The sanctuary of God in heaven opened, and the ark of the covenant could be seen inside it. Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman adorned with sun standing on the moon and with the twelve stars on her head for a crown (Ap. 11:19; 12:1).
June is sometimes referred to as the month of feasts. The Easter Season ends with the Feast of Pentecost, and in a logical sequence, we celebrate the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, then (traditionally) on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday the Feast of Corpus Christi, on the Friday of the following week the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and on the next day, Saturday, the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Sadly, it is only an optional memorial, and as a result, hardly if ever celebrated because Mass on a Saturday morning is also a rare occurrence in many places. The institution of the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary would be of great spiritual benefit to the Church especially in our times.
The presence of Our Lady in the Christian Mystery is neither peripheral nor tangential. From the cradle at Bethlehem to the Cross on Calvary and the upper room in Jerusalem, Our Lady is present, participating in the fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation, teaching us by her example also to participate in this unfolding plan; not in the condition of passive recipients, but as active participants in a saving work that encompasses all time and all places. To see Our Lady as our Mother and Teacher in the way of salvation is to learn from her Immaculate Heart that the concern for the salvation of one’s own soul is freed from fear and selfishness when it becomes concern for the salvation of others as well (Pope John Paul II, Incarnationis Mysterium, 10). Devotion to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart is certainly a means of fostering this concern for the salvation of poor sinners, a concern communicated by Our Lady during her apparitions at Fatima in 1917. The Fatima prayer with which we end every decade of the rosary is a succinct expression of this concern: O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need [of Thy mercy].
The Preface of the Mass of Mary, Model and Mother of the Church is a text rich in meaning as it summarizes the role of Our Lady in the Mystery of Christ:
Receiving you Word in her Immaculate Heart, she was found worthy to conceive him in her virgin’s womb and, giving birth to the Creator, she nurtured the beginning of the Church.
Standing beside the Cross, she received the testament of divine love, and took to herself as sons and daughters all those who by the Death of Christ are reborn to heavenly life.
As the Apostles awaited the Spirit you had promised, she joined her supplication to the prayers of the disciples and so became the pattern of the Church at prayer.
Raised to the glory of Heaven, she accompanies your pilgrim Church with a mother’s love and watches in kindness over the Church’s homeward steps, unto the Lord’s Day shall come in glorious splendour.
To see oneself as a child of so good a Mother and Teacher in the way of Christian discipleship is to resolve to imitate Our Lady’s fidelity; and we do this best by daily praying the holy rosary. Our meditation and contemplation of the mysteries of the life of Our Lord unites us to Our Lady and all the Saints who have served the Mystery of Christ by their devout lives.
The sanctuary of God in heaven opened, and the ark of the covenant could be seen inside it. Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman adorned with sun standing on the moon and with the twelve stars on her head for a crown (Ap. 11:19; 12:1). What the Beloved Disciple saw in beholding the glory of the Woman adorned with the sun is Mary the Ark of the Covenant, the Mother of the Messiah. At Fatima in Portugal, one hundred and eight years ago, three humble and unlettered children, in a series of apparitions, were given the grace to see a similar vision of Our Lady in glory, adorned with the light of God Himself. The last of these apparitions included the miracle of the sun, a miracle of biblical proportions witnessed by over seventy thousand people. In the course of these apparitions, Our Lady spoke of herself as Our Lady of the Rosary who had come from Heaven to call us to conversion of life, to penance, to a deeper love of God and to prayer for the conversion of poor sinners. This event and its message have sadly been ignored on the whole, and the consequence of this failure to heed the call to conversion is the desertification of the Church.
Just as Our Lord had first spoken to St. Anthony Mary Claret about the scourge of Communism as early as 1859, Our Lady repeated the warning about the errors of Russia, and the need for prayer and penance in order to avoid what we in our lifetime have endured because of the spread of atheistic Communism and cultural Marxism. Our Lady appeared to the children during the First World War and spoke of an even deadlier war unless man converted to God in a spirit of penance and of reparation. This year marks the eightieth anniversary of the end of that deadlier war, the Second World War, the deadliest conflict in human history. Yet, before this conflict, during it and in its aftermath the world and the Church would contend with the errors of Russia; that is atheistic Communism in all its varied manifestations; the most murderous ideology ever to have risen in the western world. Cultural Marxism continues to oppress the world, and both our country and the Church have not escaped its malevolent and destructive influence.
