Rome (Italy). In the month of June, traditionally dedicated to devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pope Leo XIV presents his first prayer intention in the Video of the Pope.
The Pope’s Video is an official initiative born in 2016 to spread the Holy Father’s monthly prayer intentions. It is elaborated by the Pope’s World Prayer Network, a Pontifical Society whose mission is to mobilize Catholics through prayer and action in the face of the challenges of humanity and the mission of the Church. In the annual publication of prayer intentions for 2025, Pope Francis had proposed to pray for working conditions for the month of may, a task carried out by the team with the resumption of the words of the magisterium of the last three Popes – Francis, Benedict XVI, and Saint John Paul II – on work and the dignity of workers.
It is the voice of Leo XIV who pronounces the intention for June: “That each one of us may find consolation in our personal relationship with Jesus and learn from His heart compassion for the world”.
The Heart of Christ – explains the press release – symbolizes the center of His person, the source from which flows His love for humanity. It is the mystery of the heart of God that moves and pours His love on all men and women in the world, of all times. Although devotion to the Heart of Christ has always been present in Christian spirituality, it received a new impulse with the revelations at St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and its interpretation by St. Claudius de La Colombière SJ in the 17th century. Pope Pius IX proclaimed the feast of the Sacred Heart in 1856; subsequently, Leo XIII strengthened its importance by elevating it to a solemnity in 1889.
A good testimony of the importance of the Sacred Heart in the life of the Church is found both in popular devotion and in the fact that four popes have dedicated an encyclical to it. Leo XIII, from whom the current Pontiff took his name, wrote the Annum Sacrum in 1899. In it, he consecrated all humanity to the Heart of Jesus. In 1928, Pius XI, in the Miserentissimum Redemptor, invites us to atone with gestures of love the wounds inflicted on the Heart of Christ by our sins. Pius XII, in 1956, published the Haurietis Aquas, in which he deepened the theological foundation of devotion to the Sacred Heart. Finally, Pope Francis, in 2024, writes Dilexit Nos proposing devotion to the Heart of Christ as a response to the culture of rejection and indifference.
The video presents an unpublished prayer to the Sacred Heart:
Lord, today I come from Your tender heart:
from You who have words that inflame my heart,
by You who pour out compassion on the little ones and the poor,
those who suffer, and all human miseries
I desire to know You more,
to contemplate You in the Gospel,
Be with You and learn from You
and the charity with which
You have allowed Yourself to be touched
by all forms of poverty
You have shown us the love of the Father
by loving us without measure
with your heart, divine and human
Grant all your children the grace of meeting You.
Change, shape, and transform our plans,
So that we may seek only You, in all circumstances:
in prayer, work, encounters, and our daily routine.
From this encounter, send us on a mission,
a mission of compassion for the world,
in which You are the source
from which all consolation springs. Amen.
The images that accompany the prayer were filmed in the church of Jesus in Rome – where there is the famous painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Pompeo Batoni, whose restoration will be completed this month – and in the National Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart of Makati, in the Philippines, which is a popular destination for devotion throughout the Archdiocese of Manila.
