Have I ever mentioned that I dislike the word “heart”? In high school, when I began earnestly trying to hone my writing skills, I shared a poem I’d written with a literature teacher I admired. He read my stanzas carefully, then said, “You’re off to a good start, but this is overly sentimental. Try again, but don’t use the word heart at all.” For years afterward, I avoided using the word “heart” so scrupulously that I probably would have tried to write a cardiology research paper without it.

Which now brings me to June, the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart. That heart—enflamed, pierced, thorn-wrapped—appears everywhere. I’ve seen the image around the world in countless forms from grand sculptures and paintings to tattoos and stickers on water bottles. Most people have probably encountered an image of the Sacred Heart, whether or not they realize its true meaning. As an icon, the Sacred Heart is among the most universally recognizable. 

Yet when you really look at it, the Sacred Heart bears far more power than a cool, stylized graphic or sentimental symbol. Thorns. Fire. Gashes: it’s radical and shocking, brutal and bloody and burning with a love more relentless than death. And this is a reality we ought to celebrate with real grit, heft, and bananas foster (I’ll explain). 

The divine duty to feast

We are created for the eternal feast of Heaven. In our earthly lives, feasts matter because they're an opportunity to connect the visible and invisible, the goodness of body and soul, the gift of our senses and the gift of grace. Through the physicality of feasts and pilgrimages—even tiny ones around your own home or city—the body leads the soul into deeper encounter with its destiny. 

I can’t think of a more fitting summer feast than a heart in flames. Here are eight ideas for celebrating the Sacred Heart this month.                       

Read the story of the Sacred Heart devotion.

The wounded heart of Jesus has been a source of contemplation and devotion throughout Church history. Saints like Francis of Assisi, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Gertrude referenced Jesus’ heart in their writings and charisms. But the devotion became universally formalized beginning in 1673 when something extraordinary happened in a little French town called Paray-le-Monial. 

Sr Margaret-Mary Alacoque, a young French Visitation nun, had gone to evening prayer on December 27, 1673, when she received a mystical apparition of Jesus. He invited her to rest her head against His heart.  He wanted her to tell the whole world about His fiery love for humanity. Shortly after this first encounter, Sr Margaret-Mary received a vision of the image that is now so iconic: a heart in flames, wrapped by thorns and lanced, with a cross planted on top. The apparitions continued periodically until on June 16, 1675, Jesus asked that a feast of the Sacred Heart be implemented. He told her, “Behold the heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love.” St Margaret-Mary and her confessor, St Claude de la Colombière, were the first people to consecrate themselves to the Sacred Heart. In 1969, Pope St Paul VI elevated the feast to a solemnity. 

Pray at the St Anthony Gardens behind St Louis Cathedral. 

St Louis Cathedral has strong ties to St Margaret-Mary Alacoque’s native France (as does the whole city). While many visitors go inside the cathedral, few pass by the lush gardens behind the building. These gardens house a beloved Sacred Heart statue known as “Touchdown Jesus” for the outstretched-arms posture. This statue became profoundly important to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, when the statue’s fingers were broken off by the storm. For ten years as the city rebuilt, the fingers remained thus to signify Jesus’ suffering alongside the city. In 2015, the statue was finally restored in an emotional service that symbolized the healing of the city. 

• Related: A one-day pilgrimage itinerary for St Louis Cathedral

Pray at the Basilica of St Stephen’s Sacred Heart chapel.

Uptown’s beautiful St Stephen Basilica is the second-largest church in New Orleans after St Louis Cathedral. Alongside the main altar, it houses a side chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart. Praying at this antique statue is one of my favorite little practices after Mass. 

Walk the heart walk in Audubon Park. 

Once you’re in the neighborhood, swing by Audubon Park to stroll the gentle “heart walk” path that loops around palm-shaded lagoons and under spectacular, moss-draped ancient oaks. You could use the time to pray a litany of the Sacred Heart, listen to music, or just receive the gift of creation from the heart of the One who loves you most. 

Eat a fiery meal. 

St John Paul II reminds us: “The body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it.” 

Pick a meal that both celebrates and reinforces the fiery love of the Sacred Heart. I propose the ridiculously delicious Cochon, where food is cooked over an open flame.  If you’re in the mood for seafood, try open-flame-centric Peche. For pizza, Domenica serves upscale wood-fired, charred pizza and vegetables. All of these dishes will make you praise God all over again.

Order bananas foster.

New Orleans invented bananas foster, a dessert in which bananas are flambeed in rum and banana liquor, then spooned over rich vanilla ice cream. Is there any dessert more fitting for the Sacred Heart? Many of the old guard restaurants in the French Quarter (Brennan’s, Broussard’s, Arnaud’s) make the dish tableside, so you get to watch the flames leaping and dancing. You’re welcome. 

• Related: 25 things I always want to eat and drink in New Orleans 

Make a small act of consecration to the Sacred Heart.

In 2026, the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary. In response, the American bishops have designated June 11 as a day of consecrating the nation to the Sacred Heart. There is a longer process of formal personal consecration to the Sacred Heart (which is a worthy endeavor), but you can join the national consecration with this simple prayer.

Return to the origins of the Sacred Heart devotion. 

Finally, if you really want to go all-in on the Sacred Heart feast, let’s go! We can book a flight to Paris, climb the hill of Montmartre, and spend the day inside the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur.  Built as a national act of consecration, Sacre-Coeur represented a wayward France returning to the heart of Christ. Perpetual adoration has occurred inside continuously since 1885. We could also hop over to Paray-le-Monial and visit the places where St Margaret-Mary received her visions.

• Related: The Paris basilica where adoration has never stopped 

If you’d like help planning a pilgrimage locally or abroad, or planning personal travel with greater depth and intention, Thy Ship would love to design a perfect itinerary and help you go differently.  Let's talk!

__________

Contact me. I am a Catholic author, artist, speaker, pilgrimage leader, and travel concierge.

I'd love to collaborate with you on your next retreat, day of reflection, pilgrimage, trip, or event.

Subscribe to A Heroic Moment, my free weekly newsletter.

Bananas foster image and recipe