It is no secret that families are under attack and that the institution of sacramental marriage has been maligned, with a resulting level destruction and human wreckage such that we have never seen or experienced before in human history. Family life is fraught with chaos, confusion, disorientation, disorganization and division. It is time to bring back the right order of things and respond to Jesus’ desire as described by St Margaret Mary:
“Everywhere this holy image was exposed to be honored, He would pour fourth His graces and blessings. This blessing was, as it were, a final effort of His love. He wanted to bestow upon men during these final centuries such loving redemption in order to snatch them from the control of Satan…”[i]
Fathers Matter
Whether we acknowledge Him as such or not, God is our Heavenly Father and He is still on His Throne. He is. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Creator of All. He rules over all of His creation and all of His creation is in Him. This is the truth. This has always been the truth and always will be the truth.
We need to put God first, where He belongs, not for Him but for us.
In the millisecond that is the span of a human lifetime, we owe God, our Father, every honor, every effort of love, expression of adoration, act of praise, worship and obedience. We exist to know, love and serve Him[ii] and to love Him with all our heart, soul, and mind. [iii] In fact, until we get this First Commandment down, the following nine will be like trying to hit a target with a blindfold on.
We need to put God first, where He belongs, not for Him but for us. Even as we pray for His Kingdom to come every time we pray the Our Father, we are praying for our souls to be delivered from evil. We are seeking His triumph over that evil and the kingdom of darkness from which it comes: a victory that comes through the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
That beautiful, adorable, perfect, passionate wounded Warrior Heart of our Lord Jesus, on fire with an unquenchable thirst for souls: It is our refuge, our strength and our shield. All of our lives, we are invited to completely succumb to Its sovereignty. We are called to lose ourselves for love of Him so that we might be completely united to the will of Our Father God.
Just like Jesus.
Just like Mary.
Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, then is not a mere pious practice, or even a devotion. It is a public declaration that inspires a personal transformation that completely assents and acknowledges that God is Our Father and the Authority over our homes, families, hearts and lives.
This is why human fatherhood is so foundational and integral to Enthronement. God ordains fathers as the spiritual head of their households in the context of sacramental marriage. Catholic fatherhood is a vocation that comes directly from God. Beautifully stated by Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik:
“Nature and Christian Tradition tell us that the father is the head of the home. That alone should suggest the dignity of fatherhood. Your dignity as a father rests, first of all, upon the fact that Almighty God has bestowed upon you the privilege of cooperating in the greatest natural mystery: the creation of human life.
Sons and daughters are yours in a sense that nothing else you may ever possess can be called your own. That thought carries with it a unique honor.
One of Satan’s greatest tactics in our present times is that he has convinced us that we are orphans; essentially that God’s Fatherhood does not matter or does not even exist.
Even modern society, which has striven to forget the sanctity of marriage, retains this basic recognition. Your children are your dependents. They bear your name. They imitate many of your mannerisms, gestures, and modes of thought. Much more: if you are a worthy father, and they are worthy children, they carry with them through life the training in virtue that you alone can impress on their young minds.” [iv]
Conversely, a fatherless family runs the risk of growing spiritually bereft and adrift. A father who does not take authority in the home, or a mother who will not relinquish it, will bring unnecessary disorder to the family. In cases of death or desertion, the head of the household naturally falls to the mother. In this case, it would be ideal for the Parish Priest to participate in the Enthronement.
It is important to remember that fathers, present in the household, cannot “opt out” of the Enthronement for all the reasons stated above. If a father is not willing to take initiative or lead the preparations and activities with and for his family, it would be better to postpone the ceremony and for all other members of the family to commit to prayer on behalf of the father. Taking this action, in patience and obedience, in itself, will bring a tremendous flow of grace into the household! (Fathers need our prayers.)
The Nature of God as Father
One of Satan’s greatest tactics in our present times is that he has convinced us that we are orphans; essentially that God’s Fatherhood does not matter or does not even exist. How many of us operate on a daily basis as if we are capable of living, working, thriving and being without or outside His ways and His will. This is not a new tactic, of course- it worked just as well in the Garden of Eden.
All the more reason why we need Jesus to show us the way to the Father’s Heart. It is a heart full of mercy, slow to anger, perfectly just and patient. God has a prodigal heart. He longs for our return. He waits. He waits for us to come to our senses. He knocks, but He cannot open the door to our homes or our hearts. We must let Him in and enthronement is a powerful, potentially life-changing way to do that.
Why a picture?
By now it should be quite clear that Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is not a one-time ceremony or an exercise in hanging a picture. It is a reorienting of the household (business, school, parish, diocese), its members and their hearts toward GOD as the spiritual authority of their lives. For if we are to ever experience the peace, unity, reconciliation, harmony and happiness that we so desperately seek, not just for our families but for our world, we must:
“Have no other Gods before Him… nor shall we make for ourselves a graven image, or anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth- we shall not bow down and serve them.”
The image is our “Northstar”- an effective means to guide us back, to pull us out of the darkness into the light of His love through the sanctuary that is His Heart. Therefore, we will set our faces like flint… and not be put to shame.
In this Catholic version of the First Commandment, we begin to see and understand how important images truly are. We are told that our eyes are the windows to our soul. What we feast our eyes upon, our heart soon follows and where our heart lies, therein lies our treasure (or our treachery depending on what it is.) And so it goes.
We live in times unprecedented. Never has there been so much competition, distraction and contamination before our eyes. We have easy access to steady streams of ugliness and perversion, images that are idolatrous, evil and damning to our souls. These images (and objects) make their way into our homes and infiltrate our minds.
This is why the image of the Sacred Heart, an Icon of the Father’s Love, is so very vital and necessary. We do not worship a picture, but a Living God.
The image is our “Northstar”- an effective means to guide us back, to pull us out of the darkness into the light of His love through the sanctuary that is His Heart. Therefore, we will set our faces like flint… and not be put to shame.[v] We will turn around and meet His gaze as we stumble and strive to find our way back home to Him.
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[i] Visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: 4 Mystical Messages to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque – EWTN Global Catholic Television Network
[ii] Catechism of the Catholic Church 1721
[iii] Matthew 22:37
[iv] The Catholic Family Handbook by Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik.
[v] Isaiah 50:7
