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Billboards Honor the Sacred Heart
BY TONIA LONG
On June 16, 1675, Our Lord told Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque to promote a feast that honors His Sacred Heart. In 1856, Pope Pius IX designated the Friday following the feast of Corpus Christi as the feast of the Sacred Heart for the Universal Church. Ever since, the month of June has been devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and His immense love for us all.
Sadly, much has changed since 1856. Many people continue to be shocked and saddened by the Pride Month offensive that floods the public square annually in June. Feeling that the LGBTQ message has been stuffed down their throats, people across the country are looking for ways to make a statement by honoring the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the rightful patron of June.
One peaceful and effective way to do this is to rent billboards. Billboards strategically placed on busy roads and highways or in high-traffic pedestrian areas can reach a large and varied audience. Billboards can even be more effective than online advertising among younger Americans. A Kantar Millward Brown study revealed that Gen-Z and Millennials overwhelmingly rejected mobile/web/app advertisements while preferring out-of-home advertising like billboards or posters.
This year, America Needs Fatima, TFP and Return to Order sent emails to friends and supporters, encouraging them to reserve a Sacred Heart billboard in their local areas. The emails were sent out in February so as to give them time to collect funds among family and church friends, and to reserve a static billboard, which is more eye-catching than a digital one.
With confidence in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, America Needs Fatima’s goal was to have 1,000 billboards posted across America in June 2024. This public proclamation that the month of June belongs to the Sacred Heart is just one way to make reparation for the sins and offences caused by those promoting homosexual pride.
The response to an email campaign offering friends and supporters advice on how to rent a billboard in their hometown was impressive. Many Catholics who could not rent a billboard themselves generously provided the funds to make doing so possible for others. As a result, many billboards with the Sacred Heart image and others like it were seen by millions of Americans of all walks of life during the month of June.
May these humble grassroots efforts be the first of many more used to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus to a whole new generation of Americans for years to come. ■
SAINT BERNARDINE OF SIENA was a famous preacher, celebrated for his doctrine and holiness. Regarding homosexuality, he stated:
“No sin in the world grips the soul as the accursed sodomy; this sin has always been detested by all those who live according to God … Deviant passion is close to madness; this vice disturbs the intellect, destroys elevation and generosity of soul, brings the mind down from great thoughts to the lowliest, makes the person slothful, irascible, obstinate and obdurate, servile and soft and incapable of anything; furthermore, agitated by an insatiable craving for pleasure, the person follows not reason but frenzy … They become blind and, when their thoughts should soar to high and for great things, they are broken down and reduced to vile and useless and putrid things, which could never make them happy ….Just as people participate in the glory of God in different degrees, so also in hell some suffer more than others. He who lived with this vice of sodomy suffers more than another, for this is the greatest sin.”
Saint Bernardine of Siena, The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, Ltd., 1925), p. 255.
