As the Church enters June, the traditional month of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pope Leo XIV has released his first monthly prayer intention since ascending to the papacy in May 2025. His heartfelt message calls on the faithful to turn to Christ’s Heart and grow in compassion for a suffering world.
In the Pope Video for June, Pope Leo prays “that each one of us might find consolation in a personal relationship with Jesus, and from His Heart, learn to have compassion on the world,” according to Vatican News.
This month’s intention is steeped in the longstanding Catholic tradition of devotion to the Sacred Heart. It arrives alongside a moving prayer, featured in the video, which begins with a woman’s voice saying, “Lord, I come to Your tender Heart today, to You who have words that set my heart ablaze, to You who pour out compassion on the little ones and the poor, on those who suffer, and on all human miseries,” (Vatican News).
The prayer continues with a plea for transformation and intimacy with the Lord: “Grant all Your children the grace of encountering You… Change, shape, and transform our plans, so that we seek only You in every circumstance: in prayer, in work, in encounters, and in our daily routine.”
The visual backdrop of this month’s video features sacred spaces including the Church of the Holy Name of Jesus in Rome—home to the renowned painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Pompeo Batoni—and the National Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Makati, Philippines.
June’s focus on the Sacred Heart carries deep historical resonance. Pope Leo XIII, whose name Pope Leo XIV chose in tribute, consecrated the world to the Heart of Jesus in his 1899 encyclical Annum Sacrum. Subsequent popes—Pius XI, Pius XII, and most recently Pope Francis in his 2024 apostolic letter Dilexit Nos—have each upheld the Sacred Heart as a wellspring of divine mercy, love, and healing in times of moral and social decay.
This prayer initiative is part of The Pope Video project, a global platform from the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, which aims to mobilize prayer and mission around the challenges facing humanity and the Church. According to Vatican News, the video initiative has surpassed 247 million views and is translated into over 23 languages.
Pope Leo XIV’s prayer intention for June is more than a call to prayer—it is a mission of the heart. Through Christ’s Sacred Heart, the Pope invites each Catholic to be consoled, transformed, and sent forth into the world as instruments of divine compassion.
I am a senior but I still remember my mother telling us she always prayed to the Sacred Heart ❤️ I