The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary
and the Promises and Prophesies of Our Lady of Fatima
by Fr. Jim Anderson, M.S.A.
In 1675 Jesus showed a French nun, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, the image of
his Most Sacred Heart as a human heart crowned with flames and encircled with a band
of thorns piercing its flesh. He explained that the flames were his infinite love for us and
the thorns were our indifference and rejection of it. He asked the saint to spread a
devotion of love for his Sacred Heart in reparation for our indifference, consisting of
frequent Communions and the observance of holy hours, especially on the First Friday of
each month. Jesus directed Margaret Mary to ask the French king, Louis XIV, to
consecrate his throne and France to Jesus' Sacred Heart, and promised in return to shower
divine blessings on France and the French monarchy. She did this through a Jesuit priest,
but nothing was done. Without the extraordinary divine help Jesus had promised, France
degenerated spiritually, morally and materially until within 100 years the country was
plunged into a godless bloody revolution against the monarchy, the nobility and the
Church.
A similar image was show by our Blessed Mother depicting her Immaculate Heart
to three young shepherds, Jacinta and Francisco Marto and their cousin Lucia dos Santos,
at Fatima, Portugal in 1917. Rays came from Mary's hands into their hearts and filled
each of them with joy and love for her Immaculate Heart. She briefly showed them a
terrifying vision of Hell and explained that that is where the souls of poor sinners go. She
also told them that war and other afflictions are punishment for sin, and that if men did
not stop such great sinfulness and return to God, future wars and great sufferings would
come. But to prevent them Heaven wished to establish devotion in the world to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary. How are we to understand this?
The Second Vatican Council (Lumen gentium ## 61-62), taught the perennial
Catholic truth that: "by her manifold intercession, she continues to win the gifts of eternal
salvation for us. By her motherly love, she takes care of the brothers of her Son who are
still in pilgrimage and in dangers and difficulties, until they be led through to the happy
fatherland. For this reason, the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of
Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, and Mediatrix." It follows that the most pure, the
Immaculate Heart of Mary, not only beckons us to follow her in being pure of heart, free
from earthly chains to do the will of God, but also that she is able to obtain for us the
divine assistance we require to do so! For, while when baptized we are indwelt by the
Blessed Trinity and divinely infused with inclinations to both theological and moral
virtue, we can grow strong in the practice of faith, hope and charity, prudence, justice,
fortitude and temperance only with the help of the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier. By acting
within us with his gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety
and Fear of God this Sanctifier can mold us ever more perfectly into the image of Jesus
that God intends us to be. As his holiness Leo XIII teaches in paragraph nine of his
encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Divinum Illud Munus: "... the just man, that is to say he
who lives the life of divine grace, and acts by the fitting virtues as by means of faculties,
has need of those seven gifts which are properly attributed to the Holy Ghost. By means
of them the soul is furnished and strengthened so as to obey more easily and promptly
His voice and impulse."
It is not surprising, therefore, that God should choose to save sinners by
establishing in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As daughter of the
eternal Father she, being immaculately conceived and full of grace, cooperated perfectly
with the Divine Will to become the new Eve of his heart. (Lk. 1:28). As spouse of the
eternal Spirit she yielded to his movement within her soul and body to become the Ark of
the New Covenant. (Lk. 1:35, 38; Mt. 1:18-20; Rev. 11:19). As mother of the eternal
Son she entered a most intimate union with him from the moment of his conception
through his death on the cross. (Lk. 1:46-55, Jn. 19:26-30).
Finally, from the cross Jesus made her our mother. (Jn. 19:26-27). Blessed John
Paul II believed that from his Cross Jesus opened his mother's heart and gave her to
experience how much he loved each one of us, his dear lambs. By choosing to establish
devotion in the world to the Immaculate Heart of this uniquely privileged woman he has
made to be our Mother and Queen, God intends that we gain her most powerful
intercession with him to send his eternal Spirit to save with his gifts those sinners who
will be open to receive them.
Jesus revealed to Sister Lucia that he wished to put devotion to Mary's
Immaculate Heart on a par with devotion to his own Sacred Heart. The Church
celebrated these very special feast days on July First and July Second this year, 2011. At
Fatima Heaven made First Saturday communions of reparation for sins committed
against the Immaculate Heart of Mary a condition, along with the Consecration of Russia,
of the conversion of Russia and world peace. Let us receive Holy Communion every First
Friday and First Saturday with renewed faith and love and so return our love to these
Hearts that love us so passionately.