Devotion to the Sacred Heart

Fr. Henry Hoheisel was our first, full-time pastor and served from 1897 to 1939. During that time he oversaw the expansion of the first church, the building of the second and starting our school in-between. Fr. Hoheisel was not a fan of the name "St. Columbkille" as it made no sense to him that a parish made up of mostly Germans would be named after an Irish Saint. But he did have a deep devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which is why he named the school "Sacred Heart Academy."

The school was renamed after St. Columbkille in 1979 to make clear the connection between the parish and the school. But one of the few statues in the church is of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

As early as the 11th century there was devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but it was a private devotion. It was in 1670 that Fr. Jean Eudes encouraged the spread of the devotion but it really took off after St. Margaret Mary Alacoque had a "great apparition" where Jesus asked that the Feast of the Sacred Heart be celebrated on the Friday after the octave (eighth day) of the Feast of Corpus Christi in reparation for the ingratitude of humanity for the sacrifice that Christ made them.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus does not simply represent His physical heart, but His love for all of mankind. It is a day where we can ask if we are truly grateful for Christ's sacrifice.

Happy 750th Anniversary

It was 750 years ago that Pope Urban IV issued the papal bull "Transiturus," which established the Feast of Corpus Christi as a universal feast of the Church. He then asked the leading theologians of the day, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure, to compose the official prayers for this feast. After casting lots, St. Thomas Aquinas presented first. With tears of joy, St. Bonaventure was so impressed that he threw his composition into a fireplace and insisted that what St Thomas Aquinas' composition be used -- and it is.

Today Pope Francis said:

"Whenever we participate in the Holy Mass and we eat the body of Christ, the presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit works within us, it shapes our hearts, it communicates inner attitudes that transform within us into modes of behavior according to the Gospel. ... I would like to highlight these two things: the measure of God's love is to love without measure, our life with the love of Jesus; by receiving the Eucharist we make ourselves a gift just as Jesus was."

Corpus Christi

The sacrament of Christ's body and blood is honored in a special way today, and the liturgy reminds us of the magnitude of this gift, with its roots deep in Jesus' own Jewish heritage (first reading and Gospel) and its power to draw us into life with Christ (Gospel verse and communion antiphon). Nor does our celebration permit us to focus only on the eucharistic elements. Though "we worship [Christ] living among us in the sacrament," we pray that we might lead lives "poured out in loving service of [God's] kingdom" (alternative opening prayer). Our sharing in Christ's body and blood joins us to Christ's sacrifice and makes us members of God's family. Perhaps the second preface for Holy Eucharist sums it up best: "We come then to this wonderful sacrament to be fed at your table and grow into the likeness of the risen Christ."

(The text above is from OCP and was written by Bryan M Cones.)