Archbishop Bernard Hebda reflected on the truths of human dignity as people across the United States prepare to celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary and the U.S. bishops prepare to consecrate the nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 11. 

“Even though I’m still struggling to pronounce semiquincentennial, I’m pretty excited about the upcoming 250th anniversary of our nation’s Declaration of Independence,” Archbishop Hebda said in his monthly “Together on the Journey” video released June 8. 

“I realize that 250 years might not sound like much to a Roman or to a Greek or to any other successor of ancient civilizations who can speak of their history in terms of millennia rather than centuries. But 250 still seems to me to be something to celebrate,” the archbishop said. 

The American experiment promoting human happiness continues to be “a source of hope in the modern world,” despite these ideals sometimes seeming “more aspiration than descriptive,” Archbishop Hebda continued in the video, which can be viewed on the archdiocese’s website at archspm.org/togetheronthejourney. 

The archbishop said he is grateful that the framers of the Declaration of Independence boldly recognized self-evident truths, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. 

“Those fundamental rights don’t flow from a concession from our government, but rather from the will of the loving God who willed each one of us into being, creating us in his own image and likeness,” he said.  

“Each of us has immeasurable dignity precisely because of God’s plan and his love for his creation,” Archbishop Hebda said. “Sadly, there have been times when it’s been difficult for us to grasp just how much our God loves us.” 

The solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 12 is a golden opportunity to contemplate God’s love for us, Archbishop Hebda said, noting promotion of the devotion by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque of France after she encountered Jesus in visions.  

In the visions, Jesus invited the Visitation sister to share with the world a devotion to his Sacred Heart. 

“Jesus expressed his deep sufferings not from his crucifixion but rather from our lack of love,” Archbishop Hebda said. “The solemnity of the Sacred Heart, which takes place in June every year, was added to the Church calendar in 1856 to invite our universal Church to respond to Jesus’ love and the mercy he desires to give us. Love and mercy are forever united in the heart of our Lord.” 

From June 10-12, the U.S. bishops will gather for the annual U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) meeting in Orlando, Florida. 

There, they will consecrate the nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus with the hope that leading up to that consecration, each bishop will have invited parishes and individuals to complete 250 hours of adoration and 250 works of mercy, Archbishop Hebda said.  

Archbishop Hebda invited Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to participate in the June 11 consecration. Special prayers and devotional materials can be found on the USCCB website. 

“I also encourage you to spend some time in preparation beforehand through adoration, works of mercy, or in any way you may unite your heart more with the most Sacred Heart of Jesus,” Archbishop Hebda said.  

“With dozens of adoration chapels coupled with countless parish outreach programs and ministry partners that promote life, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and perform other acts of mercy, I have a feeling that these milestones are already being met each week in our archdiocese,” Archbishop Hebda said. “But there would be a benefit to being intentional about that this year in the context of our 250th.” 

It’s fitting, the archbishop explained, that the late Pope Francis released his final encyclical on the topic of the Sacred Heart, called “Dilexit nos” — Latin for “He loved us.” Pope Francis explored how the brokenness of human hearts and societal challenges can harden hearts, Archbishop Hebda said.    

“Here in America, we may be far too often tempted to make something great of ourselves without Christ,” the archbishop said. “Think of our ideal of the self-made man. But we are not our own. We belong to Christ. And Christ calls us to conform our hearts and our wills to his. Whenever we contemplate the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pope Francis explained, we come to know better the consolation of Christ, to unite our sufferings with his and to thus soften our hearts so that we can share that love with others.” 

On May 13, Archbishop Hebda released his pastoral letter, “Only One Thing Is Necessary,” exploring how families can keep Jesus at the center of their lives. 

“What better way to do this than to entrust our families to the Sacred Heart of Jesus?” the archbishop said. “In our world where so many families are fractured and weary, Christ’s heart burns all the greater, desiring nothing more than for us to open our hearts to his.”

Everyone longs the most for joy — that kind of happiness that dwells deeply in the soul.

