Level III · Sacred Time · practice 4 of 7
Octave of the Sacred Heart
Eight days after the feast — the great feasts of the Church extend in joy, not contract.
Why this practice
In the older liturgical calendar, the principal feasts of the Church were celebrated for eight days — an octave — to allow the grace of the feast to be unfolded. The Sacred Heart had such an octave; in the present calendar it is observed less formally, but the practice remains.
After the feast, do not collapse back into ordinary time as though nothing happened. Keep the eight days. Let the joy of the feast inform a whole week.
How to begin
1For eight days following the Feast of the Sacred Heart, keep a daily practice — the Litany, a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, a short meditation.
2Read each day a few pages of Croiset's book, or of another spiritual writer on the Heart.
3End the octave with thanksgiving and a renewed resolve for the year ahead.
The feast is a door; the octave is the room you enter through it.
— Traditional
A prayer for this practice
Sacred Heart of Jesus, let the grace of Thy feast not depart from me in eight days, nor in a year. Establish in me what Thou hast begun.
Amen.