O’ Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
A place to learn about the Sacred Heart of Jesus and its effect on the world today.
Voici le Couer, See His Heart
I’m so happy to see the response from all of you! It’s a wonderful, beautiful thing to see how the sacred heart can affect you all! Although this blog does not have a huge following, which doesn’t matter so much to me. I look at all of you as a group of friends, each connected by a love of Christ and His most Sacred Heart. Hopefully you will share this site and its posts with others, not for my sake, but for that of Jesus. Have a wonderful day and I will work on getting more posts out this week to continue this online devotion to the Sacred Heart.
Lots of love,
Monique Marie
This post is going to be a controversial one for some, however it is an example of some people’s devotion to the Sacred Heart! It’s increasingly become a popular tattoo design in today’s culture, and may not be as sacrilegious as one might think.
While many Christians argue that tattoos are a desecration of their body (which IS the temple of the Holy Spirit) there are those who choose to use the art form as a kind of devotion to Christ. In the Coptic tradition, men have been tattooing the image of Christ’s face or small crosses on their hands and wrists to show that they have received confirmation.This practice has been going on for hundreds of years!
In my opinion, I think it’s a bold step to take, but if It’s done out of sincere devotion and not against Church teaching, then I say go for it. I really admire the one in this picture for its chilling design and intense coloration. However, if I were to ever have a tattoo, I would place it somewhere that I could see it, so as to remind me to always look to Christ as an example. I think that’s why the Coptics choose to have it on their hands and wrists. So as to remind them of Christ’s sacrifice and live in honor of it. I’ll do some more research into Church doctrine and Coptic tradition and let you know what I find.
Always remember that God is good!
“But listen, My daughter, believe not lightly and trust not every spirit, for Satan is enraged and will seek to deceive you. Therefore, do nothing without the approval of those who guide you; being thus under the authority of obedience, his efforts against you will be in vain, for he has no power over the obedient.”
— Jesus speaking to St. Margaret Mary
Interested in the Emmanuel Community?
In February 1972, the Emmanuel Community founder Pierre Goursat (58 year old, hotel manager, art critic and secretary of the Catholic Cinema Office) and the Emmanuel Community co-founder, Martine Laffitte (young medical intern) hear, during a weekend retreat, the testimony of a couple, Xavier (member of the Science Academy) and Brigitte Le Pichon, who just came from the United States where she met the Catholic Renewal.
Pierre Goursat and Martine Laffitte from then on felt that they were called to pray and to work together to announce the Gospel. They humbly abandoned themselves to God’s unexpected works : 5 people were added in the prayer group during the Pentecost of 1972, 500 during the Pentecost of 1973.
In the midst of these prayer groups, in a constant spirit of profound unity, grew and multiplied the number of men and women who began to commit themselves to a more demanding life of prayer, service and evangelization; and to come together daily to deepen their call.
It was afterwards that Pierre Goursat and Martine Laffitte-Catta, would meet a Dominican, Father Albert-Marie de Monléon, (currently the Bishop of Meaux, France). He would give his help to the growing community. Day after day, the later would deepen its graces of praise and joy, would develop its charism in the liturgy and would grow in love and truth in a charity applied in everyday life, while keeping a real flexibility of life, intentionally desired by the founder to be able to be “in the world but not of the world” (Jn 17, 14-18).
The Emmanuel Community was recognized by the Holy See on December 8, 1992, as a “universal association of the faithful” and in 1998 its statutes were officially approved by the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
The Emmanuel Community participates in the accomplishment of the mission of the Church in the modern world by committing itself to be in the world a prayerful presence (through Eucharistic adoration), to work for the poor (by numerous works of compassion towards the isolated, the sick or marginalized), to announce the Love and the Mercy of God for all people (by the evangelization of couples and families, of the young, of persons committed to the working world or the political life).
My own journey with the Sacred Heart
My life has seen a fair amount of rejection. I was the nice kid who didn’t understand the politics of the playground, so my school years saw several cycles of best friends and many days of being alone. By the time I was 20, it really started to hit me after dating people who eventually found me to be too catholic. I had never felt so sad, or alone. Usually, I was confident and happy, even in some of the worst situations, but this time I just could not snap out of it.
I didn’t know what my faith meant to me anymore. Against my will, my mother went and signed me up to go to Madrid for World Youth day with the Emmanuel Community from Paray-le-Monial in France. My mother was raised around the community and even joined it as a teenager, but I still had no idea what they were all about. I was afraid it would be uncomfortable and full of extremely sheltered people out of touch with the world. As it turns out, I was completely wrong.
On the first day we met with our fellow bunk mates who I immediately befriended, thus eliminating my fears of sheltered Catholics. My sister and I went exploring the grounds and the small French village, trying to get a sense of what we could expect out of this experience. The first mass we went to was a bit of a shock. The liturgy was in French and they had at least 1,000 people from a ton of different countries singing praise and worship songs. It was filled with a sense of spirit I had never felt before. Refreshingly genuine is the only way I could describe it. Every morning there was a group of dancers who got on stage and lead people in a group dance to top 20 hits. At first I thought it was really stupid, but then I was convinced by my new French friends to join in. After a morning praise session we had a series of talks from inspiring speakers and performers. However their adorations were what really touched my heart. I remember during one of these adorations there was a speaker who basically quoted the Sacred Heart.
When she spoke abot how much sadness Christ feels from our rejection of Him it really resonated with me. I was wallowing for a stupid little thing that will not effect me in the long term. For some reason it did not click for me until then to feel sorry for Christ, I felt so selfish! And at the same time, I could understand, to a tiny extent, what He was going through. This sudden closeness I felt with Christ made the trip much more fulfilling than anything else. As of now I am still trying to learn more and more about the Sacred Heart. Just like a relationship, it takes nourishment and time. Hopefully, I can continue staying around the Emmanuel Community and spending more time devoted to adoration.
The Sacred Heart Purifies St. Margaret Mary
Like He warned her in the first apparition, Margaret endured incredible suffering from a fever which was miraculously healed after Mary appeared to her one night. Later on, Christ gave her a daunting mission. She would have to endure the pain of Hell in repentance for the sinfulness of the world. This holy woman endured this gracefully and Jesus made the statement that i now most identified with the Sacred Heart:
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love.
But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus. Therefore, I ask of you that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special Feast to honor My Heart, by communicating on that day, and making reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to make amends for the indignities which It has received during the time It has been exposed on the altars.
I promise you that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its Divine Love upon those who shall thus honor It, and cause It to be honored.”
(Source: catholicculture.org)