It includes both the levity of delight and the security of peace, emanating from being loved and loving in return. Even though we only experience a taste of this joy on Earth, it points to its fulfillment in heaven, and more importantly to something about God’s own nature. As Jesus told the disciples: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete” (Jn 15:9-11).

It’s hard to imagine God’s joy and it certainly far exceeds our powers of intuition. However, since we are made in his image, we can contemplate this mystery a little bit by reflecting on our own experiences. For example, the deepest joy is being together with the ones we love and the activity of togetherness. Summertime especially provides many opportunities for this, with weddings, family reunions, graduation parties, weekend barbecues and even outdoor recreation with friends and neighbors. There’s an added joy when the ones we love share the ones they love with us and vice versa. This must be something of God’s joy in heaven. He will have us all together in one place (every parent’s dream) and will take joy not only in our love for him, but our love for each other as well.

Second, consider how much we delight in God’s creation. Catching sight of a fish jumping, an eagle soaring, a squirrel scurrying, a turtle surfacing, a deer strolling, a loon popping up from the water, the variety of flowers as they bloom, the lushness of the green foliage and so much more. If we take this much joy in nature, how much more joy God takes in watching us, the crown of his creation. “The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a mighty savior; he will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love, he will sing joyfully because of you” (Zep 3:17). He enjoys seeing how we use our freedom, even in the simplest activities of daily life, and especially those done in love. Nature may not notice our observation, yet we thrive from taking it in and are ecstatic when it reciprocates. Even when we fail to notice God’s eyes on us, he still takes joy in looking upon his children and is elated when we look back.

Our own sin and our guilty consciences can struggle to see God in this way at times, viewing him as an angry judge instead, and causing us to hide in fear. God does hate sin with a fearsome anger, but it’s because he loves us — the sinners — so fearsomely much.

St. Paul urges us to view God’s discipline as a gift from a loving Father who wants us to have joy, and to persevere in the battle against sin as Christ did on our behalf: “For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2). Even our purification, though painful, flows from the intention that we may share in the joy of God’s glory in heaven. As Jesus promised in the beatitudes: “Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh” (Lk 6:21); and urged us to have confidence in God’s joy at our conversion: “I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance” (Lk 15:7). Sin and shame need not turn us away from God’s joy but rather turn us back to him to embrace it.

The beatitude of heaven will be our joy, and it would seem it’s something of God’s joy too. “For the Lord takes delight in his people” (Ps 149:4); he delights in you and me.

Jendro teaches theology at Providence Academy in Plymouth and is a member of Sts. Peter and Paul in Loretto. She’s also a speaker and writer; her website is taketimeforhim.com.

In my last couple columns, I’ve been focusing on the meaning of the Eucharist. Like the original Passover, this ritual meal is both the worship and the identity of God’s new Exodus people. This makes the Eucharist not just an object for pious individual devotion, but our pledge of allegiance to God’s alternative society.

This identity as the Exodus people is important for understanding how the Church is Catholic social teaching. Catholics have usually made use of the Exodus story as an allegory of each Christian’s journey out of the slavery of sin, through baptism in the Red Sea, and ultimately to the promised land of heaven when we die. In other words, we have usually spiritualized and individualized the Exodus, to make it applicable to our personal relationship with God.

I don’t want to deny this spiritualized reading — I think it can be illuminating when placed in the proper context — but I’ll never forget the first time I realized that it can sometimes fall pretty flat.

I was leading a study at my parish about the liturgies of Holy Week. The Exodus story forms a crucial part of the readings for both Maundy Thursday and the Easter Vigil on Saturday evening.

I had just finished recounting some of the connections between the Exodus and the Gospel passages of Jesus’ last days. From a teacher’s perspective, everything was going swimmingly. We were all reveling in reviewing the details of Moses’ calling, the plagues, and the confrontation with Pharoah. It’s such a rich story — a hard-hitting real-life drama of the emancipation of a slave people and their unlikely birth as a real historical sovereign nation. There’s a reason movies like “The Ten Commandments” and “Prince of Egypt” are so popular.

Then somebody asked, “What’s the new Exodus Jesus was pointing to at the Last Supper, then?”

