Appearing to the three shepherd children at Fatima Mary said, “'God wishes to establish
in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart’
Perhaps the most well-known
utterance of the apparition of Our Lady at Fatima was her declaration
that “My Immaculate Heart will triumph”. Pope Benedict interpreted this
utterance as follows: “The Heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God,
is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of
her heart, has changed the history of the world, because it brought the Saviour
into the world—because, thanks to her Yes, God could become man in our world
and remains so for all time. The Evil One has power in this world, as we see
and experience continually; he has power because our freedom continually lets
itself be led away from God. But since God himself took a human heart and has
thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no
longer has the last word.
Such is the heart of
the Mother of the Church. It is a heart
which is perfectly obedient to God’s will for the spread of the kingdom of
God. It is a heart which contemplated
the teachings and workings of her Son, most importantly contemplating in sorrow
his crucifixion, having her heart pierced along with his.
It is the heart of a
mother which prays insistently that the divine life of the Trinity be born, and
protected, and nurtured in each one of us through grace. Mary prays constantly for us and for the
world, that we too may be as perfectly obedient to God’s will as we are
able. She knows that the Divine Will is
the only true source of salvation and joy for us, and having accepted the
Divine Will herself, prays ever more insistently for us.
We unite ourselves to the Immaculate Heart when we seek the
Kingdom of God’s Divine Will to be spread in the hearts of and minds of our
brothers and sisters.
Notice that today’s Feast of the Immaculate Heart is not
held on a particular date of the year, not even in the month of May, but it is
always tied to the feast of Pentecost, it is the second Saturday after
Pentecost. There is this important
connection between Pentecost, which the Holy Spirit came as tongues of Fire and
the Immaculate Heart which also burns with the fire of love. The Immaculate Heart prays that we may be set
ablaze with the fire of Pentecost, that is with the fire of perfect obedience,
and love for God, and devotion to the mission of the Church.
May we respond with devotion to her heart, that her
Immaculate Heart may triumph that evil may not have the last word in our lives
or in our world, but rather, the Divine Will, for the glory of God and
salvation of souls.
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