Lansing, Michigan
Monday, June 1, 2026
Month of the Sacred Heart
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,
It may seem strange to honor a body part, that is, the heart of Jesus. Yet, for the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (June 12), the bishops of the United States will consecrate our country to that heart. Why do we Catholics do this? It was Saint John Eudes in the 1600s who encouraged a devotion to the heart of Christ. In fact, he talked about Jesus having three hearts. Let’s look at what he meant.
There is, first of all, the divine heart of Christ. Now, of course, there is no such thing as a physical divine heart. God, as divine, has no body parts. However, it is a great symbol for the love that God has for us, as Saint Paul states so clearly in his Letter to the Romans: “God proved his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Rm 5:8) We often think about Jesus loving us because he died for us, but imagine offering up your only begotten son to death for someone else. But here the text says that God the Father proved his love in this way. We might be willing to die for someone, but would we be willing to give our child to die for someone? That is the divine love, the love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit for all of us. Saint Paul in his Letter to the Romans further tells us that this “love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Rm 5:5) Divine love is simply a free, generous, undeserved love. It makes no demands but does invite us to love in the same way.
There is a second heart in Jesus. It is his spiritual heart, that is, the heart of his will, both his divine will and his human will, deeply united to live out true charity. This is his own specific sacrifice for us, the sacrifice of his own will for us, and the sacrifice of his life for us. This love is obvious to us. We see it in the scriptures. We see it whenever we look at a crucifix. But even though we see it a lot, we really do not understand it. Why would someone, anyone, let alone the Son of God, go to such lengths for us — it is a love beyond our measures. We don’t deserve it. Our human love is always so conditioned; we are always looking for what is in it for me. His is a love that makes no sense. Why would you leave 99 sheep in the desert by themselves to go look for one lost sheep, for me? It makes no sense, but that is true love.
The third heart of Christ is his physical, fleshly heart, symbol of his human affection for us. This is an intense, passionate, fixed love, which is expressed in Jesus’ concern, in the compassion he felt in his guts, his tenderness, and tears. Jesus had passion. That passion was always focused on others, on that lost sheep, on that repentant sinner. Sometimes our passions lead us into places we know we should not go, places we perhaps regret having gone, places where we may have ruined our lives or other lives. Not Jesus’ passion. It is always pulsating for others, for their good, to gather them, “from every dark place where they are scattered when it was cloudy and dark.” (Ez 34:12) He really loves helping others. There is no other way to say it. He simply finds great joy, his life’s purpose, in being a man for others. He experiences a rapturous emotive love for us that we creatures will experience only in heaven.
We bishops want our country to be a school of love. On rare occasions we may actually achieve that. Often, as we know, because we are all sinners, we have fallen short. Let us pledge ourselves to the heart, that is, to the hearts of Christ. We can do this because the divine love has been planted in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, because we see the Crucifix of Christ daily and thus, we know to what we are called, and because our own passions are wonderful things and we want to use them in a noble fashion. Jesus, give us a heart like your own.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
+ Earl Boyea
Bishop of Lansing
