The world-wide Regnum Christ Novena in preparation for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus begins tomorrow, June 3rd and ends June 11th, on the eve of the feast day. You can pray it daily on our website, app, and social media, or sign up for daily emails.
With this novena we begin nine days of preparation for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart on June 12. We want to respond to the request that Pope Francis made of the whole Church when he wrote the encyclical dedicated to this mystery of the Sacred Heart that we celebrate, asking for the grace to go deeper into the Heart of Jesus Christ as the place where we experience and live our mission.
Our spirituality is centered above all on Jesus Christ and born from experiencing his love. (SRCF 12); therefore, to return to the Heart of Christ is to return to the source of our spiritual and apostolic life.
“I ask our Lord Jesus Christ to grant that his Sacred Heart may continue to pour forth the streams of living water that can heal the hurt we have caused, strengthen our ability to love and serve others, and inspire us to journey together towards a just, solidary and fraternal world. Until that day when we will rejoice in celebrating together the banquet of the heavenly kingdom in the presence of the risen Lord, who harmonizes all our differences in the light that radiates perpetually from his open heart.”
(Pope Francis, Dilexit nos, no. 220)
About the design of the Novena
The illustrative art for this novena is intended to represent the pilgrim Church that walks united towards Christ, with its gaze fixed on his Sacred Heart. In the center appears the Risen Jesus showing the wounds of his passion and his open Heart, a sign of the love with which he loved us to the point of giving his life for us and the source from which flows the grace that heals, sustains, and guides the Church’s journey. His outstretched arms evoke the invitation of the Gospel: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28), as well as the call to “remain in his love” (Jn 15:9), a theme that runs through the entire novena.
The whole composition is constructed as a common pilgrimage to God. The different groups represent the richness and diversity of the People of God: families, young adults, priests, consecrated persons, children, and different charisms. Regnum Christi walks together with others, as a spiritual family within the greater ecclesial communion. Everyone moves forward looking towards Christ, because He is the origin, the way, and the goal. The presence of Mary and St. Joseph reminds us that the pilgrim Church never walks alone: they intercede, accompany, and continuously point to Jesus. Also inspired by the early Christian tradition of the Good Shepherd and the people he leads to eternal life, the illustration is intended to evoke the Lord who leads his people to the meadows of rest and the rivers of living water: “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I lack… in green pastures he makes me lie down” (Ps 23). Thus, this novena becomes an invitation to return to the Heart of Christ, to entrust our burdens to him, and to learn from him, “who is meek and humble of heart”.
