Bertha Petit, Fatima, and the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary
As an apostle of the consecration of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, Bertha Petit exerted a discrete but real influence. Belgium and Great Britain answered her call, as did a few French bishops. Her spiritual director was none other than Cardinal Mercier, one of the outstanding figures of the time. It is easy to see why, on March 7, 1916, in the midst of WWI, the famous archbishop of Malines imparted to his archdiocese: "On Good Friday, we will consecrate ourselves to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. We are pleased to honor the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and do well to do so; beside this privilege is freely granted by God (...); let us not forget the title that, by her suffering, won for Mary our gratitude. Pierced by the sword of interior martyrdom, Mary's Heart willingly joined her compassion to the Immolation of the Divine Victim of Calvary, for the redemption of our souls." Benedict XV must have been influenced by the cardinal when he said, one year before: "Let us address ourselves with trust to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, the most sweet Mother of God, so that through her powerful intercession, she may obtain from her Son the prompt ending of the war and a return to peace."
Bertha's message is summed up in a few sentences. On Christmas Day 1909, Bertha received a first revelation. She saw the wounded Heart of Jesus and the Heart of Mary pierced by a sword, and then she heard from the mouth of Jesus: "Make the heart of my Mother, pierced by the sorrows that tore my own, be loved by all." On February 7, 1910, the young woman saw the seemingly combined Hearts of Jesus and Mary, surmounted by the dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit, as she heard the voice of Jesus again: "You must think of my Mother's Heart like you think of Mine; live within that Heart like you wish to live in Mine (...). This Love will be for you and for the world a source of graces; it will draw great blessings. Abandon yourself to my Love. The desire of my Heart will be revealed to you." On Easter Sunday 1911, Bertha was in Rome. Again she had a vision of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary surmounted by the dove. The Son spoke again: "By giving John to my Mother as a son, didn't I entrust to her the Sorrowful and Immaculate Motherhood of the whole world?"
Some would have liked to reverse the order of the epithets ("sorrowful" and "immaculate"). Wasn't Mary immaculate from conception, whereas her sorrow only began on the day that she received the mission of being the Mother of the Redeemer? Yet, here is the remarkable explanation that she received in September 1911, from Jesus himself: "My Mother's Heart deserves this title of Sorrowful, and I want it placed before that of Immaculate, because she acquired it herself. The Church has recognized what I did myself in her Immaculate Conception. It is now my wish that the right my Mother has, to possess a just title, be understood and known." In other words, the privilege of the Immaculate Conception is a free gift of God's mercy, for which Mary had no merit: it was the merits of her crucified Son that obtained for her not just to be redeemed after the fact like the rest of us, but before hand, to be totally preserved from sin. On the contrary, it is by a decision emanating from her own Heart that she later joined herself to the immolation of this Son offering himself on the cross for our redemption. By requesting that the title of sorrowful be placed before that of immaculate, Jesus stressed how sensitive He is to the freedom with which, following the example of his Mother, each one of us is able to respond to his love.
Slightly posterior but independent from Bertha Petit's experience, the events of Fatima would soon bind together the popular devotion to the Virgin's Heart to the atonement for sins. Lesser known than the next month's apparition-made famous because of the utterance of the three secrets-the apparition of June 13, 1917, contains a vision of the Sorrowful Heart of Mary. As Sister Lucia soberly remarked in her Memoirs: "In the Virgin's right palm was a heart surrounded by thorns that seemed pressed inside it. We understood that it was the Immaculate Heart of Mary, outraged by the sins of humankind, who asked for atonement." One can immediately grasp how the Belgian message and the Portuguese message completed each other. Bertha had been reminded why the Sorrowful Heart of Mary deserved our gratefulness, while the young shepherds' attention was drawn to the very source of that sorrow: the extreme purity of Mary's Heart caused her, more than any other creature, to suffer from our sins. The young Lucia only saw the symbol of that sorrowful heart, but she told us that the meaning didn't escape the intelligence of their childish hearts: it is because that heart is immaculate that it is full of sorrow. Bertha Petit, Fatima, and the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary (V)
Sensitive to the requests coming from Fatima, Pope Pius XII introduced in the liturgical calendar, for the octave of the Assumption, the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But, by moving its memory to the day following the Solemnity of the Heart of Jesus, Paul VI reminded the Church about the true teaching of history: since the 17th century, the devotion to the Heart of the Mother has developed like a logical follow-up of the worship rendered to the Heart of the Son.
Edouard Glotin La Bible du Coeur de Jésus (The Bible Read on Jesus' Heart), Presses de la Renaissance, 2006
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Botticelli, Compianto su Cristo morto Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death. Amen.
