Enthroning the Sacred Heart in the Home

In this episode, Bishop Donald Hying is joined by Matt Regner, a parishioner and lay leader in the Diocese of Madison, for a conversation on the family enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Together, they discuss what the enthronement is, how a family can prepare for and celebrate it in the home, and the spiritual fruits that come from placing the Sacred Heart of Jesus at the center of family life.

Transcript

Introduction

Bishop Donald J. Hying 0:00

Welcome to Things Visible and Invisible, a podcast that discusses life, faith, current events, culture, history, and more, all in relation to Jesus Christ and his church. I'm Bishop Don Hying, Bishop of the Diocese of Madison. And in this podcast, I'm discussing with Matt Regner, a parishioner here in our diocese, about the family enthronement of the Sacred Heart, what it means, how one does it, and the spiritual fruits that come from it.

Interview

Bishop Donald J. Hying 0:53

What a beautiful moment for us to practice this devotion and to be led ever deeper into the mystery of the Lord's mercy and love for us. In this podcast, I'm blessed to have Matt Regner with me, who is a parishioner and a leader in our Diocese of Madison and has done the family enthronement. And I just wanted to talk with Matt about what that is and the fruitful implications of doing such in your family and in your home. So a warm welcome to you, Matt. Thank you for joining me in this podcast. And I think our listeners would just like to know a little bit about you as we continue.

Matt Regner 1:34

Sure. Thanks so much for having me, Bishop. It's a privilege to be here. Yeah, so Matt Regner. I've uh been here in Madison for 19 years now, came here for college and stuck around, met my wife at UW Madison. Uh, and I trained as a chemist, worked as a chemist for a period of time, and then worked for the Catholic Church for about 10 years at Blessed Sacrament Parish, downtown, and then here in the Chancery in the Office of Marriage and Family, and have now come full circle and I'm working as a chemist again in Verona. My wife and I live near near Verona in Fitchburg with our five kids, and we're parishioners at St. Maria Goretti very, very happily.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 2:07

And just blessed to have you. So thank you for who you are and all the good that you've done. So it was a few years ago you invited me, it was a Saturday in the summer, to come over and do uh the family enthronement to the sacred heart with your family. If you just uh unpack a little bit your motivation, your desire for that. Like what what inspired you to want to do the Sacred Heart enthronement?

Matt Regner 2:32

Yeah, as I've thought about it, the this desire goes back many years. In fact, I think the Lord, like many things in the spiritual life, the Lord had planned this out for quite some time and was working slowly through me and then through our family. And when I was in college, I had fallen away from the faith for a period of time and by senior year was starting to look for meaning again and started going back to Mass. So that was the beginning of my reconversion to the faith. But it wasn't really until we started having kids that I fully appreciated my need for the Lord and his grace. And I remember a particular day when I was trying to build a habit of daily prayer, wrestling with a variety of things. And I happened to be reading from the book of the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 36, where where the prophet speaks of the stony heart and how the Lord promises to give a new spirit and a heart of flesh. And in that moment, I realized that for much of my life in college and then as a young father, I had a stony heart, very focused on myself, on my own ambition and pride. And in that moment, I was I was struck by that word and really desired not to be that way. I wanted to have my heart of stone taken and replaced with a heart of flesh and receive more of the Holy Spirit, especially as we were, at that time, we had our first two sons and learning to be a father, and my wife was in residency at the time, just many demands on us. And I realized just how much I needed the Lord's grace. So that was the beginning, I would say, of this devotion to the sacred heart, this need to have my own heart be less stony and become more conformed to the heart of Jesus Himself. So that progressed over the years. We had more kids, life got busier, and we found with the challenges of just, you know, having a family, having kids, knowing how best to raise them, that we were not sufficient. Caitlin and I were not sufficient on our own. And so we started to have this, you know, inkling of needing help. Uh there is a period of of um searching for us with our oldest son and his education and just, you know, grappling with all the demands on our that were put on our time. And, you know, um, providentially at that time, uh, when I was working for the diocese, I was asked to write an article on the enthronement of the sacred heart. And I interviewed Father Eric Sternberg, uh, who had been, I think, encouraging his parishioners to do this up in the Dells. So talked to him about it and read a book that he recommended on the Sacred Heart, and really came to realize that that's what the Lord was inviting us into, that this, you know, he had been already softening my heart, making it more like his own, but this act of enthroning in our, in our, with our family, in our home would further that process and also invite our our kids into the process as well.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 5:00

I love the contrast between our hearts, which often are stony and sinful, with the heart of Christ. You know, this beautiful heart that is bleeding, that is on fire, that is, of course, the heart of God made flesh. So we see in Jesus' heart the the depths of God's mercy for us, certainly, but also a model of how he is calling us to conform our hearts to his, to love as he loves, to suffer as he suffers, and to allow our hearts to be kind of broken open. I'm thinking of St. Augustine who said our hearts have to be torn out by the roots in order to discover the mercy of God. So I think that happened to you perhaps in a gradual, more gentle way than being torn up by the roots, but to the same effect, where you came to realize it's in the sacred heart that we find our hope and our consolation. Question just in terms of the logistics, the specifics of doing a family enthronement. I'm sure many of our listeners would love to do it. What does that entail? What does it look like?

