An Immaculate Path to Peace

By Chris Sparks

Want to save souls? Do you desire peace in the world?

Then honor the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and spread that devotion as widely as possible.

Why do I say that? Because Mary did, under the title of Our Lady of the Rosary at Fatima, Portugal, in July 1917, saying:

God wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If you do what I tell you, many souls will be saved, and there will be peace ... in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.

Why does the Immaculate Heart of Mary matter so much?

She is the one human person throughout all of history to have said yes to God completely, totally, consistently, all throughout her life. Her love was pure as none others' have ever been. Her Heart is God's heaven in a way no one else's can be. She is God's entirely and perfectly as we all should have been, but only she will ever be in her totality.

Her Immaculate Heart, then, is the model for all our hearts. The spirituality of her Immaculate Heart, of the Holy Spirit indwelling and transforming a human heart, is the model for all other Christian spiritualties, all other paths to God, for in her womb, God and man came together in Jesus. All grace comes through Jesus Christ, no matter when in history that grace touches us, no matter where. All graces come through Jesus, and Jesus comes to us through Mary. Through her Heart's love, elevated and perfected by the Holy Spirit, she says yes to God, and God comes to save us all. Through her Heart, divine love, Divine Mercy enters the world.

And so we are all to be consecrated to Jesus through Mary, to the Sacred Heart through the Immaculate Heart, as Pope Benedict said:

... [I]t was possible to see around the impressive Shrine [at Fatima] the comforting development of Marian piety. This authentic source of Christian life, which had sprung up in Fatima and in every part of the world where devotion to the Virgin under the influence of the apparitions at Fatima was deeply rooted in the popular faith, was an invitation to men and women to consecrate themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. - Pope Benedict XVI, Feb. 22, 2007, Foreword, The Last Secret of Fatima (Doubleday, 2008), pg. x.

We can answer that call to consecration by using prayer preparations such as Fr. Michael Gaitley, MIC's 33 Days to Morning Glory. We can also hear Our Lady's words to Lucia at Fatima as words directed to us:

Jesus wishes you to make me known and loved on earth. He wishes also for you to establish devotion in the world to my Immaculate Heart. ... I will be with you always, and my Immaculate Heart will be your comfort and the way which will lead you to God - Our Lady of the Rosary to Lucia Santos, Fatima, Portugal, June 1917.

We can help make the Blessed Mother known and loved on earth by praying the Rosary daily and inviting others to join us; by reading and sharing good books on Mary, such as Under the Mantle or Marian Gems by Fr. Donald Calloway, MIC; by joining organizations like the Thirteenth of the Month Club that are dedicated to the service of Our Lady; by having ourselves enrolled in the Brown Scapular and the other scapulars of Our Lady; by wearing a blessed Miraculous Medal on a chain around our neck and praying the prayer on it; by learning more about Mary through good books such as those on Fr. Calloway's Bookshelf.

As the Church celebrates the feast of the Immaculate Heart on June 13 this year, the anniversary of one of the apparitions at Fatima, let us pray the prayer at the end of St. John Paul II's 1984 consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Oh, Immaculate Heart! Help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasurable effects already weigh down upon our modern world and seem to block the paths towards the future!

From famine and war, deliver us.

From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us.

From sins against the life of man from its very beginning, deliver us.

From hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us.

From every kind of injustice in the life of society, both national and international, deliver us.

From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us.:

From attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of God, deliver us.

From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us, deliver us.

Accept, O Mother of Christ, this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings, laden with the sufferings of whole societies.

Let there be revealed, once more, in the history of the world your infinite power of merciful Love. May it put a stop to evil. May it transform consciences. May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of Hope.

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IHD

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