To my readers not familiar with the Sacred Heart in Catholic culture, I share a few quick facts.

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was a Religious Sister in France who was visited by Jesus.

He gave her a special mission. Through these private revelations, Jesus wanted to make her a missionary and tell the world about his love – the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On  June 16, 1675, Jesus ask her specifically to promote a feast that honored his Sacred Heart. It was to fall each year on the Friday after Corpus Christi.

The devotion and love to the Sacred Heart had grown through the years. It was first celebrated in the liturgy in 1765 in Poland. By August 23, 1856, Pope Pius IX established it as an official liturgy for the universal Church.

Are we worshipping a heart? The heart is understood as the center of one’s affections, feelings, and humanity. We believe Jesus is fully human and fully divine. His heart gives insight to his intimate human and divine love. Pope Francis said,

Devotion to the heart of Christ is not the veneration of a single organ apart from the Person of Jesus. What we contemplate and adore is the whole Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, represented by an image that accentuates his heart. That heart of flesh is seen as the privileged sign of the inmost being of the incarnate Son and his love, both divine and human. More than any other part of his body, the heart of Jesus is “the natural sign and symbol of his boundless love” (48).

To worship the Sacred Heart of Jesus is to worship Jesus, the second person of the Blessed Trinity.

A more intimate portrait

I have countless memories in my grandmother’s house located at the heart of the Inner Sunset District of San Francisco. Fog always seemed to greet us whenever we made the trip from Vallejo to the City by the Bay. As we ascended the stairs leading to the gate entrance of her inner sunset home, one thing was apparent. The fog seemed to dissipate as we entered the warmth that greeted us at the threshold. Greeted with kiss and only a step passed my grandmother, a red perpetual candle burnt at the entrance in front of the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Jesus always greeted us at the entrance of grandma’s home, holding his heart. There were a few times my grandmother taught me to kiss the feet of Jesus as we entered. At the entry way was the formal dinning room. Whenever the adults gathered, my grandmother sat on a stool and told stories. I remember hearing the uncontrollable laughs through the breakfast nook door where the children hung out. My grandmother was a great story teller and behind her, the image of Jesus holding his heart. That image along with the love and hospitality of my grandmother is what made this home in the Inner Sunset District warm, cozy, and memorable.

On the many nights I volunteered to join my grandmother for her rosary, her prayers ended with a petition to the Sacred Heart. Without fail, as she beat her chest, I heard her whisper three times: Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

To this day, I have the image of the Sacred Heart hanging in front of my computer in my home office. My grandmother hand carried this image just for me. She picked it up in one of her trips to the Philippines. It stays lit up 24 hour a day, acting as a night light through the night and early morning as I greet the day with prayer. The image not only reminds me of my grandmother, but of her discreet lessons on loving Jesus.

Remember the Heart

The Sacred Heart. A premier image grafted into my memory, every time we visited my grandmother. In her own special way, she has handed on that devotion to me and I am grateful.

In seems that every few decades, a pope emphasizes renewed attention to the Sacred Heart. It is a call to action to return to this central image that moves us to a deeper love of the Eucharist.

The heart of Jesus. Did we feel that? God has a heart and it beats for you!

The heart of Jesus loved the world and poured itself out on the cross. From this heart bursted our new life: water and blood, Baptism and Eucharist.

Pope Leo XIV offered a new prayer on the Sacred Heart. May it guide our frail and tender hearts as we celebrate this feast day today! Jesus becomes king of our own hearts. He makes our hearts like his.

To make Christ the King of hearts is to enthrone him in the center of our lives and affections as we serve each other.

Prayer of Pope Leo XIV to the Sacred Heart

Lord, I come to your tender heart today,
to you who have words that set my heart ablaze, to you who pour out compassion on the little ones and the poor, on those who suffer, and on all human miseries.

I desire to know you more, to contemplate you in the Gospel, to be with you and learn from you and from the charity with which you allowed yourself to be touched by all forms of poverty.

You showed us the Father’s love by loving us without measure with your divine and human heart.

Grant all your children the grace of encountering you. Change, shape, and transform our plans, so that we seek only you in every circumstance: in prayer, in work, in encounters, and in our daily routine.

From this encounter, send us out on mission,
a mission of compassion for the world in which you are the source from which all consolation flows. Amen.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us! 

In the final analysis, the Sacred Heart is not only to be adored and loved. The Sacred Heart is meant to live in us, transform our hearts into it.