The Feast of the Sacred Heart is devoted to the physical heart of Jesus as a symbol of his divine love for all humanity.
The devotion to the Sacred Heart developed in the middle ages out of worship to the scared wounds that Jesus received during his crucifixion. The devotion became more widespread in the seventeenth century when a French nun, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque said she learnt of the devotion from Jesus during several apparitions. The devotion to the Sacred Heart then spread across Spain due to the work of the Jesuits. This meant that the Spanish brought this tradition to their colonisation of Latin America.
In 1902, Colombia was officially consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and this remained in the constitution until 1991.
Bishop Stika recently appointed Father Jhon Mario Garcia as an Associate Pastor for the Cathedral Parish. Father Jhon Mario was born in a town called Dosquebrados in Colombia, South America. He is the third of 7 children and entered the seminary of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentian Fathers) in 2005. He was ordained a priest on August 16, 2014. After his ordination, he was sent to work in Vocational Ministry for his congregation. In 2017, his superiors sent him to work with the Hispanic ministry in California at Saint Mary Magdalen, Camarillo, CA, Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where he worked for two and a half years.