[THE VENERATION OF THE SACRED HEART PREVAILS: THE COUNTER-REFORMATION ON THE IBERIAN PENINSULA] Feria VI. post Octavam Sanctissimi Corporis Christi, Officium Sanctissimi Cordis Jesu: duplex majus pro Diaecesi Maioricensi. A SS. Domino Nostro Pio Papa VI. approbatum, & ad praedictam Dioecesem concessum [Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, Office of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: solemn double feast for the Diocese of Mallorca. Approved by our Most Holy Lord, Pope Pius VI, and granted to the aforementioned diocese].

Palmae [i.e. Palma de Mallorca]: In Typographia Regia, 1798. Small octavo (14.3 × 9.2 cm). Contemporary mottled calf with gilt tooling to spine; marbled endpapers; edges red; 112, [3] pp. with a woodcut frontispiece (an early example of the iconography of the Sacred Heart, before it became widely used in popular piety through lithographs in the nineteenth century). Minor wear to edges and hinges; somewhat foxed, with a few pages more heavily toned; illegible ownership signature to title (Dr. Antonio Ferrer?); overall still about very good. Item #55158

Regionally restricted approved hourly prayer for the Feast of the Sacred Heart, which was highly controversial at the time. Although isolated elements of the veneration of the Sacred Heart can already be found in medieval mysticism and late medieval iconography, the visions of Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, which were experienced by the nun between 1673 and 1675 in the Burgundian monastery of Paray-le-Monial, were decisive in its firm anchoring both in the Church and in popular piety. The apparitions not only established the iconography of the flaming heart crowned with thorns, but also gave concrete form to the liturgical and calendrical structure of the veneration of the Sacred Heart. Thus, Alacoque reported not only what she saw (she depicted the heart in a simple pen-and-ink drawing), but also of specific instructions from Jesus: “Therefore, I demand of you that on the first Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, a separate feast be celebrated in honor of my heart.”

The vision was ultimately spread by her confessors, the Jesuits Claude de la Colombière and Ignace Rolin. At the same time, the Jesuit Jean P. Eudes independently attempted to establish a feast day for the Sacred Heart, but this initially remained limited to the religious community “Congrégation de Jésus et Marie”. Rolin ultimately persuaded Alacoque to write down her life story. In the following years, the Jesuits endeavored to make Alacoque's visions known and founded Sacred Heart brotherhoods throughout Europe. Several attempts were made to persuade Rome to include the Feast of the Sacred Heart in the liturgical calendar in accordance with the visions. Between 1697 and 1729, the Pope repeatedly denied these requests. It was not until 1765 that a Sacred Heart Office was approved by the Pope. While devotion to the Sacred Heart was by no means uncontroversial even within the Jesuit Order, the abolition of the Order between 1773 and 1814 was a further obstacle. Maria Theresia's son, Joseph II (1741–1791), even drew up a catalog of measures with which he sought to curb the practice and even made its dissemination a punishable offense.

It was not until Pius IX that the Feast of the Sacred Heart was instituted for the whole Church in 1856 and the process of beatification and canonization was initiated for Alacoque. Nevertheless, devotion to the Sacred Heart remained a minor matter for a long time. It was not until the First World War that the feast and, above all, the iconography of the Sacred Heart became popular. In the meantime, the representation of the Sacred Heart on its own, as we see it here in the frontispiece, had even been banned for some time by the Congregation for Rites. (See: Norbert Busch, Katholische Frömmigkeit und Moderne: Die Sozial- und Mentalitätsgeschichte des Herz-Jesu-Kultes in Deutschland zwischen Kulturkampf und Erstem Weltkrieg, Gütersloh 1997; Claudia Schlager, Kult und Krieg: Herz Jesu – Sacré Coer – Christus Rex im deutsch-französischen Vergleich 1914-1925; Albert Walzer, in: Lex. Christl. Ikonographie, vol. II, pp. 250-254.)

As of May 2025, KVK, OCLC only show one copy of a similar edition published in the same year worldwide, at the Newberry, but none of this work.

Price: €950.00

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