"God is giving two last
remedies to the world. They are the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary. These are the last two remedies, which signify that there will
be no others." (Sister Lucy of Fatima to Fr. Fuentes, 1957).
The Immaculate Heart of Mary is
a devotional name used to refer to the interior life of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, her joys and sorrows, her virtues and hidden perfections, and, above
all, her virginal love for God the Father, her maternal love for her son Jesus,
and her compassionate love for all people.
The month of August is dedicated
to the Immaculate Heart. Since the 16th century Catholic piety has assigned
entire months to special devotions. The month of August is traditionally
dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The physical heart of Mary is
venerated (and not adored as the Sacred Heart of Jesus is) because it is united
to her person and is the seat of her love (especially for her divine Son),
virtue, and inner life. Such devotion is an incentive to a similar love and
virtue.
This devotion has received new
emphasis in this century from the visions given to Lucy Dos Santos, oldest of
the visionaries of Fatima, in her convent in Tuy, in Spain, in 1925 and 1926.
In the visions Our Lady asked for the practice of the Five First Saturdays to
help make amends for the offenses committed against her heart by the
blasphemies and ingratitude of men. The practice parallels the devotion of the
Nine First Fridays in honor of the Sacred Heart.
On October 31, 1942, Pope Pius
XII made a solemn Act of Consecration of the Church and the whole world to the
Immaculate Heart. Let us remember this devotion year-round, but particularly
through the month of August.(Excerpted from The Prayer
Book by Reverend John P. O'Connell, M.A., S.T.D. and Jex Martin, M.A.)
Consecration to the Immaculate
Heart
Pope Paul VI, on the floor of the
Vatican Council at the close of the third session, renewed publicly the
consecration of the Church and the world to Mary's Immaculate Heart. He said
that his thoughts turned to the whole world "which our venerated predecessor
Pius XII . . . not without inspiration from on high, solemnly consecrated to
the Immaculate Heart of Mary. . . . O Virgin Mary, Mother of the Council, to
you we recommend the entire Church." When he visited Fatima on May 13,
1967, the same Pope recalled this "consecration which we ourselves
have renewed on November 21, 1964 — we exhort all the sons of the
Church to renew personally their consecration to the Immaculate Heart of the
Mother of the Church and to bring alive this most noble act of veneration
through a life ever more in accord with the divine will and in a spirit of
filial service and of devout imitation of their heavenly Queen."
Before making a consecration it
is most desirable to make a careful preparation extending over some period of
time. One good way to make that preparation is described in the last part of
St. Louis de Montfort's True Devotion book.
The most essential thing is not
making an act of consecration, with or without some solemnity, though that is
important. The essential thing is to live that consecration.
Living a consecration could be
described as following three attitudes or spirits:
- Union — Imitation of Jesus and Mary, so as to become like them, and trying to develop as constant as possible a realization of His and her presence.
- Dependence — Give to Jesus and Mary the right to dispose of everything we have, temporal and spiritual.
- Obedience — Jesus and Mary have the right to ask us to do anything at all, even without reward. In consecration, we recognize that right, give it on a basis of love, and plan to carry it out with fullest generosity.
St. Maximilian Kolbe liked to
speak of the relation of consecration to our baptismal promises, in which we
promised to renounce satan and all his works, and to follow Jesus, by whom we
are "sealed" in baptism as His property. Consecration is the fullest
kind of response to and carrying out of these promises. Mary, in view of her
Immaculate Conception, was most fitted to respond most fully, and that she did,
with a fullness and perfection beyond our ability to visualize — for we recall
that Pius IX told us that even at the start of her existence, her holiness was
so great that "none greater under God can be thought of, and no one but
God can comprehend it."(Excerpted from Our Father's
Plan, Fr. William G. Most)
Reparation to the Immaculate
Heart
Our very consecration to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary calls upon us to make reparation for the offenses that
we and others have committed against her. The Church, in inviting us to
consecrate ourselves to her Immaculate Heart, implicitly calls upon us for this
reparation. But more explicitly, and even before Fatima, Saint Pius X offered a
plenary indulgence to all who on the first Saturday of the month would observe
special devotions in honor of the Immaculate Virgin in a spirit of reparation
for the blasphemies uttered against her.
There is, however, an even more
basic reason why each one of us owes reparation to the Immaculate Heart of
Mary: every sin of ours caused grief and suffering to her in union with her
divine Son. For sin was the cause of that terrible day on Calvary when she, as
the New Eve, shared in the torment of the great sacrifice, and, amidst
indescribable pain, brought forth spiritually all the members of the Mystical
Body of her divine Son. God willed that Mary should be intimately associated
with His Son in bearing the burden of all sin; surely then, her Immaculate
Heart, in union with His divine Heart, should receive reparation from us who
have caused them such pain. If anyone causes hurt to even a very ordinary human
being, he does not overlook the need to make amends. How much more do we owe to
the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!(Excerpted Mary In Our Life,
Fr. William G. Most)
SOURCES (wikipedia.com,https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/overviews/months/08_1.cfm)
