Ever since I was a child, I have seen many paintings depicting Jesus’ sacred heart and many times they were accompanied by a painting showing Mary’s immaculate heart. There was even a school near where I lived named “Sacred Heart” and many churches. I always found the paintings beautiful, somewhat moving, but never made a difference in my prayer life. This has changed over the last 12 months or so. During my weekly visits to the Adoration Chapel, I have experienced images in my mind of Jesus’ sacred heart. Not static paintings, but an image of Jesus as if he was standing right there in front of me during my prayer time, with his sacred heart right in front of the Holy Eucharist. His heart is alive, pulsating, and filling the chapel with radiant light and love for us. My devotion for and mediation on Jesus’ sacred heart is now part of my daily prayer routine and I daily consecrate my heart to Jesus’ sacred heart through Mary’s immaculate heart. I ask Mary to help me love Jesus like she loves him.

Devotion to Jesus’ sacred heart emerged around the 12th century when St Francis promoted devotion to Jesus’ sacred humanity, how he suffered for us out of divine love, and on his 5 wounds. These devotion grew over the years thanks to the Franciscans and Jesuits. There were a number of mystics that really became close to Jesus through intense meditations on his sacred heart. There were also a number of nuns that said they had private apparitions from Jesus pertaining to this devotion, the most famous being a French nun named Margaret Mary Alacoque. She said Jesus asked us to receive Holy Communion on the first Friday of each month, do Eucharistic adoration during a "Holy hour" on Thursdays, and to institute a Feast of the Sacred Heart. She said that in her vision she was instructed to spend an hour every Thursday night to meditate on Jesus' Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Several popes have promoted devotion to the sacred heart and have consecrated te world to it. In 1856 Pope Pius IX established the Feast of Sacred Heart , to be celebrated on a Friday 19 days after Pentecost.

The Sacred Heart is often shown as a flaming heart shinning with divine light, pierced by the lance-wound, encircled by the crown of thorns, surmounted by a cross and sometimes bleeding. The wounds and crown remind us of his suffering during Christ’s passion and the flames and radiating light reminds us of Jesus’ ardent love for us. For me, meditating on Jesus’ sacred heart helps me unite the intense suffering that Jesus endured as a sacrifice to redeem us and the eternal and intense love that Jesus has for all of us, every day, regardless of how close we are to him. It helps me mediate on the flame of love and to imagine the radiance emanating from his heart filling all my life.

I don’t know the source, but I pray this daily: