The Immaculate Heart of Mary

Following the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus yesterday, today we celebrate the feast of His Blessed Mother Mary’s Immaculate Heart .

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary began as early as the twelfth century. During the seventeenth century in France, St John Eudes popularised this devotion along with that to the Sacred Heart. St Luke’s Gospel twice mentions that Mary ‘kept all these things in her heart’, pondering the word of God. Mary shows us how to listen to the words the Holy Spirit speaks to us in the depths of our hearts, and how to respond in faith.

The Fatima seer, Sister Lucia, gives so many clear reasons for us to see why devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is essential. Our Lady of Fatima’s message is more urgent than ever as culture and peace continue to deteriorate. The answer to reverse the downward spiral begins with these two “musts” — the daily Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

On December 10, 1925 — which happened to be the feast of Our Lady of Loreto — Sister Lucia was in her cell in the convent in Pontevedra, Spain, when the Blessed Mother appeared to her. Our Lady didn’t arrive alone. Jesus was with his Mother, appearing as a child standing on a luminous cloud. Sister Lucia described what happened, referring to herself in the third person.

The most holy Virgin rested her hand on her shoulder, and as she did so, she showed her a heart encircled by thorns, which she was holding in her other hand. At the same time, the Child said: ‘Have compassion on the Heart of your most holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.’

Then Our Lady told her:

Look, my daughter, at my Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.

Lucia did not make this request known because it pertained to one of the three secrets the children received in the apparitions in 1917 and which they were to keep just that — secret — until heaven gave the okay. Two years later, when her superiors asked her to write down this latest apparition, she first went to pray before the tabernacle. It was Dec. 17, 1927. She asked Jesus how she was to fulfill this request which were part of the secrets. She wanted heaven’s authorisation before revealing anything.

Lucia was concerned about this part of the July 1917 revelations. Our Lady said:

Jesus wishes to make use of you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. I promise salvation to those who embrace it, and these souls will be loved by God, like flowers placed by me to adorn His throne.

Nothing could be more obvious — devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was heaven’s plan, the plan of God, the plan of her Son.

Before St. Jacinta was taken to the hospital, she had told her cousin:

You will remain here to make known that God wishes to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. … Tell everybody that God grants us graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; that people are to ask her for them; and that the Heart of Jesus wants the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be venerated at His side. Tell them also to pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace since God has entrusted it to her.

When Lucia wanted to know if she was to remain alone on earth, not with her cousins Jacinta and Francisco, Our Lady had answered:

No, daughter. I shall never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.

The first revelation of heaven’s plan for the Heart of Our Lady had come in the 1917 apparitions.

In her Memoirs Lucia explained, “Our Lady told us, in the July secret, that God wished to establish in the world devotion to her Immaculate Heart.” Our Lady said, Jesus wishes you to make me known and loved on earth. He wishes also for you to establish devotion in the world to my Immaculate Heart. Three times her Immaculate Heart was mentioned in that July apparition, also referring to the conversion of Russia and the vision of hell. Our Lady said, You have seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. It is to save them that God wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.

Reflecting on the June 1917 apparition, Lucia emphasised devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was essential. Our Lady told her that “her Immaculate Heart would be my refuge and the way that would lead me to God. As she spoke these words, she opened her hands, and from them streamed a light that penetrated to our inmost hearts. … From that day onwards, our hearts were filled with a more ardent love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

Why does Jesus want his Mother’s Immaculate Heart venerated alongside his Sacred Heart?

“It was in this Heart that the Father placed His Son, as if in the first Tabernacle,” Lucia explains, and “it was the Blood of Her Immaculate Heart which communicated to the Son of God His Life and His human nature, from which we all, in turn receive ‘grace upon grace’ (John 1:16).”

It all boils down to heaven’s directives and promises delivered by the Blessed Virgin Mary:

• “Jesus wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. I promise salvation to those who embrace it, and these souls will be loved by God, like flowers placed by me to adorn His throne.”
• “You have seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.”
• “My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.”

May we too beseech Our Lord for an ardent growing love for the most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.