The church dedicates the month of August to the Immaculate Heart
Novena to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
O Most Blessed Mother, heart of love, heart of mercy, ever listening, caring, consoling, hear our prayer. As your children, we implore your intercession with Jesus your Son. Receive with understanding and compassion the petitions we place before you today, especially …(special intention).
The church dedicates the month of August to the Immaculate Heart. Since the 16th century Catholic piety has allotted entire months to distinctive devotions. The month of August is by tradition dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The physical heart of Mary is venerated (and not adored as the Sacred Heart of Jesus is) because it is joined to her person and is the centre of her love (especially for her divine Son), virtue, and inner life. Such devotion is a motivation to a similar love and virtue.
This devotion has received prominence in this century from the revelations given to Lucy Dos Santos, oldest of the visionaries of Fatima, in her convent in Tuy, in Spain, in 1925 and 1926. In the visions, Our Lady asked for the practice of the Five First Saturdays to help make restitution for the transgressions committed against her heart by the blasphemies and ungratefulness of men. The practice parallels the devotion of the Nine First Fridays in reverence of the Sacred Heart.
On October 31, 1942, Pope Pius XII made a solemn Act of Consecration of the Church and the whole world to the Immaculate Heart. May we remember this devotion not only year-round but particularly through the month of August.
Excerpted from The Prayer Book by Reverend John P. O’Connell, M.A., S.T.D. and Jex Martin, M.A.(Paraphrased)
Consecration to the Immaculate Heart
Pope Paul VI, on the floor of the Vatican Council at the end of the third session, publicly renewed the consecration of the Church and the world to Mary’s Immaculate Heart. He said that his thoughts turned to the whole world “which our venerated predecessor Pius XII . . . not without inspiration from on high, solemnly consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. – O Virgin Mary, Mother of the Council, to you we recommend the entire Church.” When he went to Fatima on May 13, 1967, the same Pope recalled this “consecration which we ourselves have renewed on November 21, 1964 — we exhort all the sons of the Church to renew personally their consecration to the Immaculate Heart of the Mother of the Church and to bring alive this noblest act of veneration through a life ever more in accord with the divine will and in a spirit of filial service and of devout imitation of their heavenly Queen.“
Before making a consecration, it is most desirable to make a careful preparation extending over some period of time. One good way to make that preparation is described in the last part of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion book.
The most essential thing is not making an act of consecration, with or without some solemnity, though that is important. The essential thing is to live that consecration.
Living a consecration could be described as following three attitudes or spirits:
- Union — Imitation of Jesus and Mary, so as to become like them, and trying to develop as constant as possible a realization of His and her presence.
- Dependence — Give to Jesus and Mary the right to dispose of everything we have, temporal and spiritual.
- Obedience — Jesus, and Mary have the right to ask us to do anything at all, even without reward. In consecration, we recognize that right, give it on a basis of love, and plan to carry it out with the fullest generosity.
St. Maximilian Kolbe
liked to speak of the relation of consecration to our baptismal promises, in which we promised to renounce satan and all his works, and to follow Jesus, by whom we are “sealed” in baptism as His property. Consecration is the fullest kind of response to and carrying out of these promises. Mary, in view of her Immaculate Conception, was most fitted to respond most fully, and that she did, with a fullness and perfection beyond our ability to visualize — for we recall that Pius IX told us that even at the start of her existence, her holiness was so great that “none greater under God can be thought of, and no one but God can comprehend it.”
Excerpted from Our Father’s Plan, Fr. William G. Most
Novena to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
O Most Blessed Mother, heart of love, heart of mercy, ever listening, caring, consoling, hear our prayer. As your children, we implore your intercession with Jesus your Son. Receive with understanding and compassion the petitions we place before you today, especially … (special intention).
Devotions to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Litany of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Act of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart
Documents
On Fatima and Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart — Pius XII
We entrust, O Mary, and Consecrate the Whole World to your Immaculate Heart! — John Paul II
On Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary — Pius XII
Consecration to Jesus and Mary — Fr. William G. Most
Websites
Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Saturdays and the Immaculate Heart of Mary
This article is continued at https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/overviews/months/08_1.cfm.
Reference – Liturgical Year : August, Month of the Immaculate Heart | Catholic Culture. 2022. Liturgical Year : August, Month of the Immaculate Heart | Catholic Culture. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/overviews/months/08_1.cfm. [Accessed 04 August 2022].