A Novena to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Cor Mariae immaculatum
The Heart That Kept Things
The Novena Prayer
We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.
Luke's Gospel says twice that Mary kept these things and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:19, 2:51), at the visit of the shepherds and after finding the boy Jesus in the Temple, the only two places in the Gospels where her interior life is described directly.
The Day After
The Novena Prayer
We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.
Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the universal Church in 1944, at the height of the Second World War, fixing it initially on 22 August, the octave day of the Assumption; it was moved to its present date, the Saturday after the Sacred Heart, in the 1969 liturgical reform.
Fiat
The Novena Prayer
We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.
The word fiat, Latin for let it be done, is Mary's answer to the angel in Luke 1:38 in the Vulgate's wording, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum, and has become the standard shorthand in Catholic devotional writing for her consent at the Annunciation.
The Sword
The Novena Prayer
We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.
Simeon's prophecy that a sword would pierce her own soul (Luke 2:35) is given at Jesus's presentation in the Temple, when he was still an infant, decades before the crucifixion the prophecy is traditionally read as pointing toward.
At Cana
The Novena Prayer
We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.
At the wedding at Cana, John's Gospel calls the changing of water into wine the first of Jesus's signs (John 2:11), an episode placed early in the Gospel and traditionally read as marking the beginning of his public ministry.
Do Whatever He Tells You
The Novena Prayer
We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.
The instruction do whatever he tells you (John 2:5) is the last sentence attributed to Mary anywhere in the four Gospels; nothing further she says is recorded.
Standing
The Novena Prayer
We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.
John 19:25 places Mary standing at the foot of the cross alongside Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene, the only Gospel to describe her presence at the crucifixion itself rather than only at a distance.
The Upper Room
The Novena Prayer
We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.
Acts 1:14 names Mary once, among the apostles gathered in prayer during the nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost; it is her only appearance in the Acts of the Apostles.
Refuge
The Novena Prayer
We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.
The prayer above, Sub tuum praesidium, survives on an Egyptian papyrus dated to around the third century, making it the oldest known prayer addressed to Mary, centuries older than any of the titles or feasts it is now paired with.
Sub tuum praesidium, the prayer that opens each day, is the oldest known prayer to Our Lady, from a Greek papyrus of about the third century, given here as it is commonly translated. What follows each day is a fact about Mary drawn from Scripture or from the history of this devotion, one per day. The feast follows the Sacred Heart by a day, and the order is doctrinal.
