The Virtues of the Sacred Heart and Counteracting Pride Month

Holy Mother Church uses June as the month to promote the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the virtues within It which we should strive to imitate and make a normal part of our own lives so as to grow each day in becoming like Jesus. Tragically, June is also the month that society has deemed Pride Month, the month during which the LGBTQ ideology and lifestyle is celebrated and promoted. This is in direct contrast with the virtues of the Sacred Heart, particularly humility, purity, and charity. These virtues embody the life of Jesus and the self-sacrifice that He lived out of love for us. Pride Month is the exact inverse of this, where sinful practices and lifestyles are encouraged and celebrated so that each person can live as they wish for pleasure and in the name of “being true to themselves,” when in reality being true to who we are involves sacrificing for God and for others. Each of the three main virtues of the Sacred Heart directly opposes the LGBTQ ideology and using this devotion to counteract its celebration is what is needed to bring our society back to celebrating male, female, and the institution of marriage in the way that God intended.

Pride is one of the seven deadly sins put forth by the Catholic Church and it is made even worse when the pride is for something sinful. The fact that people really celebrate something that directly opposes God’s law and His plan for humanity is deplorable and very sad, and it is even true that some really have no idea what they’re doing and are simply confused and think that trying to change who they are fundamentally will make them happy. They then become truly proud that they “found themselves” and flaunt it every chance they get. Humility, on the other hand, recognizes that we are children of God and that He created us to know, love, and serve Him and be happy with Him in the next life. This means that all that we do must be in line with the will of God and so must our vision of ourselves and others. We must adopt the mindset of Jesus as St. Paul says in Philippians 2:5-8, that is, He did not “deem equality with God something to be grasped at,” and although we are sons and daughters of God we must also humble ourselves just as He did.

Purity is the virtue that helps us to order our passions and desires, including sexual ones, toward the will of God, our good and the good of others. When these passions and desires become disordered, we drift further and further away from God and so in trying to find out who we are, we actually lose the true image of ourselves. Pride Month and the LGBTQ ideology push the idea of unnatural and immoral acts as good and so sell the idea that purity is not needed and is in fact bad if we want to really be our true selves. But in fact, purity helps us to love others the way they deserve to be loved as fellow children of God and it is the virtue that is said to have been most valued by Jesus. St. Thomas Aquinas says that St. John the Apostle was the one most loved by Jesus because of his purity. And Jesus lived out the virtue of purity to perfection because His Heart was free of disordered passions and desires, giving Him the freedom to serve His Father without any hindrances.

Charity is perhaps the most misunderstood of these virtues, as it can be thought to be the kind of love that accepts everything about another person and simply reaffirms that that person should do whatever makes him or her happy. This, however, is not real love and the idea of Christian charity is that we should correct in love those that are headed down the wrong path away from God and their eternal home, which is heaven. Celebrating sin and reaffirming that it is okay as long as the person is happy is what the LGBTQ ideology and Pride Month is about, and that is the complete opposite of what the virtue of charity teaches us is proper and the will of God. Jesus lived out the virtue of charity by always telling others what they needed to hear even if it wasn’t always what they wanted to hear.

During this month of the Sacred Heart, we should reflect on these virtues and ask God to help us strengthen them in our own lives so that we can better pass them on to others. We also need to make reparation to the Sacred Heart by our sacrifices, penances, and by devout reception of Holy Communion for the way It is offended by the actions of the world, particularly by the LGBTQ movement during this month known as Pride Month and always. We can also ask for the intercessions of St. Therese of Lisieux (humility), St. Agnes (purity), and St. Martin of Tours (charity), that they may help us better act out these virtues and that they might help bring society to the understanding and practice of them. The Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is also a good prayer to pray this month for mercy for ourselves and the whole world.

Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!