The Irish Primate, Eamon Martin, is consecrating Ireland to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A ceremony led by the Archbishop of Armagh was scheduled for Sunday afternoon at the Marian pilgrimage site of Knock in the northwest of the country
The Knock Shrine announced the event under the theme of the “Sacred Heart Crusade” on its website. Present at the ceremony were also relics of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, from the Burgundian Sacred Heart city of Paray-le-Monial. In August 1879, an apparition of the Virgin Mary reportedly occurred in Knock, which continues to draw thousands of pilgrims to this day. In the years following, numerous healings have been reported
Devotion to the Heart of Jesus is a special and traditional expression of Catholic piety. The “Most Sacred Heart” of Jesus Christ symbolizes His love for humanity. Already in antiquity and the early Middle Ages, there were references to the Church as arising from the heart of Jesus. This tradition was promoted by German mysticism during the High and Late Middle Ages, as well as by religious orders such as the Franciscans and Carthusians
The devotion became a widespread form of piety in Europe and around the world thanks to 17th-century French atonement theology, especially through the visions of the canonized Salesian nun Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647–1690). The religious sister asked King Louis XIV to consecrate all of France to the Heart of Jesus and to build a church in Paris for this purpose. This request was fulfilled 200 years later with the construction of the national atonement basilica Sacré-Cœur on Montmartre, which began in 1875
The Jesuit order also played a key role in spreading devotion to the Sacred Heart—an effort met with resistance from Enlightenment thinkers. In the first half of the 18th century, prayer groups and Sacred Heart confraternities began to form. In 1856, Pope Pius IX established the Feast of the Sacred Heart for the universal Church; his successors, up to Pius XII, continued to promote this devotion. The Catholic solemnity is celebrated on the third Friday after Pentecost
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