The Sacred Heart Over America

June of 2024 is a strange time to be an American. While the war drums are beating for the coming election, and a show trial has convicted one of the likely contenders, the rainbow flags fly triumphantly in most of our cities and many of our towns as the badge of the current ruling class. These worthies, in turn, have proclaimed June to be “Pride Month,” in honor of practices that were illegal in most places in the country during my boyhood. What is a patriotic Catholic American to do, looking at the screaming freak show that the nation has become?

First, let us not forget that June is, much more importantly, the Month of the Sacred Heart. The symbol of Christ’s love of the humanity for which He died has ever been the symbol of Catholic militance and resistance to anti-God regimes—from the Vendee in Revolutionary France, to Andreas Hofer’s men in Tyrol, to the Papal Zouaves, to the Carlists in Spain, to Bl. Emperor Karl, to the Cristeros in Mexico. For that matter, June 10 is White Rose Day—the birthday of James III, heir of James II, last Catholic to reign over the British Isles and the twelve American colonies then in existence. The White Rose would be the symbol of the Stuarts’ Jacobite supporters. In a word, this is a month that belongs to those who would fight for the Faith. 

Of course, one must remember the Reign of the Sacred Heart, as predicted by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque: 

If one reads the letters of St. Margaret Mary, she repeatedly tells us that the Sacred Heart of Jesus promised us that He was going to be victorious over Satan’s machinations: “I shall reign in spite of my enemies and all those who oppose it.”  

His Mother told Sr. Lucy of Fatima something similar: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.” Many a mystic from apostolic times to our own has prophesied a Great Monarch, a final Roman Emperor, who shall set all things to rights—until the coming of the Antichrist.

Now, without wanting to jump too deeply into the prophetic waters, if the Reign of the Sacred Heart, the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, and the Reign of the Great Monarch do indeed occur—and regardless of details, all three seem to point to a secular triumph of the Church at least one more time before doomsday—the United States will be a part of it, regardless of what form it may have by that time. For the less prophetically-minded, every Catholic has a patriotic duty to evangelize the land of his birth or immigration. Such efforts are certainly more rewarding—both individually and on the larger scale—than simply bemoaning the horrible state of affairs which we are becoming heirs to.

To begin with, we must regain that love of country that so many Americans have lost in the past few decades. When I was a Boy Scout, our Handbook had a fanciful imaginary exploration of the whole country. It began thusly: “How well do you know America—your country? How much does it mean to you? 

As a Scout you have hiked over its fields, camped in its woods. You have listened to the winds that speed across its plains, the brooks that gurgle through its meadows. But do you really know America? Have you realized its vastness, its beauty, its riches? 

Get out a map of the United States of America. Spread it out before you. Look at it with new eyes. 

Do you see the sweep of our country—from east to west, from north to south? 

Up here. New England shakes a finger at the Atlantic. Down there Florida dips a toe into the Caribbean Sea. The Great Lakes break into the straight line that separates us from Canada to the north. To the south, the Rio Grande forms a winding line along the Mexican border. Way up to the northwest, Alaska stretches a hand toward Asia. The waters of a gulf and two oceans lap against our shores and against the beaches of our outposts—Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and other islands to the west and the south.

Then follows a detailed imaginary hike over the whole of our great and beautiful country. It then concludes: “Our hike is done. We have seen America. It is vast. It is beautiful. It is rich. It is OURS—ours to know and to love.” Those words are as true now as ever they were. Regardless of the madness of its rulers, the country itself—its fifty states and its associated territories and possessions—is still our own land. And it is ours not only to know and to love, but, for that very reason, to attempt to convert.

June is also the beginning of the summer, a time when many people take to the highways to explore their immediate neighborhoods or further destinations. If we have the time and money—or even just a computer if we do not—let us familiarize ourselves with this wonderful land of ours. Let us look at the histories of the White House, Capitol, and Supreme Court, and the government buildings scattered around the country; regardless of how degenerate their current inhabitants may be, it was not always so. If we do go to Washington, D.C., and even if we don’t, let us look into the National Archives, Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution—holders of the collective national memory. 

Across the country stretch the National Parks system, the National Forests, the National wildlife refuges, Public Lands, Scenic Highways, Military Installations, and Indian Reservations. In our own state, there are parks and forests, as there are in our county and city. The National Register of Historic Places has listings in every county, and there are private and governmental organizations at every level dedicated to preserving historical sites of all kinds. Hereditary organizations preserve all sorts of sites important in our history, and the various Audubon Societies and local land trusts protect innumerable beautiful spots near us. Even if we cannot travel far, we can explore our own neighborhood. After all, true patriotism must start at the local level and then spread up to county and state, finally encompassing the whole country.

