During his priestly life, Father Eustáquio was a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts, and perhaps for this reason, he dedicated many writings to devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Several texts dedicated to this devotion can be found in his personal archives.

And today, as the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, let us delve deeper into one of the teachings left by the Missionary of Health and Peace!

“"Devotion to the Sacred Heart"”

The only, or rather, the principal devotion of a Christian should be to love Jesus Christ.
It was for this same purpose that Our Lord and Savior, revealing Himself to Margaret Mary, declared that He desired that His Heart be honored with special devotion, so that, through their pious homage, devout souls might repair the offenses committed against the Sacred Heart in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

And so it happened that, while the saint was praying, one day, before the Tabernacle, Jesus appeared to her and showed her His Heart surrounded by thorns, surmounted by a Cross and, as if placed, on a throne of flames: “Behold here,” He said to her, “the Heart that has so loved mankind, that has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, to bear witness to its love, and, in return, receives from most of them only ingratitude for their irreverence, sacrilege, coldness, and contempt with which they treat Me in this Sacrament of love. What I still feel, however, is that these are hearts consecrated to Me that act thus toward Me.” None of us, brothers and sisters, are unaware that Jesus speaks the truth, for indeed, He spared nothing to bear witness to His love for mankind.

Are we, perhaps, capable of assessing the terrible difficulties He faced here on earth to preach and teach to poor man found almost in total darkness of soul? Oh, and to say that the least serious and dangerous of all the difficulties were precisely those of a purely material nature.

However, brothers, He not only faced them all, but even came to desire them out of love for us, even though He knew that, then as now, the reward and generosity of dedication is often selfishness, the indifference of man, or even contempt.

Ah! Brothers, contempt is the mockery paid for the charity and will of Jesus, lived to the extreme. Yes! Then, as today, the world better understands the brutality of those who demand everything from it than the Charity of Him who gives everything; it understands, even applauds, the usurpation and plunder, accompanied by the tyranny and oppression of false heroes, more than the benefits and renunciations performed without fanfare and ostentation typical of the bigwigs who deceive the masses in everything, even in the applause they also receive from them for this.