Feast of the Sacred Heart

Even if you think you aren't, are there perhaps even any small traces or vestiges of a distorted image of God that you might have picked up somewhere over the years? If so, God really wants to set you free from them once and for all.

And the Feast of the Sacred Heart is an invitation to be liberated from our distorted images of God.

So if you've got any swimming around in there, when you receive communion today, Ask Jesus for the grace to be set free from your distorted images of God and be sure that he will grant you that grace.

No one wants you to believe in his love more than he does because once you encounter his love, your life is never the same again.

She had a number of powerful mystical experiences and one of the beautiful things about Saint Gemma is how real heaven was for her and how real the saints and Our Lord and Our Lady were.

Our Lord had given her premonition that He was going to give her a special gift on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, and she told her confessor.

And he encouraged her to be attentive, to be open, and to tell him what happened later.

So the story goes that Our Lady appeared first and told Gemma that Jesus wanted to give her a very special grace.

His prayers for the rest of his family fared better.

His sister was baptized on the 19th of June, 1852, the Feast of the Sacred Heart.

Her young son, only seven years old at the time, begged for baptism himself from that day forward, and had to wait four years for it.

On the 19th of May, 1862, Father Herman baptized his own elder brother, Albert, with his own hands, in a provisional church at Harborg, near Hamburg, the brother who, watching his young nephew's courage in keeping his newfound faith, had said, A religion that gives a child such strength must be divine.

It was his heart that made the crib, the cross, the altar.

Two days ago on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, I mentioned to you also the tabernacle.

The crib, the cross, the altar for the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the tabernacle for the real and enduring presence of our Savior Jesus Christ.

And she tells us it was His heart which formed the church and instituted the sacraments.

certainly makes sense that devotion to the most sacred heart of Jesus is the summary of all our religion.

Because behind all of these marvelous mysteries of our holy religion is, as Pope Pius XII says, is the beating of the heart, of the sacred heart of our Savior Jesus Christ.

I mentioned to you on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, that devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus comprises three kinds of devotions.

Pay close attention, because this is also why it is a summary of all our religion.

Jesus lives in me.

The day fixed for her first Holy Communion was Sunday, the Feast of the Sacred Heart, 19th June, 1887. on the saturday before this happy day gemma wrote to her father and this is what she said dear papa to-day is the eve of my first communion a day for me of the greatest happiness i write these few lines only to tell you of my love and to ask you to pray to jesus in order that the first time he comes to dwell in me he may find me ready to receive all the graces he has prepared for me i beg your pardon for all my disobedience and all the pain i have ever given you and i beg of you this evening to forget it all i ask you to bless me your most loving daughter The next morning Gemma almost ran to the chapel, and during Holy Mass her dear Jesus came for the first time into her loving little heart.

She kept very quiet and recollected all day, spending her time with our blessed Lord in chapel, or in talking of him to the sisters.

She took a little time also to write down all she wished to promise our Lord in return for his gift of himself to her.