The Sacred Heart of Jesus is depicted in a modern painting by Stephen B. Whatley, an expressionist artist based in London. Wide devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus began after the private revelations of a French nun, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, between 1673 and 1675. A feast was extended to the whole church in 1856 and is marked the Friday following the feast of Corpus Christ. (CNS photo/Stephen B. Whatley)
If you read enough novels that feature Catholic characters, you’re bound to run across a Catholic family described as having an “oleograph of the Sacred Heart” hanging somewhere in their house (usually the kitchen, the dining room or the bedroom). It’s the lazy novelist’s shorthand for a certain kind of kitschy, overheated devotional stance that is supposed to “locate” for the reader the pious sensibilities of the (usually indigent or uneducated) Catholic characters.