Saturday 8 June 2024 marks the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to whom we entrust our intentions through a nine-day prayer journey.
But let’s discover the origin of the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and how it has evolved over the centuries up to the current celebration.
The first promoter of the liturgical feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was Saint John Eudes who already began to celebrate it around 1643 with the religious of his congregation.
The turning point of the cult of the Immaculate Heart of Mary occurred with the Fatima apparitions of 1917, where Our Lady had promised: “in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph”.
It will be Pope Pius XII in 1944 who extends all this Marian memory of devotional origin to the Church, placing it on August 22, the octave of the Assumption.
The liturgical reform following the Second Vatican Council transferred this feast to an optional mode, to the Saturday after the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was then Saint John Paul II to make it mandatory.
This celebration it is an invitation to look to Mary as a model to imitate. Mary, who keeps and meditates on everything in her Heart, temple of the Holy Spirit, seat of wisdom, image and model for every believer of the Church who lives and bears witness to the Gospel.
Novena to the Immaculate Heart of Mary: fourth day
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Celestial Mother and Sovereign, we take refuge, animated by filial trust and an outburst of love, close to your maternal and Immaculate Heart to praise and glorify it, and to invoke its powerful intercession. We associate this humble honor that we pay you with the splendor of the praise that the happy angelic choirs, the saints in heaven and your servants on earth give you without respite and with an indefatigable zeal, and above all with the insurmountable glorification with which it surrounds you the Holy Trinity, who has chosen you as Daughter, Bride and Mother. Remember us, O Mary, of us who sigh in this valley of tears and pray to you full of trust. The graces we ask for in this novena, deign to obtain them from God.
Amen.
Fourth day prayer
O Immaculate Heart of Mary, absorbed in your pious contemplation! Your thoughts and your spirit have remained inseparable from God. It is in the silence of your holiness that you have meditated on the words of your Son and the mysteries of redemption. Cast away the distractions that disturb our contemplation and direct our spirit to God.
Ave Maria
Litany of the Immaculate Heart
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Christ, listen to us. Christ, listen to us.
Christ, hear us. Christ, hear us.
Heavenly Father, who are God, have mercy on us
Redeemer Son of the world, who are God, have mercy on us
Holy Spirit, who are God, have mercy on us
Holy Trinity, who are one God, have mercy on us
Heart of Mary, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, born from the Heart of God, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, Heart of the Immaculate Conception, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, worthy abode of the Holy Spirit, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, Heart of the Mother of Divine Wisdom, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, Heart of the Mother of the Divine Word, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, Heart of the Mother of Beautiful Love, pray for us.
Heart of Mary whose love is stronger than death, pray for us.
Heart of Mary pierced with the sword of pain, pray for us.
Heart of Mary offered to Christ at the foot of the Cross, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, image of the Heart of Jesus, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, delight of the Heart of Jesus, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, tabernacle of holiness, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, distributor of all graces, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, salvation of sinners, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, consolation of the afflicted, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, comfort of the abandoned, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, refuge of the desperate, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, refuge of the persecuted and afflicted, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, hope of the dying, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, bulwark of the people in their anguish, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, armor of the Church in its fight against the power of darkness, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, Heart of the Queen Victorious over heresies throughout the world, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, Heart of the glorious Queen of the world, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, Heart of our Mother, pray for us.
Heart of Mary, Heart worthy of praise, pray for us.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world, forgive us, Lord.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us, Lord.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Pray for us, Holy Mother of God – So that our hearts become inflamed at the contact of the divine flame that burns unspeakably in your Heart.
Let’s pray:
Eternal and almighty God, you have prepared in the Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary a worthy home for the Holy Spirit. Give us and all those who venerate her Immaculate Heart the grace to always resemble her. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
