June is the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Sacred Heart is a great way to help your children embrace a concept that is hard even for adults to understand. How can God—almighty, spiritual, everywhere at once—be a man? Aren't men (and women) weak, fleshly and mortal? The answer lies in Jesus' heart.
In a wonderful meditation on the Sacred Heart, Pope John Paul II writes: “In the Sacred Heart of Jesus, God loves in a human way, and human love takes on a divine intensity.”
Last year, for the entire month of June, we kept a poster up in our dining room. It was a picture of a tree, leafless in the winter. Every day we read a little bit about the Sacred Heart. Each child picked colorful, construction-paper “leaves” from a basket to attach to the branches, making the tree “come alive.”
On the leaves were pieces of paper, prepared ahead of time, containing different little prayers to the Sacred Heart. “Pray that you may learn to be kind to everyone,” said one. “Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like yours,” said another.
The children loved gluing these to the tree so much that we also let them add plain leaves (without the prayers) so there would be more leaves to go around.
June 2 is Corpus Christi Sunday. If you're blessed with a parish that has a eucharistic procession planned, nothing can make a more profound impression on your children than seeing adults processing solemnly behind the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance.
If they're at all confused about what it means for Christ to be present in the Eucharist, and how that's different from his presence everywhere else, this will make the concept clear. See what's in your area by checking with the Knights of Columbus or by asking at local perpetual-adoration chapels.
June 7 is the feast of the Sacred Heart. It's also the first Friday in June—a good day to go to Mass with the whole family on a weekday when you don't technically have to.
If you're not sure how to celebrate this feast, think of it as God's Valentine's Day: the day to celebrate God's passionate love for us. Tell your children that God is love, and that's why we have a whole day dedicated just to Jesus' Heart. The next day is the Immaculate Heart of Mary. You can have a love feast for two days running!
June 16 is Father's Day. It's a great time to honor our priests, who work so hard for us and, especially nowadays, could use more appreciation.
You might do what some friends and I are doing. We've made up spiritual-bouquet cards for parishioners to fill out. On each, we give a parishioner the opportunity to pledge to say certain prayers for the pastor and associate priests: Glory Be's, Hail Mary's, Our Father's, Masses, rosaries, and so on. I passed them out, on the sly, to catechism students at a potluck dinner recently.
The children made wonderful sacrifices. One small boy promised a million of every prayer. Just as touching were the children who seemed to take great care in making their promises realistic—there are many crossed-out numbers replaced with new numbers, showing that the students took their pledges seriously. We are going to present them all to the priests after Mass on Father's Day.
April Hoopes writes from Hamden, Connecticut.