Benedictine College joins nationwide Sacred Heart novena, marks 10th anniversary

Benedictine College invited Atchison Catholics into a Sacred Heart novena that tied local prayer to a national church observance and a milestone on campus. Students, parishioners, alumni and other residents could join the daily prayers from June 3 through June 11, or June 4 through June 12 depending on the liturgical count, as the college marked the 10th anniversary of its Enthronement of the Sacred Heart.

The novena was built from the Litany of the Sacred Heart and was meant to prepare Catholics for the United States’ consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 11, 2026. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said the consecration was part of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and encouraged parishes across the country to take part, giving the devotion a reach that extended far beyond Benedictine’s campus in Atchison.

For Benedictine, the prayer campaign also pointed back to a defining moment in its own religious life. The college enthroned the Sacred Heart on October 30, 2016, when families joined monks, sisters, board members, administrators, faculty, staff and students to dedicate a new park and place a Sacred Heart statue in the center of Raven Memorial Park. President Stephen D. Minnis called it “one of the most important gatherings of our lives.” That anniversary gave the 2026 novena a specifically Benedictine frame, not just a generic call to devotion.

The college’s invitation came as it also prepared another high-profile summer marker, the July 4 opening of its Independence Hall library. Benedictine said the 58,000-square-foot, three-story building would resemble Independence Hall in Philadelphia and include a replica of the Assembly Room and the Liberty Bell. The grand opening is scheduled for Saturday, July 4, from 9 a.m. to noon. Together, the novena and the library opening showed how the Atchison campus was weaving worship, national history and public identity into the same summer calendar, with Sacred Heart devotion remaining at the center of that story.