J.M.J. What is the goal of
this enterprise? A fresh beginning within us and within our homes,
schools and workplaces as
we express our
gratitude to the Hearts
of Jesus and Mary and our fervent
desire that we may always live under Their sure
guidance and protection!
Regardless of our
vocation, our past and the often frightening times in which we live, “Behold, now is the
acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (Second Letter
of Saint Paul
to the Corinthians
6:2)
Let us
acknowledge the embrace
of the Two
Hearts, consecrate ourselves
to Them and
enthrone Their Sacred Images wherever we are, confident that
“our commonwealth is in Heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ, Who will change our lowly
body to be
like His glorious
Body, by the
power which enables
Him even to
subject all things to Himself.” (Letter of Saint Paul to the Philippians 3:20-21)
Devotion to the
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
Jesus Christ is the
Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity Who became man. He is one Divine Person with two
natures, one divine and the other human.
Because He is
true God, He deserves the
same adoration that
is offered to
the Father and to the Holy
Spirit.
In The
Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (La Crosse, Wisconsin: Marian
Catechist Apostolate, 2010),
which was edited
and published under
the direction of
His Eminence Raymond
Leo Cardinal Burke,
we read about
the infinite love that the Most
Sacred Heart of Jesus has poured out through the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar:
In His fourth
apparition to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, Our
Lord revealed His Sacred Heart, declaring: “Behold
this Heart which has so
loved men that
It spared nothing,
even going so far as
to exhaust and consume Itself, to
prove to them Its love. And in return I
receive from the
greater part of men
nothing but ingratitude,
by the contempt,
irreverence, sacrileges and coldness with
which they treat
Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what is still more painful to Me
is that even souls consecrated to Me are
acting in this way (Devotion to the
Sacred Heart, p. xxvii). [page five]
Veneration of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary
The Ever-Virgin
Mother of God,
who is Mary
of Nazareth, merits
our veneration because of her
singular role in the life of her Divine Son Jesus Christ and in the lives of His brothers and sisters.
Our Blessed Lady is our Mother! Her
indescribable fidelity to Christ summons our devotion, love and
imitation.
There was—and remains—a strong
link between Christ
and His Chaste Mother. Jesus, the
Son of God, is the Son of Mary.
When Mary
uttered her history-altering fiat,
she gave permission
for the Logos—the Eternal Word
Who is the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity— to take her flesh
and dwell in her virginal womb. The physical body of Jesus came from stainless Mary. Truly, the Body of
Christ derived from the Body of Mary.
But even
before the Annunciation,
Mary was filled
with the supernatural
virtue of charity at the moment of her Immaculate Conception. Charity is
the virtue that renders one most like
God. Of course, Jesus was rooted in charity because He is God. That charity united Mary and
Jesus.
The Heart
of Christ was
Our Blessed Mother’s source
of strength. She
fulfilled God’s
mysterious plan for her life by accepting sanctifying grace—“God’s life”—that only comes
from the Lord. Mary enjoys unsurpassed physical access to her Son in Heaven. She also has unparalleled
spiritual access to Him because of her
unceasing prayer directed towards Jesus.
Without
exaggeration, we may assert: all that Mary accomplished was first inspired and completed in the Heart of
Jesus.
Our Lady leads us
to adore her Son. Our genuine veneration of the Madonna ends in sincere adoration of Jesus. In Mary
in Our Life (New York: P.J. Kenedy
and Sons, 1954),
Father William George
Most, Ph.D., wrote
that Pope Pius
XI (1922-1939) declared in his
encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor (May 8, 1928) the importance of authentic devotion to the
Most Sacred Heart. “True devotion to the
Sacred Heart consists
in two things,
which can readily
be reduced to one— consecration and
reparation” (page
205). Consecration means
that we “dedicate ourselves and all that we have to the Divine
Heart of Jesus” (ibid.); by our
love we return to the Creator the love
that He bestowed on us. Following consecration is reparation, which is necessary “if
that Uncreated Love (that is, God Himself) has
been neglected by forgetfulness or violated by offenses” (page 206).
It is
through the Ever-Virgin
that consecration and
reparation are made.
Pope Pius XI
penned: “May the
most gracious Mother
of God smile
upon and favor these our prayers and undertakings,
she, who since she brought forth Jesus
the Redeemer for us, nourished Him, and offered Him as a Victim at the
Cross, and is called
the Reparatrix, in
virtue of her
intimate union with
Christ, and an
altogether singular grace of His” (page 207). His Holiness prayed: “Loving
Jesus, through the
intercession of the
Blessed Virgin Mary,
our model in
reparation, deign to receive the
voluntary offering we make of this act of expiation. . . “ (page 208).
Father Most
maintained: “Thus it is clear that our need of Mary
will never end; she is the Mediatrix of
All Graces; all (graces) descend to us through her. And the way for us to
ascend to the Sacred Heart of Christ is through the Immaculate Heart of His Mother: ad Cor Jesu per Cor Mariae!” (page 211). To the Heart of
Jesus through the Heart of Mary!
Father Most
argued that since
the two Hearts
are so aligned,
then they “should also be closely united as objects
of our devotion” (ibid.). We
adore the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and we venerate
the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
We cannot help but
to draw the conclusion that seems very obvious: the Pure Immaculate Heart constantly beats in unison
with the Most Sacred Heart, given the
similitude between Mary and Jesus.
Although we
do not measure
up to Our
Lady’s outstanding
holiness, may our hearts beat in union with the Two Hearts!
Consecration to the
Two Hearts
Many spiritual
authors have spoken
of consecration to
the Most Sacred
Heart of Jesus
and the Immaculate
Heart of Mary.
We surrender ourselves
to Christ and to His Mother,
aware that They know what is best for us and wish that we live
in union with
Them. We earmark
all that we
are and have
to Jesus and
Mary, confident that They will take care of us.
Enthronement of the
Two Hearts
Reminders are very
helpful to us. The Enthronement of the Two Hearts is our
homes, schools and
workplaces bring again
to our attention
that we have
invited Our Lord and Our Lady to exercise His Lordship and her Queenship
over us.
The Enthronement of
the Sacred Heart of Jesus offers to us a look at how the venerable “Apostle of the
Enthronement,” Father Mateo
Crawley-Boevey, SS.CC. (1875-1961) explained
the Enthronement. His
words seem to
apply also to
the Enthronement of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary.
By means of the
Enthronement, Jesus really enters the home to
have a part
in and guide
the whole life
of the family.
His love becomes
the soul of
both parents and
children and His
Heart their shrine (p. 130). [page eleven]
