Guard of Honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

This month of June, 2025, we celebrate 350 years since the revelations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. As Guards of Honour our devotion to the Sacred Heart is formalised in our Guard of Honour enrollment and the Dial with the Hour we choose, “Hour of Reparation.” Whether we have been Guards of Honour for three years, or just joined, how has the Sacred Heart of Jesus transformed us? Yes, transformed. Sacred Heart devotions are not just rituals that are practised, but they are intended to bring the faithful closer to Christ. Adoration and the Sacraments, Confession and Communion are fundamental to this. But how has the Sacred Heart worked through us so others fall in love with the Heart of Jesus, so that, the coldness, indifference, and blasphemy towards the Sacred Heart of which Jesus speaks to St. Margaret Mary, is transformed not only into a burning love that we have, but that others also have.

We cannot feel content or satisfied that we have done enough, that we have loved enough. Love has no limit. Grace has no limit. What comes in the way between ourselves and God, ourselves and others, are those defects: impatience, pride, self-centredness, spiritual sloth, concupiscence (this includes food). While the austere asceticism of mystics such as St. Margaret Mary Alacoque might be asking too much—nobody really uses instruments of mortification anymore, and perhaps a few manage with water and bread on Fridays (and Wednesday)—but what ascetic practises do we engage in. Or has asceticism been abandoned? What concrete acts do we perform as a sign of our desire to be closer to the Sacred Heart? And also purified because divine love “purifies” This is why St. John Eudes uses the “burning furnace” image to speak of the love of Jesus! Love is concrete. Mercy is concrete. Catholics have always emphasised on the concreteness of how we live the teachings of Christ. Jesus Himself says, “If you love me, you will keep my Commandments” (John 14:5). Obedience, is concrete: to do what is holy and pleasing to God and to avoid what is unholy and displeasing to God. It is by love that we come to know the Heart of Jesus, His eternal love for us, and our finite and fragile love for Him.

When was the last time we went to Confession? The Saints have endless sins they ask forgiveness for; but more and more people don’t seem to know what sins to confess? Does this mean the sense of sin is lost? How do we approach the Sacred Heart at Communion when we are in a state of sin? How do we spend time in Adoration seeking to hear the voice of God when we are impure in so many ways? “Blessed are the pure for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).

To be one with the Sacred Heart means a receptivity to allow Jesus to unite us to His Heart, to allow Him, to transform us, so the Heart of Jesus can beat within us. So, the ways of the world do not lead us or even distract us, but the pulse of the Sacred Heart Jesus is that which moves us.