Many Americans are led to believe the nation’s best years are over, leading to pessimism about the country’s future. Conversely, recent statistics show that American religiosity and church attendance are on the rise.

The Catholic Church possesses a powerful antidote for those poisoned by pessimism, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) are providing the means. The USCCB consecrated America to the Sacred Heart in honor of America’s 250th birthday this July. The bishops’ goal: to center Americans’ private and public life on Jesus’ love at a time of widespread division and loneliness.

The USCCB’s consecration came just ahead of the September beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, putting him on track to possibly becoming the first American-born bishop to be canonized. Few Americans embodied devotion to the Sacred Heart like Sheen, who used his global audience to proclaim Christ’s love and rekindle national pride.

Venerable Fulton Sheen, consecrated a bishop 75 years ago, is the champion of the Sacred Heart that America sorely needs. The convergence of the USCCB’s consecration and America’s 250th with his beatification serves as a powerful reminder to all Americans that they must reorient their hope and patriotism toward God.

Archbishop Shelton Fabre of Louisville, Kentucky, recently told EWTN News that the USCCB hopes the Sacred Heart will heal Americans, especially “now when many of us are feeling tired, divided, and lonely.” Bishop Fabre added that the consecration seeks to remind Americans that they can bring their sufferings — marital, financial, political, even addictions and despair — to Christ. He hopes the consecration will show Americans that their prayers are heard by “someone whose heart burns with love for us.”

This was Archbishop Sheen’s mission: to share his deep love and close relationship with Christ with others.

Archbishop Sheen had a deep devotion to the Sacred Heart for precisely this reason. As a highly educated theologian, he had a masterful ability to translate deep theological discoveries into everyday devotion and knowledge. He wanted Americans to have a personal relationship with Jesus. He knew they would only appreciate the depth of this love through devotion to the Sacred Heart.

For example, Archbishop Sheen wrote extensively on the connection between Jesus’ Sacred Heart and the Incarnation, when the second person of the Trinity took on a human body with a human heart. He taught seminarians that the Incarnation was necessary — sin had entered the world through the disobedience of a man and needed to be redeemed through the righteousness of a man.

Venerable Fulton Sheen emphasized how Jesus chose to assume a human body to take on this burden out of love for us. His Sacred Heart would soon become a manifestation of God’s love for all of mankind. Jesus’ human body was destined to be crucified as an offering of love by which we would be saved. And when Jesus was crucified, his human Sacred Heart was pierced and bled for our salvation.

Archbishop Sheen encourages us to use the sufferings of daily life to draw closer to the Sacred Heart. A year before he died, for example, he had open heart surgery. This experience and the residual scars prompted Sheen to reflect prayerfully on how the centurion pierced Jesus’ heart to verify that he had died after the crucifixion. The archbishop said that he hoped that when God the Father sees him, he would look on Archbishop Sheen’s scar and recognize something of his Son. Even in suffering, the archbishop found a way to draw closer to Jesus.

Archbishop Sheen also noted that Jesus was not ashamed of his scars. In fact, although his resurrected body was radiant and transformed, it was not healed of the five wounds in his hands, his feet, and his side. The archbishop wrote that the Lord kept those scars because they are a witness to the depth of his love.

Thomas the Apostle said he wouldn’t believe in the Resurrection unless he touched the scars and marks in Jesus’ hands and side. When Jesus appeared to the disciples, he instructed Thomas to do so. Thomas did so and believed. 

Archbishop Sheen emphasized this scene in his writings to remind us that Jesus was recognized literally through his scars. This biblical scene offers consolation to those suffering in our nation today — torn by sin, political division, marital or family troubles, financial or worse — that they might find peace and purpose uniting their sufferings to Christ.

We’re told by St. John that “God is love.” Venerable Fulton also recognized the importance of being loved with a human heart. From all eternity, God has loved us with a perfect, infinite love. Even before we were conceived, God has known us and loved us. 

However, in the Incarnation, Jesus took on flesh and loved us with a human heart. In doing this, God has brought us an even more perfect love, coming even closer to us by uniting his divinity with our humanity. 

In the womb of Mary, the loving Sacred Heart of Jesus was formed. On the cross, that same Sacred Heart was pierced with a lance. Knowing the depth of God’s love and suffering for us ought to encourage Americans in their daily lives.

During his life, Archbishop Sheen encouraged millions of listeners around the globe, and especially across the U.S., to develop a personal relationship with Jesus through reflections on His Sacred Heart.

As the Church consecrated the nation to the Sacred Heart, that same invitation is extended again: to a people searching for unity, to discover that the deepest renewal is in the heart that was pierced for them.

 

Msgr. Jason Gray is the executive director of the Fulton J. Sheen Foundation and a canon lawyer who led the investigation of Venerable Fulton’s approved miracle for beatification. He also served the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints from 2012 to 2015.