Attending mass at the Cova in Fatima I was blessed to witness one of the many miracles of the doves. Right at the consecration of the Eucharist a dove flue over the top of the priest and landed at the altar rail. From then on I could not see it for the crowds. I was in a such a position, however, that he could not fly out without my seeing. During the communion I could tell that the priest was passing out communion around the dove. After mass the eight priests processed out of the Cova and the people sang the "Fatima" song. As soon as the last priest left the Cova the dove flew out and across the open area to a tree close to the chapel of Perpetual Adoration, where I got within a few feet of him and we looked at each other for some time.

From that moment on I started watching the doves everyday. I attend the 11:00 daily Holy Mass here at Fatima. I observed that there are 18 large statues of saints around the Basilica and many smaller ones. At the foot of one of these statues sets everyday at least 8 to 10 doves and not at any other statue. I do mean everyday. I inquired into what saint that was as I could not tell from that distance. It was Saint John Eudes, a Portuguese Saint who founded an order in France. Beyond that I knew very little about him. Saint John Eudes would become my first step into learning what is meant by the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart. First we must understand the Immaculate Heart.

I found most of the information on Saint John Eudes on my own web site www.unitypublishing.com in a book I have been trying to publish for over seven years, a book I consider the best book in the world on true apparitions and their meaning to us. This book is Doorway to Heaven by Catherine Moran. Chapter Five of that book, "Two Hearts Are One" is quite long but the most complete explanation of the devotion to the Two Hearts of Jesus and Mary that I have ever read. It explains the evolution of the two devotions and their connection to each other.

It is worthless for me to try and write anything better than what Catherine has already written; however, I will try to stimulate your appetite enough for you to read her chapter five and the rest of the book. All of the rest of this short outline is taken from her book.

It is evident God wants the two Hearts of Jesus and Mary honored. But to understand why and how, we need to go back and explain the origins of these two devotions. I will first talk about the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

When the physical Heart of Christ was pierced by the soldier's lance, blood and water poured forth. The Church saw this wound as the gateway of grace, of the sacraments and of the Church.

It is very clear that the origins of devotion to the Heart of Jesus date back to the Last Supper when St. John rested his head upon the Heart of Our Lord. His gospel and epistles speak of this love that was revealed to him.

St. Augustine said, "Consider His head bowed down to kiss you, His arms stretched out to embrace you, His heart opened to love, His whole body hanging to redeem you. Weigh these in the balance of your soul, and let Him be wholly engraven on your heart Who was wholly crucified for love of you."

The evolution of these two devotions and their connection to each other embrace a 2000 year history, not counting references in the Old Testament, hundreds of saints, and hundreds of Papal Statements. A brief outline of the most important is as follows:

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) wrote. "But as for me, I shall take to myself what is lacking to me from the Heart of the Lord, for mercy flows from it, nor are there wanting openings through which it may flow... The martyr stands fearless and in triumph, though his body be torn, While iron pierces his side he watches, not only with strength but with joy, the blood that pours out from his flesh. Where then is the soul of the martyr? It is safe; it is on the rock; it is in the Heart of Jesus, whose wounds were opened to let it in."₇

St. Lutgarde (1182-1246), a Cistercian nun, is the first mystic granted revelations concerning the Heart of Jesus.

St. Gertrude the Great (1256-1302 The two movements of My Divine Heart

St. Jane Francis de Chantel devotion to the Sacred Heart

St. John Eudes (1601-1680) devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) Messenger of the Sacred Heart

Blessed Claude de la Colombiere (1641-1682) worked with Margaret Mary Alacoque

Pope Leo XIII 1899 consecrated the world to the Sacred Heart

Sister Josefa Menendez (1890-1923) Love of Sacred Heart

Berthe Petite (1914), the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary

Three times in ten years Our Lady appeared stressing devotion to Her Immaculate Heart. She was preparing us for 1917, Fatima, Portugal, when she would ask for this devotion and consecration.

It is important to note, that Pope Leo XIII (who wrote 12 encyclicals on the Rosary, and on June of 1899 consecrated the whole world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus) was asked to make a similar act in honor the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Both Pope Leo XIII and his predecessor Pope Pius IX felt this honor should be given to Our Lady but the time had not yet come.

On June 13, 1912 Pope St. Pius X granted a plenary indulgence to all who went to Confession, Holy Communion, prayed for the Pope's intention and performed some exercises of reparation for the blasphemies uttered against the name and prerogatives of Our Blessed Lady.

Fatima (1917) 'God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart

[The two hearts are one.]

Lucia of Fatima (1925) Five First Saturdays

On December 10, 1925, Our Lord spelled out to Sister Lucia what form the reparation should be. The Child Jesus stood at His Mother's side enthroned in a cloud of light, displaying His Sacred Heart saying; "Have pity on the heart of you most Holy Mother. It is covered with thorns which ungrateful men place therein at every moment and there is no one to remove them by an act of reparation."

Our Lady then held out her thorn-wreathed Heart and said; "See, my daughter, my heart, surrounded by thorns with which ungrateful men wound it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Do you at least console me and announce that I promise to assist at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for salvation, to all those who on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, confess, receive Holy Communion, recite 5 decades of the rosary, and keep me company for 15 minutes while mediating on the mysteries of the rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me."

Alexandrina Maria de Costa (1904-1955) Suffering for Consecration of world to IHM

Pope John Paul II (1984) Consecration of World to Immaculate Heart of Mary

"Jesus lives in her (Mary) soul and body...His Heart abides in Her heart, His Soul in Her soul ... His virtues, mysteries, and divine attributes are loving in Her heart..."

