For many years, February has been designated as heart health month in the United States. But for Catholics, it is really June. That is because the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is always celebrated in June, and that precious heart is the very source of all our spiritual riches and health.
It is no accident that this celebration comes after all the major mysteries of our Catholic faith have been duly commemorated in the liturgical year: the Incarnation and Nativity of our Lord; the Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus; and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. All those mysteries are part and parcel of what Saint Paul refers to as the “inscrutable riches of Christ” (Eph 3:8), and that we might “comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.”(Eph 3:18f)
The heart is the symbol of the center and core of the person. It serves as an integrating vessel, unifying the person into a vibrant, organic whole and encapsulating all that one is and hopes to be. In other words, it stands for one’s deepest self.
The heart is especially associated with love and is considered to be its source. Appropriating this image to Christ, Pope Pius XII in his encyclical on the Sacred Heart said, “The adorable Heart of Jesus Christ began to beat with a love both human and divine after the Virgin Mary generously pronounced her ‘Fiat.’” (“Haurietis Aquas,” 63)
It is a common belief among many that devotion to the Sacred Heart began in the early days of the Church as Christians meditated on the five wounds of Christ crucified, especially on the wound inflicted on his side by the soldier’s lance. This wound was believed to have penetrated his very heart, for Scripture says there flowed from Christ’s side streams of “blood and water.” (Jn 19:34)
That assumption about the origin of the devotion is, however, false. Death by crucifixion was so shameful and horrible in the days of the Roman Empire that it was unthinkable for Christians to have made the cross and the Crucified One the focus of their devotion. Instead, it was belief in Christ as the Good Shepherd that was really the origin of the eventual devotion to the Sacred Heart. The Church agrees, and has thus chosen the parable of the Lost Sheep as the gospel for the solemnity. (Lk 15:3-7)
In the parable, the shepherd foolishly leaves his flock of 99 sheep to go in search for just one that is lost. It is utterly illogical, but Christ’s logic breaks all rules. It is lavish, extravagant love for sinners who are lost. In ordinary circumstances, one of the sheep’s legs would have been broken so it would never again be able to leave the flock, but not so with the Good Shepherd. Instead, he tenderly places the sheep on his shoulders and, with great love and mercy, carries it back to the flock. Then he calls his neighbors to rejoice with him. All of that flows from the unfathomable depths of the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for us sinners.
It is a gift to the Church from the very Heart of Jesus that the last encyclical of Pope Francis, a very extensive and detailed teaching, was on the Sacred Heart. “Dilexit Nos” (“He Loved Us”) was issued on Oct. 24, 2024, just a few months before his final illness and passing into eternal life. It is a treasure trove on the meaning of “heart” and the history of devotion to the Sacred Heart.
The Holy Father speaks about the heart as the integrating center of the person. “‘Heart’ evokes the inmost core of our person, and thus it enables us to understand ourselves in our integrity.” (“Dilexit Nos,” 15)
He laments the fact that today, many live fragmented lives that have become disjointed. We risk losing our center in a world dominated by technology, instant gratification, materialism and hyper subjectivism. So people feel themselves “confused and torn apart,” bereft of an inner principle that can create unity and harmony. “No room is left for the heart.” (DN, 9)
The Pope calls for a recovery of unity in the heart as he beautifully states, “I am my heart, for my heart is what sets me apart, shapes my spiritual identity, and puts me in communion with other people.” (DN, 14) That feeds into his summary that “the Sacred Heart is the unifying principle of all reality.” (DN, 31)
There has always been a strong connection between the priesthood and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Saint John Vianney, patron saint of priests, often said, “The priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus.”
Recognizing that priests are weak, subject to temptation and sin, just like everyone else, Pope Saint John Paul II, in 2002, named the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart as World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests.
Please pray for our priests often.
The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is on Friday, June 27.
Father Edward Kolla is a retired priest of the Diocese.
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