Enthronment of the Sacred Heart

June 27th is the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and June 28th is the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, together referred to as the two hearts.

We moved our picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary to a prominent place (and, yes, we know it is too small for that wall) and set up a simple devotional altar beneath it.

A lovely, devout family at our parish encouraged us all via an organized campaign to enthrone the Sacred Heart. Sign-ups were available to receive a (free) enthronement packet that contained the prayers, holy water, blessed salt, a certificate of enthronement to record the event, and an image of the Sacred Heart (if one didn't already have one, but we did). The packages were passed out a week before the feast day and the priest made himself available after Mass that day to bless all our images. This was a most excellent method for encouraging devotion to the Sacred Heart as many families we know who--like ours--had long thought that this was a meaningful practice 'we should do someday, sometime, we'll get around to it' finally did get around to it!

Mary's card to Daddy read: "I love you, Daddy. Happy Sacred Hearts Day. We made brownies."

An excellent children's book on the devotion which I already had on hand

Our five-year-old picked flowers from our fading rose bushes.

God ensured our family would not feel prideful for enthroning our home to His Sacred Heart! In fact, I felt rather like my face had fallen in the dust . . . and that an army of troops had marched over me, grinding me into the dirt.

Chris had just walked in the door from three days at altar boy camp, very poor sleep, and four hours of driving, I was very tense from three days alone with three children (which had followed closely on the heels of five days alone with all four), and the children were hyper with excitement to be reunited again. Meanwhile, Chris had understandably forgotten that we were doing our enthronement that day (he having been gone on the more typical Sacred Heart of Jesus feast day) and I was pushing to fit it into our agenda.

The Ugly Truth: The half-hour ceremony was fraught with tension, tones of voice, wiggly children, a three-year-old who kept screaming and throwing tantrums, being removed from the room repeatedly, a one-year-old running riot and doing things like dumping over glasses over water left out, with two high-strung, overwrought parents trying to manage the whole thing and failing in patience, honestly, pretty miserably.

How deeply it touched our hearts when we came to the line in the Prayer of Thanksgiving:

"It is true, we are not worthy that Thou shouldst enter our humble abode, but Thou hast already reassured us, when Thou didst reveal thy Sacred Heart to us, teaching us to find in the wound of Thy Sacred Side the source of grace and life everlasting. In this loving and trusting spirit we give ourselves to Thee, Thou who art unchanging Life."

Afterward we made an Act of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

I baked a heart-shaped cake. The level of complexity I can handle in my life right now
is a boxed mix and frosting that squirts out of a can.

We are utterly unworthy. One could easily slip into thinking that we are making of our family a gift to Jesus, one could easily feel a lot of pride. During last night's ceremony, I was clearly reminded of how imperfect and paltry is our family and each of us as individuals. Jesus is already our Sovereign (by His nature, whether we acknowledge it or not), but this enthronement is a family's way of intentionally announcing Him to be our King. We submit ourselves under His leadership (and it's not a democratic one!) because we need it oh-so desperately for our own good. Last night's experience reminded Chris and I of the truth of our needs and our imperfections, which is probably the most beautiful thing that could have come out of this enthronement.


An addendum: Speaking of humility, of which our family received a new dose last night, Saintly Sages offers a wonderful collection of meditations today on that virtue. And I highly recommend any Catholic signing up to receive these in one's email inbox daily!