Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus as promoted by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and St. Claude de la Columbiere certainly contained the notions of reparation, sacrificial love, and atonement. By prayer, by sacrifice and most certainly by a dialogue of love for love, a person returns to the Heart of Christ love, reparation and atonement for all who do not love Christ. Prayer makes reparation, especially when done before the Blessed Sacrament for all the outrages this Divine Heart has received from men and women, even from those who are especially consecrated to his service.

Reparation is like paying a debt, a payback, a return of something that is owed to another. In theology it refers to a relationship one has with Christ in that you want to make up for the inadequacies of someone else’s debt to God. In that respect, reparation is a participation in the redemptive action of Christ in His Passion. The person through love makes up to Christ not only for something that happened 2000 years ago on Calvary, but for the unlove which is happening this day and time.

Atonement is much the same. In a certain spirituality, because Christ was mocked and made a fool of; men and women become fools for Christ to atone for the humiliation of Christ. We atone to Christ for sin by prayer, penance, and self-denial; we ‘make up’ for the disastrous effects of a sinful life. Some might say that since Christ is God and now risen in glory, He does not need now our love and reparation. This is not the thought of the Catholic Church. Christ has a human Heart which knows and feels the lack of love even in a glorified state. We cannot deny Christ anything which a human heart now feels, otherwise He would not be man. Except for sin, Christ is everything we as human beings are now.

Our love and reparation has brought us a long way, and yet because we are dealing with a divine mystery, we have further to go. The surest way to offer love, reparation and atonement to Christ is still the Sacrifice of the Mass.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains: “The Holy Sacrifice because it makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Saviour and includes the Church’s offering. The terms holy sacrifice of the Mass, sacrifice of praise, spiritual sacrifice, pure and holy sacrifice are also used, since it completes and surpasses all the sacrifices of the Old Covenant” (1330). The Divine Lit urgy remains the privileged place where love, atonement, and reparation can be offered up to and through Christ our Saviour. The Sacred Heart devotion has stressed prayer before he Blessed Sacrament in adoration and Holy Com mun ions of reparation.

Some if not all, are called by Christ to a sacrificial life, certainly those who live the consecrated life in chastity, poverty and obedience. The life of the consecrated virgin in the Catholic Church is a reparatory way of life based on love and atonement. “Atone ment” means at-one-ment, that is, being one with Christ in love.

Love and reparation affects the Blessed Virgin Mary also. At Fatima, Our Lady asked that reparation be made to her Immaculate Heart for the sins against her Immaculate Heart. The Blessed Mother is associated with Christ in a saving manner, so it is not surprising that our reparation in union with Mary hastens the coming of Christ’s Kingdom. It is fitting that on the Miraculous Medal is the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary side-by-side.

We do not really see the effects of our own life of prayer, atonement, reparation, or even our own sighs of love to the Heart of Christ. However, the effects of our love for and in Christ, far outweigh evil. Repara tion-Love-Atonement directly affect the Body of Christ. Christ is one with His own Mystical Body and we and all believers are part and members of the Body of Christ. And the rest of humanity, all men and women who live now and whoever have lived? They too, in some manner we know not, are contained in the Heart of Christ.

Our own atonement has many facets when done in Christ. Every act of consecrated obedience atones for every act of disobedience in some manner, the pure of heart atone for impurity, and so on down the line of every virtue. Every humility, lowliness, counteracts every hubris, that is grave pride. Atonement is more than tit for tat, it is greater beyond measure.

In part, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “Sin is an offense against reason, truth and right conscience; it is a failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures hu man solidarity. It has been defined as ‘an utterance, a deed or desire contrary to eternal law’” (1849).

Likewise, the Catechism states: “In her Magis terial teaching of the Faith and in the witness of her saints, the Church has never forgotten that, ‘Sinners were the authors and the ministers of all the sufferings that the Divine Redeemer endured.’ Taking into account the fact our sins affect Christ himself, the Church does not hesitate to impute to Christians the gravest responsibility for the torments inflicted upon Jesus” (598).

By our lives, by the simple morning offering, by love, we make reparation to Christ for sin. What is especially dear to Christ is the consecrated life, that life lived in evangelical chastity and obedience and holy poverty. Those so consecrated to Christ are the friends of God and eat at the banquet table of grace. The consecrated person lives a sacrificial life of reparation, love, atonement, in an ineffable manner.

There is another atonement for sin and that is for the sins against the dignity of men and women which cry to heaven for vengeance. That is the mass murderers, the Gulags such as Kolyma in Magadan, Russia, the crimes against millions, against the unborn. Rep a ration for such offenses is made by men and women who willingly offer to the Heart of Christ their own hard manual labor, their own sufferings in a sick bed, their own grinding poverty in atonement.

Reparation-love-atonement have taken us a long way. Perhaps what is needed is an understanding that a single act of loving reparation in Christ is able to atone for a magnitude of evil. Christ our Lord and the Father are not bystanders to the misery of the world, but summon from here, there and everywhere men and women to atone and make reparation for sin. By love, reparation, and atonement—the world is restored to the Father of us all.