Saturday, August 22, 2009

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real piety aims to give glory to God and lead man to virtue. To achieve both ends, devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a true gift of Divine Providence to this unfortunate century.

Our Lady is the Mediatrix of all grace. To try to pray without her intercession is the same as trying to fly without wings, says Dante.

If we want our acts of love, praise, thanksgiving and reparation to reach the throne of God, we must place them into the hands of Mary Most Holy. It would be ridiculous to imagine that devotion to Our Lady would be a deviation and that we could reach God more directly by not addressing ourselves to her. The opposite is true. We can only reach God through her.

To try to reach Jesus Christ, without Our Lady, on the false pretext that Our Lady is an obstacle between us and her Divine Son is as stupid as trying to analyze the stars thinking that the telescope’s lenses are an obstacle between us and the stars.

Let us look for grace from the fountain from which it really springs forth and, with its help, become fortified for all the austerity that the Holy Ghost demands of us. Undoubtedly, devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary holds a most relevant place among these sources of grace.

In the Apocalypse, chapter 3, verse 8, we find: “I know thy works. Behold, I have given before thee a door opened, which no man can shut: because thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.” This door, open to the weakness of contemporary man, is the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

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