I thought for a second, and then my heart sank. This, of course, was the key question. But immediately I sensed how underwhelming my spiritualized answer was going to be. I think I mumbled something like, “Well, the traditional reading is that the Exodus happens to each one of us. We’re freed from sin and the devil and ultimately led to the promised land of heaven.”

But as I said it, you could actually feel in the room a collective sigh of “Bor-ing!” It was like setting up a long joke at a party and totally botching the punchline. I had taken a revolutionary epic and reduced it to a children’s Sunday school lesson. On a shallow level, it made for a lame use of great literature. But over time I came to think there was a deeper challenge in the parishioner’s question.

In the Exodus, God works a visible, social miracle. Something visible actually happened. That’s part of the definition of a miracle that makes it more than just a spiritual occurrence. God brought Israel out of Egypt, and the result was a real living and breathing people. Yahweh had made a sovereign nation out of a bunch of slaves. That’s what makes the story so compelling, and this story continued to be the bedrock of Jewish identity right down to the time of Jesus.

And this is the story Jesus stepped into at the Last Supper. His whole ministry, and especially his last week in Jerusalem, made sense only as part of that story. Here was the Messiah of Israel, the new Moses who had given the crowds bread in the desert, come to Jerusalem with a throng of his followers, confronting the rulers in their capital city, predicting his own death at their hands, and doing so precisely at the Passover meal that each year celebrates the miraculous birth of Yahweh’s new people, and his victory over their enemies.

We’re poised. The new deliverer is here. The new Exodus must be about to happen. Then the Last Supper, and we are right at the brink. We are all on the edge of our seats, exactly like my parishioner was. When are the plagues going to start? How is the Red Sea going to part this time? It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for.

At the least, shouldn’t there be some tangible result? At the most, a miracle?

This, I think, as I have reflected on it over the years, was the real crux of our parishioner’s question. I didn’t have an answer then. But I think the Gospels do today. And so, we must ask again, “What is the new Exodus?”

That’s where we’ll pick up next month.

Miller is the director of the Center for Catholic Social Thought at Assumption in St. Paul. He is the author of “We Are Only Saved Together: Living the Revolutionary Vision of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement.”

Minnesota Sinfonia, which has included a Music in the Schools program, is returning to public concerts as part of a Violins of Hope tour in Minnesota. The tour includes musicians playing a collection of violins and cellos that were owned by Jewish musicians, many of whom died in the Holocaust. Internationally acclaimed cellist, conductor and pedagogue Amit Peled will perform with Sinfonia.

Renovations underway at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis made a concert there impossible, unfortunately, said Jay Fishman, Sinfonia’s artistic director. “We have performed in the church for over 40 years, first as the old Minneapolis Chamber Symphony, and then starting in 1989, when we reorganized as the Minnesota Sinfonia,” Fishman said in an email. Sinfonia had intended a series of public concerts in 2024 to be the orchestra’s last. But the Minnesota Jewish Community Center invited the orchestra to be part of the Violins of Hope tour. Sinfonia’s performances will feature Jewish-themed music honoring the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust.

The free concerts — children are welcome — will include a 6:30 p.m. pre-concert talk and 7:30 p.m. performance. Concert dates are June 22 at the University of Northwestern’s Nazareth Chapel in St. Paul; June 23 (with a 6:45 p.m. start) at Augsburg University Chapel in Minneapolis; June 24 at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis; June 25 at Wayzata Community Church in Wayzata; and June 26 at First Covenant Church in East St. Paul. In addition, there will be a 1 p.m. talk and 2 p.m. performance June 28 at Bethel University’s Benson Great Hall in Arden Hills. Minnesota Sinfonia will officially close as an organization on Sept. 30, at the end of its fiscal year, Fishman said.

The U.S. Department of State announced June 5 that a $240 million grant in humanitarian and disaster response assistance, the first of a series of such grants, will be made to Catholic Relief Services, the overseas relief and development agency of the U.S. Catholic Church.

