This first “Sacred Heart Friday” post here on Sober Catholic is just a basic introduction. I can assume that if you’re Catholic and especially a sober one, then you pretty much know a lot about the Sacred Heart Devotion. Nevertheless, many people who read this are along different parts of the Road to Happy Destiny and as such may only have heard a little on it. (As a disclaimer: many of the following paragraphs are cobbled from earlier Sober Catholic posts on the topic.)
The Sacred Heart is an old Catholic devotion dating back centuries. Proponents state that it is based on the Gospel account of St. John the Evangelist laying his head on Jesus’ chest at the Last Supper. The Devotion started during an apparition of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. It focuses on the human nature of Jesus (the heart long being considered the center or source of human emotion.) As Jesus had become human to redeem us for our sins, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus concerns the Divine Love of God for us, and our response to that is our reparation for our sins. We sin, we repent and we make reparation. The Sacred Heart Devotion is central to the Matt Talbot Way of Sobriety. Matt taught that the key to sobriety is transferring your love for the drink onto Jesus. We ‘gift’ Jesus our addiction; He takes it from us and if we relapse, we are taking back the gift.
The Sacred Heart is Jesus’ intense, sacrificial love for us, and our response to that love by loving Him in return with a love that sets our own hearts and souls aflame; including loving Him on behalf of those who don’t.
Jesus’ love for us is so intense that it supplies what is lacking in our prayers and desires. It ‘fixes our past,’ not by a manner of temporal engineering and changing that past, but by burying our sinful past in His Heart (“Let go, and let God.”) we can find redemption in a tangible manner. The Sacred Heart Devotion, when combined with reception of the Eucharist and visits to the Blessed Sacrament make Jesus feel less like an abstraction and more of a real live entity. No wonder that the Sacred Heart Devotion has been popular amongst those who are more ‘traditional’ and who practice true holy piety (that sense of affectionate respect and love for God and His Church.)
Central to the devotion is the Nine First Fridays. When Our Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque He had made special promises to those who would assist at Mass and receive Holy Communion for nine consecutive first Fridays of the month. This devotion is based upon one of the twelve promises made by Our Lord to St. Margaret Mary: “I promise thee, in the excess of the mercy of My Heart, that Its all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Communion on the First Friday of every month, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final penitence, and that they shall not die under My displeasure, nor without receiving the Sacraments, and My Heart shall be their secure refuge at that last hour.”
The website, “America Needs Fatima” has a great downloadable PDF flyer to print out: Nine First Fridays. Another site, Most Sacred Heart, has additional material on Adoration, Thanksgiving, Reparation, and Petition; four key elements of the Devotion.
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