Early devotion
Historically the devotion to the Sacred Heart is an outgrowth of devotion to what is believed to be Christ's sacred humanity.[3] There is nothing to indicate that, during the first ten centuries of Christianity, any worship was rendered to the wounded Heart of Jesus.[4]
The revival of religious life and the zealous activity of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and Saint Francis of Assisi in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, together with the enthusiasm of the Crusaders returning from the Holy Land, gave a rise to devotion to the Passion of Jesus Christ and particularly to practices in honour of the Sacred Wounds.[5]
Devotion to the Sacred Heart developed out of the devotion to the Holy Wounds, in particular to the Sacred Wound in the side of Jesus. The first indications of devotion to the Sacred Heart are found in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The devotion arose in the fervent atmosphere of the Benedictine or Cistercian monasteries, in the world of Bernardine thought, although it is impossible to say with certainty what were its first texts or who were its first devotees.
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