Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Next Friday, we celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart, in which we adore the tender and compassionate Heart of Jesus. Biblically, we see an early devotion to the Sacred Heart when St. John rests his head against Jesus' Heart during the Last Supper (John 13:23). However, the popular devotion within the Catholic Church originated with St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, who received 4 visions from Jesus asking her to establish a feast to His Sacred Heart. He told her:
"My Divine Heart is so passionately in love with men that it can no longer contain within itself the flames of its ardent charity. It must pour them out by thy means, and manifest itself to them to enrich them with its precious treasures, which contain all the graces of which they have need to be saved from perdition."
St. Margaret Mary's visions were initially met with some skepticism, but Pope Clement XIII approved devotion to the Sacred Heart in 1756, and the feast was added to the calendar in 1856.
There are many ways to build devotion to the Sacred Heart. One of the most popular is saying the morning consecration to the Sacred Heart, a short but effective little prayer that can easily be added to your morning routine:
O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
I offer You my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day
in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world.
I offer them for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart:
for the salvation of souls, the reparation for sins, the reunion of all Christians,
I offer them for the intentions of our bishops and of all Apostles of Prayer
and in particular for those recommended by our Holy Father this month.
Another easy way to integrate devotion to the Sacred Heart into your daily life is by hanging an image of the Sacred Heart in your home. In fact, one the twelve promises made by Jesus to those with a devotion to the Sacred Heart was to "bless every place where a picture of my Heart shall be set up and honored.” You can find the other promises here.
The Church celebrates the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary the day after the feast of the Sacred Heart. Again, biblically, we have the hints of Mary's heart at work when she "kept all these things in her heart" (Luke 2:51), referring to Mary's pondering of Jesus' mystical early life. Because Mary was free from sin, her heart reflected the love of God perfectly, and therefore it would do us good to reflect on the perfect love between her heart and that of her Son. Devotion to the Immaculate Heart grew over the centuries, especially after the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was proclaimed in 1854, and after Our Lady of Fatima urged a deeper devotion to her Immaculate Heart. Often, both the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart are pictured together in popular images. As these feast days approach, think about deepening your own devotion to the tender and loving hearts of Jesus and Our Lady!
By Anna Neal