The award was announced at an event in Rome by Ryan Shrum, a senior official with the State Department Bureau of Disaster and Humanitarian Response; U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Brian Burch; Ambassador Lynda Blanchard, permanent representative of the United States to the U.N. Agencies in Rome; Jennifer Poidatz, CRS vice president for humanitarian response; and Alistair Dutton, secretary general of Caritas Internationalis.

U.S. officials said the grant is the first in a series of awards the State Department intends to make to “trusted and vetted implementing organizations,” the department said in a press release.

In its own press release, CRS said the funding will support its global rapid response fund, used to quickly get assistance to countries in crisis, such as.

“CRS is grateful for the opportunity to reach more people affected by crisis, at a time when humanitarian needs far exceed available resources,” Poidatz of CRS said in a statement. “We appreciate the leadership of the United States and of national governments committed to responding to new and enduring crises.”

“The communities in these countries are experiencing severe food insecurity, conflict, displacement, extreme weather and so much more,” Sean Callahan, CRS president and CEO, added. “This funding will help us respond to their unique needs quickly.”

Callahan said in a statement that CRS is “proud to continue upholding a rigorous system of accountability to ensure the resources go where they are most needed. When combined with privately raised resources, we are able to increase their reach and benefit.”

The State Department said in its press release that CRS demonstrated its “capacity to provide assistance in challenging political environments,” citing Cuba, where department officials said “its local partnerships enabled humanitarian assistance to reach those in need without regime interference.”

“The Church plays a unique role because it is rooted in community life across generations,” Poidatz said. “In places marked by conflict, displacement and polarization, religious leaders and faith-based institutions often remain trusted before, during and after crisis — helping communities navigate uncertainty, foster compassion and create space for reconciliation and peaceful coexistence.”

In 2025, the Trump administration moved to formally dissolve the U.S. Agency for International Development, moving its remaining functions under the purview of the State Department. Cuts to funding for the government’s now-shuttered humanitarian aid agency in countries all over the globe included funding for efforts by Catholic and other faith-based humanitarian groups such as CRS.

In anticipation of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. bishops will consecrate the country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus June 11 during their spring plenary assembly in Orlando, Florida.

The act of consecration is a significant matter. But what does it really mean to consecrate a place — such as an entire country?

For Timothy O’Malley, explaining what a consecration is includes making clear what it is not.

“It is not some sort of magic,” said O’Malley, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also associate director for research at its McGrath Institute for Church Life. “A consecration is actually to make something sacred, quite literally, to bring it to God. And typically there are periods of preparation for various consecrations, to order something toward God.”

R. Jared Staudt, a Catholic educator, also said consecration “orders something to God, to help it to realize its purpose.”

“The purpose of everything is to give God glory. We see that Adam is actually given a priestly mission in the garden (of Eden), when he is meant to cultivate and protect. And those are words that were later drawn into the Israelite priesthood: ‘abad’ and ‘shamar,” he said, using Hebrew words that mean “to serve, and protect and defend.”

“And so Adam was placed inside the garden, to order it to God as his temple,” explained Staudt, who oversees content at Exodus 90, a Catholic app that guides men in living out their faith.

“One of the main tasks of humanity is to ensure that everything within creation reaches its ultimate purpose, which is to give glory to God,” he said. “So, when you order something, you are directing it to that ultimate end.”

And this, the theologians said, is what the bishops will be doing once they consecrate the United States.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines “consecration” as “the dedication of a thing or person to divine service by a prayer or blessing.”

“Consecration is something that is first and foremost a sacred act,” said Scott Hahn, a biblical scholar at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. “Secondly, it relates our whole life to our Lord and to the communion of saints. And so it also is something that is rooted and grounded in the notion of covenant. And this is what I think is often overlooked, but highly significant.”

“It seems to me that we’ve got to recover the notion of covenant in terms of the sacred kinship bonds that unite us to God, not just as our creator, but as our father,” he added, saying the concept of “covenant” is significantly different from making a “social contract.”

Hahn pointed to 2 Chronicles 15 for biblical references on consecrating a location, in which the king of Judah turned his land back to God, removing idols and pagan practices.

