The 11th of June is the Feast of the Sacred Heart

The image of the Sacred Heart is familiar to many in the Northwest – it’s a favorite decoration and tattoo in communities like Portland’s Hawthorne District and Seattle’s Capitol Hill. One of the few definitively Catholic symbols that has been universally accepted by popular culture – something about the truth of burning love resonates easily with all.

The place is Burgundy in central France and the year is 1675. A talented young Jesuit by the name of Claude de la Columbiere has professed his final vows in the Society, this after having served the court of Louis XIV as a tutor in the household of the Minister of Finance, Jean-Baptiste Colbert. This most challenging mission had been entrusted to Claude while he was still but a scholastic in training. Now having been ordained and fully professed in obedience he is ripe for a prime mission but instead he is inexplicably sent to this backwater town of Paray-le-Monial. Unbeknownst to Claude, the Church has become aware of a most extraordinary young nun who is experiencing surreal visions of Jesus being scourged and then bleeding on the cross. Claude does not know it but he is being sent to be the spiritual director of one of history’s great mystics.

Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque shares her visions with Claude and a spiritual friendship developed between them. The Jesuit brings to the relationship his own devotion to the Spiritual Exercises and Margaret brings her uncommon openness to God. Together they discern how to communicate the message of the Sacred Heart to the Church and beyond. It is a vision that predates them both – going back at least as far as Saints Bernard, Mechtilde, Bonaventure, & Gertrude. At the center of this shared passion is Christ’s desire that all people know and experience God’s infinite mercy, situated in the very human heart of Jesus.

Pope Leo XIII solemnly consecrated all of humankind to the Sacred Heart in 1899.

Originally posted on May 31st, 2008.