Matt Regner 6:02

Yeah, so when we, after I'd finished the article and we decided to pursue that, I think I forget exactly how I came across it. If it was in the book I read, the book is called Jesus, the King of Love, I think, by Father Mateo, something or other. He's South American. But anyway, I somehow came across Cardinal Burke, who had also been advocating the enthronement of the Sacred Heart. So I came across a book that he had put together that they sold they sell at the uh the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse. So I went online and picked up that book. It's a small red book, has a number of prayers in it, but it includes, I think it's three days of preparation for the enthronement, just reflection and prayer as you kind of prepare for the event itself. And then there's the actual enthronement ceremony, which we did with you. And from there, there are other prayers, like there's the morning offering to the sacred heart that we try to pray as a family. And then every night we do pray the that's I forget what the name of the prayer is, but it's a sort of renewal. It's a um, yeah, a renewal of our of the enthronement of the sacred heart that we pray as a family every night. So it's a daily prayer. Yeah, right. So there's the initial enthronement, which was, you know, three days plus the the day we had you over. And then I I don't know if it's encouraged daily. It I think there's different ways you could do it every year on the enthron on the sacred the solemnity, the sacred heart, or when you enthroned the sacred heart. But we as a family have just taken it as our practice in evening prayer to offer that prayer and then you know offer petitions for for other people who who need our prayers.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 7:24

It certainly sounds like it's become the kind of the focus of your family prayer life, kind of the the way to make this consecration a reality that's actually lived out, not just something done once. It was nice, but we just kind of forget about it and move on to the next thing. My last question is just since you've done the enthronement um Matthew, have you seen spiritual fruits? Have you seen spiritual benefits, um, blessings that you and your family have experienced be that you can somehow perhaps link to the sacred heart enthronment? That may be a hard question. I mean, who knows how God blesses us, but oh yeah.

Matt Regner 8:03

I mean, my children behave perfectly. They don't sin anymore. So that's been really remarkable. No, I I wish it were that easy. Um in many ways, things are the same as they were before, but we have the Sacred Heart in our living room, prominently displayed in our living room, which is right by the kitchen table and very visible with the Immaculate Heart of Mary and St. Joseph on either side. So I think having the image there is a constant reminder to the children of what we're going for, that we're, you know, we want to love as the Lord Himself loves, to be conformed to his sacred heart, making that prayer daily. I I mean, with children at the ages of our children, they're not to that, they're still fairly young. So it's these daily habits and very tangible practices that are most important for them. So I think just that habit of turning to the Lord, offering these prayers, I hope is formative for them as well. And then we've also really, in recent years, taken very seriously the question of encouraging them to discern their vocation, you know, talking about marriage, but also the priesthood. We'll see if the change this changes. Just this morning, my daughter Catherine was saying she really would love to become a Dominican sister, you know, that'd be a beautiful thing, but just to even have the conversation with the kids about their vocation. And I hope for them just to understand, as you say, the love that Christ has for each of us. Caitlin and I are imperfect as parents, and we do our best to love them as the Lord Himself does. But, you know, certainly our prayer is that by having the sacred heart enthroned in our home, by having that that icon of Jesus, that they would know his love and and desire to grow more into that love.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 9:28

Beautifully said. It reminds us that prayer and devotions are not magic. It isn't somehow this secret key that we've discovered that's going to unlock this easier path of the spiritual life. But it certainly reveals to us how with our cooperation, God wants to give us the grace through the sacraments, but also through sacramentals and the beautiful devotions of the church. Something I've drawn increasingly strength from is the atonement side of the sacred heart devotion. And in my life, it's kind of translated into when I'm faced with a difficulty across a task that I don't want to do, you know, something that's hard, even just getting up in the morning and maybe going to the gym or go into the holy hour, to offer that very specifically for a particular intention. Yeah. Someone that needs healing, somebody that I'm praying for, that needs evangelization, uh, some particular intention I have in my heart, just to link the specificity of my life and its crosses to the sacred heart and realizing that we can do that. And it makes real what Paul says in his first chapter of Colossians, right? Fill up in my own suffering what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, the church. So I think you're a witness to the beauty of the sacred heart enthronement, just practically simply living that out in the family is is uh inspiration for our listeners and pray that it becomes a motivation for many families, many homes to embrace what you have done, Matt, with your wife and children, and to really make Jesus in both his humanity and divinity not only the center of our individual faith lives, but the center of our family life. That that this image, this this prayer, this gathering together becomes the base and the orientation for our life as a family. And that's so Catholic and so beautiful. So thank you for joining. And uh please know my prayers and gratitude to you and your family.

Matt Regner 11:32

Likewise. Thanks, Bishop.

Bishop Donald J. Hying 11:34

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.