“From the depth of my nothingness, I prostrate myself before Thee, O Most Sacred, Divine and Adorable Heart of Jesus, to pay Thee all the homage of love, praise and adoration in my power. Amen.” ~ St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
Today marks the day we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. This beautiful celebration was instituted by the Church to counter the Calvinism and Jansenism claims of the 16th and 17th centuries which ignored the love of God and the reasons for the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus and thereby proclaimed that all humanity was damned. The feast was a result of the appearances of our Lord to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1673-1675.
In speaking to the saint, Jesus said:
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus. Therefore, I ask of you that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special Feast to honor My Heart, by communicating on that day, and making reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to make amends for the indignities which It has received during the time It has been exposed on the altars. I promise you that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its Divine Love upon those who shall thus honor It, and cause It to be honored.”
For a more information on this feast, please visit CatholicCulture.org or watch this video:
Prayers and novenas can be found HERE and HERE.
And, finally, the text of the the revelation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in Paral-le-Monial, France can be found HERE.
