June has been the Month of the Sacred Heart ever since the feast was instituted in the 19th century.

In popular piety, each month of the year has a corresponding spiritual theme that focuses on various aspects of the Christian faith.

June has become known as the Month of the Sacred Heart, due to the fact that the feast of the Sacred Heart is celebrated each year during it.

It all started when St. Margaret Mary Alacoque received private revelations from Jesus Christ.

Jesus spoke to her on  June 16, 1675, and asked her specifically to promote a feast that honored his Sacred Heart.

I ask of you that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special Feast to honor My Heart, by communicating on that day, and making reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to make amends for the indignities which It has received during the time It has been exposed on the altars.  I promise you that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its Divine Love upon those who shall thus honor It, and cause It to be honored.

The feast of Corpus Christi has been celebrated after Trinity Sunday for many centuries and always falls during the month of June.

The precise date fluctuates each year, as it is determined by the celebration of Easter.

It took until 1856 for the feast of the Sacred Heart to be officially celebrated by the universal Church, and ever since then the month of June has been focused on devotion to the Heart of Jesus and his divine love for humanity.

A Reflection by Fr. Vincent Guest
 

The month of June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I remember growing up and having an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in our home in Philadelphia, right next to the front door as you entered our home.

I am sure as a youngster I did not fully understand Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart, but I did know that the heart is a symbol of love. Thus, as my brothers, sister and I grew up, we came to understand that the heart of Jesus is a heart of love. My parents, although not theology professors, were good teachers. There is no greater lesson for a family than to know that we are loved by Jesus, and that we are called to love one another.  

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a devotion our world needs at this time. The world desperately needs to know — and live — the love of Christ. It has been a challenging time for the country and for the church these past 14 months.  We have restless hearts, and as Saint Augustine so wisely wrote centuries ago in “The Confessions”: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts our restless until they rest in you.” 

Yes, God is Love and we are made in God’s image and likeness, thus we are made by love, and for love. 

Devotion to the Heart of Jesus has a long history in the church, but it was the French Visitation Sister, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, who popularized the devotion for the faithful after a series of private revelations that occurred between 1673 and 1675. The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is celebrated the Friday after the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. 

In the 1960s, composers Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote the hit song “What the World Needs Now is Love.” This is true today, but not just any love. What the world needs now is to know the love of Christ Jesus. A love that is all merciful, all sacrifice, and never ending. A love that can transform families, our country and the world. Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in you. Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us. Conform your heart, to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

According to a private revelation, Jesus made 12 promises to those who promoted devotion to His Sacred Heart.

In 1673, a French Visitandine (Visitation) nun named Margaret Mary Alacoque had a private revelation of Jesus, in which he asked the Church to honor his Most Sacred Heart.

In particular, Jesus gave to St. Margaret Mary 12 specific promises made to all who venerated and promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Jesus said to St. Margaret Mary, “Behold the Heart which has so loved humankind that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love … I promise you that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its Divine Love upon those who shall thus honor It, and cause It to be honored.”

The entire purpose of this devotion is to draw a person closer to the heart of Christ. If a person spreads devotion to the Sacred Heart, it is natural for him or her to be closer to God. The moment that this devotion is observed in a superstitious manner, neglecting the need to live a virtuous life, all bets are off and Jesus’ promises are null and void.

Jesus wants us to rest on his heart, like St. John, and the Sacred Heart devotion is an opportunity for us to encounter him more than just on Sundays and to deepen our love of him.

12 Promises of the Sacred Heart Devotion

• I will give them all the graces necessary in their state of life.
• I will establish peace in their homes.
• I will comfort them in all their afflictions.
• I will be their secure refuge during life, and above all, in death.
• I will bestow abundant blessings upon all their undertakings.
• Sinners will find in my heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy.
• Lukewarm souls shall become fervent.
• Fervent souls shall quickly mount to high perfection.
• I will bless every place in which an image of my heart is exposed and honored.
• I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts.
• Those who shall promote this devotion shall have their names written in my Heart.
• I promise you in the excessive mercy of my Heart that my all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on the First Fridays in nine consecutive months the grace of final perseverance; they shall not die in my disgrace, nor without receiving their sacraments. My divine heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.

V. Lord, have mercy on us.
R. Christ, have mercy on us.
V. Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, hear us.
R. Christ, graciously hear us.

