The beginnings of Sacred Heart Parish can be traced back to 1878 when Father Aloysius Masinate, S.J. came on horseback from Santa Clara College to offer Mass in the parlor of Hanna McCarthy, the widow of Martin McCarthy who had registered the first plot plan of the town in 1852, calling it McCarthysville. As the Catholic population grew in the 1880s, the mountain families built a chapel called St. John the Evangelist. But the mountain roads made it inconvenient for Saratoga Catholics to attend Mass up there, so a church was built in 1895 at Sixth and Big Basin Way. The President of Santa Clara College, Fr. Joseph Riordan, S.J. preached the dedication sermon in which the name of Sacred Heart of Jesus was attached to Saratoga's second Catholic Church. This functioned as a mission for the next 65 years. In 1905, when Saratoga was linked to San Jose by Electric Car C Line, Sacred Heart was attached as a mission to St. Joseph's Church in San Jose. The same year, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur established a villa in Saratoga and started providing religious instruction for children. Finally, in 1913 when Saint Joseph of Cupertino Parish was established as a parish, Sacred Heart was attached to it as a mission. It continued as a mission until it was raised to the status of Parish with its own resident Pastor on January 12, 1951, with Fr. Gerald Geary as Pastor.