The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus celebrates the love of Christ for every person, symbolized by his human heart, pierced on the Cross and burning with love. It is kept on the Friday after the Second Sunday after Pentecost, nineteen days after Pentecost, and in 2027 it falls on Friday, June 4. June is traditionally the month of the Sacred Heart. Below are the dates, the meaning and history of the feast, the consecration of the family to the Sacred Heart, and short prayers for the day.
Dates of the feast
| Year | Solemnity of the Sacred Heart | Immaculate Heart of Mary (the next day) |
|---|---|---|
| 2027 | Friday, June 4 | Saturday, June 5 |
| 2028 | Friday, June 23 | Saturday, June 24 |
Because the date depends on Easter, it moves each year, always falling on a Friday in June or late May. The Immaculate Heart of Mary is celebrated the next day. A novena to the Sacred Heart is traditionally prayed in the nine days before.
What the feast celebrates
The heart has always stood for a person’s inner life and love. In honoring the Sacred Heart, Catholics honor the Person of Jesus, true God and true man, and especially his human and divine love for us: the love that made him take flesh, die on the Cross and give himself in the Eucharist. When the soldier’s lance opened his side, “immediately there came out blood and water” (John 19:34), which the Fathers saw as the birth of the Church and her sacraments. The Sacred Heart is often shown crowned with thorns, pierced, burning with flames and surmounted by a cross: love that suffers and does not give up.
History
- Medieval mystics such as St. Gertrude the Great and St. Mechtilde meditated on the wounded Heart of Jesus.
- St. John Eudes (1601–1680) composed the first liturgical office and Mass of the Sacred Heart.
- St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitation nun at Paray-le-Monial in France, received a series of visions of Christ from 1673 to 1675. He showed her his Heart, “which has so loved men,” and asked for a feast in its honor on the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, for Communion of reparation on the first Fridays of the month, and for a Holy Hour. See St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and the First Friday devotion.
- 1856: Pope Pius IX extended the feast to the whole Church.
- 1899: Pope Leo XIII consecrated the whole human race to the Sacred Heart, calling it the greatest act of his pontificate.
- 1928 and 1956: Pope Pius XI wrote on reparation to the Sacred Heart, and Pope Pius XII devoted an encyclical, Haurietis Aquas, to the devotion.
- Today: at the wish of Pope St. John Paul II, the feast is also the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests. See the prayer for priests.
Consecration of the family to the Sacred Heart
Many families consecrate their homes to the Sacred Heart on this feast, often by “enthroning” an image of the Sacred Heart in a place of honor. This prayer for the consecration of a family was indulgenced by Pope Pius X in 1908:
Sacred Heart of Jesus, Who didst manifest to St. Margaret Mary the desire of reigning in Christian families, we today wish to proclaim Thy most complete regal dominion over our own. We would live in future with Thy life, we would cause to flourish in our midst those virtues to which Thou hast promised peace here below, we would banish far from us the spirit of the world which Thou hast cursed; and Thou shalt reign over our hearts by the whole-hearted love which we shall keep alive for Thee by the frequent reception of Thy divine Eucharist.
O divine Heart, deign to preside over our assemblings, to bless our enterprises, both spiritual and temporal, to dispel our cares, to sanctify our joys, and to alleviate our sufferings. If ever one or the other of us should have the misfortune to afflict Thee, remind him, O Heart of Jesus, that Thou art good and merciful to the penitent sinner. And when the hour of separation strikes, when death shall come to cast mourning into our midst, we will all, both those who go and those who stay, be submissive to Thy eternal decrees. We will console ourselves with the thought that a day will come when the entire family, reunited in heaven, can sing forever Thy glories and Thy mercies.
May the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the glorious Patriarch St. Joseph, present this consecration to Thee, and keep it in our minds all the days of our life. All glory to the Heart of Jesus, our King and our Father.
Short prayers to the Sacred Heart
These traditional aspirations, each indulgenced by the popes of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, can be prayed throughout the day:
May the Heart of Jesus be loved everywhere.
Jesus, meek and humble of Heart, make my heart like unto Thine.
May the Heart of Jesus in the most Blessed Sacrament be praised, adored, and loved with grateful affection, at every moment, in all the tabernacles of the world, even to the end of time. Amen.
Sweet Heart of my Jesus, make me love Thee ever more and more!
Sweet Heart of Jesus be my love.
Heart of Jesus, burning with love of us, inflame our heart with love of Thee.
The great litany of the feast is the Litany of the Sacred Heart, and the Chaplet of the Sacred Heart is another beloved devotion.
How to celebrate the feast
- Go to Mass. The solemnity is not a holy day of obligation, but it is a day of great joy; Friday abstinence is lifted because it is a solemnity.
- Make an act of reparation for sins against the love of Christ, as Jesus asked St. Margaret Mary.
- Consecrate or renew the consecration of your family with the prayer above.
- Spend an hour before the Blessed Sacrament. See the Holy Hour.
- Pray for priests, on their world day of prayer.
- Begin the First Fridays if you have never made them.
Frequently asked questions
When is the Feast of the Sacred Heart in 2027?
Friday, June 4, 2027, nineteen days after Pentecost.
Is the Sacred Heart a holy day of obligation?
No. It is a solemnity of the universal Church but not a day of obligation. Because it is a solemnity, Catholics are not bound to abstain from meat that Friday.
Why is the Sacred Heart feast on a Friday?
Because Jesus asked St. Margaret Mary for a feast on the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, and Friday is the day of his Passion, when his Heart was pierced.
What is the difference between the Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy?
Both devotions honor the merciful love of Jesus. The Sacred Heart devotion, from St. Margaret Mary in the seventeenth century, centers on his Heart and reparation; Divine Mercy, from St. Faustina in the twentieth, centers on trust in his mercy. See Divine Mercy Sunday.
More prayers
- Patron saint of heart problems
- Sacred Heart novena
- Litany of the Sacred Heart
- First Friday devotion
- Morning Offering
- Immaculate Heart of Mary
- Corpus Christi
Texts and sources
- C. J. Callan and J. A. McHugh, Blessed Be God (1925), Devotions to the Sacred Heart: Consecration of the Family (Pius X, 1908) and indulgenced ejaculations, public domain (Wikisource).
- John 19:34 (Douay-Rheims).