The Guild of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus was founded on March 25^th 2022 by Bishop Frank J. Caggiano of Bridgeport, CT. It is a Public Association of the Christian Faithful and a 501(c)(3) Corporation in the State of Connecticut. It exists to promote and foster Beauty in the Sacred Arts in the Diocese of Bridgeport. 

If the Diocese is thought of as a body, with the Parishes as its organs, then the Guild is like its nervous system, sharing ideas and giving inspiration to all those seeking a deeper relationship with the Lord through Beauty. 

Our mission is not to rival Parish life, but to enhance and support it, underpinning best practice using our expertise in the Sacred Arts, which can sometimes seem daunting. There is no rulebook for the Arts, because they express what is often impossible to explain in mere words, but there certainly are rules, which are written into the fabric of Creation by God Himself. 

These rules need to be discerned and distilled so they can be applied in a given situation, but the best way to do this is by practical example, as opposed to lectures or theories: as Pope Francis says, “realities are greater than ideas” (EG 231). The human heart desires order and the more Sacred Art expresses order, the more clearly it expresses the mind of the Creator.

By decree of March 25^th the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Georgetown, CT was designated as an ‘Oratory’. This status means it has a special relationship to the Diocesan Bishop, whilst at the same time maintaining for future generations the place our 140-year old worshiping community has called home. 

In a way, this new status is coming full circle to when the Mission was first established in the 1870s. Sacred Heart is the Mother Church of both Ridgefield and Redding and has always been outward-looking and evangelistic in its character. Led by a Rector and Board of Directors, the Guild employs a dedicated staff to look after the day-to-day running of the Sacred Heart campus and the needs of the Guild throughout the Diocese.

Holy Mass is the source and summit of our Christian life. All that the Guild does is nourished by the Sacrament of Salvation, the Eucharist, in which Christ reconciles the world to Father by His perfect offering of Himself. We are joined to this Sacrifice by our full, conscious and active participation in it. 

Vespers and Compline form part of the Divine Office, or Liturgy of the Hours: the official prayer of the Church. Priests and religious are bound to recite the Divine Office in full every day, but Christ’s Faithful are strongly encouraged to participate whenever possible. The Divine Office has a special place in the liturgical life of the Oratory, providing the perfect means to sanctify the day and equip Christ’s Faithful for their daily round.

Contemporary music commonly known as ‘Praise & Worship’ is another expression of devotion to Our Lord that serves to lift hearts and minds to contemplation of God, sometimes through energy and exuberance; other times through meditation and mystery. Often this genre has its roots outside of the visible bounds of the Catholic Church, but anything that is truly good already belongs to her by right and finds its culmination in full, visible communion. Perhaps because it expresses the yearning of the human heart for Christ so earnestly, Praise & Worship music is notably well-suited to Eucharistic Adoration outside of the formality of strictly Liturgical Worship. 

Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament is cherished by Catholics as a poignant way of extending the mystery of the Mass for quiet devotion. Many people find the possibility of adoring the Lord, who makes Himself vulnerable for us in the Host, a source of great strength. To gaze upon the Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament is to enter into the depth of His Love as He gazes upon us. To adore the Lord in the Eucharist is to savor the gap between Consecration and the salutary moment when each Host is consumed. He concedes to us His fragility because our worship of Him in this way is so beneficial to us.

The Angelus is a devotion of long-standing custom, recording as it does the very moment at which the Lord took flesh in the womb of the Virgin by dint of her fiat, consenting to God’s plan to save us. In Georgetown, the Oratory bell is named Gabriel, and his voice echoes through the Norwalk Valley three times a day to announce to the world that God has triumphed over sin and death, because the Blessed Mother said yes.

First Fridays are, by Papal approval, set aside for devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, recalling as they do Our Lord’s Passion and Death on Good Friday and the piercing of His adorable Heart by the soldier’s lance. From that wound flowed blood and water – the very life of the Church – in the Sacraments. Here at the Oratory we dedicate every First Friday to our Feast of Title, the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, by means of Holy Mass and the traditional Act of Reparation.