Sunday Meditation: June 1st -- Month of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

In this first June since the election of Pope Leo XIV, let us recall the very first celebration of the month of the Sacred Heart. It was offered as forty days of reparation during the French Revolution. 

French Jesuit, Fr. Alexandre Lanfant, preacher to the royal court and confessor to King Louis XVI refused to take the oath to the civil constitution of the clergy. Arrested on August 29, 1792 and charged with influencing the monarch, Fr. Lanfant was killed on September 5 by the revolutionary mob. He was one of the 300 clergy victims of the September massacres. Fr. Lafant promoted distribution of a pamphlet that called for forty days of prayer and penance. It ended with a solemn prayer of Consecration to the Sacred Heart.