place where a person knows what is true beyond logic and reasoning.
The heart is evoked when a husband and wife make their wedding vows. The heart is what jumps when a parent meets their child for the first time. Knowing someone’s heart means we have encountered their depths in love.
Since 1856, the Catholic Church has dedicated the month of June to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The entire month serves as an invitation to grow in relationship with Jesus and to become more like Him.
The devotion to the Sacred Heart has its roots in the prayer experiences of a 17th-century nun named St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. She received visions and words from Jesus between the years of 1673 and 1675. Christ told her that now was the time for His love to be spread more emphatically to the world.
He said: “My Divine Heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular that, being unable any longer to contain within itself the flames of Its burning Charity, It must spread them abroad by thy means, and manifest Itself to them (mankind) in order to enrich them with the precious treasures which I discover to you, and which contain graces of sanctification and salvation necessary to withdraw them from the abyss of perdition.”
The words and appearance of Jesus fueled Margaret Mary’s prayer life and enabled her to have a deeper encounter with the living God.