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The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Solemnity

Feast Day
June 12

The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is celebrated on the Friday after the second Sunday after Pentecost, that is, the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi. In 2026, it falls on June 12. The feast honors the physical Heart of Christ as the symbol and instrument of his redeeming love for the human race (CCC 478).

Devotion to the Sacred Heart is rooted in the meditation of the Fathers and medieval mystics on the pierced side of Christ (John 19:34) and on the Sacred Wound. It received decisive form through the apparitions of Christ to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitation nun at Paray-le-Monial in France, between 1673 and 1675, and through the catechesis of her Jesuit director, Saint Claude La Colombiere.

Pope Clement XIII granted the proper Mass and Office for the feast of the Sacred Heart in 1765. Pope Pius IX extended it to the universal Church on August 23, 1856. Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Haurietis Aquas on May 15, 1956, the centenary of the universal extension, providing the definitive theological exposition of the devotion. Pope Saint John Paul II's encyclical Dives in Misericordia (1980) and Pope Francis's encyclical Dilexit Nos (October 24, 2024) further developed the doctrine.

The Sacred Heart is not a sentimental devotion but a Christological one: it confesses that the love by which Christ redeemed us is true human love, expressed in a true human heart hypostatically united to the divine Person of the Word. The traditional First Friday devotion of nine consecutive months of reception of Holy Communion in honor of the Sacred Heart, recommended in the apparitions to Saint Margaret Mary, has been a major instrument of Catholic eucharistic life.

Catholic Churches Named After The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

2 parishes on Catholic Church Times share The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus's name. Find their Mass times, confession schedules, and adoration hours:

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