From the Principal

 SACRED HEART OF JESUS

The Catholic feast of the Sacred Heart is celebrated annually on the second Friday following Trinity Sunday.  In 2025 this is Friday, 27 June.  This will coincide with what has become a greatly respected religious activity at our College, the Hearts On Fire procession of students and staff based on the Davisson Street Campus.  Much devoted time is given, and great effort is made, to ensure that the warmth, beauty and the reverence associated with the Sacred Heart has an impact on all those present.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus commemorates the apparitions of the burning-with-love heart of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque in June 1675.   A feast day of the Sacred Heart was eventually granted by the Church authorities in 1765 and has been proclaimed since that date.

I remember an image of the Sacred Heart mounted on my bedroom wall in the small house in Maidstone where I grew up.  I even recall the local parish priest visiting home, blessing that framed wall hanging and consecrating our humble home to the protection and love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  That intimate ceremony was not an uncommon practice in Catholic homes nigh on sixty years ago and earlier. 

(Image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus which was mounted in Mr Hanley’s bedroom circa late 1950’s)

My association grew with the Society of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ) sisters conducting my local Catholic primary school, and the Canadian and American Brothers of the Sacred Heart (S.C.) coming to Australia in the early 1960’s to establish what was then St John’s College, Braybrook (now known as Caroline Chisholm Catholic College).  I attended there for secondary schooling.

Always I have viewed images of the bleeding heart of Jesus set aflame with love, pierced by the thorns of the crown placed upon the head of Jesus when he was crucified.  Another familiar painting for me now and in my youth is Mater Admirabilis, a portrait of Our Lady clothed in a pink garment, painted by Sister Pauline Perdrau  RSCJ in 1844.

'Mater Admirabilis'

At St Monica’s College, in addition to Hearts On Fire, we have named our main Reception building at DSC the Sacred Heart Building, and at its entrance are the words ‘For the sake of one child’, famously penned by the foundress of the Religious of the Sacred Heart, Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat RSCJ to explain the reason why and for whom her Sisters’ schools exist(ed).  A new print of this blessed saint now hangs on our walls in the Sacred Heart Building hallway.

(Statue of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat rscj in St Peter’s Basilica, Rome)

I earnestly hope that many Monicans will be led to reflect upon the holy Sacred Heart of Jesus during the Hearts On Fire procession and as they gaze upon the portrait of Saint Madeleine Sophie.  Perhaps some Monican mothers and grandmothers may hunt around for their copy of that Sacred Heart image that I slept with for so many years in my childhood.

Whatever a Monican’s faith or religious understanding, please God may each Monican be blest and treated as the unique gift from God as God created and willed them to be. 

This fact is a truly magnificent moment of discovery about oneself to recognise in 2025.

Brian E. Hanley OAM

Principal