Chapter 4 The Eucharistic Heart

On 21 June 1748 in Mexico City, a week after the octave of Corpus Christi, one of the most significant Jesuits in New Spain delivered a sermon celebrating the Sacred Heart at the church of San Gregorio, which had a Jesuit-run school for young indigenous boys.1 In his sermon, which runs twenty-eight pages in

Figure 41 José de Páez, Sacred Heart, eighteenth century. Oil on canvas Museo Soumaya. Image in the public domain

1 At the time he delivered his sermon, Oviedo was the superior of the Casa Profesa in Mexico City. For more on Juan Antonio de Oviedo, see Luisa Elena Alcalá, “Miguel Cabrera y la con- gregación de la Purísima,” Anales del IIE 33, no. 99 (2011): 111–136.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004384965_006 152 Chapter 4 printed form, Juan Antonio de Oviedo (1670–1757) hailed “the singular, and truly admirable connection between the Heart of Christ and the Eucharist.”2 He spoke about the benefits of worshipping this portion of Christ’s body, relat- ing it to the benefits of adoring the Eucharist as an act of latria (adoration of the highest order that can be offered to God or the Holy Trinity) rather than dulia (veneration offered to saints and angels). Oviedo’s discussion took up im- portant points raised earlier by Joseph de Gallifet in De cultu, in which had made the same distinction of the Sacred Heart as both human and divine and as worthy of latria.3 For Oviedo, the Heart is, like the Eucharist, the quinta essencia [sic]—the fifth element or the quintessential element—necessary for life besides earth, air, fire, and water. Underlining its constituent alchemistic qualities, Oviedo described the Eucharist as containing “all the mysteries of the infancy, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Savior,” and claimed the Sacred Heart by extension had the same properties. Borrowing heavily from Aristotelian philosophy, Oviedo cited the heart as the fountain of life and as the first to live and the last to die in humans.4 He drew on theological discussions, Scripture, alchemy and other natural philosophical ideas, saints’ visionary experiences and biographies, and devotionals about the Sacred Heart to connect Christ’s organ to the Eucharist. Throughout his sermon, Latin mixes with Spanish to provide a deep knowledge of Christ’s sacramental Heart.5

2 “que en la eucharistia se contienen como a quinta essencia reducidos todos los mysterios de la infancia, Passion, Muerte, Resurrecion, y Ascencion del Salvador.” Oviedo, Quinta essencia, 13. 3 “The Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ, which is a created object, and consequently not wor- thy in itself of the adoration of latria, becomes worthy of it by its union with the Divinity; so that we worship with one sole and undivided adoration of latria, the Humanity and the Divinity united in Jesus Christ, as all theologians teach with St. Thomas.” Gallifet, Adorable Heart, 40. 4 “Pues siendo el Corazon el primero, que vive, y el ultimo que muere en el hombre, es jun- tamente el manantial, y fuente de la vida.” Ibid., 1. He supported this assertion further with the line Omni Custodia serva cor tuum, quia ex ipso vita procedit (Keep your heart with all vigilance, for whom it flows the springs of life, Proverbs 4:23). 5 Other sermons similarly championed the sacramental Heart, such as Cristóbal Martínez de Villaseca, Divino imán de los corazones y corazón de los imanes (Mexico City: Imprenta Real del Superior Gobierno y del Nuevo Rezado de Doña María de Ribera, 1736); Antonio Mancilla, Nueva escuela de industrias abierta, y fundada por nuestro maestro Christo en su carne sacra- mentada, para que todos aprendan el modo de saber desagraviar su santissimo Corazon las- timado, y herido: Sermon (Mexico City: Imprenta Real del Superior Gobierno, y del Nuevo Rezado, de Doña María de Rivera, 1747); Juan Manuel de Agüero González de Agüero, El corazon de Jesus en el sacramento, muerto para lo que es recibir agravios de los hombres, y vivo solo para lo que es hacer beneficios: Sermon panegyrico, que en la octava de corpus del año de 1745. en la celebracion del Smò. Corazon de Jesus en el Convento de señoras religiosas capuchi- nas de la ciudad de Oaxaca, siendo el primero que se predicaba de dicha celebridad, por estàr