On the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, we honor Jesus’s inexhaustible divine and human love for God and the world. Celebrated nineteen days after Pentecost, this feast always falls on the Friday after Corpus Christi. Jesus himself requested the celebration of this feast through private revelations to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque of France in 1675.

The Sacred Heart is depicted as a red heart (representing Jesus’s divine and human nature united) encircled by a crown of thorns and pierced in its side (Christ’s Passion) with droplets of blood coming from the wound (Blood of the Lamb). There are flames at the top (the intense warmth of Jesus’s love), a cross (ultimate demonstration of his love for us), and light bursting forth (Light of the World).

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I believe in your love for me.