The Heart and Cross

The Heart and Cross

Charles designed a "Heart and Cross" insignia to be worn on the front of his religious habit.

The emblem of Jesus' Heart reminds you that you must give God the same love He gives you . . . and that you must love your neighbor as yourself . . . because God loves him as He loves you.

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I must remember to let the Heart of Jesus live in my heart, so that it may be no longer I who live, but the Heart of Jesus living in me, as it lived at Nazareth.

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I am translating the four Gospels into the Tuareg language. I am trying with all my strength to demonstrate and prove to these poor lost brothers that our religion is nothing but charity and fraternity, and that its badge is a HEART.

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What is there in common between heaven and me -- between its perfection and my wretchedness? There is your Heart, O Lord Jesus. It forms a link between these two so dissimilar things.

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Through the cross we are united to Him, who was nailed on it, our heavenly spouse. Every instant of our lives must be accepted as a favor, with all that it brings of happiness and suffering. But we must accept the cross with more gratitude than anything else. Our crosses detach us from earth and therefore draw us closer to God.

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It was not by His divine words, not by His miracles, not by His good works that Jesus saved the world; it was by His cross.

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The more we embrace the cross, the more we become one with Jesus.

Charles had great devotion for the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He painted an image of the Sacred Heart in his desert chapel.

Detail of Charles' Sacred Heart.