“In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” This is the promise which Mary made to the children, and the world, at Fatima, Portugal on 13 July 1917. It is this triumphant heart which we commemorate every year on the Saturday following the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Currently in the United States, we are living in a time where Christ’s promise that His Church would be persecuted is unfolding before our eyes in a way which was once unimaginable in this country. Christ said, “If the world hates you, be sure that it hated me before it learned to hate you. If you belonged to the world, the world would know you for its own and love you; it is because you do not belong to the world, because I have singled you out from the midst of the world, that the world hates you” (John 15:18-19). There are so many examples of this persecution in the current social and political climate. Just yesterday, “activists” and “protestors” tore down a statue of Saint Junípero Serra, a Spanish Franciscan known for his missionary activity in early America, in San Francisco. Catholic Churches across the United States have been suffering vandalism, supposedly in the name of racial justice. To top it all off, there is now a petition in Saint Louis, MO not only to tear down the statue of the saintly King of France but to completely rename the city because he condemned Islam and Judaism, therefore making him a dangerous and bigoted figure. Ironically, these groups of people who call themselves “anti-fascist” are doing exactly what so many fascist regimes sought to do in censoring history and the opinions of those who disagree with them. In times like these, it is more and more crucial that we call upon Our Queen Mother and implore the coming of the triumph of her Immaculate Heart.
If you read my article yesterday, found here, you know that I wrote on the importance of burning with love for the Sacred Heart of Jesus and making reparation for the ungratefulness to which this Sacred Heart is subject by so many. Why, then, do I write promoting the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary? Well, in short, the triumph of Mary’s Immaculate Heart IS the triumph of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, for the two are intimately and inseparably united. In his Spiritual Exercises, Saint Ignatius of Loyola wrote, “The names of Jesus and Mary live always united in the hearts and the songs of the faithful. Their temples and their altars are always near together, and nothing is more inseparable in their pious remembrances, their confidence, their invocation, their love, than Jesus and Mary.” In the Old Testament, we see that, in the kingdom of Jerusalem, the mother was given a role of queenship. An example of this is in the book of the Prophet Jeremiah where it is written, “This was after King Jechoniah had left Jerusalem with the Queen mother, the eunuchs, the chief men of Judah and Jerusalem, and the blacksmiths and metalworkers” (Jeremiah 29:2). Therefore, when we pray for the coming of the triumph and reign of the heart of Mary, we are, in fact, praying for the coming of the triumph and reign of the heart of Jesus, the King Son of the Queen Mother. Furthermore, Mary has been given a special role in bringing about the reign of Christ by forming the hearts those who love and honor her heart. When Jesus came to dwell as man upon the earth, he received his humanity and his body from the womb of Mary. As a result, he received his Sacred Heart from her. Mary can form a heart like that of Jesus in us as well, that we may not only dwell within the Sacred Heart of her Son but, that the likeness of His Heart may dwell in us! By forming in the hearts of the faithful ones like that of Jesus, Mary brings about the triumphant reign of her Son by building up within the world an army of soldiers with hearts burning with ardent love and passion for their Lord who hold nothing back, exhausting themselves for the coming of the Kingdom. Therefore, if one is to seek the kingdom and to give return for the love of the Sacred Heart, one must trust themselves to Mary to form his or her heart in the likeness of Jesus. To further this point, I turn to Saint Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary where he writes, “If Jesus Christ, the head of mankind, is born of her, the predestinate, who are members of this head, must also as a necessary consequence be born of her. One and the same mother does not give birth to the head without the members nor to the members without the head, for these would be monsters in the order of nature. In the order of grace likewise the head and the members are born of the same mother. If a member of the mystical body of Christ, that is, one of the predestinate, were born of a mother other than Mary who gave birth to the head, he would not be one of the predestinate, nor a member of Jesus Christ, but a monster in the order of grace” (Saint Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, 32). Therefore, if we wish to be members of the triumphant Kingdom which is the very Body of Christ, we must be born of Mary as Christ willed himself to be. Finally, Mary has been granted special strength by God to bring about the Kingdom and vanquish evil. This is a result of her lowliness and humility before her God. In fact, Saint Louis de Montfort would say that, in some ways, Satan fears Mary more than the Lord. He writes, “From the time of the earthly paradise, although she existed then only in his mind, he gave her such a hatred for his accursed enemy, such ingenuity in exposing the wickedness of the ancient serpent and such power to defeat, overthrow and crush this proud rebel, that Satan fears her not only more than angels and men but in a certain sense more than God himself. This does not mean that the anger, hatred and power of God are not infinitely greater than the Blessed Virgin's, since her attributes are limited. It simply means that Satan, being so proud, suffers infinitely more in being vanquished and punished by a lowly and humble servant of God, for her humility humiliates him more than the power of God. Moreover, God has given Mary such great power over the evil spirits that, as they have often been forced unwillingly to admit through the lips of possessed persons, they fear one of her pleadings for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats more than all their other torments” (Montford, True Devotion to Mary, 52). In addition, not only has nobody loved God more than Mary, nobody has been more cooperative with the will of God than her. From the very beginning of her life to the very end, she echoes those words she uttered to the angel; “Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.” “Be it done unto me according to thy word.” Mary, in her humility, trusted all to God and made herself subject to His will. As a result, God raised her up and made her mighty as we see in the Magnificat when she says, “He hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed… He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted them humble” (Luke 1:48,52). As a result of his pride, God cast Satan out of the kingdom and into the abyss of Hell. As a result of her humility, God raised Mary up to the greatness of Queen and gave her great power. Because of this, Satan and the forces of evil greatly fear her and those who honor her by seeking to imitate her humility. Amidst this time of persecution, we take comfort, first of all, in the fact that Christ himself has promised this persecution as a sign of our belonging to Him and being singled out from the midst of the world. Furthermore, this time of the tearing down of the monuments of saints, the vandalism of churches, and the calling for the wiping of the names of holy men from cities by degenerates, who, in their pride and obstinance, refuse to submit to the Kingdom of God, we call upon the reign of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We ask her to come to our aid by bringing about the triumph of her Son to which her triumph united, forming in us the likeness of the Sacred Heart of her Son which burns with true, self-giving love, and casting out the powers of evil and darkness with her great power which she received from God by the virtue of her great humility. Amidst this time of persecution, we take comfort, first of all, in the fact that Christ himself has promised this persecution as a sign of our belonging to Him and being singled out from the midst of the world. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters in the holy Church of God, let us entrust ourselves to the reign of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as we give ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, knowing that, even should we suffer bodily destruction and death, we need not fear for, if we are true and devoted members of the reign of the hearts Jesus and Mary, the degenerates cannot take our souls for the battle has been won and the triumph is soon to come! An Act of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart O Most Holy Virgin Mother, we listen with grief to the complaints of your Immaculate Heart surrounded with the thorns placed therein at every moment by the blasphemies and ingratitude of ungrateful humanity. We are moved by the ardent desire of loving you as Our Mother and of promoting a true devotion to your Immaculate Heart. We therefore kneel before you to manifest the sorrow we feel for the grievances that people cause you, and to atone by our prayers and sacrifices for the offenses with which they return return your love. Obtain for them and for us the pardon of so many sins. Hasten the conversion of sinners that they may love Jesus and cease to offend the Lord, already so much offended. Turn your eyes of mercy toward us, that we may love God with all our heart on earth and enjoy Him forever in heaven. Amen.
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About MeAn Iowa-raised convert to Catholicism seeking to live my life entirely for Jesus and His Church with all the saints. Archives
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