St. Alphonsus said Jesus wants us also to remember and compassionate his holy Mother for all she endured for our salvation. “One day he spoke to Blessed Veronica da Binasco : “My daughter, tears shed for My Passion are dear to Me, but as I loved my mother with an immense love, the meditation of the torments which she endured at my death is even more agreeable to Me.” “Even more agreeable to Me,” he said. Therefore, ought we not often to speak of Mary’s sorrows and her cooperation in our salvation? St. Bonaventure says of Mary, “Mary so loved the world that she gave her only begotten Son for our salvation as well.” She cooperated fully in the will of God for our salvation.
In our own time, Our Lord was speaking to a privileged and victim soul by the name of Berthe Petit who passed to her reward in 1943. Our Lord said to her, regarding the Sorrowful Heart of his mother: “My Mother’s heart has the right to the title of Sorrowful. I desire that it be set before her title of Immaculate because she herself has won it. The Church has recognized what I myself did for My Mother: her Immaculate Conception. Now it is necessary and it is my wish, that this title which is by right My Mother’s should be understood and recognized. This title she earned by her identification with all My sufferings, by her sorrow by her sacrifice, her immolation on Calvary, and indeed for the salvation of all mankind.
On the 2nd of July, 1940, Berthe heard Our Lord say to her: “This is the last succor which I give before the end of time: the recourse to My Mother under the title which I desire to be hers throughout the whole world.”
At Christmas she offered herself in a vow to God as His victim for the good of the clergy: “During midnight Mass, Berthe solemnly repeated these vows before the altar in the secret of her heart. Soon after, she had a vision of Jesus crucified, Mary at the foot of the Cross, and John the beloved disciple. Our Lord accepted her sacrifice. In July 1908 she fell gravely ill. From that time until her death, 35 years later, she was completely unable to retain any food whatsoever. Her life appeared to be sustained physically as well as spiritually by her daily Communion. Those around her noticed that directly she received the Blessed Sacrament, she was visibly invigorated, whereas she had been weak and faint before. She herself wrote that Our Lord had told her plainly that He ‘’wished her to live by Him alone.’’
Christmas, 1909, she saw the Divine Heart of Jesus wounded, and close to it, – Berthe uses the word’ adhering,’ – the Heart of Mary, pierced with a sword. She heard these words, “Cause My Mother’s Heart, transfixed by the sorrows that rent mine, to be loved.” She had the same vision and heard the same words on December 31st and the 30th of January. On the 7th of February, 1910, Our Lord said to her,” You must think of My Mother’s Heart when you think of Mine; live in this Heart as you would in Mine; give yourself to this Heart as you would to Mine.” You must foster love for this heart, so wholly one with Mine.”
So we can see in these many messages to Berthe that He wants Mary’s sorrowful Heart venerated alongside His own. This He had already made known to Sr. Lucia of Fatima around 1936 when Sr. Lucia asked him why the consecration of Russia had to be the way it was, by the Pope and all the bishops on one specific day, in a public ceremony, mentioning explicitly Russia, and Jesus replied: “Because I want the whole world to recognize the conversion of Russia due to My Mother’s Immaculate heart, and I want to place devotion to her Heart alongside My own.” When this is done, and Russia is miraculously converted, on a scale similar to Our Lady of Guadalupe, but even greater, then the world will recognize Mary’s powerful intercession, and millions throughout the world, besides Russia, will be converted.
When someone does us a favor, we should be grateful. When the favor is very great, we should be very grateful. Now our gratitude should know no bounds for all the terrible sufferings and death that our Saviour Jesus Christ undertook for our salvation, to open up the gates of heaven for us. He stood in the place that we deserved, and died the death that we should have died. St. Alphonsus said, “If your worst enemy had done for you what Jesus Christ has done, would you not be grateful. Why is Jesus the unlucky One?” For what has Jesus received in return for the most part? Amendment of life? Quite the contrary. The world is on the abyss of the greatest chastisement in the history of mankind because of our sins. Our Blessed Mother, lamenting our ingratitude, spoke to Venerable Mary of Agreda, and she said, ”They are ingrates.” WARNING FROM HEAVEN: MotherofGodlibrary.org/2024/07/05.
Now consider what our Blessed Lady went through and endured for our salvation as well. Her sufferings began very early in life. She learned the Old Testament Scriptures as a child. Being very enlightened by God, she knew the Scriptures referred to a suffering Redeemer for mankind, and her tender and kindest Heart even then began to sorrow at the thought of it. Soon after Jesus was born, St. Alphonsus again says, “Mary endured this sword of sorrow for 33 years in anticipation of what was coming, as predicted by Simeon, ”Thy own soul a sword shall pierce,” St. Luke 2:35; St. Bridget had a vision in Rome of an angel with a very long sword, dripping with blood, denoting Mary’s long martyrdom. Mary said to her, ‘ Very few compassionate Me in my sorrows. At least thou remember me, and do not forget Me.’ Do you remember Mary’s sorrows?
