Imagine a crown of thorns surrounding your heart, pressing in on it, piercing it, and causing an almost unbearable pain. Most parents can imagine this. Maybe your child has lost or abandoned the faith or been sick or injured, or maybe he is going through some mental health or physical struggles. All of these things tear at our hearts just like an actual thorn would.
Now imagine these thorns around the heart of our Lord.
Throughout the month of June—a month dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus—the Church asks us to ponder the beauty of His Sacred Heart. Jesus Himself told us that He wants us to venerate His Sacred Heart. In 1673, He appeared to Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque and told her, “My Sacred Heart is so intense in its love for men, and for you in particular, that not being able to contain within it the flames of its ardent charity, they must be transmitted through all means.”
Christ appeared to Sister Margaret Mary with His heart on fire outside His chest and surrounded by a crown of thorns. That crown of thorns, of course, reminds us of Good Friday when those who mocked, tortured, and killed Him also pressed a crown of 2-inch-long thorns into His precious head. The pain must have been excruciating.
So as we enter June, let us take time to contemplate the immense love Christ has for all of us and think about the actions we can take to please His heart. And let us pay special attention to the thorns surrounding it and to our role in the pain we and the evils of the world cause Him, for the evils that tear at Christ’s heart should also tear at our own.
Abortion is one of the greatest evils imaginable. Christ’s precious heart—a heart that loves us more than we can ever fathom—longs for us to care for and protect the vulnerable and to treat them as He would. When we take the life of one of His beloved children, Jesus’ heart is filled with sorrow, just as it was on the day He was crucified.
St. Claude de La Colombière once wrote of Christ’s suffering on Good Friday: “His heart is full of bitter sorrow; every violent passion is unleashed against him and all nature is in turmoil, yet amid all this confusion, all these temptations, his heart remains firmly directed to God.”
Because we know well the words Jesus spoke and the laws of the Church, we know that His heart aches when His children choose to ignore His teachings. And so His suffering is not limited to just Good Friday.
Imagine the bitter sorrow He must experience when He watches abortionists tear the limbs from a baby’s torso or when a scared or misguided mother takes a pill that will kill the child within her.
We can imagine that those thorns pierce His heart every time an innocent child’s heart stops beating.
The only way to protect His Sacred Heart and to give Him the love that He deserves is to protect the people whom He has helped create, the people He holds boundless love for. We cannot show proper love to Jesus if we are destroying His creations or if we advocate for their destruction.
So during the month when we venerate Christ’s Sacred Heart, I challenge you to take action. Think about what you can do to protect the heart of Christ by protecting His vulnerable children. What can you do to keep the thorns from causing Him pain?
Will you pray in front of Planned Parenthood? Will you donate to or volunteer at a pregnancy help center? Will you courageously talk about the evils of abortion? Will you support—emotionally or financially—a single mom in your parish? Will you pray for an end to the horrors of abortion?
St. John Henry Newman once wrote, “O make my heart beat with Thy Heart. Purify it of all that is earthly, all that is proud and sensual, all that is hard and cruel, of all perversity, of all disorder, of all deadness. So fill it with Thee, that neither the events of the day nor the circumstances of the time may have power to ruffle it; but that in Thy love and Thy fear it may have peace.”
When we sacrifice children at the altar of convenience and stop their beating hearts, we wound Christ’s Sacred Heart and drive those thorns deeper. Until we fill our hearts with Christ’s love and allow that love to permeate our words and actions, we will flounder in a material world devoid of love, devoid of hope, and devoid of joy. And until we purify our hearts of all that is cruel and perverse, peace will be just an illusion.
This article first appeared in Catholic World Report at catholicworldreport.com/2025/06/06/abortion-wounds-jesus-sacred-heart.
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