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Thursday, March 28, 2024

PES members spread devotion to the Sacred Heart, one badge at a time

Anna Wilgenbusch
Sister Janet Kobayashi, a sister of Pro Ecclesia Sancta for 22 years who lives at the sisters’ convent in Bloomington, holds a Sacred Heart badge she and other sisters distribute with promise of prayers for those who keep them.
Sister Janet Kobayashi, a sister of Pro Ecclesia Sancta for 22 years who lives at the sisters’ convent in Bloomington, holds a Sacred Heart badge she and other sisters distribute with promise of prayers for those who keep them. COURTESY PRO ECCLESIA SANCTA

It is an unassuming badge, not measuring more than an inch-and-a-half wide, featuring the exposed Heart of Jesus surrounded by the words, “Halt, the Heart of Jesus is with me. Thy kingdom come.” Every day, these small ovals pass from the hands of the members of Pro Ecclesia Sancta to those they encounter.

But these light, paper badges have a tremendous weight in prayer. The PES community — based in Peru but now reaching six different countries, including a convent in Bloomington — pray for anyone who carries one of these badges, beginning when they arise early each morning and continue throughout the day in a montage of prayers and various ministries.

Many have testified to the power of the sisters’ prayers, which they have witnessed working through the Sacred Heart badges.

COURTESY PRO ECCLESIA SANCTA

Kim Zagort, who was raised Catholic but fell away from the Church after her confirmation, said that her encounter with the sisters, and their gift of the Sacred Heart badge, rekindled her faith.

In May, Zagort met the PES sisters in Maricopa, Arizona, when her friend’s daughter, PES Sister Emily Syverson, came home for a visit, accompanied by another sister. Zagort immediately felt a sense of connection to the sisters.

“When I was with them, I just felt different. I felt drawn to them. I don’t know why or what it was,” she said.

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The day after she met the sisters, she had a doctor’s appointment where she found out that she had stage three kidney disease and an early indication of cancer in her blood. Zagort immediately got in touch with the sisters, and Sister Emily gave her a Sacred Heart badge and promised to pray for her healing. The badge serves as a physical reminder of the love of the Sacred Heart, as well as the sisters’ ceaseless prayers for the one who carries it.

“She told me, ‘Now you keep this with you all the time,’” said Zagort, referring to the small, oval-shaped badge. She put it inside her phone case for safekeeping.

A week later, after multiple tests, she received news that all indications of cancer in her blood had disappeared — news that Zagort credits to the sisters’ prayers. She plans to begin practicing her faith again.

Sacred Heart badges

The practice of carrying a Sacred Heart badge has a long history within the Church, said Sister Janet Kobayashi, a PES sister for 22 years who lives in the convent in Bloomington.

The practice began when St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French nun and mystic who received visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, wrote that Jesus wanted the faithful to make copper badges of his Sacred Heart, both for keeping in one’s home and for wearing.

Then, in 1720, the practice became more widespread when a group of religious sisters wore and promoted the use of the badges during a plague. It was said that those who carried a badge with them did not get sick. Sacred Heart badges were later used by Catholics for protection from persecution during the French revolution, and also spread to Spain and Mexico during the Cristero War.

When the practice spread to Spanish-speaking countries, the words “Halt, the Heart of Jesus is with me” were added to the badge as an address to the devil. In Spanish, the badge is referred to as a “detente,” which comes from the first word of this phrase in Spanish.

The practice of spreading devotion through the Sacred Heart Badges has been with PES since its conception. Father Pablo Menor, who founded PES in 1992, often gave away depictions of the Sacred Heart when he promised to pray for those he encountered. PES priests, brothers and sisters continue this practice, now printing thousands of badges to give away.

Whether at the grocery store, the airport or the pharmacy, the sisters are always prepared to provide someone with an encounter of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. “We always carry those, wherever we go,” Sister Janet said. “It doesn’t have to be a mission trip.”

The Sacred Heart Badge provided a sense of security in a challenging time in her own ministry, Sister Janet said. She was with a group of sisters in Lima, Peru, who tested positive for COVID-19 at the very beginning of the pandemic in 2020. They did not know the severity of the disease and, although they took the recommended precautions, were concerned about the health of the community.

One of the sisters, who was sick with the virus, embroidered Sacred Heart badges for the sisters who were taking care of the sick. Just as the Sacred Heart badge protected caregivers to the sick in the French plague in 1720, the PES sisters — armed with the image of the Sacred Heart — did not catch the virus despite caring for the sick.

Sister Janet said that the Sacred Heart badge serves as a tangible reminder of the love of the Sacred Heart.

“It is a sign of fidelity to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” Sister Janet said. “It is not a good luck charm.”

Sister Janet said that people need physical instruments, such as the badges, to ensure that the Sacred Heart of Jesus is on their minds and hearts. In the same way that loved ones appear as screensavers on cellphones, Sister Janet said carrying the badge can be a reminder of one’s love for Christ.

Feast of the Sacred Heart

The feast of the Sacred Heart, which falls on June 24 this year, is the most important feast day for the PES community. In Peru, the feast day is celebrated with Mass, and in the years before COVID-19, a large procession. In Spain, a statue of the Sacred Heart is carried through Orihuela’s narrow streets.

The PES community in Minnesota is commemorating the feast with a host of events. On June 21, June 22 and June 23, leading up to the feast, the PES is hosting a series of seminars on the Sacred Heart, culminating June 24 with Mass and a celebration.

Faith Carlson, a parishioner of St. Mark in St. Paul, has known the PES community since they began serving her parish in 2009. She said her faith life has been deeply influenced by the PES devotion to the Sacred Heart.

