Traditionally, the Church dedicates the month of August to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The devotion grew tremendously after Our Blessed Mother appeared in Fatima.
On June 13, 1917, Our Lady told Venerable Lucia dos Santos, one of the Fatima seers, “He (Jesus) wishes also for you to establish devotion in the world to my Immaculate Heart.” She added, “I will be with you always, and my Immaculate Heart will be your comfort and the way which will lead you to God.” Later she spoke about the First Saturday devotions that focused on her Immaculate Heart.
The devotion spread and increased after Venerable Pius XII consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on Oct. 31, 1942.
Three centuries earlier, in France in 1648, St. John Eudes was inspired to write the very first Mass in honor of the Heart of Mary. He then wrote the first Mass for the Sacred Heart in 1672.
St. Pius X called St. John Eudes “the father, doctor, and apostle of liturgical devotion to the hearts of Jesus and Mary.” The saint also proved that in his book The Admirable Heart of Mary.
Here are 13 (Our Lady appeared on the 13th of every month at Fatima) insights into why we should love and honor Mary’s Heart, “the perfect image of the most divine Heart of Jesus.”
1. “The Admirable Heart of Mary is the perfect image of the most divine Heart of Jesus. It is the pattern and model for our own hearts; and all our happiness, perfection and glory consists in striving to transform them into so many living images of the sacred Heart of Mary, just as her holy Heart is a consummate likeness of the adorable Heart of Jesus. Therefore it is most useful, good and beneficial to exhort Christians to practice devotion to the most august Heart of the Queen of Heaven.”
2. “We ought to honor and love the things that God loves and honors, and through which He is loved and glorified. Now, after the most adorable Heart of Jesus, there is no heart in heaven or on earth which has so loved and honored God, or has rendered Him so much glory and love, as the most worthy Heart of Mary, the Mother of the Saviour.”
3. “Not only is the Heart of the Mother of Our Saviour the prototype and model of our own hearts, but her Heart, after the adorable Heart of Jesus, is also Sovereign Ruler of all the hearts that have been created to love God, since she is Queen of the universe. For that reason all hearts should look upon and imitate the Heart of Mary as their model, but in addition they are obliged to render it all the homage that they owe to it as to their Sovereign.”
4. One of the most useful and important ways of honoring the most worthy Heart of the Queen of virtues is to strive to imitate and to implant in your heart a lively image of her holiness, meekness and forbearance, humility, purity, devotion, wisdom and prudence, patience, obedience vigilance, faithfulness, love and all its other virtues.”
5. “Mary’s immaculate Heart is a fountain of light, a fountain of holy and blessed water, a fountain of living and life-giving water, a fountain of milk and honey and a fountain of wine. It is the source of a great river, nay, of four miraculous streams, and finally, it is the source of an infinity of blessings and goodness.”
6. “[W]e have a Queen and a Mother who, after God, is all powerful in her person, in her name and in her prayers. She holds sovereign sway over every creature and wields a marvelous power over the Creator Himself.”
7. “But the Heart of the Queen of Heaven inspires these words: ‘God created her in the Holy Ghost, and saw her, and numbered her, and measured her.’ In other words, so holy and impenetrable is the Heart of Mary that only God Who enclosed within His treasures of grace and put His seal upon it, can know the quality, quantity and price of the graces hidden in this scaled fountain.”
8. “Those who know God by the light of faith, and love Him with a supernatural love, are alive with God’s own life, and God is living within them. He is the life of their hearts and of their souls. God always lived thus in the Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her immaculate Heart always lived in God and partook of God’s life in a much more excellent manner than any other human heart.”
9. “According to the aspirations of St. Paul the hearts of the faithful become the abodes and dwellings of Jesus Christ, and Christ Himself assures us that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit reside in the hearts of all who love God, so who can doubt that the Most Blessed Trinity dwells perpetually in a most admirable and ineffable manner in the virginal Heart of her who is the Daughter of the Father, the Mother of the Son and the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, Mary who alone loves God more than all other creatures combined? This being the case, with what devotion should we not honor her immaculate Heart?”
10. “Who will contradict me if I add that Our Lady will forever carry all the inhabitants of heaven in her inmost Heart, which becomes the Heaven of Heaven, and a true Paradise of the Elect, in which they find the fulness of delight and joy, due to the inconceivable love for each soul which consumes her maternal Heart?”
11. “The Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin is the sanctuary of gratuitous graces, by which are meant graces imparted by the Holy Ghost not so much for the sanctification of the recipient as for the instruction, comfort and benefit of other souls. St. Paul enumerates nine such graces: the gift of speaking wisely; the gift of speaking with knowledge; the gift of faith; the power of healing the sick; the gift of miracles; the gift of prophecy; the gift of speaking in diverse tongues; the discernment of spirits; the gift of interpreting Scripture.”
12. “In all your affairs, necessities, perplexities and afflictions, have recourse to the most benign Heart of Mary, regarding it as your refuge in every need, and as a refuge, fortress and safeguard which God has given you as a shelter in the midst of all the miseries engulfing man in this valley of tears, this place of exile and banishment. Yes, the most bountiful and gentle Heart of Mary is truly solarium exiIii nostri, ‘The solace and comfort of our exile.’ Whoever has recourse to it with respect and confidence will feel the marvelous effects of its incomparable goodness. There glows in the maternal Heart of our most charitable Mother more love than in all the hearts of the fathers and mothers of all time past, present and yet to come. Mary’s Heart is constantly mindful of us and the little things that concern us. Her Heart is so filled with kindness, meekness, mercy and generosity that never has anyone been known to invoke this Mother of Goodness in humility and confidence without receiving comfort in her presence. It is a Heart full of wisdom and enlightenment which possesses a perfect understanding of all our needs and of all that is most fitting for us to have. It is a most generous Heart, strong and mighty to fight our enemies, to repulse and crush whatever oppresses us, to obtain from God whatever it asks of Him, and to shower us with all kinds of blessings.”
13. “She gave her heart to God so completely that she and Jesus have just one heart between them. Thus, whoever sees Mary, sees Jesus, and honoring the heart of Mary is never separate from honoring the heart of Jesus.”