Exactly one hundred years ago, in an apparition to Sr. Lucia of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the sole surviving seer, then a Dorothean Sister, Our Lady requested the First Five Saturday Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with the Communions of Reparation. For the most part unheeded, this request makes eminent sense in light of what has happened to the Church as a whole especially since the end of Second Vatican Council. This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of this council’s closure. In these sixty years, we have lived through the most precipitous decline of the Church in history. The great apostasy spoken of in the Apocalypse is a reality that we have sorrowfully witnessed and experienced and there is hardly a family untouched by it.
A remedy for what has befallen us because of our refusal to heed Our Lady’s requests is the practice of the Five First Saturday Devotion and Devotion to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart. As the Church experiences persecutions from within and without, we do well to heed the Beloved Disciple’s exhortation to perseverance, to constancy and steadfastness: Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus (14:12). Most especially in the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice but also in the contemplation of His salvific work in the mysteries of the holy rosary we are strengthened and given hope.
The Sacrifice of the Mass re-presents for us and for every disciple of Christ through the ages the saving Mystery of the Redemption. This Mystery is universal for Christ has redeemed the whole world; but salvation, what He offers us, is an intimately personal reality because Our Saviour engages each and every one of us in the transformative work of a lifetime. ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’ (Mt. 16:24). When we undertake the sequela Christi, the following of Christ along the path of devout discipleship we can have no better teacher than Our Lady. At Holy Mass, we contemplate not only the glory of the Lord revealed in His Sacred Passion, but also the steadfastness of Our Lady and of the Beloved Disciple at the foot of the Cross. ‘Behold your mother.’ At Calvary, which the Mass re-presents, we see the gathering of the first Christian remnant and Our Lady’s maternal and protective solicitude for those who love her Divine Son.
The Beloved Disciple who stood with Our Lady as Jesus hung upon the Cross, issues a call to fidelity: Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus (14:12). By God’s grace, we endeavour to remain faithful to all that God has revealed to us in its entirety, no matter the cost. In so doing, we are part of the living tradition of the Resurrection; of men and women whose lives have been indelibly changed and transformed by the glory of the Crucified and Risen Lord. If Christian history teaches us anything, it is that following Christ in the path of faithful discipleship is the greatest good for man. Those who resolve to live a devout life are the greatest benefactors of a fallen and wounded humanity. As we follow Our Lord, the Messiah along the path of devout humility that He Himself became for us, we do well to remember always that we do as children of Mary, the Chosen Daughter of Israel, our Mother and our Queen.
At Fatima, Our Lady promised us: ‘My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.’ It is for this reason that we are unafraid and filled with hope. By fostering and practising the Devotion to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, we resolve to imitate the virtues of this Immaculate Heart: faith, obedience, humility and charity, to name but a few. We are also confident in Our Lady’s promise that in the end, her Immaculate Heart will triumph. Then I heard a voice shout from heaven, victory and power and empire for ever have been won by our God, and all authority for his Christ’ (Ap. 12:10). God will not be mocked; and the enemies of the Church will not prevail.
A renewed understanding and appreciation of Our Lady’s role in the unfolding mystery of salvation will surely lead to greater commitment by those who are concerned for the salvation of all people. The Devotion of the Five First Saturdays, given to us for our times can easily serve as a viable path of renewal and restoration. Perhaps the designation of the optional Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as a Feast to be universally observed can serve as a first step in propagating this Devotion, especially the Communions of Reparation in a time when the casual reception of Holy Communion is so prevalent. It is painful to fathom the sorrow of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart in the face of so much indifference and even contempt for Our Lord’s Eucharistic Presence. It is no less painful to think of the self-inflicted spiritual harm of those who receive the Eucharist without discerning the Real Presence of Our Lord.
Nevertheless, on this Feast of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, let us contemplate Our Lady raised to the glory of Heaven; accompanying each one of us with a mother’s love, watching in kindness over our homeward steps. One of Our Lady’s greatest devotees, St. Bernard of Clairvaux exhorts us to great hope and confidence:
Respice stellam, voca Mariam! Look to the star, call upon Mary. If the storms of temptation arise, if you crash against the rocks of tribulations, look to the star, call upon Mary. If you are tossed about on the waves of pride, of ambition, of slander, of hostility, look to the star, call upon Mary … if you begin to be swallowed up by the abyss of depression and despair, think of Mary! In dangers, in anxiety, in doubt, think of Mary, call upon Mary … When you are terrified by judgement or in despair, think of Mary. If she holds you, you will not fall, if she protects you, you need not fear.
May the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady be our sure refuge and may the Christian faithful everywhere celebrate with great joy the love and beauty of so great a Woman, our Mother and Our Queen.
