Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests



"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" (Jesus to St. Margaret Mary).

Today is the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is also the day Bill and I will participate in the enthronement of the Sacred Heart in our parish and our home. Enthronement of the Sacred Heart is a solemn act of a family giving formal recognition of the kingship of Christ over their family and home and the official, ceremonial beginning of a family's commitment to live out the effects of their recognition of Christ's Kingship. During the Enthronement ceremony, a blessed image of the Sacred Heart is hung in the most prominent place in the house and Sacred Scripture is placed before it. Formal prayers are prayed and then each member of the household signs a certificate of the Covenant. You can learn more about enthronement from Archbishop Raymond L. Burke here.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has as its dogmatic foundation the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. On account of the hypostatic union, every part of our Lord's Human Nature is worthy of adoration. Hence, therefore, we adore His bodily Heart, beating in His Bosom. We also honor the Heart of Jesus as a reminder, or symbol, of His love for us, and we are moved to make Him a return of love, because He has loved us and He is not loved by men. Love, consecration, and reparation are the characteristic acts of this devotion. In this form it is now solemnly approved by the Church.

On the feast of the Sacred Heart celebrated on the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi an act of reparation is prescribed for recitation in every church in the world. On the feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King, the last Sunday of October, an act of consecration of the human race is prescribed. Though this devotion was practiced by saintly souls before 1675, it is due to the apparitions of our Lord to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque in the Visitation Monastery at Paray-le-Monial that the feast of the Sacred Heart is now kept on the day assigned by Our Lord. You can find a good history of the devotion to the Sacred Heart here and here.

The Congregation for the Clergy has also declared today to be the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests.

Here is the message to all priests explaining this important day:
It Is on Prayer That the Effectiveness of Action Depends and the Prayers for Priests, both for priests to say for themselves, and for lay people to say for priests.
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