“King Asa consecrates all of the people of God. … With trumpets, with music and with proclamation, they swear an oath,” he said. “I mean, who would associate a juridical act of oathswearing with consecration, with celebration?”

Catholics may be most familiar with consecration in the Mass, when a priest consecrates the Eucharist through the Holy Spirit by reciting a prayer formula that transubstantiates bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. But the theologians distinguished between consecrating the Eucharist and consecrating a location, in which there is not a specifically worded prayer.

A consecration is distinct from a dedication or a blessing, the theologians emphasized.

Staudt said dedication designates something for a divine purpose, while a blessing asks “God to pour out his favor upon someone or something.” Consecration, he and the other theologians said, is something given to God. It is also more formal than the other two, according to O’Malley. Hahn said all three are “actions of the covenant.”

They also said consecration of a people matters — whether for believers, nonbelievers or those not fully aware of its significance.

“In the midst of a really perilous political situation operative right now, in the midst of war and violence and the terrors of AI, the Church thinks about existing in a particular country, existing in the United States. Her members now should really dedicate themselves anew to the merciful love of Christ,” said O’Malley.

“Any proper act that we perform, with regard to a relationship to God in Christ through his Sacred Heart, is going to have a ripple effect,” said Hahn. “It’s going to impact our own families, our parishes, our neighborhoods, our towns, our cities, our states, more than we can perceive.

“So we do what is right because it’s right,” he continued. “And then we leave in God’s hands the consequences of it, trusting that he’s going to probably bring about greater good than what we could possibly intend or realize.”

Staudt reminded the faithful that “the Church is not a sect” and that it acts for the good of everyone, no matter their beliefs.

“The Church exists to glorify God and to sanctify the world for him. So both the sacrifice of the Mass and other acts of prayer, such as these consecrations, are done on behalf of all, in a way that does benefit them and bless them, even if they’re unaware, unconcerned or even opposed to those acts,” he said.

Simone Orendain is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Chicago.

Conley will be ordained a deacon June 6 for the Diocese of La Crosse in Wisconsin.

“I’m excited to see the way that God uses me, but I’m also excited to see how he changes me so that I can better serve his people,” Conley told “Practicing Catholic” co-hosts Leah Heselton and Father Tom Margevicius for the show that debuts at 9 p.m. June 5 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM.

Conley said the five years of formation have changed him in many ways already.

“But with the graces of holy orders, I’m thinking that there’s more to come in that regard,” he said. “And it’s a grand adventure whenever we’re following the Lord, isn’t it?”

Conley wasn’t always Catholic. He said his journey to Catholicism included growing up in a Protestant congregation, preparing at one time to be an Episcopal priest, and while he and his wife, Kendra, were living in the Twin Cities, starting and stopping a couple of times for the permanent diaconate in the Catholic Church.

“Both times I wasn’t very far into (permanent diaconate formation) and I just seemed to sense the Lord was saying, ‘Not yet, not yet.’ So, I would say, ‘OK, Lord, I’ll drop it.’ And then when my wife and I moved to the Diocese of La Crosse, it arose again.”

To hear more about Conley’s journey, some of the time management challenges that will accompany being a deacon, and the ministry itself, tune into “Practicing Catholic,” which repeats at 1 p.m. June 7 and 2 p.m. June 8.

Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest episode also features Father Jim Livingston, pastor of St. Paul in Ham Lake, and his healing Mass ministry.

Listen to interviews after they have aired at practicingcatholicshow.com or choose a streaming platform at Spotify for Podcasters.

“Jesus then said to the Twelve, ‘Do you also want to leave?’” This question comes at the end of the Bread of Life Discourse in John’s Gospel. It is a very peculiar question as this is the only instance recorded in Scripture where Jesus asks his closest friends whether they will leave and desert him. What prompted Jesus to ask such a question? Why is this question so significant?

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus asks many questions addressed to many people. Some are posed to his followers, believers, or those who are simply curious. Others are posed to enemies and those seeking to persecute him. A few are posed while in private and intimate conversations. These encounters in which Jesus poses a question reveal two things: They are a means to disclose or convey truths regarding his identity and salvific mission (“Who do you say that I am?”) or they are a means to reveal, to identify within the very person asking, the deepest and truest desire of the human heart (“What do you want me to do for you?”)

