The other day I was showing a young woman in her thirties a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She was alarmed that His heart was on fire It took a few minutes for me to grasp what she had said. Then it dawned on me that she did not know the story of the Sacred Heart. After ten years in the priesthood I continue to be shocked by the ignorance of most Catholics in regard to our faith. Perhaps, I shouldn’t be shocked. I certainly was not taught the meaning of the Sacred Heart. I was not taught to pray the rosary or even to pray before our Eucharistic Lord. None of these vital practices of faith were ever taught or encouraged at my seminary. I learned them through my own reading and study and, thank God, through the devotion of lay people. The ignorance of faith and the lack of these devotions has resulted in the abandonment of the Catholic faith by countless numbers of people. There is little to hold them in allegiance to the Catholic Church. They have little or no way of distinguishing themselves from Protestants or even other religions. 

The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is surely a summary of the Catholic faith and a compendium of Catholic piety. Our Lord Jesus Christ came out of the Host to reveal His Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary Allacoque in a cloistered convent in France in the 17th Century. His Sacred Heart demonstrates His infinite and compassionate love for us, To use popular terms: he has fallen in love with each one of us and wants us to fall in love with Him. He desires our love not only to comfort Him but also to enliven us. Only when we return His love with love do we truly come alive. Love gives life. His love gives us life, our love for Him enables Him to live in us. There is another 17th Century saint from France who teaches us another dimension of the Sacred Heart. He is St. John Eudes. He more clearly elucidates our love for Jesus. "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." Words need to be put into practice. Particularly do we show our love for Him when we love others as He loves us. This means that the patience, the mercy and kindness of His Sacred Heart are reflected in our relationship with others. We seek in a spiritual way to exchange hearts with Jesus, to give Him our hearts so that He may transform them into His Sacred Heart 

The revelation of His Sacred Heart took place while St. Margaret Mary was adoring our Lord in the the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. The Sacred Heart and the Blessed Sacrament are inextricably united. To look upon the Host in the monstrance is to behold His heart ablaze with love for all the world and for each one of us. 

Our Lady's Immaculate heart comforts and instructs us. Our Lord gave us His mother while she stood at the foot of His Cross. She stands beside us with her loving heart to comfort and strengthen us as only our mother can. Her Immaculate Heart can teach us how to love her Son. She can teach us how to trust and obey Him. It is only when we trust and obey Him that we are truly loving Him. Our Lady can extend all these graces to us if we ask her to be our Mother and Queen, when we consecrate ourselves to her Immaculate Heart or more accurately when we consecrate ourselves to Our Lord's Sacred Heart through her Immaculate heart. 

Praying the rosary daily and wearing the brown scapular are signs of our consecration. 

  We go through Mary to Jesus in the first instance because our Heavenly Father gave us Jesus through Mary and secondly because our Mother and Queen can best teach us how to love our Lord, her Son. 

I encourage you to consecrate yourself, your marriage and family to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The blue Army has the forms for the consecration. It is vital, particularly today, for a family to consciously enthrone Our Lord in their hearts and home. A picture or statue of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, placed in a prominent place in the house, will remind the family and visitors that the Sacred Heart reigns supreme in this family and home.