July 31st is the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola the Founder of the Jesuit. It also marks the closing of the ‘Ignatian Year,’ celebrating 500 years since the conversion of St Ignatius. To commemorate this occasion, on July 31 Superior General Arturo Sosa SJ will renew this consecration to the Sacred Heart.

We would like to invite you, as members of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network [Apostleship of Prayer], to join in this celebration. We invite you to join in a 9-Day Novena leading up to the consecration on July 31. In the novena, we will be calling upon the intercession of saints who had a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Please join us, with the Jesuits and members of the Prayer Network in this novena, and by making a personal consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on July 31.

For previous days of the Novena, click here

Bio: St. Madeleine Sophie Barat is one of the patron saints of educators because she founded the Society of the Sacred Heart which focused on schools for the poor and for women. She was a religious sister from France who was educated unlike many women in her day. In 1826, her Society of the Sacred Heart received papal approval. She died on May 25th, 1865 on the Feast of the Ascension that year.

Prayer: St. Madeleine Sophie we thank you for your witness to consecrated life and receptivity to the Lord’s radical call to start the Society of the Sacred Heart. We ask for your intercession for all educators to teach the truth and to guide people to love Jesus’ Most Sacred Heart.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, we entrust ourselves to you. We surrender to you our day, hopes, dreams, prayers, conversations, and work. As we join Father Arturo Sosa in the consecration of the Jesuit Order to the Sacred Heart we ask for the intercession of St. _______________ to pray for the Jesuits and my own special intentions.