Devotion to the Sacred Heart

I have been reflecting on my own personal devotion to the Sacred Heart and how it developed. What triggered this was a request for us to send in favorite prayers or short reflections for all the First Fridays. I was thinking it might have been for every day of the month of June when we have the Feast of the Sacred Heart and it would then attract people daily to the new website for our Province. It is up and running as I write this and you can find my blog under "Spirituality" and also the other three RSCJ blogs I have listed on the side of my blog. I am the only one who manages to write a daily blog though and, as I have often said, I usually just sit down and depend on the Holy Spirit.
Today, however, I am sharing some memories that seem to me to explain how devotion to the Heart of Christ developed in my own life. It began when I was in the First Grade at the Visitation Academy and preparing for First Communion. I knew that Jesus loved me even before that, of course, but now I learned that He longed for my love. There was an oratory off the long corridor that lead to the cafeteria and I often managed to slip in there and kneel before the statue of the Sacred Heart. I began to think about all the people who never thought about Jesus, who never thanked Him, and I wanted to make up for their indifference. I think it was at this time I began using the ejaculatory prayer: "Sacred Heart of Jesus, I implore that I may ever love Thee more and more."
I seem to have always known that when we spoke of the Heart of Jesus we meant the person of Jesus. It was the language of St. Margaret Mary that I learned at the Visitation. This is a first installment of the development of my spirituality at least with regard to my reflections on how I grew in love for the Sacred Heart.