Posted: Feb 15 2006 at 2:59pm | IP Logged

IMMACULATE HEART. The physical heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a sign an symbol of her compassion and sinlessness, and the object of devotion by the faithful. Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary gained international prominence through the Fatima apparitions in 1917, and their subsequent approval by the Holy See. A widely used prayer capsulizing this devotion reads:

"Virgin of Fatima, Mother of mercy, Queen of heaven and earth, refuge of sinners, we consecrate ourselves to your Immaculate Heart. To you we consecrate our hearts, our souls, our families, and all we have.

"And in order that this consecration may be truly effective and lasting, we renew today the promises of our Baptism and Confirmation; and we undertake to live as good Christians—faithful to God, the Church and the Holy Father. We desire to pray the Rosary, partake in the Holy Eucharist, attach special importance to the first Saturday of the month and work for the conversion of sinners.

"Furthermore we promise, O most holy Virgin, that we will zealously spread devotion to you, so that through our consecration to your Immaculate Heart and through your own intercession the coming of the Kingdom of Christ in the world may be hastened. Amen."

Heart of Mary, The Immaculate: “Come, let us worship Jesus reigning in Mary’s heart, He who is our life and our love.” In those words St. John Eudes (d. 1680), who did so much to forward devotion to the Heart of Mary, expressed its final aspect. Whereas devotion to the Heart of Jesus is specially directed to that heart as overflowing for mankind, and answers love with love, the Heart of Mary, as Father John Bainvel has pointed out, attracts us in the first place by her love for Jesus and for God: men's minds go easily beyond her heart of flesh to the love and virtues that it symbolizes, and they seek to follow her example. Like all devotions, this one has several aspects, and different people at different times have developed and emphasized now this, now that: to try to imitate the Heart of Mary, to praise it, to associate oneself with it, to make reparation for men’s indifference to its love for them, but none of these things to the exclusion of the others. More and more has the Heart of Mary been seen as a pattern of goodness—“most pure,” “more holy,” “Immaculate”—especially in its aspect of merciful concern for “poor sinners” and of love for all mankind. There are two passages in the Holy Scriptures that are specially relevant for this devotion: when Mary stood at the foot of the cross and her heart suffered a mother’s anguish at the sufferings of her Son (cf., Luke 2:35); and when we are told that “Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19; cf., 2:51)—a precious reminder of that quietness and thoughtfulness that is so necessary if religion is to grow and bear fruit in human hearts. –Every good thing has its dangers, and a danger in this devotion is to allow it to weaken into sentimentality. To quote the words of Father William C. Most: "That is a real danger. Sentimentality is only a caricature of real warmth. But we do insist that this devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary should be marked by a genuine, a solid warmth, not necessarily emotion” (Mary in Our Life, 1954).

Adumbrations of this devotion can be found in some early. Commentaries on the Song of Songs, and it was adopted privately by St. Melchtildis (d. 1298) and St. Gertrude (d. 1302); but its "father, teacher and apostle" was, as St. Pius X declared, St. John Eudes during the seventeenth century in France. It is only natural that it should be encouraged by the spread of devotion to the Heart of Jesus, after the death of St. Margaret Mary (1690), and eventually an image of Mary's heart was incorporated in the Miraculous Medal. A Confraternity of the Heart of Mary for the Conversion of Sinners was founded at the church of our Lady of Victories in Paris in 1836, devotion increased after the definition of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, and in 1877 its scapular was instituted. When the events at Fatima were made widely public, devotion received further impetus, and following many petitions, including one from Canada, in 1942 Pope Pius XII consecrated the whole world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. On that occasion the Pope referred to the analogy with the consecration of mankind to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Leo XIII in 1899. The analogy between the two devotions is obvious, and they have latterly grown side by side; by their fundamental difference must not be overlooked: Christ is true God and true man, wholly to be worshiped with divine worship; but Mary is wholly human, and the devotion to her heart is metaphorical. “However, in each case the ‘heart’ is meant to express the very selfhood, so to say, of Him, or her, whom we are contemplating and with whom we seek so far as possible to unite ourselves” (Father C. C. Martindale).