Month of the Immaculate Heart
O Most Blessed Mother, heart of love, heart of mercy, ever listening, caring, consoling, hear our prayer. As your children, we implore your intercession with Jesus your Son. Receive with understanding and compassion the petitions we place before you today, especially ...(special intention).
Documents
On Fatima and Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart — Pius XII
We entrust, O Mary, and Consecrate the Whole World to your Immaculate Heart! — John Paul II
On Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary — Pius XII
Consecration to Jesus and Mary — Fr. William G. Most
The month of August (Overview - Calendar) 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.
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.
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
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
