On the 1st April, we will celebrate the fourth in the series of the five first Saturday’s of the month in reparation of offences against Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart.  In this month’s meditation, we will offer reparation for all those who publicly seek to sow in the hearts of children, indifference, or scorn or even hatred of this Immaculate Mother.  This attitude tears at Our Lady’s maternal heart because they also reject her maternal care for the salvation of their souls.  These hard-hearted souls argue that honouring Our Lady is “idolatry” because such veneration is only due to God.  St Thomas Aquinas reminds us that honour is given to the king’s mother on account of the king. This is the case with Mary. At Fatima, Our Lady requested that we pray for these poor sinners, her lost children, to convert them to the truth.

If the scales are weighted with indifference, scorn or hate against Our Lady, we must repair this weight by honouring her and celebrating the gift of Our Heavenly Mother.

“…All generations will call me blessed, for the Almighty has done great things for me.  Holy is His name” (Lk 1:48-49)

Mary’s great prophecy is true!  From the dawn of Christianity people of all generation have honoured the Virgin Mary.  It is an uninterrupted tradition of the Church from the moment that St John took Our Blessed Mother to his home (cfr. Jn 19:27).  We see her importance in the early Church because she was there with the Apostles praying for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Each evening at Vespers the Church sings Mary’s great canticle of praise to God – the Magnificat.  It is with Mary’s words that the Church praises God as the day draws to a close because she is the believer par excellence!  She is the one who can teach us a true canticle of praise.  In the Magnificat, Mary tells us the motive for which she will be honoured: it is because the “Almighty has done great things for her” (cfr. Lk1:48) by choosing her to be the Mother of Christ.  Mary’s greatness, by her own account, resides in the fact of her Son!  She is the Lord’s humble servant who wants only the Magnify the Lord, or, in other words, tell of His greatness.

Sr Lucia of Fatima explains that Our Lord wanted to establish devotion to Our Lady’s Immaculate heart as “a means to bring people to a full consecration through conversion, self-dedication, intimate esteem, veneration and love…We all know that a mother’s heart represents love in the bosom of a family…All children trust in the heart of their mother, and we all know the we have in her a place of special affection.  The same applies to the Virgin Mary…Hence, the Heart of Mary is the refuge and the way to God for all His children” (Sr Lucia, Calls from the Message of Fatima)

St Louis-Marie de Montfort said, “Of Mary there can never be enough”!  This month let us make reparation to Our Lady’s Immaculate heart by loving and honouring her with “intimate esteem, veneration and love”.  

We offer reparation to Our Lady’s Immaculate heart for:
–    All those who are indifferent to Our Blessed Mother.
–    Those who sow scorn or hatred in the hearts of children about Our Blessed Mother,
–    Those who hate Our Blessed Mother and encourage others to do the same

Prayer
A Petition to Mary (By St. Alphonsus Liguori)
Most holy Virgin Immaculate, my Mother Mary, to thee who art the Mother of my Lord, the queen of the universe, the advocate, the hope, the refuge of sinners, I who am the most miserable of all sinners, have recourse this day. I venerate thee, great queen, and I thank thee for the many graces thou has bestowed upon me even unto this day; in particular for having delivered me from the hell which I have so often deserved by my sins.

I love thee, most dear Lady; and for the love I bear thee, I promise to serve thee willingly forever and to do what I can to make thee loved by others also. I place in thee all my hopes for salvation; accept me as thy servant and shelter me under thy mantle, thou who art the Mother of mercy. And since thou art so powerful with God, deliver me from all temptations, or at least obtain for me the strength to overcome them until death.

From thee I implore a true love for Jesus Christ. Through thee I hope to die a holy death. My dear Mother, by the love thou bearest to Almighty God, I pray thee to assist me always, but most of all at the last moment of my life. Forsake me not then, until thou shalt see me safe in heaven, there to bless thee and sing of thy mercies through all eternity. Such is my hope. Amen.