Judy and Jim Dezagottis help make a compassionate Christ the King of peoples’ households
The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart Mary. These images are included in the packets Jim and Judy Dezagottis distribute in parishes to help people enthrone the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Hearts in their homes.The bishops of the United States of America are consecrating the entire nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 11, one day before the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart is celebrated.
A couple from North Londonderry Township is helping families in the Diocese of Harrisburg take an even greater step in the Heart of Jesus, enthroning their very households to his Sacred Heart.
“Who doesn’t need the protection of our Sacred Heart and our Immaculate Heart (of Mary)?” asked Judy Dezagottis. She and her husband Jim, from Holy Spirit Parish in Palmyra, began their role in the Enthronement By Parish Ministry in 2006 and have been enthroning Harrisburg households to the Heart of Jesus since 2010.
“In effect, we’re asking Jesus and Mary into our homes as our king and queen to help us to lead good lives and to lead us home to our Father in Heaven,” Judy said.
Their ministry helps people see how enthronement is a next-level movement of dedication to Christ’s heart and that of his mother’s.
While people who consecrate themselves to the hearts of Jesus or Mary make personal acts of prayer and sacrifice, enthronement of a household involves literally putting sacred artwork of the Heart of Jesus and his Mother’s Immaculate Heart inside the home, making Christ the king of their household.
The movement follows the pathway of the words Jesus said in appearing to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in France in the late 17th century, when she rested upon his heart while suffering as an indentured servant.
“I will bless the homes in which an image of My Heart shall be exposed and honored,” the Lord said.
George Lamoureux, who lives in the Philadelphia area, began the ministry in 2001, months after entering St. Isaac Jogues Church in Wayne, Pa., where he received information on the Sacred Heart. A woman tapped him on the shoulder.
Judy Dezagottis, a member of Holy Spirit Parish in Palmyra, gives a presentation on the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart at a parish in the diocese.“She introduced herself as Veronica Weldes. We talked a little bit and she shared her dream that someday all of our people would have images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (and) the Immaculate Heart of Mary hanging or displayed in places of honor in their home, and she asked if I would help her,” he said.
They began Enthronement By Parish Ministry, presenting the enthronements to parishes.
In time, Lamoureux helped develop a $1 packet of information for each family enthroning their home. It includes the artwork of the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart, explanations on how to enthrone a home and the blessings of the Sacred Heart without needing a priest present, the prayers of enthronement, various ways to live the devotion, and wallet-sized cards to carry with those prayers.
Lamoureux said that in 25 years, they have helped about 227,000 people across the United States enthrone their homes to Christ and his Blessed Mother.
Judy and Jim focus their work in Enthronement By Parish Ministry through presentations in parishes in the Diocese of Harrisburg. They reach out to pastors and assist with bulletin and pulpit announcements. Judy leads the presentations and collects the $1 donations, while Jim’s efforts involve distribution of the packets to parishes before Judy’s presentations.
“We explain enthronement in the talk. It simply means to bring Jesus into our homes and hearts and help us to lead good lives, and then people get it,” said Judy.
They enthrone the parish with prayers with each priest at Mass, and then individuals who take packets home can enthrone their own homes in the Sacred Heart.
“If you touch one person in that parish that comes to you and says, ‘I’m going to send this packet to Afghanistan for my son who’s in the military,’ or ‘I’m going to give some packets to my grandchildren to take to college because they’ve lost their faith, and I’m going to see if we can get them back,’ who doesn’t need this devotion in these times?” she said.
Judy said that making Christ heavenly royalty involves a constantly prayerful relationship with someone who understands our struggles at a deeply human level.
“Who can’t think of a situation in your life where you have a fallen-away family member, an unexpected illness, old age, problems that come up with children or parents, elderly parents, rough patches in marriages?” she said.
“Who is that one person that has that heart that you just never want to escape from? The one person who understands rejection, betrayal, that has gone through everything that we’re going through as human and yet divine. He has this power of saying, ‘I feel your heart, my child, but I have a divine heart. Come into my heart and I’ll heal you,’” she said.
Judy and Jim will continue bringing people and families into Christ and his mother’s hearts which understand the human condition, hearts that will last longer than the homes being enthroned in him.
“He says, ‘I’m going to put you in my heart and in my mother’s heart,” Judy said, “and I don’t want you to escape from it, ever.’”
Individuals who are interested in enthroning their homes or parishes to the Sacred Heart of Jesus can email Lamoureux at parishenthronement@hotmail.com. He will reach out to the Dezagottis family.
(Jay Sorgi is a freelance reporter for The Catholic Witness. Photos courtesy of Jim and Judy Dezagottis.)
By Jay Sorgi, The Catholic Witness
