Here’s what Mary said on a June 13 about her Heart
June 13 is the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and marks the anniversary of the second Fatima apparition. During that apparition, Mary spoke to the shepherd children about her heart, urging them to pray the rosary, learn to read, and seek conversion for a sick person. She promised that those who embrace her heart would be taken to Heaven and that devotion to her Immaculate Heart would be established worldwide. The Fatima Shrine offers a translation of Mary's words as recorded by Sister Lucia in her memoir. The article encourages believers not to lose heart, assuring that Mary will never forsake them.
3 months ago
Here’s what Mary said on June 13 — the words she gave at the second Fatima apparition about her Immacule Heart, the symbolism of the thorns, and the promises attached to her devotion.
June 13 marks the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and coincides with the anniversary of the second Fatima apparition in 1917. On that day, the Virgin Mary first spoke to the shepherd children about the meaning of her heart 1.
According to the Fatima Shrine’s translation of Sister Lucia’s memoir, Mary asked the children to pray the Rosary daily, learn to read, and promised future revelations. When Lucia requested the cure of a sick person, Mary replied that conversion would bring healing within the year. She also assured that she would take the children to Heaven and that Jesus would use them to spread devotion to her Immaculate Heart 1.
During the apparition, Mary showed the children a heart encircled by thorns, pierced by them, representing her sorrow over humanity’s sins and her desire for reparation. She promised that her heart would be a refuge for those who embrace it, leading them to God 1.
In a later 1925 appearance to Sister Lucia, Mary reiterated the image of her heart surrounded by thorns, emphasizing the constant pain caused by blasphemy and ingratitude 1.
The Immaculate Heart devotion, highlighted each June 13, continues to inspire prayers for conversion, healing, and a deeper love for Mary, encouraging the faithful to look to her heart as a source of comfort and a pathway to God 1.*
Immaculate Heart of Mary’s role in Catholic conversion and salvation
The Church teaches that devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart is not a rival to Christ, but a way the faithful are drawn—through Mary’s maternal intercession—into the work of conversion and salvation accomplished by her Son. In short: the Immaculate Heart is a sign and instrument that leads people to Jesus, fosters a life of grace and repentance, and places prayer and supplication in communion with the Holy Spirit.
The Catechism grounds Marian devotion in a specifically Trinitarian and Christ-centered logic. Because of Mary’s “singular cooperation with the action of the Holy Spirit,” the Church “loves to pray in communion with the Virgin Mary” and to “entrust supplications and praises to her.”
That cooperation is not generic sentiment; it is rooted in Mary’s “obedience of faith” at the Annunciation and her steadfast consent “at the foot of the Cross,” through which she is described as spiritually united to the mystery of redemption.
The Catechism also describes Mary’s role in prayer through a key image: Mary is “wholly transparent” to Jesus, the only mediator, so that she “shows the way” (hodigitria).
In that same prayer-logic, Mary is “the perfect Orans (prayer), a figure of the Church,” so that when Christians pray with and to her, they are “adhering with her to the plan of the Father.”
“Mary, his mother and ours, is wholly transparent to him: she ‘shows the way’ … and is herself ‘the Sign’ of the way.”
So the “Immaculate Heart” devotion matters for salvation precisely because Mary’s Heart is presented as the maternal, faith-shaped space in which the redemption of Christ is received, contemplated, and offered to others—always in relationship to Christ.
The Church explicitly ties the memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy notes the memorial is celebrated the day after the Sacred Heart, and that this closeness is itself “a liturgical sign of their close connection.”
It explains the theological rhythm:
Thus, devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart is meant to deepen the faithful’s grasp of the paschal and salvific center—not to divert attention away from it.
A common misunderstanding is to treat consecration or devotion as something “automatic,” like a mechanism. The Church’s documents explicitly counter that.
Pope Francis, in the Act of Consecration (25 March 2022), insists:
“This is no magic formula but a spiritual act.”
He frames the purpose in conversion terms: “If we want the world to change, then first our hearts must change,” and he urges trust in Our Lady who leads believers to forgiveness and a new beginning of salvation and peace—because in Mary, “God was able to begin a new story of salvation and peace.”
Similarly, John Paul II describes the “unique instrumentality” of Mary’s maternal love: devotion to Mary’s Heart is important “through love of her Son and of all of humanity,” Mary exercises an “intercessory role” that brings people to Christ.
Yet he clarifies that the consecration’s ultimate reference is Christ:
“Our act of consecration refers ultimately to the heart of her Son, for as the Mother of Christ she is wholly united to his redemptive mission.”
In other words, Mary’s Heart is not an alternative source of salvation; it is a maternal path into the salvation that belongs to Jesus alone.
The strongest explicit connection between Immaculate Heart devotion and salvation/conversion appears in the Fatima message as presented in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s document on the “Secret.”
The Lady says God “wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” The goal is directly soteriological:
The same text explains the way devotion functions spiritually: it is not merely an external ritual. The document clarifies that “heart,” in biblical language, is “the centre of human life” where reason, will, temperament, and sensitivity converge; therefore devotion embraces an inner orientation that makes the fiat—“your will be done”—the defining center of life.
“To be ‘devoted’ to the Immaculate Heart … means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart, which makes the fiat … the defining centre of one’s whole life.”
This is how devotion becomes part of conversion: it forms the interior stance by which a person is turned back toward God’s will, and thereby placed within the saving economy of Christ.
John Paul II presents consecration as something that must be lived:
“This consecration is practised essentially by a life of grace, of purity, of prayer, of penance that is joined to the fulfilment of all the duties of a Christian, and of reparation for our sins and the sins of the world.”
So the conversion effect does not come from the label “consecration” alone, but from the moral and spiritual transformation it is supposed to express and intensify.
The Directory on Popular Piety also warns against an overly “temporal” framing of particular practices and urges re-contextualization within the Eucharist. It specifically notes that regarding the First Five Saturdays, the reception of Holy Communion should be seen within “the framework of the Eucharist,” as an opportunity to live intensely “the paschal Mystery.”
And it lists common forms of devotion that are meant to be salvifically meaningful (again, as a way of reparation and conversion): consecration of individuals and families, prayer and mortification, almsgiving, and the practice of the First Five Saturdays.
Catholic teaching presents the Immaculate Heart as:
In that way, devotion to the Immaculate Heart functions as a providential, Marian path into the one saving work of Christ, strengthening the believer’s interior conversion and guiding prayers in communion with the Holy Spirit.