Sacred Heart

A modern stained glass image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

The devotional feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is celebrated today, a celebration that was popular throughout the centuries but intensified in its importance and popularity after the apparition of Jesus to St Margaret Mary Alacoque on June 16, 1675, during the octave of Corpus Christi. Christ asked Margaret Mary to request that a feast of the Sacred Heart be celebrated in reparation for the ingratitude of humanity for the sacrifice Jesus had made for them. The Sacred Heart of Jesus represents not simply His physical heart but His love for all mankind.

An old holy picture of the Sacred Heart

By 1765, the feast was being celebrated throughout France, but it took another almost another century to gain worldwide approval by the Pope, Pius IX, who extended the feast to the universal church in 1856. The Sacred Heart is often depicted in Christian art as a flaming heart shining with divine light, pierced by a lance, surrounded by a crown of thorns, surmounted by a cross, and bleeding. Sometimes the image in over Jesus’ body with his wounded hands pointing at the heart.