According to Reverend Kern, St. John Eudes' writings offer a complete spirituality based on the Heart of Jesus, lovingly and willingly viewed and imitated from the Heart of Mary! St. John's whole life was immersed in the Heart of Jesus and Mary. We see this in his own form of the Magnificat,

You will notice he used the singular form, Heart, when referring to the Heart of Jesus and Mary. To him it was one Heart. It was later that he used the plural Hearts in the interests of theological clarity.

St. John Eudes in his writings mentions that the Fathers of the Church made mention in their writings to the Immaculate Heart: St. Augustine, St. Leo, St. John Chrysostom, St. Peter Chrysologus, St. John Damascene, St. Ephraem, and St. Irenaeus. The references to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart are only implicit.

St. Pope Pius X called St. Eudes the Immaculate Heart's Father, Doctor and Apostle. It was through him that this devotion was made public and received ecclesiastical approbation. At his canonization, Holy Mother Church emphasized his role in establishing the liturgical devotion to the Heart of Mary. St. John Eudes, as a theologian, was the first to explain this devotion,. The feast was established first in his Congregation and later through out the French dioceses. He composed a mass and office. In 1680, shortly before his death, his book, The Admirable Heart of Mary, was completed and published. It consisted of 12 books, took him 20 years to write it, and was the first of its kind.

He referred to the Heart of Mary using 3 terms; corporeal, spiritual and the Divine. The Corporeal Heart was her physical heart, while the spiritual was her soul. It was sanctified by her eminent participation in the divine perfections. When referring to the Divine Heart, he was again referring to the union between her and her Son; this union being so intimate that he spoke of it as being but One Heart.₂₀

St. John Eudes wrote, "Jesus lives in Her (Mary) soul and body...His Heart abides in Her heart, His Soul in Her soul ... His virtues, mysteries, and divine attributes are loving in Her heart..." These very words were later echoed by St. Margaret Mary, the recipient of the devotion of the Sacred Heart, when she said; "The most efficacious way to obtain devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was through the Immaculate Heart of Mary." She taught this to her novices and also composed a prayer for them to pray.

In honoring the Immaculate Heart of Mary, it is not her heart of flesh that we are honoring but the affections symbolized by the heart. Thus we are lead by material heart to the spiritual heart, thereby honoring the whole person. St. John Eudes wrote,

"When, therefore, we honor the Holy Heart of the Mother of God, we honor the heart that, of all hearts, after the Heart of her Son, is the most worthy of our admiration, the most perfect, the most beloved of God, the most adorned with every kind of virtue, the most full of grace and love; the Heart that has the most tenderness for poor sinners, that is the meekest, the most compassionate, the most merciful, the most charitable, the most beneficent, the most amiable; in a word, the object that, after Jesus, has the greatest charm for heaven and earth. It is, therefore, for the best of reasons that we should make this Holy Heart the object of our tenderest devotion, and pay it all the honor and respect that its own excellence and the favor that we have received from it, demand of our gratitude and love."

In 1644, St. John Eudes observed the feast of the Most Pure Heart of Mary for his congregation on October 20. By 1648 a public feast in honor of the Immaculate was celebrated. By 1669 many French bishops were allowing the feast to be celebrated in their dioceses on February 8. In 1672 the feast was celebrated throughout France.

It was not until 1773 that a proper office received papal approval by Pope Clement XIV. Pope Pius VI in 1787 permitted the Notre Dame nuns to celebrate this feast on August 22. By 1799 several churches in the diocese of Palermo were allowed to celebrate the feast.

General papal approval was not given until 1805. Pope Pius IX in 1855 approved a complete proper Office and Mass. But it did not receive full acknowledgment until 1944, when Pope Pius XII extended the feast to the whole world to be celebrated on August 22.

Many religious confraternities, congregations and societies followed suit by honoring Mary under the title of the Most Pure or the Immaculate Heart. St. John Eudes founded many confraternities in honor of Our Lady's Heart. From 1674 to 1675 Pope Clement X wrote six bulls solemnly authorizing devotion to the Most Holy Heart of Mary. This at the request of St. John Eudes. From 1668 to 1805 many confraternities of the Heart of Mary were approved and indulgenced by the Pontiffs.

St. John Eudes wrote; "Since our salvation has been wrought in this Heart and through this Heart, it is evident that after God and His Son Jesus, this is the first foundation from which we cannot separate ourselves without incurring the evident danger of ruin and eternal damnation!"

The Church in the Decree of St. John Eudes' Beautification declared:

"Burning himself with singular love for the most Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary, he was the first-and this was not without a kind of divine inspiration- who had the idea of a public cultus in their honor. He is therefore to be regarded as the creator of this sweet devotion, for from the beginning of the foundation of his Congregation of Priests, he caused the Feast of these Hearts to be celebrated among his spiritual sons; as its doctor, for he composed for these Hearts a Mass and Office; lastly as its apostle, for he devoted himself with his whole heart to spreading everywhere this salutary devotion."

Bishop Sheen tells us that Jesus received His body from Mary. It was Her blood that ran through His veins. Therefore it was Her blood that She watched being shed as He died on the Cross. His heart of flesh He obtained from Her. Their hearts are truly one!

Our age has been blessed beyond all understanding, for this sinful generation has been given the knowledge of the Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

We have been told that peace will come through the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but only if we pray, do penance, and make acts of reparation! What kind of reparation? Eucharistic reparation, where the Heart of Jesus burns for love of man! At the elevation of the Host after the consecration we should say, "May the world burn with love for the Sacred Heart of Jesus and may this come about through the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary!"

Console the Hearts of Jesus and Mary by making the first nine Fridays and first five Saturdays of reparation! Our Lady cannot hold back her Son's arm of Justice forever. The repeated apparitions of the past century and this one have already told us that. Have recourse to this gift, possibly God's last gift to mankind!