Rizal's Statuette of the Sacred Heart

While a student at the Ateneo Municipal in Intramuros, Jose Rizal made a small statue of the Sacred Heart, about nine inches in height. He carved the statuette in batikuling wood with a penknife, at the request of his professor, Father José Lleonard, S.J. While preparing to return to Spain, Father Lleonard intended to take this statuette with him, but the houseboy helping him pack, forgot to place it in his trunk. Consequently, the statuette was left behind, and it was taken by Rizal's fellow students. This was placed on a shelf above the door of their study hall, where it remained for twenty years.

In August 1887, Rizal returned from Europe and he stayed in the Philippines till early 1888. Now a liberal in matters political as well as religious, he visited with his Jesuit friends at the Ateneo. On his way out, the Jesuit porter showed him the same statuette. Rizal replied: "Other times, Brother, other times; I no longer believe in such things."

In December 1896, after Rizal was sentenced to death by the Military Tribunal which had tried him for treason, he asked for some Jesuit priests to come and visit him. Father Miguel Saderra Mata, S.J., Rector of the Ateneo Municipal, together with Father Luis Viza, S.J. went in haste to Fort Santiago, to the cell in which Rizal was imprisoned. They were greeted warmly by Rizal.

Rizal then asked them if the statue of the Sacred Heart, which he had carved as a boy, was still at the Ateneo. Father Viza, in reply, took the statuette out of the pocket of his soutane. He had guessed rightly. Rizal would remember it at the hour of his death. Rizal took it from him, kissed it in his hands, and placed it on the table where he would soon write the Ultimo Adiós.

The statuette remained in the cell where Rizal prayed and confessed, attended Mass, and received Holy Communion.

The following day, 30 December, just before leaving his cell for Bagumbayan, Rizal reverently held the statuette to his lips for the last time. With his two hands holding this close to his heart, he moved slowly to give this back to the Jesuits, who were with him to his last day.

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