Hello Everyone, I am a regular reader of the Pelianito Journal Blog site- I find the posts on the site to be both challenging and comforting. Recently, there has been much discussion on the site about a devotion to the Divine Heart of the Father that is being promoted by an individual posting under the name "Shadow". The website for the devotion is: http://divineheartofgod.wordpress.com/. Have any of you heard of this site or this devotion? Thanks!
There is a lot of false private revelation at the moment so we need to be have a spirit of discernment. I am not a theologian or theology expert but the 'Divine Heart of God the Father' just does not sound right. We honour the Sacred Heart of Jesus because he was the Word Incarnate, 2nd person of the Blessed Trinity, true God and True Man. His heart was opened with a Lance and out came Life Giving Blood and Water for the redemption of Humanity. By honouring the Sacred Heart of Jesus we are acknowledging that He is the Saviour of the World, as God had to become man in order save us from the consequences of sin which was physical and spiritual death so His atonement won for us forgiveness and eternal life. God the Father did not become Incarnate, nor did the Holy Spirit become incarnate. Only the second person of the Blessed Trinity became incarnate, Jesus Christ, Saviour of the World.
I agree with Bobby. One of the impressive thing about theologians who talk about the Sacred Heart (of Jesus) was a whole realm of scripture they brought up in support. I have been thinking of scripture quotes in support of the Divine Heart of God the Father and can honsetly think of none. Another thing theolgians did in support of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was to place in the context of the tradition of the Church, for example the Church Fathers and the writings of the saints. Again I can off hand think of no one who wrote of such a thing as a 'Divine Heart of God the Father'. Further to this there are two small things that make me uneasy. the name of this person, 'Shadow' does not strike me as one that would easily come to the mind of a Christian..also the art work for the 'Divine Heart' looks , quite frankly grotesque and reminded me, forgive me, of a medical students cardiac chart,rather than a devotional object *Image removed as per a copyright complaint - FreeForums.org Staff - contact mailto:abuse@freeforums.org for more information*
Hmmm, this is a strange thing...for one, God is not human. We are fashioned in his image, but I would never think of him with an actual organ-like heart with arteries and Veins coming from it as in the picture above. Heck, we do not even picture Jesus' heart in this manner though he did have a real, beating, living tissue heart when he lived as a human. Now God and Jesus are one, and so the paradox that if Jesus is, so God is - is there of course. This needs further discernment. I too thought the name Shadow was strange at first, as it sounds dark, and it is how we sometimes describe an evil or demonic presence, but maybe he has an explanation for it. This forum is the only place where I took on a new username. Everywhere else on the internet (except on ebay, where I use a business name) I use the name KronTalb, which is a mix of my maiden name and married name. Been using that for something like 20 years online. Perhaps Shadow is just a name he has used for a while on other forums. OR - In the song of St. Francis - is used, "Make me a shadow of your peace" . "Shadow" is used instead of "instrument". I prefer instrument, it makes more sense to be an instrument for peace than merely a shadow. But maybe this is where he gets Shadow from...a shadow of God's peace. :?:
So far, I have found only this. St. John Eudes seems to mention the Divine Heart of God, but looking into it, it seems to point to our hearts and Mary's heart in context: http://www.loretopubs.org/admirable-heart-of-mary-the.html Also, I ran across this site. It has some familiar, but then some unfamiliar rosary prayers. One of them seems to support the Divine Heart of God devotion. What do you all think of all this? http://www.livingrosaries.org/heart.htm
It is hard to discern since our knowledge of God is really only what He reveals to us and what we have by way of personal experience. St Francis had the radical idea that he would learn more about God through humility and penance since God would reveal more to him in this receptive condition than if he studied theology at a university. This site concerns me in that I cannot see much about the person, the origins and history, their connection to the Church and Magisterium, or fruits other than being busy on Facebook. I've always found the comments on Peli's page to contain a lot of grandstanding by certain readers. Maybe she should prayerfully consider leaving them out since they can take people away from her original point/post.
One of the mistakes I made, many years ago was to consider talk of the heart and love in regards to God was to regard the heart as a symbol of the source and seat of love and that the actual physical heart was not relevant..and in fact I suspect thats how most people in talking of say prayer of the heart or the love of the Sacred Heart in modern times might think of such things. This was not however how prevous generations thought of the heart, they actually thought of the human heart as the physical throne of the act of loving. Moderns may go back and revise this but I think in doing so they dilute and disguise the real truth which is that the actual human heart actually is the throne of love. I first started to change my mind about this through prayer. For I found in deep prayer my heart would actually experience the most intense sweet pain ,apparently as thoughit was on fire. Nor was it always of the same intensity for sometimes it was as though my heart were actually being pierced by a spear or arrow of fire and it burned causing me to fall to the gorund in an actual swoon, or rapture or ecstasy, call it what you will. Even so I doubted still that that this was a physical reality as I though in modern psychological terms.... as moderns will.... that I was displacing this spriitual reality into physical terms by imagining this pain in the heart in order to explain what was happening in a purely spiritual, cerebral or psycholgical realms. But I began to doubt for this most extraordinary and beautiful most intense sweet pain seemed so real , the pain so real and the fire so present that I began to strongly suspect that this was not happening as some sort of psychological displacement. I think the final thing that changed my mind was in studying the lives of the saints, particulalry the life of St Phillip Neri who spoke constantly of the sweet, exuisite pains of love like a fire in his heart and in particular of a specific phenomenom, called as far as I recall Transverbation when the heart is actually pierced. This St Phillip describes in very physical terms. Still you might have written this of in terms of imagination but after his death a post mortem was performed on Phillip and it was found that his heart had in fact enlarged, so much so that it had actually brken several of his ribs with its extraordinary pulsations. Now years later and having had a chance to read more into this and observing both myselves and otehrs who like to pray I feel that prayer, yes has an actual physical effect on the body. For instance one thing I observe in looking at people who pray a lot ,when I have a chance is that physically..how shall I put it..well they our more smooth and together in their physical actions, less eratic, and giving forth an itense feeling of peace. Nor of course is this confined to the heart ; their have many numerous reports, for instance of people actually levitating and I believe in fact these were quite true. For in prayer there is a kind of feeling of lightness, of floatingness and in fact I believe these to have a physical reality. I think a good model of this is to study the properties of the angels and the souls in heaven for by prayer it is towards them we walk and these physical changes are moving us towards the Ressurected body we are promised and shall at some fure point inherit... cf: http://www.doctorsofthecatholicchurch.com/TDAMH.html
I dont know if this 'Divine Heart of God' is the real deal or not but I have noticed of late all the messages from God the Father and the reference to God the Father in Our Lady's recent messages in Medjugorje. I dont remember ever hearing so much reference to the Father. There is some movement towards the Father now. Perhaps its to do with the coming chastisments and time of peace. The time of peace will be like Eden regained when the Father love and care will be so evident. Mary
