Novena in preparation for the Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
DAY NINE
A few years after the apparitions in Fatima, on December 10, 1925, in Pontevedra, Spain, the Virgin, and the Child Jesus appeared to Sister Lucy and revealed this message to her:
‘‘Look, My daughter, at My Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce Me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console Me and announce in My name that I promise to assist at the moment of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months shall receive the sacrament of Confession, 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 My Immaculate Heart’’.
The grace shows us the great power of intercession that God has bestowed upon the Holy Virgin for the salvation of souls.
The Blessed Virgin is, among all creatures, the one who loved Jesus Christ the most and the one most loved by Him. She is the one that most ardently desires that her Son be perfectly loved, the perfect and beautiful Mother of Love. We must go to her heart to be burned in this love. The Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary are so conformed and so united that you cannot enter one without entering the other: with one difference, that the Heart of Jesus admits only extremely pure souls; on the other hand, that of Mary purifies by the graces that she obtains for the souls that are not, and puts them in a state of being received into the Heart of Jesus.
Although all the other means we have talked about are easy and effective, the devotion to Mary Most Holy will seem even easier to many. There are few with the necessary dispositions to be burned of the Divine Love, but there are none that cannot be easily obtained through the Blessed Virgin. The great sinners should not despair either, of course. Mary is the hope of sinners, Mary is the refuge of all the miserable, she is the universal remedy of the whole world. Jesus Christ gives her easily what we are unworthy to receive. St. Bernard says: “Because you were unworthy of receiving the gift, it was given to Mary that you could receive from her everything you wanted to have.” He made her dispenser of his graces and arranged, following Saint Bernard, that no one should pass if not first by her hands. Let us have a growing love for Mary because soon she will rekindle our love for her Son. The love of the Son is not much desired when one does not have an extreme tenderness with his Mother.
And without this extreme tenderness towards the Blessed Virgin, we should never expect to be granted entrance into the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
There has been no one who, showing only indifference towards the Blessed Virgin, had not experienced at the same time a true aversion towards Jesus Christ. And from this same aversion to Jesus Christ come indifference and aversion towards the Blessed Virgin. Jesus said: “He who hates me also hates my Father” (Jn 15:23). And, for the same reason, it can be said that every heretic is an avowed enemy of the Virgin, precisely because they hate Jesus Christ. These enemies, declared or disguised, of Jesus Christ, who seek to destroy everything that makes us kind and close to the Son of God, not only have not inspired any devotion towards the Blessed Virgin but have tried by all possible means to tear from the heart of the faithful this deep-rooted devotion.
We, therefore, who tend to love the Son ardently, must do all we can to love the Mother, persuading ourselves that only through the Mother we can easily enter Jesus Christ and be received into his Heart.
Let’s put ourselves in the presence of God to meditate upon these truths.
•Ask Our Lady the grace: to welcome us into her Immaculate Heart and through this may we unite more perfectly into the Heart of her Son.
•Today’s resolution: to fulfil the first nine Fridays of the month, or at least of doing reparation communion on any Friday which we can.
•Jaculatory prayer of the day: (to be repeated throughout the day) Immaculate Heart of Mary, be the salvation of my soul!
Novena in preparation for the Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Lord Jesus Christ, the only redeemer of man,
look with love to those of us who are preparing to consecrate ourselves to Your Most Sacred Heart.
Open for us the eternal fount of your mercy,
that flows from your Heart opened on the Cross.
Through the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
we want to be always and only yours: in life, in death, and eternity.
Let nothing separate us from your love!
Grant us a heart similar to yours, meek and humble, that listens to you and keeps your commands;
that is nourished of the Word and the Eucharist so that, rooted, edified and transformed in you, we can grow every day in desires of love and reparation to your Heart, pierced by the sins of men and that we can work tirelessly so you can reign in every heart and every society.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in you.
Sweet Immaculate Heart of Mary, be my salvation.
All the angels and saints of God, pray for us.