Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

EXALTATION OF THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, in this tragic hour of the world's history, we entrust and consecrate ourselves to your Immaculate Heart, our only refuge, our hope, our salvation. Have pity on this world, torn by the most terrible conflicts, burning with the fires of hate, victim of its own sins. May your Heart be moved at the sight of so much ruin, pain and sorrow. We consecrate to your maternal heart our persons, our families, our country--the whole of humanity. Protect and save us! O Heart of Mary, source of true love, fill our selfish hearts with divine charity and with that true brotherly love without which there can never be peace. Grant that men and nations may understand and fulfill the precept of your Divine Son, LOVE ONE ANOTHER, in order that true peace may be firmly established in the Justice and Truth of Christ. --Pope Pius XII from the book The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

(EWTN)

O Mary conceived without sin. . .

Note: This post is, as usual, late. But it's never to late to honor the Holy Mother in her Immaculate Conception which the entire Church celebrated as a Solemnity five days ago. The Immaculate Conception is the Patroness of the Philippines and December 8 is a Holy Day of Obligation in the entire archipelago.

The Immaculate Conception, Giovanni Battista TIEPOLO;

1767-69; oil on canvas; Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Immaculate Conception; Bartolomeo MURILLO;
1678; oil on canvas; Museo del Prado

Inmaculada Concepción (La Colosal) (Immaculate Conception),
oil on canvas, 436 x 297 cm.

On March 31, 1876 Pius IX authorized the following antiphon, versicle and prayer in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The prayer below is the collect for the feast of the Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8)

Ant. Haec est virga in qua nec nodus originalis, nec cortex actualis culpae fuit.	Ant. This is the rod in which there was neither knot of original sin, nor rind of actual guilt.
V. In conceptione tua, O Virgo, immaculata fuisti. R. Ora pro nobis Patrem, cuius Filium peperisti.	V. In thy conception, O Virgin, thou wast immaculate. R. Pray for us to the Father, whose Son thou didst bring forth.
DEUS, qui per immaculatam Virginis Conceptionem dignum Filio tuo habitaculum praeparasti, quaesumus, ut qui ex morte eiusdem Filii tui praevisa eam ab omni labe praeservasti, nos quoque mundos, eius intercessione, ad te pervenire concedas. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.	O GOD, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin didst make ready a fitting habitation for Thy Son, we beseech Thee that Thou who didst keep her clean from all stain by the precious death of the same Thy Son, foreseen by Thee, mayest grant unto us in like manner to be made clean through her intercession and so attain to Thee. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

From the Raccolta #410. (S. C. Ind. Dec. 14, 1889; S. P., March 15, 1934).

From the Thesaurus