Over the past couple of weeks, I have been asked by a few people if I had plans for the next series for my bulletin articles. I answered that nothing specific had come up, but I was certainly open to being nudged by the Holy Spirit, as happened with the last two series. Well, that nudge came the week after Christmas while I was with our seminarians for their annual Christmas gathering. It has been our practice to have Bishop Paprocki meet with them as a group the morning before they depart. This year, he brought up a few different topics, one of which piqued my interest. He shared with the men that at November’s gathering of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the bishops voted to consecrate our country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 2026 as a part of our country’s 250th anniversary. This will likely take place in June, which is the month of the Sacred Heart. The idea that formed in my mind as Bishop mentioned this was to focus on the Sacred Heart for the next several months as a way of preparing ourselves for this important moment in the life of the Church here in the United States.
In 1846, the Bishops of the United States had approved the decision to place our country under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception, which was approved by Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1847. In this most recent decision to consecrate our country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the bishops do not see any conflict, for Mary is intimately united with Jesus, and it was in light of the Incarnation of Jesus that she was given the special privilege of the Immaculate Conception. This mystery only makes sense in light of Christ, the Word made flesh, who came to us through the humanity of Mary. Therefore there is no problem with this proposed consecration.
Personally, in addition to devotion to Mary, especially in the Rosary, my other favorite devotion is to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so I was very excited to hear about this decision. I have always been fascinated by the heart, having grown up making regular visits to the cardiologist to check on my heart which had been affected by a congenital defect to my aorta, the major artery that delivers oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body. When I discovered devotion to the Sacred Heart in my mid-twenties, it was something I immediately was drawn to and has continued to be a rich source of reflection for my spiritual life.
In particular, I love the Litany of the Sacred Heart, a prayer which includes 33 invocations that describe various qualities of the Heart of Jesus. The number 33 is intentional as it corresponds to the 33 years in which Jesus lived among us from His birth in Bethlehem to His Ascension into Heaven following His Resurrection. Each of these invocations offer an image that invite us to reflect more deeply on the gift of Jesus’s love for us.
Here is what I am proposing. Each week, I would like to reflect on one of the invocations from the Litany of the Sacred Heart. The number of Sundays between now and the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart (June 12) is less than 33, so I will not be able to touch on all of them. I need to do some more praying about which ones to include, to see if there is a pattern I want to follow, or if I want to just choose the ones that I like the best. We will see what the Holy Spirit has in mind, but in the meantime, we can pray the final invocation, which is technically not part of the 33, but which, in some ways, summarizes the whole prayer, and it just happens to be my favorite part of the prayer:
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto Thine!