Feasts of the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart

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I often wondered why the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has the rank of a Solemnity (the highest rank there is) while the Immaculate Heart of Mary is only a Memorial. In fact until only a few years ago, the Immaculate Heart was just an optional memorial; I forget when but it was moved up to an obligatory memorial. The Sacred Heart Should definitely remain a Solemnity, but IHM is equally as important and I feel it should at least be a feast. In many years it falls on the date of another feast and is not even celebrated. If it would be a feast it can and would be celebrated in most years.

How does everyone else feel about this?? Thanks.
 
I beleive that both of the Feast of Jesus and Immaculate heart of Mary,are both Important Feast Days,andI beleive that both have their own Feast day durning the year.
 
I realize they both have their own feast days; they are both movable observances depending on the date of Easter. The Sacred Heart is celebrated on the Friday after the second Sunday after Pentecost (or Corpus Christi). The Immaculate Heart of Mary is celebrated on the following day (Saturday). They are purposely placed back to back on the liturgical calendar to stress their similarity to one another. This year they are celebrated on June 7 & 8 respectively.

However that is not the issue. My issue is why is The Immaculate heart only a Memorial while the Sacred Heart is (rightfully so) a Solemnity??
 
While the IHM is certainly very important, I don’t think it’s fair to say that it is equally as important as the Sacred Heart. Our Lord is, afterall, Almighty God while Our Lady is a mere creature (though to be sure the greatest of all God’s creatures). I think there are a few factors to consider:
  1. it is appropriate as you note to place the two celebrations back to back to highlight the relation between them - but as Our Lady’s immaculate heart derived its purity, grace and glory from Her Son’s divine Sacred Heart, it is appropriate that the feast of the latter be of a greater rank
  2. Our Lady already has a number of solemnities and feasts and most of them have important foundations in the doctrine of the Church or celebrate key events in the life of Mary with profound theological implications. Her immaculate conception is the Church’s primary liturigical celebration of the immaculate nature of Mary and thus it is fitting that this feast be given great weight. The IC is in fact a dogma of the faith.
  3. the memorial of the Immaculate Heart is more rooted in devotion than in theology - by celebrating this feast the Church makes devotion to Mary’s IH part of the Church’s liturgical life, but as the IH is rooted in the underlining theology of the IC, it isn’t appropriate or necessary to give this memorial the same weight. It is very commendable if you have a special devotion to the Immaculate Heart, but the public liturgy of the Church always favors those events or elements in the life of Our Lord or Lady that are particularly foundational to the faith
 
I think IHM should at least be elevated to Feast rather than memorial. The two still would not be equal.
 
I think that the Sacred heart of Jesus should be a Solemnity on the Sunday after Corpus Christi and that the Immaculate Heart of Mary should be a Feast on the next day which is Monday.

Instead of them being on Friday and Saturday–they should be on Sunday and on Monday.
 
The Feast of the Immaculate Heart is still a 2nd class feast on the 1962 calendar, and observed on 22 Aug. (Sacred Heart is 1st class and 3rd Friday after Pentecost.)
 
I think the feasts should stay on Friday, Saturday. The Sacred Heart is on a Friday purposely because of Good Friday and First Fridays are dedicated to the Sacred Heart etc. The Immaculate Heart is on a Saturday because Saturday is the traditional day of the BVM. All Saturdays in Ordinary time that do not have a Solemnity, Feast, or Memorial fall on them are dedicated to Mary.

Moving the feasts to Sunday, Monday would defeat the purpose of both observances.
 
Oops! I don’t know why I forgot First Fridays and first Saturdays.

Maybe they should just be publicized more–what if they were moved 1 week earlier and happened right before Corpus Christi–that way our special weekends after Pentecost would come to one big end.

Sacred Heart on Friday–Immaculate Heart on Saturday–and then Corpus Christi on Sunday.
 
Thanks for your question, I have learnt something I did not know by searching for the answer. Extract below from wiki really does make sense and will be much easier for us to remember. Our Lady has not lost her place of honor in the Church at all, it seems to be more enhanced than before:)
http://www.marypages.com/ImmaculateHeartofMaryKl.jpg

Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1944 to be celebrated on 22 August,[22] coinciding with the traditional octave day of the Assumption.[23] In 1969, Pope Paul VI moved the celebration of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to the day, Saturday, immediately after the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This means in practice that it is now held on the day before the third Sunday after Pentecost.[24]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Heart_of_Mary#cite_note-24

At the same time as he closely associated the celebrations of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pope Paul VI moved the celebration of the Queenship of Mary from 31 May to 22 August, bringing it into association with the feast of her Assumption.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Heart_of_Mary
 
I don’t believe either feast should be changed or moved up at all.

Why? Because Our Lord Himself when he appeared to St. Margaret Mary Allacoque requested when he wanted the feast of His Sacred Heart celebrated. On the Friday after the octave day of Corpus Christi (Corpus Christi was celebrated on a Thursday then). So you really can’t change where the Lord wanted it to be observed.

As for the Immaculate heart, I don’t think there was ever any request for when to celebrate this feast; it was put immediately after the Sacred Heart to stress their similarities.

Also it is done this way so that 99% of the time it falls during the Month of June, the traditional month of the Sacred Heart. The date can fall on May 29 to 31 or July 1 or 2 but this is extremely rare. It fell on May 30 in 2008 and July 1 in 2011 but it won’t do that again for a long time.
 
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