V. God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, Son of the Eternal Father, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, formed in the womb of the Virgin Mother by the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, united substantially to the Word of God.
Heart of Jesus, of infinite majesty.
Heart of Jesus, holy temple of God.
Heart of Jesus, tabernacle of the Most High.
Heart of Jesus, house of God and gate of heaven.
Heart of Jesus, glowing furnace of charity.
Heart of Jesus, vessel of justice and love.
Heart of Jesus, full of goodness and love.
Heart of Jesus, abyss of all virtues.
Heart of Jesus, most worthy of all praise.
Heart of Jesus, King and center of all hearts.
Heart of Jesus, in whom art all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Heart of Jesus, in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead.
Heart of Jesus, in whom the Father was well pleased.
Heart of Jesus, of whose fullness we have all received.
Heart of Jesus, desire of the everlasting hills.
Heart of Jesus, patient and rich in mercy.
Heart of Jesus, rich to all who call upon Thee.
Heart of Jesus, fount of life and holiness.
Heart of Jesus, propitiation for our offenses.
Heart of Jesus, overwhelmed with reproaches.
Heart of Jesus, bruised for our iniquities.
Heart of Jesus, obedient even unto death.
Heart of Jesus, pierced with a lance.
Heart of Jesus, source of all consolation.
Heart of Jesus, our life and resurrection.
Heart of Jesus, our peace and reconciliation.
Heart of Jesus, victim for our sins.
Heart of Jesus, salvation of those who hope in Thee.
Heart of Jesus, hope of those who die in Thee.
Heart of Jesus, delight of all saints.

V. Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world,
R. spare us, O Lord.
V. Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world,
R. graciously hear us, O Lord.
V. Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world,
R. have mercy on us.

V. Jesus, meek and humble of Heart,
R. Make our hearts like unto Thine.

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, look upon the Heart of Thy well-beloved Son and upon the acts of praise and satisfaction which He renders unto Thee in the name of sinners; and do Thou, in Thy great goodness, grant pardon to them who seek Thy mercy, in the name of the same Thy Son, Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, world without end. Amen.

Day 1 – June 2, 2021

The Heart of Christ, Apostle of the Kingdom, comes out to meet us and give us life

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the limitless love God has for humanity. It beats for us — to give us life, to purify us, and to unite us in one body.  Just as the heart receives blood that has been emptied of oxygen and then returns it to course throughout the whole body filled with nutrients, Jesus Christ assumes our humanity, receives our sin, redeems it, and transforms it into life. 

To be an apostle is to live within the heart of Christ.  Whoever knows the One who gave his own life so that we “may have life and have it abundantly” (see John 10:10) begins to be imbued with his convictions, his attitudes, his love.  They begin to experience the mystery of a gift they cannot contain: Christ Himself, and they become his apostles.

Prayer 

Christ Jesus, give us the grace of experiencing the strength of your love.  Help us to live within your Sacred Heart so that by remaining united to you and imbued with your feelings, your way of seeing and acting, we can synchronize our heartbeats with yours and you may live in us and through us.  Amen.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Give me an apostle’s heart like yours.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Help me live within your Heart.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Your Kingdom Come!

---

Day 2 – June 3, 2021

The apostle’s heart beats in a two-part rhythm: contemplative and evangelizing

The Heart of Jesus beats for us.  He loves us always: he welcomes us with mercy, he gives himself up for us.

The heart is a muscle that beats non-stop in a two-part rhythm, expanding to receive and contracting to send.  Without the constant pattern of these two movements,  which are complementary and inseparable, the heart simply does not  work. The same is true of the heart of the apostle. Moved by the impulse of love, it beats in two movements: contemplative and evangelizing.

To contemplate is not only to look, but above all to receive and welcome; to evangelize is not only to preach, but above all to give and transmit. To be contemplative is to discover and welcome God,  present in the different realities of life; to be an evangelizer is to know how to communicate through living. Being contemplative and evangelizing is the existential attitude that allows us to enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ, to know Him intimately, to love Him, to share life with Him and be his witnesses. 

Prayer 

Christ Jesus, give us the grace of experiencing the strength of your love. Help us to live within your Sacred Heart so that by remaining united to you and imbued with your feelings, your way of seeing and acting, we can synchronize our heartbeats with yours and you may live in us and through us. Amen.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Give me an apostle’s heart like yours.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Help me live within your Heart.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Your Kingdom Come!

