When we want to say “I love you,” some people make a heart with their hands. Valentine’s Day is big into hearts. You get hearts on cards and heart-shaped candy boxes. Why?
Well, it’s not about cardiac muscle. It’s about the centrality of the heart. At various times and in different cultures, different organs expressed that centrality—e.g., the liver or the kidneys. They’re all vital; you can’t live without them. They’re all our core. But, today, that centrality, that vitality, that essentialness of love is symbolized by the heart. Being so essential to life, the heart also expresses true love—love willing to sacrifice, even unto death.
That is why June is the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart is relatively recent in Catholic spirituality. It gained impetus in seventeenth century through a French nun, Margaret Mary Alacoque.
Starting in 1673, Margaret Mary experienced a series of visions of the Sacred Heart, which she recorded and entrusted to her confessor, the Jesuit St. Claude de la Colombière. He believed her and saw that the spiritual fruits of what she said were growing.
Some of the key elements of Margaret Mary’s visions were
- the idea of a Holy Hour on Thursdays (an hour of adoration before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, in imitation of the apostles waiting with Jesus in Gethsemane)
- the practice of encouraging reception of Communion on the first Friday of the month (in honor of the Sacred Heart and Jesus’ Passion), and
- the institution of a Feast of the Sacred Heart on the Friday after Corpus Christi.
The Feast of the Sacred Heart was initially limited to Margaret Mary’s own Visitandine Order but gradually spread in France. The Church soberly took her time to observe the fruits of the devotion, and in 1856, Pope Pius IX instituted it as a feast for the whole Church. It falls this year on June 27.
Included in Margaret Mary’s visions were these “Twelve Promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus” she received from Christ (hence the “I”). They are
- I will give them all the graces necessary for their state of life.
- I will give peace in their families.
- I will console them in all their troubles.
- I will be their refuge in life and especially in death.
- I will abundantly bless all their undertakings.
- Sinners shall find in my Heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy.
- Tepid souls shall become fervent.
- Fervent souls shall rise speedily to great perfection.
- I will bless those places wherein the image of My Sacred Heart shall be exposed and venerated.
- I will give to priests the power to touch the most hardened hearts.
- Persons who propagate this devotion shall have their names eternally written in my Heart.
- In the excess of the mercy of my Heart, I promise you that my all powerful love will grant to all those who will receive Communion on the first Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance: They will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the sacraments; and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.
The Twelve Promises all focus on salvation and how devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus can facilitate that. They promise not just the graces needed for one’s station in life and for peace in one’s family, but a progressive deepening of that grace and charity, for serious growth in the spiritual life, on the part of everyone devoted to the Sacred Heart. As for priests in particular, the Lord promised that devotion to Jesus’ loving Sacred Heart would be contagious: it would enable priests to reach people whose hearts were hardened, resistant to God’s grace.
The Twelve Promises specify three things those devoted to the Sacred Heart should do: (1) spread the devotion to others, (2) place a picture of the Sacred Heart prominently in their homes, and (3) receive Communion on First Fridays. Jesus even promised a special grace: those who would receive Communion on nine consecutive First Fridays would be given the grace of final repentance to die in peace with God.
Once upon a time, an image of the Sacred Heart was commonplace in many Catholic homes, precisely because of these promises. The Sacred Heart is usually depicted as pierced, recalling how Jesus’ side was opened by a lance to ensure that he was dead. That pierced heart tells us two things: how great is God’s love for us and how broken is his heart when that love goes unrequited. Its visual presence in the Catholic home is a constant reminder of the depths of God’s love, as well as the call for us to respond to it. It puts our focus not on the fear of God and his punishments, but on the love of God and the gratitude it ought to elicit from us.
St. Claude, who as noted was Margaret Mary’s Jesuit confessor, was later a preacher to the wife of English king James II, in whose court he resided until the king’s declining health and anti-Catholic bigotry forced Claude’s return to France. Claude continued advising Margaret Mary by letter from England. Over time, the Jesuits became one of the leading religious orders spreading devotion to the Sacred Heart. Pope Francis’s final encyclical, Dilexit Nos, written half a year before his death, focused on the Sacred Heart. Read it alongside another Sacred Heart encyclical, Annum Sacrum, written by our current pope’s namesake, Leo XIII, in 1899.