Sons and Daughters of Mary’s Immaculate Heart

By Fr. Christopher Foeckler, MJ • St. Josaphat Formation Center, Phoenix, AZ

One hundred years ago, Our Lady appeared to three young children in Fatima between May and October asking them in each visit to, “pray the rosary every day to bring peace to the world and the end of the War.” Our Lady also asked them if they were willing to make sacrifices for the conversion of poor sinners. The children responded very generously, even heroically especially after Our Lady gave them a frightening glimpse of hell, “where the souls of poor sinners go.” “To save them,” she told the children, “God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.”

Our Lady further explained that, “Jesus wants to use you to make me known and loved. He wishes to establish devotion to my Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it. These souls will be dear to God, like flowers put by me to adorn his throne.”

Once hardships began to multiply for the children because of the apparitions, Our Lady asked, “Are you suffering a great deal? Don’t lose heart. I will never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.”

Our Lady also asked for the “Communions of Reparation,”or as we now call them, “First Saturday Devotion.” Mary told Lucia to announce that she promised to provide, at the hour of death, the graces necessary for salvation to those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, confessed, received Holy Communion, recited five decades of the rosary, and kept her company while meditating on the mysteries of the rosary for fifteen minutes, all with the intention of making reparation to her.

Our Lady said about World War I at the time, “If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out…” But Our Lady also assured that, “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”

As members of Miles Jesu – domus or vinculum – we are privileged to be Sons and Daughters of the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady of the Epiphany through our consecrations. As Mary’s ‘children,’ we are asked to do the things that were asked 100 years ago of three small children, all of which are still needed urgently in our times.