---

Day 3 – June 4, 2021

The Heart of Jesus is wounded by our sin, but from that wound he restores us

The Heart of Jesus is wounded by our sin. Sin divides and makes us live in a fragmented way. At some point or situation in life we all experience a fracture between God, the world, and our brothers and sisters. There is a confrontation between the deep yearning that our hearts have for God and the sin that seduces us and drags us down, between the desire to love Christ and the inability to see Him in our neighbor which makes us isolate and compartmentalize the various facets of our life, and leads us to say with St Paul “I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I do not want” (Romans 7:19). 

When an organ in the body does not receive the blood that the heart pumps, it becomes sick and dies. Sin is the obstacle that blocks the coming of grace; yet from the wound in Christ’s heart flow water and blood, forgiveness and life, the spring of salvation for all people. Living immersed within the heart of Christ restores unity in us.

Prayer 

Christ Jesus, give us the grace of experiencing the strength of your love. Help us to live within your Sacred Heart so that by remaining united to you and imbued with your feelings, your way of seeing and acting, we can synchronize our heartbeats with yours and you may live in us and through us. Amen.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Give me an apostle’s heart like yours.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Help me live within your Heart.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Your Kingdom Come!

---

Day 4 – June 5, 2021

The Heart of Christ the Apostle unifies us in a vocation and a mission 

The Heart of Jesus unifies the human and the divine. Through it we can see God’s heart in all its tenderness, goodness, and mercy.  “From the infinite horizon of his love, God wished to enter into the limits of human history and the human condition. He took on a body and a heart. Thus, we can contemplate and encounter the infinite in the finite, the invisible and ineffable Mystery in the human Heart of Jesus” (Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus June 1, 2008).

The heart is  a physical organ that responds to feelings, it is where the body integrates with the soul. If we live within the mystery of Christ the Apostle—letting him live in us and through us—everything that happens to us is integrated into a vocation and mission, coming to love and find God in all things and all things in Him.

Prayer 

Christ Jesus, give us the grace of experiencing the strength of your love. Help us to live within your Sacred Heart so that by remaining united to you and imbued with your feelings, your way of seeing and acting, we can synchronize our heartbeats with yours and you may live in us and through us. Amen.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Give me an apostle’s heart like yours.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Help me live within your Heart.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Your Kingdom Come!

---

Day 5 – June 6, 2021

Listening to the harmonious heartbeat of the Sacred Heart impels us to beat with love with Him

The heart is the place of interiority. Silence is the key that opens the door of the inner life, and allows us to hear a heartbeat. In deep silence we become aware of our being, decipher our needs and those of others, and discover with amazement the action of God in us. Silence allows us to contemplate. St. John reclined on the heart of the Master and listened to the wonderful language of his heartbeat. Listening to the heartbeat of the Sacred Heart brightens the soul and warms the hearts in which love has become cold. In the palpitations of the Heart of Christ the Apostle, we discover the gift of effusive love that God offers for free, which leads us to marvel, to give thanks, to be generous. Contemplating the meek, humble, and merciful Heart of Jesus invites us to rest in Him, to abandon ourselves in Him, to let our own heart beat with love together with Him,  casting ourselves into a complete surrender like his. It moves us to evangelize,  to give away that same priceless gift  without recompense of any kind. “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give” (Matthew 10:8)

Prayer 

Christ Jesus, give us the grace of experiencing the strength of your love. Help us to live within your Sacred Heart so that by remaining united to you and imbued with your feelings, your way of seeing and acting, we can synchronize our heartbeats with yours and you may live in us and through us. Amen.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Give me an apostle’s heart like yours.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Help me live within your Heart.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Your Kingdom Come!

---

Day 6 – June 7, 2021

The Heart of Christ the Apostle is contemplative in evangelization

The heart does not produce blood, but delivers the blood it receives, and if it does not expand first in order to be filled, it cannot give anything. Just so the apostle of the Kingdom must be “united to the vine” (see John 15:1-8) to speak of what he has “seen, heard, and felt”  (see John 1:1). Jesus Christ does not proclaim himself. He is the Apostle of the Father, and through his humanity he makes palpable the mystery of the love of the Trinitarian God. If one does not know the One whom they seek to transmit, they only proclaim themselves. Only by learning to be with Him and in Him can we go out and speak in His Name.

