The decision to set aside the whole month of June in honour of the Sacred Heart was linked to an event in the early 1830s in Les Oiseaux, a girls' secondary school in the centre of Paris. Angéle de Saint Croix, one of the boarders, was very upset because she could not get into the Children of Mary. As a somewhat lively teenager, she had too many 'black marks' against her.

On pouring out her woes to Reverend Mother she was recommended to pay a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. A little prayer to the Sacred Heart would work wonders and put everything right. Angéle couldn't wait to get to the chapel but within ten minutes she was back again knocking on Reverend Mother's door.

Archbishop of Paris
In the course of her prayer it had struck her that Our Lady had a whole month to herself in May and that it was not fair that the Sacred Heart had not one too! Reverend Mother did not feel qualified to comment on such an unusual assertion but suggested that she make her case to the Archbishop of Paris who was due to speak to the girls at assembly on the following Friday. This Angéle duly did.

His Grace admitted that he had never given consideration to such a proposition but on the spot decided that in the future in his Archdiocese, June would be dedicated to the Sacred Heart, for two intentions: the conversion of sinners and the return of France to the practice of the faith.

The idea spread like wildfire. Dioceses all over the world picked up the idea with the result that today it is an accepted part of Catholic life. According to sacristans who keep a close eye on these things, June is the only month in the whole year when more candles are lit to Our Lord than to Our Lady!

Choice of June
Until I heard about the initiative of Angéle and the swift reaction of her archbishop, I always assumed that June was named the Month of the Sacred Heart for no other reason than that the Feast of the Sacred Heart, a movable feast linked to the date of Easter, normally or nearly always falls in June. This is not absolutely true because sometimes, when Easter is very early, it can fall in May. On the other hand, in 1943, because Easter fell on 25 April, the latest in the whole twentieth century, the Feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated on 2 July.

You may be still wondering, however, why June was chosen over any other month. It wasn't simply because of the sunny weather or to balance the month dedicated to the Queen of the May. The concept originated in an extraordinary revelation to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque at Paray le Monial in the Charollais area of eastern France in the seventeenth century when Our Lord asked that a special Feast be instituted in honour of his Sacred Heart. He was very precise about the timing and formally requested that it be celebrated eight days after the Feast of His Body and Blood or in the language of the time, on the Octave Day of Corpus Christi.

At that time Corpus Christi was celebrated everywhere on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, so the new Feast was to take place on the following Friday week. The mills of God ground very slowly because it took nearly two hundred years before this divine request was realized when Blessed Pope Pius IX extended the Feast of the Sacred Heart to the Universal Church in 1856.

Reparation
This new Feast was meant to be an act of reparation, not for sins in general, but in particular for sins against the Eucharist, the great sacrament of divine love and generosity. The month of June is a privileged time when we are encouraged to show our love for the Sacred Heart. All that is asked of us is 'love in return for Love'. This is clear from the words of the Lord to the French saint:

`Behold this heart that has so loved all men and women that It has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself to prove to them Its love. In return, I receive from the greater number nothing but ingratitude, contempt, irreverence, sacrilege and coldness in this Sacrament of my love. But what I feel still more is that there are hearts consecrated to me who use me thus.

`Therefore I ask of you that the Friday after the Octave of the Blessed Sacrament be kept as a special festival in honour of my Heart, to make reparation for the indignities offered to It and as a Communion day, in order to atone for the unworthy treatment It has received when exposed upon the altars. I also promise that my Heart shall shed in abundance the influence of Its divine love on all those who shall honour It or cause It to be so honoured.'

Miraculous medal
Hyacinthe Louis de Quelen, the Archbishop in question, whose spontaneity led to such a growth in Sacred Heart devotion, was also instrumental around the same time, in furthering the cause of devotion to the Blessed Virgin. He it was who first authorized the manufacture of the Miraculous Medal in 1832 with the comment: `Simply spread this medal around. We can judge the tree by its fruit'.

Countless millions ever since have been eternally grateful for the response of this enlightened prelate to two inspired women. Oe was a 'bold' teenager in a boarding-school and the other a novice in the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul who received the revelations of Our Lady in the Rue de Bac, now canonized as Saint Catherine Labouré.