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human kindness, with bands of love%u201d (Hos 11:4). When that love was spurned, the Lord could say,%u201cMy heart is stirred within me; my compassion grows warm and tender (Hos 11:8). God%u2019s mercifullove always triumphs (cf. Hos 11:9), and it was to find its most sublime expression in Christ, hisdefinitive Word of love.101. The pierced heart of Christ embodies all God%u2019s declarations of love present in the Scriptures.That love is no mere matter of words; rather, the open side of his Son is a source of life for thosewhom he loves, the fount that quenches the thirst of his people. As Saint John Paul II pointed out,%u201cthe essential elements of devotion [to the Sacred Heart] belong in a permanent fashion to thespirituality of the Church throughout her history; for since the beginning, the Church has looked tothe heart of Christ pierced on the Cross%u201d. [84]ECHOES OF THE WORD IN HISTORY102. Let us consider some of the ways that, in the history of the Christian faith, these prophecieswere understood to have been fulfilled. Various Fathers of the Church, especially those in AsiaMinor, spoke of the wounded side of Jesus as the source of the water of the Holy Spirit: the word,its grace and the sacraments that communicate it. The courage of the martyrs is born of %u201ctheheavenly fount of living waters flowing from the side of Christ%u201d [85] or, in the version of Rufinus,%u201cthe heavenly and eternal streams that flow from the heart of Christ%u201d. [86] We believers, reborn inthe Spirit, emerge from the cleft in the rock; %u201cwe have come forth from the heart of Christ%u201d. [87] Hiswounded side, understood as his heart, filled with the Holy Spirit, comes to us as a flood of livingwater. %u201cThe fount of the Spirit is entirely in Christ%u201d. [88] Yet the Spirit whom we have received doesnot distance us from the risen Lord, but fills us with his presence, for by drinking of the Spirit wedrink of the same Christ. In the words of Saint Ambrose: %u201cDrink of Christ, for he is the rock thatpours forth a flood of water. Drink of Christ, for he is the source of life. Drink of Christ, for he is theriver whose streams gladden the city of God. Drink of Christ, for he is our peace. Drink of Christ,for from his side flows living water%u201d. [89]103. Saint Augustine opened the way to devotion to the Sacred Heart as the locus of our personalencounter with the Lord. For Augustine, Christ%u2019s wounded side is not only the source of grace andthe sacraments, but also the symbol of our intimate union with Christ, the setting of an encounterof love. There we find the source of the most precious wisdom of all, which is knowledge of him. Ineffect, Augustine writes that John, the beloved disciple, reclining on Jesus%u2019 bosom at the LastSupper, drew near to the secret place of wisdom. [90] Here we have no merely intellectualcontemplation of an abstract theological truth. As Saint Jerome explains, a person capable ofcontemplation %u201cdoes not delight in the beauty of that stream of water, but drinks of the living waterflowing from the side of the Lord%u201d. [91]104. Saint Bernard takes up the symbolism of the pierced side of the Lord and understands itexplicitly as a revelation and outpouring of all of the love of his heart. Through that wound, Christ23