Pale pink peonies at the perfect moment of bloom fill the church. They are utterly lovely. Candles are lit — so many more candles than for an ordinary Sunday Mass. Everything seems to glow. And there, to the left of the altar, is the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On this wedding afternoon, I’m struck by how strange an image the Sacred Heart is.
A heart wrapped in thorns. A heart on fire. A heart bearing a wound. A heart displayed outside Christ’s chest as though he has opened himself for inspection. It’s not anatomically accurate at all. It doesn’t even try to be. It looks more at home in a dream than in an anatomy textbook. Yet perhaps its strangeness is precisely the point.
The Sacred Heart is not meant to show us what a human heart looks like. It is meant to show us what divine love looks like. The image takes something invisible and makes it visible. Here, the church tells us, is the heart of Christ: burning with love, wounded by rejection, crowned with suffering, and yet still offered freely to the world.
When we pause to consider it, the Sacred Heart is not the only strange thing in Catholic life. For instance, marriage is rather peculiar, too. A young man and woman stand before an altar and make promises that would sound reckless if they were not so familiar. They vow to remain faithful for the rest of their lives. They promise to love one another not merely through pleasant seasons but through sickness and health, prosperity and hardship, joy and sorrow.
What makes the vow remarkable is that neither person has the faintest idea what lies ahead. The bride cannot know who she will become in 40 years. Neither can the groom. Their circumstances will change. Their hopes and plans will change. Together they will accumulate joys they cannot yet imagine and burdens they would never willingly choose.
And yet they promise permanence.
In an age that prizes flexibility and endless options, such a promise feels increasingly countercultural — perhaps even strange. Our culture tends to understand love primarily as a feeling. Feelings matter, of course, but feelings are notoriously unstable. They rise and fall, intensify and diminish. They respond to circumstances.
The Sacred Heart points toward something deeper. It reveals fidelity: a love that remains.
The heart of Christ continues to love even when it is wounded or when it is rejected. It continues to love even when that love is costly. The language of Scripture for this kind of love is covenant. A covenant is not merely an emotion. It is a promise, a faithful commitment that survives changing circumstances.
This is why the Sacred Heart and the sacrament of marriage belong together.
Both proclaim a truth that the modern world often finds difficult to believe: that love reaches its fullest expression not in intensity but in fidelity. At first, we glow a bit in the excitement of a wedding. Brides and grooms are so thrilled to find the perfect person. They don’t know it yet, but the truest joy is in continuing to give oneself to another imperfect person over the course of a lifetime.
Every lasting marriage bears this witness. Beneath the anniversary celebrations lie a thousand daily acts of fidelity. There are apologies offered, sacrifices made, disappointments endured, illnesses weathered, prayers whispered, and countless ordinary decisions to remain present when walking away would be easier.
The world barely nods to such things; sometimes the world even scoffs. But God celebrates them. They reflect something of his own heart. The Sacred Heart is not beautiful because it has never been wounded. It is beautiful because the wounds have not extinguished the love. The thorns remain, but so do the flames.
Perhaps that is why devotion to the Sacred Heart remains so timely. In a restless age, it reminds us that love is more than a feeling and fidelity is more than a preference. It reminds us that the deepest loves are not those that never suffer but those that remain steadfast through suffering.
The peonies will fade. Frankly, they always droop and drop petals rather quickly. The candles will be extinguished. The guests will return home.
What will remain are the promises.
Perhaps that is why the Sacred Heart seems so fitting on a wedding day. It reminds us that love is not measured by the intensity of a moment but by the fidelity that follows it. The heart of Christ continues to burn beneath the thorns. A husband and wife continue to choose one another through changing seasons and circumstances.
Both are strange signs in a world that expects everything to be temporary. And both bear witness to the same beautiful truth: love remains.
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