But this is not nearly enough if we are Catholic. We need to learn—or even to create—what it means to be a Catholic American. We should learn (and visit, if we can) the shrines and basilicas of our own land and learn about the history of our own diocese and the lives and work of our American Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, and Servants of God. Let us also look into the lives of those missionaries who really sought to convert our land during our independence, such as Frs. John Thayer, Arnold Damen, and Michael Mueller. 

Above all, we must cultivate a devotion to our national patroness, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. Her feast is our true national day—more than the Fourth of July can ever be. For all that we should see the buildings in Washington we spoke of earlier, our real national building is the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The Mission of Nombre de Dios in St. Augustine, Florida, is our true Plymouth Rock.

Of course, as things stand, we have little control over the great American macrocosm. But in ourselves and in our homes, we can begin creating the Catholic America that should have been and may well yet be. The domestic church is the foundation stone of any Catholic nation. Enthronement and Nocturnal Adoration of the Sacred Heart, family Rosaries, May Crownings, keeping the feasts of the Church year, and maintenance of a home altar—all of these things are key in building Catholic families.  Of course, as things stand, we have little control over the great American macrocosm. But in ourselves and in our homes, we can begin creating the Catholic America that should have been and may well yet be. Tweet This

We should also know where Perpetual Adoration and contemplative monasteries may be found in our area, for in a real sense the Reign of the Sacred Heart is to be found in those places already. We should seek out ethnic parishes, Latin Mass communities, Eastern Rite churches, and Ordinariate communities where we can find them and join in their festivals and processions, which bring the Faith out into the street and the marketplace. If we are in rural areas, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference has all sorts of resources for helping us to live the Faith in such settings.

In the larger community, we should participate as fully as our position, interests, time, and money allow—whether it be the chamber of commerce, garden club, or service organization. Making the community a better place—from shopping locally to being a friend of the library—is an act of patriotism, and patriotism is a religious virtue. But again, as Catholics we cannot separate patriotism from evangelism, and we must be ready to explain the Faith to any who ask us about it in the course of our labor for the common good.

My old Scout Handbook exhorted us to “Remember that America is not a gift that is freely given us. Each of us must deserve it. We must work for America, live for it, and, if the call should come, die for it!” This is a reality that is lost today amid the hurly-burly of politics. But this gift was given us not by our government, nor the Founding Fathers, nor even, as the song puts it, “our worshipful fathers, we’ll give them a cheer, who to regions unknown did courageously steer” (true whether they were 17th-century colonists or 21st-century refugees). It is a gift given us by God Himself. It is a field He expects us to cultivate—and part of that cultivation includes readying ourselves for His service.

Nor, as Catholic Americans, are we allowed to see the realm to which we belong solely in terms of our own boundaries. Our Catholic neighbors to North and South, in the Mother Continent whence the vast majority of us spring, and in Africa, Asia, and the rest of the world, are, if anything, even more our fellow citizens than those who are bound to us civilly but not by the waters of Baptism, which are indeed thicker than blood. As the English journalist Ernest Oldmeadow put it in 1926, 

Christ the King has other rebels besides Russia and Mexico and France. The map of His dominions shows not only the Empires and Kingdoms and Republics, but also the counties, the towns, the villages, the hamlets, and—like the ordnance maps of largest scale—the homesteads each and all. Indeed, it goes farther than the work of any human cartographer; because it shows the inmost places of every human heart. Even the humblest man or woman or child alive is, so to speak, a tiny province in the dominions of Christ the King: a province either submissive or disobedient, either loyal or rebellious.

Whether the Reign of the Sacred Heart comes in our time or not, come it shall, and we can and must be part of it now. Our poor efforts on its behalf God shall incorporate into a general pattern which we all of us are too small to see but can, occasionally, feel. Moreover, those efforts are part and parcel of our personal and individual salvation. They may not bear fruit that we can see in this life, but we shall in the next.

If we seek a human example to model ourselves after in all of this, we need look no further than that of Bl. Emperor-King Karl I, last reigning Habsburg Monarch of Central Europe, thus far. As with ourselves, he took on challenges at once religious, cultural, and political in nature. Betrayed on every side by those figures in Church and State he had every right to depend upon, he and his wife, Servant of God Zita, nevertheless soldiered on with tasks that were greater than anyone could have accomplished successfully. 

Serene and grounded in their faith, they endured enormous suffering, losing positions and power. He died an early and painful death as a result, whereas she lived on for many decades, guarding the rights of her children and her peoples to the best of her ability. Despite the role our country played in their tragedy, let us seek their intercession for us and these United States; after all, within our borders are 30 shrines to the Holy Emperor.

Let all these things be our consolation in the months ahead, whatever alien flags may fly over us, and however the elections may turn out. Even if all Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride over our stricken nation, let us do our duty to God and country, knowing that even if these evils should kill our bodies, they cannot touch our souls.