June the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

As the first image shows, the month of June is dedicated for the honour of the Sacred Heart

of Jesus throughout the Universal Church, which reaches its climax on the Solemnity of the

Sacred Heart which falls on 19 June this year, although occasionally and rarely it may fall in

July depending on the timing of Easter. In this month of the Sacred Heart, we are encouraged

to draw closer to the Heart of the Redeemer by acts of reparation and intensive prayer.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart as we know today was largely through the visions of St

Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French Visitation nun: During the Octave of Corpus Christi in

1675, on June 16 (and subsequently three more times) the vision(s) known as the "great

apparition" took place, where in particular Jesus said: "Behold the Heart that has so loved

men...……......Instead of gratitude, I receive from the greater part (of humankind) only

ingratitude," and He asked Margaret Mary for a feast of reparation on the Friday after the

octave of Corpus Christi, asking her to consult her confessor, Fr Claude de la Colombiere,

then superior of the small Jesuit house at Paray le Monial, France.

In line with Our Lord’s request for a feast, Feast of the Sacred Heart started to be celebrated

locally in Poland in 1765, until in 1856, Pope Pius IX extended it to the Universal Church

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is among the most familiar and moving images of Catholic

devotions, and arguably the most popular of these is the heart of Jesus encircled by the crown

of thorns as the second image above, notwithstanding the fact that the three canonical gospel

accounts depict the crown placed on his head. But according to ‘The Heart of the Gospel:

Traits of the Sacred Heart’ by Francis Patrick Donnelly published in 1911 by the

Apostleship of Prayer, says this of the devotees of the Sacred Heart:

“They saw the crown transferred from His head to His Heart; they felt that its sharp points

had always pierced there; they understood that the Passion was the crucifixion of the heart.”

On the crown of thorns encircling the Sacred Heart, St Margaret Mary had this to say:

“After that the divine heart was shown to me, as it were on a burning throne, more shining

than the sun and transparent like crystal, with that worshipful wound; it was girt about with a

crown of thorns, signifying how it is hurt by our sins, and above it was a cross. “

But why devotion to the Sacred Heart, if indeed the question needs to be asked after our

Lord’s revelations to St Margaret Mary?

Perhaps the best starting point is that authoritative minefield of Catholic teaching: Catechism

of the Catholic Church: “. . . the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our

salvation, “is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that … love with which the

divine Redeemer continuously loves the eternal Father and all human beings without

exception” (CCC 478).

Over the years, sages and saints have given us an insight into the devotion to the Sacred

Heart, among others:

• Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI when he said that Devotion to the Sacred Heart has an

                 ”irreplaceable importance for our faith and for our life in love” because it is ”totally

                  oriented to the love of God who sacrificed himself for us”

                  (Pope Benedict XV1, Letter, June 15, 2006)

• “By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As

                  to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of

                  Jesus” (St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta)

• “There is in the Sacred Heart the symbol and express image of the infinite love of

                  Jesus Christ which moves us to love in return” (Pope Leo XIII)

• "The Blessed Sacrament is a fruit of Jesus' love. Jesus' entire life and all His ministry

                   is the Love of His Sacred Heart" (St. Maximilian Kolbe)

• “O sacred head, once wounded, with grief and pain weighed down, how scornfully

                  surrounded with thorns thine only crown. How pale art thou with anguish, with sore

                  abuse and scorn, how does that visage languish which once was bright as morn.” (St.

                  Bernard of Clairvaux)

• “The Sacred Heart is that heart which swelled when Christ rejoiced in spirit and sank

                   when he was sad, which played its dark and sacred part in all Christ’s life . . . The

                   Sacred Heart is all Christ did for us; the Sacred Heart is all Christ’s joys, griefs,

                   hopes, fears, love unto death, heroic courage, tender pity; the Sacred Heart is Christ’s

                   most perfect character. Once seen in this light and surely there is no Christian that will

                   blame, none that will not admire, there should be none that would not practice, the

                   devotion to the Sacred Heart.” (Poet Gerald Manley Hopkins SJ (1844 -1889))

And last but not least, the Psalmist:

The thoughts of his heart [are] to all generations . . . To deliver their souls from death;

and feed them …” (Psalm 32: 11, 19)