The Messenger Question Box (No. 1 and 2)

The Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart, a monthly Jesuit devotional magazine, has been an integral part of the Irish religious landscape since its foundation by Fr Paul Cullen, S.J., in 1888. The magazine cultivated an intense devotional life and penetrated every parish on the island, reaching a peasantry that was both desperately poor and devoutly Catholic by means of an elaborate voluntary distribution system. Up until a few decades ago, it was not uncommon for the sole reading material in many rural households to be the monthly Sacred Heart Messenger.

One of the most popular features of the publication was the ‘Messenger Box’ column, wherein readers would advance questions about various aspects of the Catholic faith, and have those questions answered by Jesuit priests. Published in 1935 and 1938, these special pamphlets reproduce questions featured in the Sacred Heart Messenger in the previous few years. In those days the Messenger was the most widely read publication in Ireland. Despite the secularization of Irish society since the 1960s, the Messenger retains a readership of over 300,000, making it the second most popular publication in the country (after the RTÉ TV Guide).

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