Alliance with the Immaculate Heart

Alliance with the Immaculate Heart

Saint John Eudes was the great defender of the mystical unity of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Main article: Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary
The Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary is based on the historical, theological and spiritual links in Catholic devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.[22][23][24] The joint devotion to the hearts was first formalized in the seventeenth century by Saint John Eudes who organized the scriptural, theological and liturgical sources relating to the devotions and obtained the approbation of the Church, prior to the visions of Saint Marguerite Marie Alacoque.[25][26][27]

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the devotions grew, both jointly and individually through the efforts of figures such as Saint Louis de Montfort who promoted Catholic Mariology and Saint Catherine Labouré's Miraculous Medal depicting the Heart of Jesus thorn-crowned and the Heart of Mary pierced with a sword.[28][29][30] The devotions, and the associated prayers, continued into the twentieth century, e.g. in the Immaculata prayer of Saint Maximillian Kolbe and in the reported messages of Our Lady of Fatima saying that the Heart of Jesus wishes to be honored together with the Heart of Mary.[31][32]

Popes supported the individual and joint devotions to the hearts through the centuries. In the 1956 encyclical Haurietis aquas, Pope Pius XII encouraged the joint devotion to the hearts. In the 1979 encyclical Redemptor hominis Pope John Paul II explained the theme of unity of Mary's Immaculate Heart with the Sacred Heart.[33] In his Angelus address on September 15, 1985 John Paul II coined the term The Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and in 1986 addressed the international conference on that topic held at Fátima, Portugal.[34][35][36][37]