“I — having been a longtime Protestant — knew nothing of the Sacred Heart devotion or what that meant,” said Carlson, who converted to Catholicism in her 50s. “I realized that it was the Sacred Heart of Jesus who drew me to himself in becoming Catholic and experiencing that conversion.”

Shortly after meeting the PES community, Carlson found out that her cancer, which had been in remission, was displaying signs of returning. The PES community showered her with prayers and invited her to consecrate herself to the Sacred Heart. A week later, all signs of new cancer growth were gone — a reversal which her doctor at the Mayo clinic said was nothing short of miraculous.

When the PES community first gave Carlson a Sacred Heart badge, she said, the idea of a badge was very foreign to her, and she worried that others would assume superstition. The Peruvian priest, PES Father Humberto Palomino, who first gave her one, referred to it as a “bullet” to signify the piercing power of the Sacred Heart — language which made her even more confused about the practice.

But as she grew in her devotion to the Sacred Heart, she realized that they were a beautiful reminder of the love of the Sacred Heart.

“If I’m having a conversation with a person about Jesus and his love for them and all of that, then I will say, ‘Here is a badge of the Sacred Heart to remind you of how much he loves you, these are blessed by a priest,’” Carlson said. “They do require some explanation if it is something that someone has never seen before.”

Carlson explained the devotion to a friend who grew up in communist Hungary.

“For her, the badge is a reminder of how much the Sacred Heart loves her,” said Carlson, who also taught her granddaughter about the Sacred Heart using the image on the badge.

Carlson said that the Sacred Heart is now central to her own expression of faith.

Through PES’ devotion to the Sacred Heart, she said, she is “experiencing a newer, deeper conversion. … The Eucharist and the Sacred Heart are one. It’s the same thing.”

Consolation in difficult times

For Robert Blackstone, a member of St. Mark, the Sacred Heart badge served as an important reminder of Christ’s love in a trying time in his life.

Just a month after his second-eldest daughter, Margaret Blackstone, entered formation with PES as an aspirant in February 2022, he was admitted to the hospital for congestive heart failure and underwent two open-heart surgeries. He was unconscious in the intensive care unit for several days, during which Sister Margaret was able to visit him daily to support her mother.

When he awoke on Holy Thursday, he saw several Sacred Heart badges taped to the end of his bed. The images were a consolation to him, and reminded him of the love of the heart of Jesus as he suffered during the month he spent in the hospital.

“I found it beautiful, and an inspiration, that his protection was sitting right there,” Blackstone said.

He brought the badges with him when he was eventually transferred to a different unit, where the sisters and priests of PES continued to visit him daily and bring him the Eucharist.

Like Carlson, Blackstone met the PES community when they began serving at St. Mark, and his family quickly became involved with the community. Blackstone said that he was attracted by the call to personal holiness promoted by the PES brothers and sisters.

Their devotion to the Sacred Heart has also deeply informed his spiritual life.

“(The Sacred Heart) is a reminder, first of all, of Christ’s love for us and, second of all, that sacrifice and suffering are part of our faith journey. I’ve been given that challenge to suffer through something severe, but I’ve come through it — quite honestly because of prayer and Christ’s love for me — and I want to stay focused on that because he wants me here for something, and I want to make sure that I do that for him,” Blackstone said.

His conditions have been referred to as “widow-makers,” he said, and his recovery has been startling to doctors. He sees it as a second chance to serve God.

“I think it reinforced, for me, the definite need for daily prayer,” Blackstone said. He said that he feels that his mission is to be “in service to the Church, to help the Church deliver its mission.”

His daughter, Sister Margaret, is now a postulant for PES and receives her formation in the Sacred Heart of Jesus Convent in Bloomington. She, and another postulant who entered the same day, are the fourth and fifth sisters from the Twin Cities area to enter the religious community. There are three other American sisters, as well as six male vocations, three of whom are from the Twin Cities.

The Sacred Heart badges serve as a reminder of Christ’s love for countless others. Through the PES priests and sisters, as well as members of Catholic Advance — the lay apostolate associated with PES — the badges have reached remote locations in Latin America, Spain, Ireland and China.

Bella Childs from St. Marys, Kansas, visited the Sacred Heart of Jesus convent in October 2021, when her cross-country team from the University of Dallas volunteered to do yard work for the sisters after a local race. The sisters gave the students the Sacred Heart badges with the promise of their prayers, and Childs has kept hers close.

“Whenever I’ve looked at it, it has reminded me that the religious are love at the heart of the Church, like St. Therese says. They sustain us with their prayers,” said Childs, who graduated in May and will teach grammar at a classical school in Dallas this fall. “It is consoling to know we have religious praying for us.”

Others, such as Tom Hurley, who attends Our Lady of Grace in Edina, have taken up the task of distributing the badges to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart. He met the sisters after Mass and was immediately drawn to their joy and devotion.

“I have a little stash,” he said, which he distributes to people he meets and tells them that the sisters will be praying for them.

Hurley said that he has witnessed how the badges have had an impact on those who receive them. Hurley recounted the story of one woman who was inspired by the sisters’ gift of the badge to visit the convent on a regular basis.

Hurley said that since meeting the sisters, the spirituality of the Sacred Heart has shaped his own life.

“The sisters are an image of heaven, is how I look at it. They give me a real tangible snapshot of what it must be like in heaven,” he said. “I’ve been trying to be more positive and joy filled, like the sisters are, because I think that all comes from the Sacred Heart of Jesus.”

 


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