In other words, every question that Jesus asks is meant to reveal to each person the infinite yearning hidden within the deepest recesses of their soul to know God and to be eternally united in intimate communion with him.

What separates this particular question at the end of the Eucharistic discourse from every other question is that it adds yet another dimension to the two already mentioned. Rather than presenting a question to reveal the hearts of men to themselves and to identify Jesus as the one who can fulfill their desires, Jesus here presents a question to reveal his very own heart. This question demonstrates the reason for the Incarnation, the “height, depth, and breadth” of the paschal mystery. It manifests the deepest desire of God from all eternity: to be in intimate communion with his people. Therefore, rather than seeing this as merely a question, one may view it as a statement, a plea addressed from the lover to the beloved, of Christ’s yearning, his thirst, to be united to man — “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”

This union between God and man, divine intimacy, is nothing other than eternal life. It is a life in which Christ invites all to share and partake. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Indeed, his “flesh is true food” and his “blood is true drink” that satisfies. One “shall not hunger” and “never thirst,” for “the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” Far from being simply a figure of speech, a poetic metaphor, or symbolic representation conveying an abstract philosophical idea or subjective sentimental feeling, this is an objective theological truth which God has revealed in the very person of Jesus Christ, the word incarnate.

While knowing the certain reaction he will receive, Jesus does not explain it away as a parable to cater to their sensibilities. Rather, he further emphasizes and intensifies the reality of his message by identifying it with his very flesh and blood. Instead of being afraid of causing scandal and losing followers, Jesus reaffirms his words as a proposal that only by truly eating his flesh and drinking his blood will man receive eternal life. The intimate scene reaches climax with Christ’s moving emotional plea, posing a tender question that reveals the depths of his heart while penetrating ours, “Do you also want to leave?”

This question is the core of the Eucharistic mystery of Christ’s true presence. The same Word that effected creation out of nothing, the same Word that is the cause of man’s very existence, is the same Word that speaks the truth concerning the bread of life, his body and blood. Certainly, this is a mystery that requires the assent of faith. Not a mental assent to an abstract idea, but rather an assent of man’s heart to an encounter with Christ’s heart — cor ad cor loquitur. This produces the most certain of beliefs in which one can truly respond with St. Peter, “‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.’”

Father Tran is parochial vicar of St. Stephen in Anoka.

Sunday, June 7
Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

• Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a
• 1 Cor 10:16-17
• Jn 6:51-58

As the U.S. bishop prepare to consecrate the United States to Jesus’ Sacred Heart June 11 during their spring meeting in Orlando, Florida, here are six things to know about devotion to the Sacred Heart.

1. The devotion has ancient roots. When the Roman soldier struck the crucified Jesus with his sword, blood and water flowed from his side. That blood and water have long been understood to symbolize an outpouring of God’s grace. Over the centuries, saints and theologians produced writings reflecting on the Sacred Heart, but it remained a personal devotion.

2. The devotion spread due to the visions of a young French nun. Beginning in 1673, Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque of the Visitation order at Paray-le-Monial, France, experienced a series of visions of Jesus over the span of 18 months. In those visions, Jesus displayed his Sacred Heart as a symbol of his love, and he told her to work to universalize devotion to his heart. These visions are the basis for the First Friday devotions and the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus we have today. The image of the Sacred Heart as a wounded heart afire, encircled by a crown of thorns and surmounted by a cross, also came from those revelations. St. Margaret Mary was canonized in 1920.

3. The devotion is rooted in prayer, liturgy and acts of reparation. St. Margaret Mary said Jesus told her that despite loving mankind so much that he gave his life for them, he was being treated with irreverence, coldness and ingratitude. He wanted the world to recognize the love he continually poured out for them symbolized by his Sacred Heart and for mankind to make amends for their ingratitude. Jesus urged St. Margaret Mary to begin a personal devotion to his divine heart by receiving holy Communion every first Friday and spending an hour in prayer the night before, both focused on seeking his pardon and making prayerful reparations for mankind’s desertion of his love.

