A message for the month of June • Priestly ordination

BISHOP DAVID M. O’CONNELL, C.M., HAS SHARED THIS MESSAGE for the month of June, which is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Our hearts should beat as one: June is the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus can be traced back to the 12th and 13th centuries in the Catholic Church. Inspired by over 500 years of tradition, this devotion became part of the Church’s liturgy in 1670, with Mass and prayers composed by French priest St. John Eudes (1601-1680). Three years later, the Lord Jesus appeared multiple times to a 26-year-old French nun of the Visitation Order, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), revealing the love and mercy for which the popular image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has become a universal symbol. Pope Pius IX placed the feast in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the Catholic Church’s liturgical calendar in 1856, 19 days after Pentecost. This year it is celebrated on Friday, June 16, 2023.

In 2002, Pope St. John Paul II declared the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as an annual occasion for the Universal Church to pray for the Sanctification of Priests. The joining of these two events is easy to understand and appreciate, especially when one recalls the words of St. John Vianney, patron of priests: “The priest is not a priest for himself ... he is for you. The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.”

The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus speaks profoundly of God’s endless mercy, despite the punctures and wounds of human sin and ingratitude revealed in its imagery. Speaking to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque during her visions, the Lord Jesus asked her to invite all who behold his Sacred Heart to immerse themselves in the embrace of his Divine Love and Forgiveness. That message is not obscured in the ministry of his priests who – despite the horrible scandals of some abusive priests who have pierced his Heart deeply in recent decades – beg for the daily sanctification of their priestly lives so that they, in turn, can lead the faithful entrusted to their care to sanctification.

St. John Vianney once reflected, “A priest goes to heaven or a priest goes to hell with a thousand people behind.”

On this Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we must adore him anew as we pray fervently for the sanctification of priests in our day so that they will continue to lead the many “thousands,” indeed millions, to heaven through the holiness to which Christ has called them, and us all, in his Church. May the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the heart of every priest and all the faithful beat as one.

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REV. MR. KEVIN HRYCENKO WILL BE ORDAINED A PRIEST
by Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., June 3 during a 10 a.m. Mass in St. Joseph Church, Toms River. The Mass will be livestreamed on the diocesan Youtube channel here: http://ow.ly/MTEj50OCPGv

Follow-up coverage on Father Hrycenko’s ordination as well as the ordination of the Diocese’s new deacons will be featured on TrentonMonitor.com and in the June issue of The Monitor Magazine.