Sacred Heart of Jesus

The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus honors the physical heart of Christ as the sign and symbol of His boundless, redeeming love for mankind, and through it the whole of His love, human and divine. Though rooted in the Scriptures, especially in the piercing of the Lord's side on the cross from which flowed blood and water, and cherished by many medieval saints, the devotion received its great impulse from a series of revelations granted to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitation nun at Paray-le-Monial in France, in the years around 1673 to 1675.

In these revelations the Lord showed her His Heart burning with love and encircled with thorns, lamenting the ingratitude of men, and asked for a return of love, for acts of reparation, for the reception of Holy Communion on the first Friday of each month, and for the establishment of a feast in His Heart's honor. He made great promises to those who would honor His Heart. Spread especially by the Jesuits, the devotion became one of the most beloved and widespread in the Church. The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart is kept on the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi.