The Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the home
By Kim Buck
So, what is the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart? Simply put, it is a ritual of prayers and blessings, celebrated by a priest, to establish the social reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the home.
The priest will therefore visit the home to celebrate the ritual, whereby through prayer, the family publicly acknowledges the Sacred Heart of Jesus as King and Master. Hence, the head of the family places an image or statue of the Sacred Heart in a central position as if on a throne. Thus, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is “Enthroned”!
Together, the family members then consecrate themselves to the Sacred Heart. There is a prayer for the renewal of this consecration, to be said each night with the family prayers.
So how did the ceremony come to be? We find in the previous section on the imagery of the Sacred Heart words that are relevant to the development of the Enthronement ceremony – words written by Saint Margaret Mary herself regarding the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the understanding of which had been given her through special graces she had received. We shall re-quote them here.
He takes great pleasure in being honoured by His creatures. He … seemed to promise …“that all those who are devoted to this Sacred Heart will never perish and that, since He is the source of all blessings, He will shower them in abundance on every place where an image of this loving heart shall be exposed to be loved and honoured [Emphasis mine].
By this means He will reunite broken families and assist and protect those in any necessity. He will spread the soothing unction of His ardent charity on every religious community in which this divine image is honoured. He will turn aside the blows of the just wrath of God by restoring them to His grace when through sin they have fallen from it.
It could be said, that these specific words have formed the foundation of the Enthronement ceremony, developed by the Peruvian Priest, Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey. After a miraculous cure at Paray-le- Monial, whilst praying in the chapel of the Apparitions of the Sacred Heart to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, he consecrated his life to the mission of spreading devotion to the Sacred Heart.
He was inspired to do this through the family, the centre of Christian social life. He believed that through the family, the social reign of Jesus Christ would naturally spread. So who is Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey? Let us look more closely at his life and how the Enthronement came to be.
Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey (1875-1960) was born in Peru. His formation was with the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts: the Sacred Hearts, to whom he developed a special devotion.
With the belief that charity begins at home, in 1900 he established a social centre, with three goals:
1. To make known and loved the royalty of Jesus Christ.
2. To make reparation for public offences against Jesus Christ.
3. To bring Jesus the Redeemer into contact with the entire family.
One can see here the beginnings of his work with the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Home.
It was six years later, in August 1906, that an earthquake raised the centre to the ground. Through his efforts to aid the wounded and destitute, Father Crawley-Boevey found himself seriously ill. He went to Europe in seek of medical aid and stopped off at Paray-le-Monial.
Whilst praying in the very chapel where Saint Margaret Mary had experienced the Apparitions of the Sacred Heart, he was miraculously cured.
He expressed his gratitude to Our Lord for this tremendous miracle and subsequently was inspired with a mission to establish the social reign of the Sacred Heart.
This mission was to be carried out by a series of prayers and blessings within the home, where families would consecrate themselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who would then reign as Head of the household.
Travelling to Rome, to request the Holy Father’s blessing, Father Crawley-Boevey received an impassioned command from Pope Pius X, to dedicate his life to this work. He then returned to Paray-le-Monial on his journey homewards and whilst there, a grace was bestowed upon him. He saw clearly how this work was to be undertaken.
He understood the importance of bringing devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, from a purely Ecclesiastical devotion, into the family home. In other words, through the establishing of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the head of the household – where special devotions would be prayed to Him -the promises and requests made by Our Lord, would then be fulfilled within the family unit.
In his own words, he proclaimed, “I resolved upon a plan to conquer the whole world for the love of the Heart of Jesus – home after home, family after family.”
Filled with passion and strengthened by the Papal blessing and Divine inspiration, Father Crawley Boevey began his mission in Chile. He travelled with another priest, from house to house, Enthroning the Sacred Heart of Jesus and consecrating families to their King.
Due to the high numbers of conversions and families fervently returning to the faith, news of the Father’s work soon spread. It was not long before translations of the Enthronement ceremony were being sent all over the Catholic world.
Thus, came about the ceremony of the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart within the home. One could say that it is in some way, the fulfilment of the desires made to St. Margaret Mary, by the Sacred Heart of Jesus Himself – that as ‘the source of all blessings, He will shower them in abundance on every place where an image of this loving heart shall be exposed to be loved and honoured.’ And ‘all those’, in this case, is the family- the very centre of earthly life.
Other Pages in this Section of our website introducing the Sacred Heart Devotion can be found with this:
Table of Contents
- An Introduction to the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
- The Holy Hour of Reparation
- The First Friday Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
- The Annual Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
- Exposition of the Image of the Sacred Heart
- Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in the Home
- Prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
UPDATE 2017: I would just like to add to this page that my husband Roger Buck, also author of a book on the Sacred Heart (Cor Jesu Sacratissimum – here at Amazon worldwide) has recently produced a beautiful video about the Heart of Jesus.
In that video, he talks about our experiences on pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial in France, experiences which completely changed both of our lives and led to the creation of this website dedicated to His Most Sacred Heart. The videos also features many images related to devotion to the Sacred Heart as well as photos of Paray-le-Monial, taken by me and others.
One Comment
The Sacred Heart of Jesus was enthroned in our home many years ago, and we have been greatly blessed. I am currently trying to find a print that is identical to the one we have, so that we can share this with others. It is the very same image that you have directly above this blog post. Would you happen to know where we can acquire these prints? God Bless you.