4. The devotion includes 12 promises. Jesus shared with St. Margaret Mary 12 promises he pledged to those who developed and shared a devotion to his Sacred Heart. They are: I (Jesus) I will give them the graces necessary for their state of life; I will establish peace in their homes; I will comfort them in all their afflictions; I will be their strength in life and especially in death; I will bless their undertakings; sinners shall find in my heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy; tepid souls shall grow fervent; fervent souls shall quickly advance toward perfection; I will bless every place where an image of my heart is honored; I will give priests the gift of reaching even the most hardened hearts; those who promote this devotion will have their names written in my heart; those who receive Communion on nine consecutive First Fridays will receive the grace of final perseverance.”

5. Jesuits helped the devotion gain official approval. When St. Margaret Mary first attempted to explain the visions, many around her were skeptical. It was St. Claude de la Colombiere, her Jesuit spiritual adviser, who recognized her holiness, fervor and sincerity. However, even when she was believed, as a cloistered nun there was little she could do to foster her visions outside of her order. The devotion was also promoted by the non-Jesuit priest St. John Eudes, a former Oratorian who founded the Congregation of Jesus and Mary and Sisters of Charity of the Refuge. Universal approval eventually came from the Vatican in August 1856 during the reign of Pope Pius IX. In 1899, Pope Leo XIII, encouraged by Catholics around the world, consecrated the human race to the Sacred Heart. The Jesuit order officially decreed in 1883 that its members had a particular role in promoting Jesus’ Sacred Heart, and in 1915, it linked this work to the Apostleship of Prayer, now known as the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, which is entrusted to the order.

6. The annual feast of the Sacred Heart occurs in June. The solemnity of the Sacred Heart falls on the third Friday following the feast of Pentecost, this year June 12. In one vision, Jesus asked St. Margaret Mary to establish a Church feast day to honor his Sacred Heart. On that day, those faithful to Jesus would attend Mass, receive holy Communion, profess their love and offer reparations for the way he had been insulted by mankind. A solemnity is the highest ranking feast on the Church calendar. The Church also dedicates First Fridays and the month of June to the Sacred Heart.

This story draws from “How Jesus’ visits to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque spread love of his Sacred Heart” by D.D. Emmons and “How to conform to the love of Jesus with the Sacred Heart” by Leonard J. DeLorenzo.

As America’s Catholic bishops prepare to mark the semiquincentennial by consecrating the nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a French docudrama that can aid viewers in understanding the full significance of such an action makes its timely appearance.

A Fathom Entertainment presentation, “Sacred Heart: His Reign Has No End” will have a limited theatrical run June 9-11 and June 14. The version screening on June 10 will be dubbed in Spanish.

Following its initial release in France last fall, the film proved to be phenomenally popular, with ticket sales reaching the half-million mark in a country usually regarded as deeply secular. This unusual development clearly indicates that the movie resonated with audiences in a way that even its creators may not have expected.

Filmmakers Sabrina and Steven J. Gunnell examine the origins, meaning and enduring relevance of devotion to the Sacred Heart. They begin their exploration even before the landmark revelations received in the 1670s by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Burgundian Visitation nun, showing that earlier saints had focused on the subject in medieval times.

Using reenactments, interviews and archival images, the Gunnells also highlight the theological connection between the Sacred Heart and the Eucharist. This is done, in part, by recounting a few of the many Eucharistic miracles granted to the Church over the centuries.

By profiling contemporary devotees of the Sacred Heart, including formerly inactive Catholics, the picture demonstrates the impact the insights given to St. Margaret Mary continue to have on the lives of people around the world. Locations visited range from the gang-infested streets of a Parisian suburb to the once war-torn Central American country of El Salvador.

An excellent and enjoyable catechetical resource, the feature is also both moving and uplifting. It can be recommended for all but the youngest kids.

For theater locations and showtimes, go to: sacredheartfilm.us

Dubbed into English.

The film contains gory images of the Crucifixion. The OSV News classification is A-II — adults and adolescents. Not rated by the Motion Picture Association.