Dom Antônio dos Santos Cabral, the first bishop and archbishop of Belo Horizonte, welcomed the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts to the new capital of Minas Gerais with the arrival of Father Eustáquio van Lieshout to shepherd the future Parish of the Sacred Hearts, at that time, São Domingos. For the religious of the newly arrived Congregation, consecration to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary is the foundation of their institute.

Until the early 1940s, the Parish operated in the small Chapel of Christ the King. However, Bishop Cabral had promised the Congregation that the parish would receive the new title, with the inseparable Hearts of Jesus and his devoted Mother as its patron saints. Thus, when Father Eustáquio laid the foundation stone of the new church, he announced that it would be dedicated to the Sacred Hearts. The intense and brief life of the great apostle of Health and Peace did not allow him to see the fulfillment of the promise, which was fulfilled before a year had passed since his death on August 30, 1943. The brief history that follows will reveal the key dates that culminated in Bishop Cabral's decree for the new patron saints of the parish.

09/09/1942 – Juscelino Kubitschek, mayor of Belo Horizonte, in gratitude to Father Eustáquio, donates the land for the construction of the Sacred Hearts Church.
11/10/1942 Father Eustáquio celebrates the Eucharist on church grounds.
10/12/1942 – Beginning of the construction of the Sacred Hearts Parish Church.
16/05/1943 – Blessing of the Cornerstone.
21/07/1944 – Decree establishing the Parish Title of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, with the Dominican Fathers retaining the title of Saint Dominic.

In the Bible, the heart is one of the ways to speak of God's infinite love for you. This love reaches its peak with the coming of Jesus. The Heart of the Virgin Mary is completely oriented towards the Heart of her Divine Son. The Holy Scriptures teach us that she herself proclaimed herself the "servant" of the Lord.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus takes us back to Saint John the Evangelist at the foot of the cross, when a Roman soldier pierced Jesus' side with a spear. "And from his open heart flowed blood and water." In this way, Jesus revealed his love and his self-giving for us. The Heart of Jesus knows each one of us intimately and reveals itself as a kind and merciful heart. Jesus tells us, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.".

Regarding the Heart of Mary, the Scriptures speak of the sword of sorrow, but above all, that there she kept the center of her experience as the first disciple of the Savior, her beloved son.
The spirituality of the Sacred Hearts has a profound and long history within the Christian community, originating in the New Testament, the Church Fathers, and great saints such as St. John the Evangelist, St. Paul the Apostle, St. Augustine, St. Benedict, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Bonaventure, and the mystical saints of the Middle Ages, St. Matilda of Madburg, St. Juliana of Norway, and St. Catherine of Siena. However, it was in France that this spirituality received its most visible expressions and characteristics, reaching our time through St. Francis de Sales, St. John Eudes, and the Jesuit, St. Claude de la Colombière. Finally, with St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in the 17th century, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was definitively formulated and propagated. Her mission was to give it impetus and universal diffusion, adapt it to the needs of the Catholic Church in modern times, and establish the most appropriate practices of piety for the new circumstances.

The most famous of the apparitions was in 1675, when Jesus asked Saint Margaret Mary to establish a feast to honor his Heart: the Friday after the octave of the feast of Corpus Christi, and thus expressed the appeal for reparation: 'Behold this heart which has so loved men. From most I receive only ingratitude, contempt, insults, sacrileges, indifference… And I promise you that My

His heart will expand to abundantly pour forth the influences of His divine Love upon those who pay this divine honor and who seek that it be rendered to Him.’

From then on, it spread widely throughout the Church, especially through the famous "promises" of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to Saint Mary Alacoque:

1. I will give to the devotees of My Heart all the graces necessary for their state in life.
2. I will establish and maintain peace in their families.
3. I will comfort them in all their troubles.
4. I will be a safe haven in life and especially at the hour of death.
5. I will bestow abundant blessings upon your work and endeavors.
6. Sinners will find in my Heart an inexhaustible source of mercy.
7. Lukewarm souls will become fervent through the practice of this devotion.
8. Fervent souls will, in a short time, rise to a high degree of perfection.
9. My blessing will remain upon the homes where the image of My Sacred Heart is displayed and venerated.
10. I will give to the priests who especially practice this devotion the power to touch the hardest hearts.
11. Those who spread this devotion will have their names inscribed forever in My Heart.
12. To all who receive Holy Communion on the first Fridays of nine consecutive months, I will grant the grace of final perseverance and eternal salvation.

In 1800, also in France, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary was founded by Mother Henrietta Aymer and Father Joseph Marie Coudrin, which was brought to Brazil by Blessed Father Eustace and his companions in 1925 and arrived in Belo Horizonte in 1942.

The Founders received from God the charism to contemplate, live, and proclaim love for the Sacred Hearts through reparative adoration and missionary apostolate. Since the Heart of Mary is the epitome of living and a model for following Jesus, this summarizes the mission of the sons and daughters of the Sacred Hearts: in Jesus we find everything: his birth, his life, and his death; this is our Rule.

“"To the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, all honor and glory."”

Article written by Fr. Marcus Vinícius Maciel, SSCC