In less than 7 days, we get to celebrate 2 great gifts from our Lord. On Sunday, we celebrate gift of Jesus' Body and Blood in the Eucharist on Corpus Christi Sunday. And on Friday, we get to celebrate the gift of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

These might seem like very pious and private events that we should commemorate by praying litanies or attending Mass. But throughout the history of the church, these 2 feasts have been an outward sign of the love of Christ to the world. 

Corpus Christi started as a special Mass to publicly profess the Eucharist as Christ's Body and Blood in the 13th century. Pope Urban IV called on Catholics to walk with the Eucharist in procession, so that their belief in the Eucharist wouldn't be confined to the walls of the Church. It was to be taken to non-believers and to culminate in a moment of worship and benediction, to be a public moment of worship. 

Likewise, the feast of the Sacred Heart isn't a quiet, private devotion. When St. Margaret Mary received the revelation of the Sacred Heart in the 17th century, the Catholic Church was under attack from the spread of Protestantism. Some Catholics (called Jansenists) thought the only way to save the Church and attain salvation, was through rigorous penitential practices that rejected the physical body. But, Jesus appeared to Margaret Mary, fully embracing His humanity and offering His physical heart to her. This feast day became a public proclamation that, even in the chaos of the physical world, we can have peace in the heart of Jesus. 

At least once this week, intentional pray in the presence of others. You could pray the rosary while walking down the street or you could make the Sign of the Cross and pray before eating at a restaurant. These simple acts make us publicly and outwardly proclaim our faith and trust in Christ (rather than in the world). 

In Christ, through Mary, 

Fr. Devin