At the opening of the Jubilee of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on 27 December 27 2023, the Shrine of Paray-le-Monial joined the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network. The Jubilee commemorates the 350th anniversary of the apparitions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, initiator of the Feast of the Sacred Heart.
Adhesion du Sanctuaire
The spiritual foundation of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network is the Heart of Jesus. Its way of proposing this devotion is called The Way of the Heart, which invites people to place themselves at the disposal of Christ’s mission, a mission of compassion for the world. The Way of the Heart helps people commit to pray and live the challenges facing humanity and the mission of the Church as expressed in the Pope’s prayer intentions.
The mission of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, known as the Apostleship of Prayer, has special links with Paray-le-Monial. It was not only with the help of the Jesuit Saint Claude La Colombière that Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque made known the depth of the mercy of the Heart of Jesus, but also, in her last vision, recognized by the Church, the Lord entrusted to the Sisters of the Visitation and the Fathers of the Society of Jesus the task of transmitting to all the experience and understanding of the mystery of the Sacred Heart. Two hundred years later, the Society of Jesus officially accepted this “pleasant mission” (munus suavissimum) by decree 46 of the 23rd General Congregation (1883) and then entrusted it, by decree 21 of the 26th Congregation (1915), to the Apostleship of Prayer, today the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.
What is the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network?
The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network is a Pontifical Society, with the mission of mobilizing Catholics through prayer and action in response to the challenges facing humanity and the mission of the Church. These challenges are presented in the form of prayer intentions entrusted by the Pope to the entire Church. The foundation’s mission is inscribed in the dynamic of the Heart of Jesus, a mission of compassion for the world.
