Time was when there was no Heart of Jesus burning with love for men. God loved men, pitied them, perfectly understood human treachery and human misery, but not from personal experience of it. Before Jesus came, mankind were hurrying down to Hell. Reflect on the hopeless condition of the heathen world, and thank God from your heart that you did not live then. Would you not have been among the worst?

But God had long looked down with pity on the earth's darkness. The Word was made Flesh, and in taking to Himself flesh He necessarily took a human heart, glowing with love for every child of Adam, sorrowing with their sorrows, moved by their distress, rejoicing in their happiness, craving for their love, wounded by their unkindness. It was from the first moment of the Incarnation, when Mary conceived of the Holy Ghost, that the Sacred Heart of Jesus first began to throb with unspeakable love for fallen man.

In that first instant of its existence the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in virtue of the Divine personality to which it was inseparably united, embraced in its Divine compassion all the sorrows of men as long as the world should last. My troubles and sorrows were not overlooked. From that time until the end, the Sacred Heart has been sympathizing, and will continue to sympathize, with all that gives me joy or sorrow. O wondrous love of God made man!