The Catholic Defender: [Jesus] wishes to establish devotion to my (Virgin Mary) Immaculate Heart in the world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RDAjmyIQ4T_Ug&v=AjmyIQ4T_Ug

“Jesus wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. I promise salvation to those who embrace it, and these souls will be loved by God, like flowers placed by me to adorn His throne.” These touching words of Our Lady of Fatima call out to us today.

A true offering of oneself to Mary in order to grow in love for God.

On that Dec. 10, 1925 — which happened to be the feast of Our Lady of Loreto — Sister Lucia was in her cell in the convent in Pontevedra, Spain, when the Blessed Mother appeared to her. Our Lady didn’t arrive alone. Jesus was with his Mother, appearing as a child standing on a luminous cloud.

The most holy Virgin rested her hand on her shoulder, and as she did so, she showed her a heart encircled by thorns, which she was holding in her other hand. At the same time, the Child said: ‘Have compassion on the Heart of your most holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.’

Look, my daughter, at my Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.

Lucia did not make this request known because it pertained to one of the three secrets the children received in the apparitions and which they were to keep just that — secret — until heaven gave the okay. Two years later, when her superiors asked her to write down this latest apparition, she first went to pray before the tabernacle. It was Dec. 17, 1927. She asked Jesus how she was to fulfill this request which were part of the secrets. She wanted heaven’s authorization before revealing anything.

Our Lady said: Jesus wishes to make use of you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. I promise salvation to those who embrace it, and these souls will be loved by God, like flowers placed by me to adorn His throne.

Lucia explained, “Our Lady told us, in the July secret, that God wished to establish in the world devotion to her Immaculate Heart.” Our Lady said, 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. Three times her Immaculate Heart was mentioned in that July apparition, also referring to the conversion of Russia and the vision of hell. Our Lady said, You have seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. It is to save them that God wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.

Reflecting on the June 1917 apparition, Lucia emphasized devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was essential. Our Lady told her that “her Immaculate Heart would be my refuge and the way that would lead me to God. As she spoke these words, she opened her hands, and from them streamed a light that penetrated to our inmost hearts. ... From that day onwards, our hearts were filled with a more ardent love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

In front of the palm of Our Lady’s right hand was a heart encircled by thorns which pierced it. We understood that this was the Immaculate Heart of Mary, outraged by the sins of humanity, and seeking reparation.

Lucia explains. “All children trust in the heart of their mother, and we all know that we have in her place a special affection. The same applies to the Virgin Mary. Thus this message says: My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God. Hence, the Heart of Mary is a refuge and the way to God for all his children.”

“It was in this Heart that the Father placed His Son, as if in the first Tabernacle,” Lucia explains, and “it was the Blood of Her Immaculate Heart which communicated to the Son of God His Life and His human nature, from which we all, in turn receive ‘grace upon grace’ (John 1:16).”

Lucia explains the necessity of devotion to the Immaculate Heart in yet another beautifully descriptive way. From their mother’s heart children receive their natural life, their life-giving blood so “we could almost say that the heart of the mother is the heart of the child. And we can say the same of Mary when she carried the Son of the eternal Father in her womb. Hence, it follows that the Heart of Mary is, in some sense, the heart of all that other generation, the first fruit of which is Christ.” We are that other generation.

“And it is from this fruit (Christ) that other generation of this Immaculate Heart is to be fed, as Jesus said: I am the bread of life. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As (...) I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. (John 6, 48; 56-57).”