimate symbol of that unbounded love.
The wound in the heart of Jesus is significant in this devotion, because when Longinus, the Roman soldier, pierced Christ’s side, and his sword penetrated Christ’s heart, blood and water poured out, and the Church was born.
“76. From the pierced Heart, the Church, the Bride of Christ, is born. . . . And He pours forth grace from His Heart."(80)
The water is understood as purifying and is associated with the Sacrament of Baptism. The blood is Christ’s Precious Blood that redeems us, associated with the Eucharist.
“77. From the side of Christ, there flowed water for cleansing, blood for redeeming. Hence blood is associated with the sacrament of the Eucharist, water with the sacrament of Baptism, which has its cleansing power by virtue of the blood of Christ."
The wound in Christ’s heart, therefore is a profound image of God’s tender love.
“78. . . . Hence the wound of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus, now that He has completed His mortal life, remains through the course of the ages a striking image of that spontaneous charity by which God gave His only begotten Son for the redemption of men . . .."
A Stunning Connection Between Devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Eucharist
Many examples from early Church Fathers to St. Thomas Aquinas and other more-recent Catholic writers can be found that make the connection between the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Eucharist. The most striking one I've run across is the following:
"In the eighth century AD, a Basilian monk was saying Mass in the Church of St. Legontian in modern-day Lanciano, Italy. As he was saying Mass, he doubted the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. After the consecration of the bread and wine into the Most Precious Body and Blood of Christ, the host became Flesh and the wine became Blood. . . . The miracle of Lanciano tells us that we receive the very heart of Christ when we receive the Eucharist at Holy Communion."—Joseph Tuttle in "The Eucharist and the Sacred Heart of Christ" at Word on Fire.
Let that sink in! When we receive the Eucharist, we receive the very heart of Christ. The connection between the Eucharist and the Sacred Heart could not be more explicit. If devotion to the Sacred Heart grows, so must comprehension of His Real Presence in the Eucharist.
The Challenge to Artists: Make Unsentimental High Quality Sacred Heart Art Suitable for Devotion
The Dappled Things/Benedict XVI Sacred Heart Art Competition was created to challenge Catholic artists to make new depictions of the Sacred Heart of the highest quality suitable for Catholics to use for their devotion.
"We found that many popular portrayals of the Sacred Heart often left much to be desired, and as a result, we were looking for images conducive to devotional practice that brought 'the Church's artistic treasures to the service of Jesus' Sacred Heart.'"—Bernardo Aparicio, Publisher, Founder and Publisher of Dappled Things
The contest was judged by Matthew Alderman (Project Designer, Cram & Ferguson Architects; Founder, Matthew Alderman Studios) and Bernardo Aparicio.
Aparicio writes that the three prize-winning works and the several works that received honorable mentions, "all display considerable talent, technical proficiency, and imaginative but reverent approaches to the subject matter, but more importantly, they also manifest an understanding that devotional art must be both high in excellence and become a worthy aid to prayer. The works selected all take different stylistic approaches to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but depict the same invisible reality."
All winners and runners-up are announced at this page with more photos of the winning artwork and links to where prints may be ordered.
The following is a close look at the First Prize winning image by Matthew Conner, which is followed by summaries of the judges' comments about the work of the other two finalists.
First Prize: Matthew Conner
"Matthew Conner’s image draws deeply and organically from the well of the final flowering of medieval art, with its mixture of stylization and realism."—Judges' comment.
The painstaking initial development of the image using the stylized techniques of iconography is illustrated by a series of process images posted on the announcement page. Other process images show how the image departs from iconographic conventions into figurative realism.
As is usual when an icon is started, a many-layered surface ground is prepared for the area to be gilded, and the area to be painted is masked off.
The heart in Conner's image is quite-uniquely raised by being modeled in bas-relief before it is gilded.
The heart is strikingly surrounded by unusually large flat rays that extend past the chest and over parts of Christ's cloak. The process image below shows the stage after the gilding is applied and the excess is buffed off, before the figure of Christ is painted.
As seen in the close-up of the incising tool against the gilded border, a large amount of skill is involved in the incising of the gilding on the border, the halo, the designs on the sleeves of Christ's robe, and the minutely detailed decorations around the edges of the cloak.
One way the image departs from usual iconographic traditions is the inscription "Sanctissimum Cor Jesu," the Most Holy Heart of Jesus, which is written out in Latin instead of in the usual-in-icons Greek abbreviation for the name of the figure.
Yet another process image captures the beginning of the figurative part of the image, where the artist develops the figure much more realistically than is commonly used in icons. Christ's cloak and tunic are in the typical purple and royal blue but they are more naturalistically draped with much-less-stylized folds.
The face and the hands are realistically portrayed with shading, as are the hands. The right hand is in a common blessing gesture. But, whereas icons of Christ usually show Him holding a large book in His right hand, in Conner's image, Christ's left hand is pointing to His Heart.
No iconographic conventions or prototypes exist for the Sacred Heart, which is a devotion that gained strength in the Roman Catholic Church after the schism between East and West— although devotion to Christ's love is part of both traditions. Conner's rendition is a beautiful extension of traditional iconographic conventions to this later emerging devotion focused on the Divine and human heart of Christ that developed in the Latin Church.
Second Prize: Joseph Jude Macklin
"Joseph Macklin’s catalogue of work is of extraordinary quality and shows considerable stylistic variation and a refreshing confidence in being willing to experiment, quite successfully, within the bounds of sacred art."—Judges' comment
Third Prize: Bernadette Carstensen
"Bernadette Carstensen’s Christ takes the components of conventional modern depictions of the Sacred Heart and re-imbues them with a truly necessary sense of iconographic reverence without going to the opposite extreme and reducing the result to a diagram. Our Lord’s gaze transfixes the viewer, and the graceful gestures of His hands beautifully frame His heart."—Judges' comment
You can read more about these and the other images that were awarded Honorable Mention, here. You can learn more about Dappled Things magazine’s mission—to highlight Catholicism’s unique contributions to the contemporary life of arts and letters—here.
"As our honorees’ work clearly reveals, devotion in our time is far from cold. The moment is right for flourishing and regeneration. We will come to better understand and better care for human nature through a deeper understanding of God’s nature. The love of the Sacred Heart—radiating from all eternity and from before creation itself in a pure relationship of self-giving, making all things new—continues to strike its rays into each individual human life. If we can remain open, actively receptive, to what He has to offer us, we will always find in Him exactly what we need."—Katy Carl, writer and former Editor in Chief (now Associate Editor) of Dappled Things
You may also be interested in this Substack article, “Portraying Infinite Love in 2 Dimensions,” which I wrote as an exploration of what kind of images of the Sacred Heart are suitable for devotion based on a suggestion by Bernardo Aparicio:
Holy Father Benedict of Bavaria, pray for us!
☦️ Grace🔥 and Peace🕊️ to you,
MOST HOLY THEOTOKOS SAVE US!
Holy Father Benedict of Bavaria, pray for us!
☦️ Grace🔥 and Peace🕊️ to you,
MOST HOLY THEOTOKOS SAVE US!