Prayers · Sacred Heart

Consecration of the Family to the Sacred Heart — Enthronement

The Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the home is one of the most beautiful family devotions of the 20th century. It consists in solemnly placing an image of the Sacred Heart in the most noble place of the house (dining room, principal wall), and in consecrating the family to the Heart of Christ with all solemnity — before the whole family gathered, ideally with the presence of the parish priest, on a significant date (Feast of the Sacred Heart, wedding anniversary, change of home, Christmas, Easter). The devotion was systematised and promoted worldwide by Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey SS.CC. (1875-1960) — Chilean-Peruvian priest of the Sacred Hearts — from 1907 on, after being miraculously cured at Paray-le-Monial. Benedict XV, in the Apostolic Brief of 27 April 1915, approved and blessed the work; Pius XI commended it in the encyclical Quas Primas (1925, feast of Christ the King) and on other occasions. The consecratory prayer that follows is the traditional formula adapted from the script of Fr Crawley.

(The whole family gathered before the image of the Sacred Heart, standing. The father or — in his absence — the mother or the eldest of the family reads aloud:)

Sacred Heart of Jesus, who showed to St Margaret Mary your desire to reign over Christian families: here we are, today, to proclaim in a solemn and definitive manner your absolute reign over ours.

We wish to live from now on your life; we wish that the virtues to which you promised peace on earth may flourish in the bosom of our home; we wish to keep far from us the spirit of the world, which you have condemned.

You shall be the King of our thoughts and of our affections. You shall be the King of our works and of our rests. You shall be the King of our joys and the consoler of our sorrows.

Reign over the parents, strengthen the bond of the marriage which we celebrated in your presence. Reign over the children: those whom the Lord has already given us, and those whom he may yet give us. Reign over the parents of our parents — the grandparents, living and deceased. Reign over relatives, friends of the house, employees, visitors.

Be particularly our King in difficult hours: in illnesses, in separations, in economic crises, at the hour of the death of any of us. May your Heart be our refuge in these hours, according to the Fourth Promise which you made to St Margaret Mary.

And when your hour comes for each of us — the hour of the passage — gather us one by one through your mercy, and reunite us forever, all together, in your eternal kingdom, where you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.

Amen.

(The family responds:) Sacred Heart of Jesus, reign over our family!

Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be.

Source: Own composition in the form of a family consecratory prayer, based on the substance and structure of the rite of Enthronement of the Sacred Heart systematised by Fr Mateo Crawley-Boevey SS.CC. (1875-1960) from 1907 on; reference to the Twelve Promises of St Margaret Mary (especially the Second — peace in families — and the Fourth — refuge at the hour of death); citation of the universal liturgical trinitarian formula

Ecclesiastical approval: Work of the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in the home approved by Benedict XV in Apostolic Brief of 27 April 1915; commended by Pius XI in the encyclical <em>Quas Primas</em> (11.12.1925) which instituted the Feast of Christ the King of the Universe; promoted by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts (SS.CC.) and by the Movement of the Enthronement throughout the world; mentioned by St John Paul II in various discourses to families; feast of the Sacred Heart on the Friday after Corpus Christi as a solemnity of the General Roman Calendar

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