Many years ago, after celebrating Mass in Edwardsville, Pennsylvania, Msgr. John Esseff was approached by a young man who revealed the power of the devotion of enthroning the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the home.

Part of Msgr. Esseff’s 70 years as a priest has included meeting Padre Pio, who became like a spiritual father to him. Msgr. Esseff was also a spiritual director for Mother Teresa and giving retreats to her Sisters of Charity, providing spiritual formation to seminarians across the country. He is also an exorcist for the Diocese of Scranton and a founder of the Pope Leo XIII Institute established to train and educate priests in exorcism and deliverance.

Here is the story he shared with me in an interview.

“I had a case of a young man who came to see me who had attempted suicide the previous night taking an oxycontin drug. He experienced that he was descending into hell. He began to kick and scream as he was being tortured. I suddenly appeared in my vestments. He told me, ‘You were incensing me and every time I could put my foot on the incense and on the prayers you were saying, they were taking me step-by-step away from hell.’”

“He came up to me after Mass and told me this. I told him, ‘I’m sorry but I don’t recall meeting you.’ Not only did he go to Mass that morning but after Mass he went to Confession.

“Afterward, he called his mother to tell her what had happened. His mother told him, ‘You know that priest. He was at our home 25 years ago. He was the one who was assigned to us to do the enthronement of the Sacred Heart.’”

“This little boy of four had signed a paper. [After a Sacred Heart Enthronement ceremony, family members sign the Certificate of the Enthronement.] He hardly knew what he was signing but the Sacred Heart pledged himself to this boy and got him out of hell. Twenty-five years earlier, I had enthroned the Sacred Heart of Jesus in his home. That morning, he came to the Mass and he was surprised to see me. I was the priest in his dream. He came running up to me after Mass to share his experience. Then, he came to see me again after the phone call with his mother.”

“This is the kind of commitment the Sacred Heart makes:  I love you. You might be signing the piece of paper, but it is really for me a longing for you. You are my son and I long for you.”

Throughout his priesthood, Msgr. Esseff has been devoted to the Sacred Heart as the spiritual ammunition for a world battling moral decay and terrorism. He has often promoted enthroning the Sacred Heart of Jesus as King of the entire world, family by family, church by church, dioceses by diocese and country by country.

“Over the years, I have come to see that Jesus desires to be King of the entire world starting with our own homes,” he said. “The love of God is power without measure.

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was given the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in an apparition in France in 1673. From that came an enthronement ceremony making Jesus our King in which we put an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in a prominent place in our home or any building. 

According to Msgr. Esseff: “We have to desire to be governed by God and believe that he is the one in control of our lives. The more we begin to taste the love of God, the more we will see that the things of this world that lead to sin stand in the way of receiving God’s love. We begin to desire whatever God desires for us by giving him permission to change our hearts. Our desire becomes to love others the way God loves us. This is being Christ — to love others as God loves us.”

Even if some of our children have left the faith, as their parents we can spiritually put them into the Sacred Heart of Jesus, proclaiming him as King of our family. It is a public acknowledgment and a decision to live in union with Jesus and go deeper in his love.

This devotion of the Sacred Heart Enthronement comes from one of the 12 promises of the Sacred Heart that our Lord Jesus made to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in visions to her: "I will bless every house in which an image of my heart shall be exposed and honored." Based on that promise, Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey, born in Peru, South America, began this tradition in 1907 of enthroning the Sacred Heart as our King “to conquer the whole world for the Heart of Jesus, home after home, family after family.”

There is not necessarily a specific formula to do an enthronement, although there are suggestions on how to prepare and recite a prayer of consecration to the Sacred Heart. A key part is to place an image of the Sacred Heart in a visible place in our home — not hidden away in some back room.  Enthronements can be done anywhere — offices, nursing homes and even prison cells. Bishops have enthroned the Sacred Heart over their diocese. In 2009, Bishop Paul Zipfel enthroned the Sacred Heart over my diocese of Bismarck, North Dakota. Bishop David Kagen renewed it in 2013 to mark the end of the Year of Faith. 

For information about enthroning the Sacred Heart of Jesus, go to www.sacredheartapostolate.com.