Keeping All These Things In Our Hearts

    These past weeks (with the exception of last week), we have been reflecting upon our devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  In his book, Enthronement of the Sacred Heart, Father Francis Larkin, SS.CC., draws our attention to the importance of the home.  Jesus did not begin by establishing the Church, but He began by sanctifying a home by spending the first 30 years of His 33 years of life on earth in the home at Nazareth.  In many ways, Jesus showed the sacred nature of the home and of marriage.  His first public miracle, at the wedding feast of Cana, took place in a home, and there are many instances in which He visited people in their homes and performed miracles there.  We can think of the Zaccheus, of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, of Saint Peter’s mother-in-law, of the healing of the centurion’s servant and more.  

If Jesus showed such love for the home when He was on earth, we would expect Him to show the same love now that He is in Heaven.  The Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is one way to welcome Jesus fully into the circle of our home-life and to allow Him to reign there and to perform His miracles of grace.  

What is the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart?  It is a practice in which an image of the Sacred Heart is enthroned in a prominent place in the home, typically combined with the Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart, as a way of publicly proclaiming that the Sacred Heart of Jesus rules over the family.  It is also an act of reparation for offenses committed against His Heart.  The Enthronement is not just a blessing of a picture of the Sacred Heart in the home.  That is a good practice, but the Enthronement is much more.  When the image of the Sacred Heart is enthroned, the ceremony is conducted in a public fashion and the image is given a prominent place in the public space of the home, not in a bedroom, for example.  The enthroned image becomes a place for prayer in the home and sign that Jesus is permitted to reign as sovereign King over all members of the family (even over those who may not understand His reign yet).  When the enthrone the Sacred Heart, we are giving Jesus permission to enter and guide the life of our home.

The Enthronement is not just an act of devotion.  It is much more!  It is a way of life.  The Enthronement brings the Person of Jesus Christ into our everyday life and welcomes Him into all the details of our home life.  There is a ceremony for the enthronement and the consecration to the Sacred Heart.  I highly recommend Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey’s book, Jesus King of Love.  Father Crawley-Boevey began the apostolate for the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  The above-mentioned book by Father Larkin is excellent. There is also a book, The Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, edited by His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke and published by the Marian Catechist Apostolate, which includes the ceremony for the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart.  Many books about the Sacred Heart of Jesus and beautiful images of the Sacred Heart are available through the Marian Catechist Apostolate Bookstore at: mariancatechist.com/bookstore/index.html .  Some books and flyers are also available at the parish.  Please approach Father Matthew Bartulica or Sister M. Regina if you are interested in obtaining one of the books.  May the Sacred Heart of Jesus reign in our homes!