Feast of the Sacred Heart

The Feast of the Sacred Heart (properly, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart) is a holy day in the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. It falls 19 days after Pentecost, on a Friday. The earliest possible date is 29 May as in 1818 and 2285. The latest possible date is 2 July as in 1943 and 2038.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus can be clearly traced back at least to the eleventh century. It marked the spirituality of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth century and of Saint Bonaventure and Saint Gertrude in the thirteenth. The beginnings of a devotion toward the love of God as symbolized by the heart of Jesus are found even in the fathers of the Church, Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine of Hippo, Hippolytus of Rome, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr and Cyprian, who used in this regard and . [ [http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=7146 The Liturgical Theology of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart] ]

But the first liturgical feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated, with episcopal approval, on 31 August 1670, in the major seminary of Rennes, France, through the efforts of Saint John Eudes (1602-1680). The Mass and Office composed by this saint were adopted elsewhere also, especially in connection with the spread of devotion to the Sacred Heart following on the revelations of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1649-1690). A Mass of the Sacred Heart won papal approval for use in Poland and Portugal in 1765, and another was approved for Venice, Austria and Spain in 1788. Finally, in 1856, Pope Pius IX established the Feast of the Sacred Heart as obligatory for the whole Church to be celebrated on the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi.

The Mass prayers and readings approved on that occasion were replaced with new texts in 1929, and the Roman Missal published in 1970 provided three sets of prayers and readings, one for each year of the three-year liturgical cycle.

Still later was the insertion of the feast in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints. From Rennes, the devotion spread, but it took the visions of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) for the devotion to become universal.

Since 2002, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is also a special Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests.

The Mass, which is celebrated with white vestments, may be used as a Votive Mass on other days also, especially on the first Friday of each month.

References

External links

* [http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=7146 The Liturgical Theology of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, by Rev. Brian Dunn, Ph.D./J.C.D.]