Every true act of evangelization is carried out in a contemplative spirit. We need to contemplate the people around us and the circumstances of the world with the gaze of Christ and with the feelings of his Sacred Heart, to see everything as he sees it and thus discover what he is doing and how he wants to work through us. 

Prayer 

Christ Jesus, give us the grace of experiencing the strength of your love. Help us to live within your Sacred Heart so that by remaining united to you and imbued with your feelings, your way of seeing and acting, we can synchronize our heartbeats with yours and you may live in us and through us. Amen.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Give me an apostle’s heart like yours.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Help me live within your Heart.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Your Kingdom Come!

---

Day 7 – June 8, 2021

The Heart of Christ the Apostle is evangelizing in contemplation 

Just as the heart has to give up all the blood it receives because it is unable to just keep it contained for itself, an apostle of the Kingdom cannot stay in contemplation alone, they have to act. Contemplating human beings wounded by sin, God goes out to meet them by assuming his own humanity and offering his life for them. Contemplating the crowd that did not have food to eat,  Jesus felt compassion and multiplied five loaves and two fish until what he provided left them satisfied. The heart of Christ the Apostle looks at us, knows us, welcomes us, and calls us as the Good Shepherd of the Gospel, not content with giving his life for us on the cross, he remains with us in the Eucharist, gives us his Mother, and sends the Holy Spirit to act in us as a torrent of living water. Still today, he gives all of these to us to continue to knock on our door: he gives us the gift of devotion to his Sacred Heart, to Divine Mercy.

Those who truly contemplate, evangelize,  and if they do not do so they cease to be contemplative, because this Life that is present in the soul agonizes and does not develop  when it cannot express itself in the gift of self to others. Looking  at  the pierced Heart of Christ, each one person experiences the gift of gratutitous love, and that experience cannot be hidden or contained. Like St. Paul, the need to exclaim  “We are impelled by the love of Christ” springs from the depths of the soul (see 2Cor 5:14) as well as “Woe to me if I do not proclaim the Gospel!” (see 1Cor  9:16).

Prayer 

Christ Jesus, give us the grace of experiencing the strength of your love. Help us to live within your Sacred Heart so that by remaining united to you and imbued with your feelings, your way of seeing and acting, we can synchronize our heartbeats with yours and you may live in us and through us. Amen.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Give me an apostle’s heart like yours.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Help me live within your Heart.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Your Kingdom Come!

---

Day 8 – June 9, 2021

Living with a heart  that’s in love

The heart is the symbol and place of love. The Sacred Heart of Jesus burns with love for humanity, and loves us with a passionate, faithful, magnanimous, creative love. This loving  heart yearns for us to love Him and let him love through us so that in him we may find true life and fulfillment in love.  

To love with a heart like Christ’s is to be aware of our fragility redeemed by his mercy. The  experience of being weak but also being alive because of love introduces us to the Easter wisdom of dying in order to live and give life. The  experience  of  discovering  that God “makes all things new” (see  Acts  21:5) leads us to live with a heart that is in love.   This is the Love that never stops making us good Samaritans who go out to meet the pressing needs of our neighbor. Christ’s fidelity,  his constant forgiveness, is what keeps alive in us the certainty of knowing “in whom we have placed our hope” (see 2Tim  1:12).  This leads us to face the challenges of life with strength, putting our whole being into our work and offering our own poverty and fragility, because our confidence is not in ourselves, but in him.

Prayer 

Christ Jesus, give us the grace of experiencing the strength of your love. Help us to live within your Sacred Heart so that by remaining united to you and imbued with your feelings, your way of seeing and acting, we can synchronize our heartbeats with yours and you may live in us and through us. Amen.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Give me an apostle’s heart like yours.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Help me live within your Heart.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Your Kingdom Come!

---

Day 9 – June 10, 2021

The Heart of Jesus Is Alive

Christ is alive, loving and acting in us now, through his Spirit, to bring us to the Father. He is alive, acting and loving in service of others and the world. We want to be contemplative and evangelizing so we can be more and more in harmony with Him, accepting his love, perceiving his action, discovering the flashes of his light in us and around us, discovering the darkness where he wants to shine brighter, and lending him our whole being so that he may love and act through us.

Prayer 

Christ Jesus, give us the grace of experiencing the strength of your love. Help us to live within your Sacred Heart so that by remaining united to you and imbued with your feelings, your way of seeing and acting, we can synchronize our heartbeats with yours and you may live in us and through us. Amen.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Give me an apostle’s heart like yours.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Help me live within your Heart.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Your Kingdom Come!

A Reflection by Jeff Cavins

When you were just a child, who did you cry out for when you were hurt?  I distinctly remember as a child, screaming out in that elongated wail, "Mommmmmmmy!"  Even if I was hurt and could save that cry until getting home, the moment I saw my mother the tears began to flow.  It's as if I instinctively knew that mom was the only one to comfort and tend to my needs, unlike anyone else.  Dad would explain why I got hurt; mom would console me and look into my immediate need.  Each Christmas, I'm reminded of the care Mary gave Jesus even when he was in her womb.  I'm amazed that Jesus gave me his mother, what a gift.

Even though we grow older, our need for a mother is still very real.  In John 2:1-11, Jesus shows up at a wedding in Cana, accompanied by his mother, Mary.  In the midst of the wedding, Mary points out to Jesus a "concrete aspect of human need, apparently a small one of little importance, 'they have no wine'" (Mother of the Redeemer, St. John Paul II. No. 21).

From the very beginning of the Church, Mary has held an esteemed place as the "Mother of God" and the mother of all who believe.  It was at the cross that Jesus gave himself completely.  A part of his complete gift to us was the gifting of his mother to us (John 19:26-27), the same mother that raised him and comforted him as a child.  Her role in the kingdom of God is unique, as she has been given to believers as a spiritual mother who intercedes and acts as an advocate on their behalf.  Mary is in a real way what we are all to become, someone who is without sin and in total union with the will of God.  What many do not understand is that the role of Mary as the "Queen of Heaven" is not an invention of the Catholic Church, but the continuation of a role established clear back in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Western culture understands that the queen of a kingdom is the wife of the king, but in the days of the Bible, the "Queen" was understood as the mother of the king.  We see that in Solomon's life, he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines.  There was only one person in Solomon's life that was unique, and that was his mother.  The mother of the king was celebrated as a unique position in relation to the king.  In the Old Testament (1 Kings 2:13-20; 1 Kings 15:9-13; Jeremiah 13:18-20), we see that the Queen Mother was an actual office in the Kingdom known as the Gebirah.  She was an intercessor and advocate for the people of God and was given responsibility for the care of the people.  While the Queen Mother was not mentioned often, she nevertheless played an important role in the relationship between the people and the king.

St. John Paul II clarified so well what took place at the wedding of Cana and offers us encouragement in our own lives.  In John's text, "the description of the Cana event outlines what is actually manifested as a new kind of motherhood according to the spirit and not just according to the flesh, that is to say Mary's solicitude for human beings, her coming to them in the wide variety of their wants and needs" (Mother of the Redeemer. No. 21).

St. John Paul II pointed out that Mary's statement has a symbolic value: this coming to the aid of human needs means, at the same time, bringing those needs within the radius of Christ's messianic mission and salvific power.  Thus, there is a mediation: Mary places herself between her Son and mankind in the reality of their wants, needs, and sufferings.  She puts herself in the middle, that is to say she acts as a mediatrix--not as an outsider, but in her position as mother.  She knows that as such she can point out to her Son the needs of mankind, and in fact, she has the right to do so" (no. 21).

What are your "wants, needs, and sufferings?"  Even as adults, we are hurt, bruised, and confused.  Take advantage of the wonderful gift God has given to you, a Queen Mother who cares.  Yes, it's true that you are no longer a child, but you have not lost the need for direction and comfort.  Go ahead; cry out to your heavenly mother.  She cares.

A Few Things To Do:

1.  Take some time this week to pray the rosary.  The rosary beats the rhythm of human life and you can find aspects of your life in the joyful, sorrowful, luminous, and glorious mysteries.  Your heavenly mother will take you through the life of Christ and intercede for you.  She did an excellent job raising Jesus, so let her help you.

2.  Make a list of your wants, needs, and sufferings.  Remember that a mother notices every detail in the life of her child--therefore nothing is too small.  Take this list to Mary in prayer, and trust in her intercession.