Quo Vadis

March 31, 2023

In this video we share Exorcist Father Gabriel Amorth on the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In the Bible the heart expresses the compendium of all man’s inner life, whereby God often turns to the heart to act deeply on the whole person; and when, with the prophet Ezekiel, he promises to give a new heart, it indicates a total conversion to him, on the part of his people who had completely disbanded.

Therefore, to speak of Mary's heart means to penetrate her entire interiority, her relationship with God and with men.

The phrase repeated by Luke, that Mary ‘heed everything in her heart’ makes direct mention of the heart of Virgo; but it is only an initial start of a whole development that has been growing over the centuries and that has exploded especially in recent times.

The patristic reflection on the heart of Mary insisted, especially with Augustine, on seeing in it “the casket of all the mysteries”, in particular of the mystery of the Incarnation, coming to the statement that “Mary conceived in the heart before in the womb“.

Increasingly in the Middle Ages the devotion to the heart of Mary developed who later, with Saint John Eudes [1680], will acquire a rigorous theological explanation and officially receive a liturgical cult.

Hence the most recent developments were driven, which we can identify in three events:

1. In 1830, when the Virgin appeared to Saint Catherine Labouré, asking her to have that “miracle medal” that spread all over the world in millions of specimens, she had the two hearts of Jesus and Mary reproduced in the back, combining them in the devotion of the faithful.

2. A second significant event was the repercussion in the Marian field that occurred when, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Leo XIII consecrated the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

It was already thought then that the time was ripe to proceed with the consecration to the Heart of Mary, since the Lord wanted to associate the Virgin Mother with all the work of Salvation.

[This realization was not achieved, but an impulse was still obtained for devotion to the Heart of Mary and for studies on that devotion].

3. There is no doubt that the greatest development took place with the Apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima, in 1917.

It can indeed be said that, as with the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Apparitions of the Lord to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque were of great encouragement, so the Apparitions to the three Shepherds of Fatima gave a decisive impulse to the devotion to the Heart of Mary.

It should be noted that as early as 1854, that is, from the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the expression ‘Immaculate Heart of Mary’ began to spread: that is, ‘Heart of the Immaculate Conception’.

And it was at Fatima, in the Apparition of June 13, 1917, the Virgin said: “God wants to establish devotion to my Immaculate Heart in the world.”

So he asked that Russia be consecrated to his Immaculate Heart.

“Blessed are the pure of heart” What is the value of this devotion, directed above all to invoke the intercession of Mary over us?

In the history of the Schools of Spirituality, devotion to the Heart of Mary has proved to be an inexhaustible source of inner life; since on the one hand the Heart of the Virgin understands all its mystery of grace and love for God and for humanity; on the other we cannot pass under silence those reminders with which the Virgin herself wanted to indicate this specific devotion So, looking at the Immaculate Heart of Mary; there is not only an attraction that drives trust; there must also be a willingness to imitate, to open up to God with all my heart; to follow Mary’s maternal warnings.

Moreover, an authentic devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary requires purity of heart, according to the teaching of the Evangelical Beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see God!”

by Father Gabriele Amorth.

Mirrored from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Egg9Z2DUjY