If you or I had sorrows so great that it would be compared to the sea, how great would that be? It would kill us no doubt, would it not? Mary had that anguish and the scripture says it was as great as the sea. “To what shall I compare thee? or to what shall I liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? To what shall I equal thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Sion? For great as the sea is thy destruction: who shall heal thee?“ Lamentations 2:13. We have no idea how much Mary suffered for us in sacrificing her Son for our salvation. If you had a son, would you sacrifice him for the whole human race, millions of whom were your bitter enemies?
We are the children of Mary, and St. Louis de Montfort says, “The same mother that brings forth the head, also brings forth the body and the members. Christ is the head of the Church, and the Church is his body, and we are the members, Eph. 1:22-23, 5:30. This suffering of Mary was the cause of her great labor to bring us forth to eternal life, signified in Revelation chapter 12: “And being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered,” verse 2. Then, in verse 17, it says, “The dragon was angry with the woman, and went to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” As any child should be grateful to its mother for the labor she endured to bring that child into the world, so should we be always grateful to our Blessed Mother for her sufferings to give us eternal life through her Son. And this is the point Our Lord is making. He wants us to be grateful to her, and also to honor her in her Sorrowful Heart, which was pierced by a sword.
Jesus bade Berthe to make a drawing of the vision of the two hearts. He said to her: “I desire that the picture for which I guided your hand should be widely diffused, as well as the invocation: Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.” This invocation was endowed with a hundred days indulgence by Cardinal Mercier, early in 1911. What is an indulgence? It is a special blessing which the Church attaches to certain prayers or meritorious works. The Church was granted this privilege through the merits of Christ when Christ said to Peter, “I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom. Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” St. Matthew 16:19.
Later, Our Lady herself explained to Berthe, “ that a torrent of grace was ready to spring forth from her wounded Heart.” Then she showed her a vision, an untold multitude, of every race and color, sick and suffering. All prayed with arms raised to heaven. Some were physically healed, others touched by grace, fell on their knees. “It seemed a regeneration of the whole world,’’ said Berthe. Jesus continues: “It is in co-redemption that My Mother was above all great. That is why I ask that the invocation that I have inspired, should be approved and diffused throughout the whole Church….It has already obtained grace. It will obtain more, until the hour comes when, by consecration to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother, the Church shall be uplifted and the world renewed.”
Jesus foretold to her the calamities about to come to pass, the first world war. In September, 1914, He said, “It is time and it is my wish that the nations should turn to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother. Let one and the same cry arise from every soul: Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us! Let this prayer, revealed by My love as a supreme recourse, be approved and indulgenced, not only partially and for a small part of my flock, but for the whole universe, so that it may spread like a breath of healing and purification that shall appease my wrath.”
The response of Rome was neither immediate nor complete, but when Italy entered the war in 1915, the Holy Father, in a letter to Cardinal Vanutelli addressed the following recommendation, through him to all the bishops of the world:
“Let us raise our prayers, now more ardently and frequently than ever, towards Him who holds in his hands the fate of the nations, and let us all confidently implore the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, sweet Mother of Jesus and our Mother, that by her powerful intercession, she may obtain from her Divine Son the rapid cessation of the war and the return of peace and tranquility.” In September of the same year, the Pope granted an Indulgence of 100mdays for every recitation of the ejaculation.
In conclusion, let us reflect on the words of Cardinal Bourne: “Our Lord, could have dissociated His Mother from the sorrows and awful sadness of His Passion and death…but He willed to ask her acceptance of the fullest share in His sufferings for our redemption, that it was possible for any creature to receive. That acceptance she gave freely, unhestitatingly, and in fullest measure for our sake; and thereby merited from her Divine Son a place and power of intercession that belong to her alone. We should fail to honor duly her Divine Son, were we to forget and fail to honor, praise , and use the power which He has willed to bestow upon her in return for the sorrows which united her Heart so closely and so intimately with His in the supreme sacrifice of His life….” This is why we hear St. Augustine saying 1600 years ago: “There are certain graces God wants to give to us, but we are not worthy. The only way He will give them to us is through the intercession of His Blessed Mother.”
The sinless Virgin Mary. “One is my dove, my perfect one is but one, she is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her. The daughters saw her and declared her most blessed…” Canticles 6:8. Mary was the only child of her mother, St. Anne, and the Scripture says she was a perfect woman, what the Church has always taught, and that she would be called blessed. Later, Mary herself would admit, after being chosen to be the Mother of God, that, “From henceforth, all generations shall call me blessed, because He that is mighty hath done great things to me.” St. Luke 1:48. St. Augustine again, 1600 years ago, long before the Protestants came along and declared she was a sinner, had this to say, “When it is a question of sin, I will have no question raised regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary. We must exempt the most holy Virgin Mary, due to the dignity owing to Our Lord.”
These messages are taken from the booklet:
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary
Biography of Berthe Petit, which can be found online.
Sorrowful and Immaculate heart of Mary, pray for us!
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