Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
THE Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, marked on June 13 this year, is one that many forget right after the universally celebrated Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 12, the Friday after the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, or Corpus Christi, on June 7 this year.
What makes the feast crucial in our time of escalating war and portents of world chastisement for humanity’s disregard toward God is His command conveyed by Mary in her 1917 apparitions in Fatima and nearby places in succeeding years.
Through Our Lady of Fatima, God instructed that the pope should consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and tell other bishops to join, and also promote the Five First Saturdays devotion in reparation for offenses against her Immaculate Heart.
If both commands were obeyed, there would be peace, as then-pope Benedict XV, appalled over the First World War raging then, prayed for five days before the first Fatima apparitions on May 13, 1917. Five other apparitions followed on the 13th of the next five months, except August, when a local official detained the three visionary children, delaying the apparition to Aug. 19.
Sadly, the consecration of Russia was not done in the two decades after the Fatima apparitions. Thus, as Mary prophesied, “a worse conflict” than World War I began in the pontificate of Pius XI, who reigned after Benedict XV from 1922 to 1939. She also warned that “the errors of Russia” would spread worldwide. So they did — communist atheism, materialism, totalitarianism and abortion — as one-third of humanity fell under Marxist communism, and even noncommunist nations adopted tenets of the ideology.
Why the Immaculate Heart?
What is it about the Immaculate Heart of Mary that the Almighty made it the devotional center of His command to bring peace to the world?
For starters, it is immaculate because from the very moment of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, her heart was free from sin, including the pride, selfishness and worldliness that have fueled war and godlessness in our world. So, consecration and devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart are needed to turn the world away from the sinful drives and desires leading us to evil.
The Immaculate Heart is also filled with love for God and His and Mary’s son Jesus, the divine Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Hence, the best way to our Lord is through the heart that loved him totally and sought nothing else but to serve his saving mission to fulfill God’s plan of salvation.
For sure, if the world were to be truly devoted and consecrated to Mary, with ritual followed by actual changes in our actions and policies, we would begin to turn away from the destructive ambitions and transgressions leading us to conflict.
Beyond bringing peace and goodness to our world, God also wishes consecration and devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart to save souls through her humility, purity and motherly love, especially as Mother of the Church, as Jesus designated her on Calvary when he made her mother of the disciple John, whom he then called her son.
Thus, in our time of worldwide disregard for God and His Church, Mary calls humanity to renewed devotion to our Lord and His redeeming mission in the Church He founded, and to greater purity in mind, heart and body. At Fatima, she warned that sins of the flesh were the transgressions leading the most souls to hell — the very opposite of her pure virginity.
Mary further serves God’s saving mercy in her messages of repentance to delay or even head off chastisement. Even as she warned more than once that she might no longer be able to hold back God’s divine justice, Mary also said punishment could be mitigated by prayer and penance.
In her 1846 apparition in La Salette, France, she said chastisements at the end of the 20th century could be postponed by prayer and repentance to the first 25 years of our century — which seems to have happened.
Five Saturdays for peace
Our Lady of Fatima said papal consecration of Russia would be done, but it would be too late — presumably, too late to prevent World War II and the spread of Russian communism.
Still, consecrations were done by four supreme pontiffs: Pius XII in 1942 and 1952; Saint John Paul II in 1981, 1982 and 1984; Saint Paul VI in 1964; and Francis in 2022. And they all helped stanch world war and communism, shortening World War II, blocking two Russian invasions of Europe and splitting communist behemoths Moscow and Beijing (“Our Lord may have stopped world war — for now,” https://tinyurl.com/4a4mhyhe).
And let’s not forget the other command needed to bring peace, which we, the faithful, are the ones tasked to fulfill: the Five First Saturdays devotion in reparation for offenses against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The devotion requires communion, confession, praying a complete Rosary of five Mysteries, and meditation for 15 minutes on one or some of the Mysteries — all on the first Saturday of five consecutive months. The confession may be done a few days before or after the first Saturday, as long as we are in a state of grace with no mortal sin, as receiving the Holy Eucharist requires.
The devotion is reparation for five offenses against Mary: denying that she is Mother of God and Mother of All Humanity; denying her Immaculate Conception without any sin; denying her perpetual virginity before, during and after the birth of Jesus; desecration of her images; and leading children to have a lack of devotion to her, as most parents do simply by not being devoted themselves.
Those who fulfill the Five First Saturdays devotion not only advance world peace but also secure at the end of life “all the graces necessary for salvation,” as Mary herself promised to Fatima visionary Sister Lucia dos Santos. If you haven’t done the devotion, start on July 4 and advance world peace and your own salvation.
Amen.