“Every sinner, even the most reprobate, can find salvation in the rosary. Every soul, be she ever so encumbered, can break the bonds of the Evil One. There is no one who cannot seize hold of the lifeline that the Queen of the Heavenly Roses throws down to the shipwrecked souls tossed on the tempestuous seas of this world.”
Bartolo Longo wrote these words in his book documenting the miracles secured by Our Lady of Pompeii. These words flowed out of his personal experience of the power of God’s Mercy as gained for him through Mary’s intercession.
Bartolo grew up in a deeply religious family. As a young man, while studying law at the University of Naples where he earned his doctorate, he fell prey to the fashionable anti-clerical influences of his day and gave himself over to occult practices. For many years he carried out the functions of an occultist priest, participated in anti-papal demonstrations, and scoffed publically at priests and the Catholic faith. By God’s grace, while most deeply mired in sin, he experienced a profound conversion, which changed the direction of his life. Just prior to his conversion, he had had to wage fierce battles with the powers of evil, which were loath to release him. In a moment of deep crisis, he heard a voice within him saying: “If you wish to ensure your salvation, spread the devotion of the rosary. Remember Mary’s promise. Whoever spreads the devotion of the rosary shall not perish!” Anguished by despair and the uncertainty of salvation, tormented by suicidal thoughts, he commended himself to God through Mary, thereby relying on her promise. He became a third order Dominican. He devoted himself entirely to Mary, and she was able to make use of him freely.
A vibrant spiritual life in the breathtakingly beautiful shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii (now famous throughout the world), orphanages, shelters for the children of prisoners, kindergartens, schools, and workshops, a printing shop, a sewing room for youth, the magazine The New Pompeii’s Rosary, the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Rosary—all these are but a few of the most visible fruits of this trusting, child-like devotion. That dismal town so blighted by the catastrophic volcanic eruption has become the place from which God’s glory radiates throughout the world; a place where Mary, Queen of the Rosary and Dispenser of God’s Mercy, manifests the power of Christ, who heals the sick, finds the lost, illuminates the seekers, raises the fallen, restores hope to the broken-hearted, and pours new life into oppressed, arid, and imprisoned hearts.
The story of the life of Bartolo Longo, whom Pope John Paul II beatified on October 26, 1980, seems to cry out to us with the good news that Jesus cleanses with His blood every sinful human soul—His Bride, be she ever so defiled by sin. He binds her wounds, heals, and manifests His power and glory within and through her, if only that soul will commend herself into His hands in love and a spirit of contrition. Mary is the one who never stops caring for human souls, which by human reckoning are already lost. Mary never abandons her children to the darkness of sin, atheism, unbelief, and corruption. She seeks out everyone personally. She is not offended by human wretchedness and pride. She desires to confide them to the care of her Son. She participates in the spiritual struggle that each of us must wage in our lives. The powers of evil would have us spurn the salvation that Jesus offers each and every one of us through His Passion and Death. Satan does everything he can to scuttle this great, freely bestowed gift. Alas, too many succumb to his wiles and stratagems! Those who give themselves in trust to Mary can count on her protecting them from these ambushes. They have the assurance that she will lead them to salvation by the simplest and least perilous route. She wants us to come to know God and carry out His will fully. She will not reject anyone who entrusts himself to her with confidence.
To entrust ourselves to Mary is, practically speaking, to ask for everything. It is to ask and to be told what she expects of us in a given situation. It is to be with her constantly, to engage her in conversation, to grow up under her tender gaze, to give ourselves to her as her possession, to allow her to make full use of us. To entrust ourselves to Mary is to entrust to her our thoughts, senses, feelings, and abilities; to allow her to live, act, and love in us, and also to be ready to do whatever she is pleased to desire of us.
What does Mary want of us? The maternal question she poses to us now is the same one she posed to the shepherd children at Fatima: “Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners?” (…) “Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world.” (…) Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: ‘O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary’”
Having shown the children of Fatima a frightful vision of hell, Our Lady said: “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart (…) for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them.”
Later, Our Lady of Fatima, Queen of the Holy Rosary, would address the following special words to Sister Lucy: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with the thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation (…) You, at least, try to console me, and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to confession and receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
In return for such child-like and trustful devotion and for collaborating with Mary in winning hearts for Jesus, Our Blessed Mother promises: “I will never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.”
Małgorzata Radomska
Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Five First Saturdays of the Month
Whoever undertakes this devotion helps to save many souls from eternal destruction and protects the world from cultural catastrophes that arise from human sin; for, as Our Lady of Fatima said: “If people do not convert, God will send down a chastisement such as the world has never seen. Oh, if people would only enter deep into themselves and feel sorrow for their sins!”
This devotion begs for God’s mercy on hardened sinners and makes reparation for the blasphemies leveled at the Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Mother, at her Virginity, at her Motherhood of God. It begs God’s Mercy for the blasphemies of those who seek to instill in the hearts of children religious indifference, scorn, and even hatred for Jesus and His Immaculate Mother, the blasphemies of those who scorn her and her holy images.
Those who undertake this devotion respond to Our Blessed Mother’s request: “You, at least, try to console me, and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to confession and receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
Act of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of Souls
Immaculate Mother of Jesus and my Mother, Mary, Queen of Souls! Following the example of Venerable John Paul II, I say to you this day totus tuus / tota tua—I am all yours—all of me, together with my mind, my heart, my will, my body, my senses, my emotions, my memory, my wounds and weaknesses, my past from the moment of my conception, my present and future, my physical death, every step I take, and my every word, deed, and thought. To your Immaculate Heart I also entrust my family and all that I own. To you I offer up all my works, prayers, and sufferings. You, O best of Mothers, protect my loved ones and me from the guiles of the Evil One. Plead for us the graces we need for a change of heart and healing, either physical or spiritual. Guide us along the path of life and make use of us in building the Kingdom of your Son, Jesus Christ, the One Savior of the world, from whom all good, all truth, and all life comes. Amen
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