Feast Day of the Sacred Heart

PCF Priests are very devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Today, our early morning Holy Mass, like the rest of whole Christendom, was offered in celebration of this devotion.

History of the Devotion
Margaret Mary Alacoque entered the Visitation Convent in 1671 and six years later Christ appeared to her in a vision in which "I could plainly see His heart, pierced and bleeding, yet there were flames, too, coming from it and a crown of thorns around it. He told me to behold His heart which so loved humanity. Then He seemed to take my very heart from me and place it there in His heart. In return He gave me back part of His flaming heart."

In all, there were four revelations, during which the now-familiar Twelve Promises were made, the last of which is responsible for the nine First Fridays' devotion. Also requested by the Sacred Heart was the establishment of a feast in His honor. We now celebrate this Feast of Sacred Heart on the first Friday after the octave of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, in addition to honoring the Sacred Heart every first Friday of the month.

Salesian Connection
The Sacred Heart of Jesus was loved by Francis de Sales whose writings focus deeply on the Divine Love of God for humanity. Salesian spirituality utilizes the heart aflame as a motif for the love shared between God and all Creation. It is not an image of judgment, but of unconditional love: the unconditional, communal love shared by the Triune God and the unconditional, compassionate love of God for humankind.

Margaret Mary was a member of the Visitation, the cloistered sisters founded by Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal. Much of what Margaret Mary experienced in her visions of Jesus was shared by her spiritual director, Claude de Columbiere, SJ, a Jesuit priest, and through her journals.

Oblates' Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
(to be renewed on the first Friday of every month)

O Heart of Jesus, we religious, Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, come to consecrate to you our persons and our lives. We give you our actions, our desires, our troubles, and our sufferings. We give you our apostolates, our foundations, our benefactors, our friends and our families. In the future we wish to live only to honor and love you and bring you glory.

We have made a decision we cannot change - to belong completely to you, to do everything for your love, and to renounce wholeheartedly all that can displease you. It will always be our heart's desire and the aim of our efforts to love you more nad more and also to make you known, loved and served by the souls to whom you send us.

Therefore we take you, O Sacred Heart of Jesus, as the chief object of our love, as the one who protects our lives, guards our apostolates, provides a remedy for our imcompetence, our unfaithfulness, and our instability and makes satisfaction for all the deficiencies in our actions - in one word, as the one who answers for us, our all-powerful aid during life and our secure refuge at the hour of our death.

We know this, O Sacred Heart of Jesus! You are the faithful friend, the heart's intimate friend. You are the one who never deceives nor betrays. You are also our heritage and our possession. We trust ourselves to you. Above all, give us love. Bind our hearts together.

May these hearts which you have brought together in your name and in that of your holy mother be not scattered; those whom you have called together be not dispersed; and those you have joined together be not separated. Grant rather, that the names of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales be written forever in the book of the Living with the just who reign with you in the life of everlasting happiness. Amen.