St. John Paul II said, “The Sacred Heart has given us everything — redemption, salvation, sanctification.” The Sacred Heart is the actual heart of Christ and also indicates His love for humanity. We each have the chance to exemplify that love within our community at our next Giving from the Heart drive-through donation drive, scheduled for Saturday, June 8, from 10 a.m. to noon at the North Campus. Volunteers from our parish’s Knights of Columbus and St. Vincent de Paul councils will be gathered the day after our parish feast day to greet donors as they drop off needed supplies for our beneficiaries which include both St. Vincent de Paul and the Tampa Hope homeless shelter.

Can’t make it to the North Campus on the day of the drive?

Click the image to access our Amazon Wishlist, and have your donation shipped directly to the parish office!

Opened in 2021, Tampa Hope houses dozens of local homeless in semi-permanent shelters while providing food, clothing, transportation, education, employment and benefits assistance, substance abuse and mental health counseling, basic medical care, and case management services in an effort to help reestablish permanent housing. The shelter recently opened the first of their Hope Cottages, 64-square-foot, climate-controlled micro-homes which offer their clients privacy and security as they continue on their recovery paths. Sacred Heart is an original partner of the facility, which is located in East Tampa.

Items of greatest need include: bed sheets (twin), blankets (twin), men’s and women’s underwear (new, all sizes), bath and hand towels, laundry bags, shower shoes (men’s and women’s), deodorant, single-use paper products (plates, napkins, towels) single-use silverware, cleaning products, travel-size toiletries, bug-spray, sunscreen, storage containers

Following Christ’s call to serve the poor, the suffering, and the deprived, St. Vincent de Paul works to ease an individual or family’s initial emergency, then shepherd them into programs that can bring lasting change. Many will know Sacred Heart’s group of SVdP volunteers as one of the 13 conferences for the non-profit within Hillsborough County. SVdP has operated in Hillsborough County since 1932.

Items of greatest need include: new and used clothing, including men’s jeans, socks, shoes, and underwear, non-perishable and single-serving food items and dinners

As always, your generosity is greatly appreciated.

Bikes from the Heart, Sacred Heart Catholic Church’s outreach devoted to refurbishing and redistributing bicycles to those in need has reached a milestone just ahead of the ministry’s first anniversary. Volunteers from the ministry joined members of Tampa’s Downtown Partnership to deliver the 500^th refurbished bicycle to Billy Shane Warren, a member of the Downtown Partnership’s Clean Team, on Friday, April 26.

“I’ve had issues with parts in the past, and then the theft of an old bike, so this is truly a blessing,” said Warren, who received the donation in front of the “Downtown” mural at the Partnership’s outpost on Ashley Street, just south of I-275. When receiving the bicycle, Warren recounted stories of a bike he had owned since age 9 that was stolen nearly two years ago, and the trouble he has had since in maintaining others he had attempted to salvage.

“It’s going to make getting to work so much easier, that’s for sure,” Warren continued, speaking with ministry leaders and his TDP colleagues. His current commute from east Ybor is nearly five miles, a daily journey he would often make on foot, in addition to his daily rounds that cover the western and southern portions of the downtown streets.

Bikes from the Heart is a volunteer program founded by Sacred Heart parishioners Tim Eves and Tom Henry that operates out of the former convent on the church’s “North Campus” property, formerly Sacred Heart Academy (3515 N Florida Avenue). Used bicycles and parts are donated to Bikes from the Heart by individuals, parishioners of Sacred Heart and other area churches, apartment and condominium complexes, partners like WellBuilt Bikes, as well as law enforcement. Those bikes are then refurbished into working order to be given recipients across Tampa Bay that are struggling with access to reliable transportation.

“We’re excited to be here with our friend, Billy Shane, the friars, and our friends from the Downtown Partnership to celebrate this moment in our ministry,” said Henry. “Over the first nine or so months of this ministry, while getting established, we were able to produce a little over 200 bikes. In the last three months, we’ve done nearly 300, and our hope for next year is produce over 1000.”

Founders Tim Eves and Tom Henry began work on the project in May of 2023. The growth of the ministry has been meteoric, from the swell of volunteers who believed in the mission of the ministry, to receiving grants from the Catholic Foundation of the Diocese of St. Petersburg and earning civic recognitions like the 2024 Urban Excellence Award for best Downtown collaboration.

The ministry regularly works with Catholic Charities’ homeless shelter, Tampa Hope; Love INC of Metro Tampa, an ecumenical collective of intercity churches addressing community needs; Metropolitan Ministries; Hyde Park United Methodist Church, The Portico, the Agency for Community Treatment Services, and the Tampa Downtown Partnership on distribution of the restored bikes. Some bicycles are also given to recipients through direct request or referral.

To learn more about the ministry, volunteer, or donate, visit shfla.org/bikes.

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Sacred Heart Catholic Church offers special thanks for the Community Impact Grant program from the Catholic Foundation of the Diocese of St. Petersburg for their support of the Bikes from the Heart.

On May 12, 2024, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. In the days following His resurrection until the Ascension, Jesus appeared to His apostles in several different ways to affirm for them that He had been raised from the dead and truly lives. They were filled with the theological virtue of faith, indicating that with God all things are possible. Soon He would leave them again, this time to sit at His Father’s Right Hand.

Did you know? |  We see His Ascension depicted in the triptych of windows along the south side of the church, adjacent to the choir area, with His disciples losing sight of Him among the clouds as He was lifted. These windows were donated to the parish in 1904 by the Knights of Columbus and dedicated “to the greater honor and glory of God.”

I always thought it was “Ascension Thursday.” What Changed? | The Solemnity of the Ascension is a Holy Day of Obligation, occurring on the Thursday that coincides with the 40-day mark following Easter, and is celebrated as such in many regions of the country, while other regions transfer the celebration to the following Sunday. Transferring the Ascension to Sunday is actually not that new, and part of a larger trend to transfer holy days of obligation and other solemnities to the following Sunday. Doing so allows greater exposure and more solemn celebration of the holy day among the faithful.

For the Ascension in the United States, this trend started on the West Coast in the late 1990s, and eventually spread. Other parts of the world have also transferred this solemnity to Sunday including Australia, Canada, and some countries in Europe. With the approval of the Holy See, the episcopal conference (the body of bishops in a country) can transfer solemnities and change some of the holy days of obligation (Canon 1246). In the U.S., each ecclesiastical province, or the metropolitan archdiocese and its suffragan dioceses, was permitted to decide whether to transfer the Ascension or not. (Portions of this article are attributed to the Paul Christopher Lim’s “From the Back of the Church”)