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“Entrust
yourself to your dear mother Mary, tell her that you want to
love her Jesus and that you want to love Him very much; tell her
to lend you her maternal heart [so that] you can genuinely love
Him.” writes Clelia Merloni, Foundress of the Apostles of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The Apostle cultivates a filial devotion to the Blessed Virgin
Mary, Mother of God and of the Church and the model of
consecrated life. She nurtures a most tender love for Mary
entrusts her goals and apostolic activity to her, faithfully
praying the Rosary and the Angelus daily in common. In the
difficulties of life and mission she calls upon her, Mother and
Queen of the Apostles.
In Mary, the Apostle contemplates and imitates the
virtues characteristic of consecrated women. She seeks to unite
her spousal love for Christ to that spiritual maternity which
makes her caring and wholeheartedly
attentive to
the needs of humanity. (Directory #43) The Apostle, in imitation
of the Virgin Mary, wholeheartedly disposes herself to nurture
the growth of Christ in everyone who is entrusted to her.
The Apostle presents Mary to the women of our time as the model
of feminine dignity so that they may find in her, Virgin, Spouse
and Mother, the secret of living their womanhood nobly and
achieving true fulfillment.
As Mary treasured in her heart the word of God and the mystery
of her Son’s love, the Apostle ponders in silence the richness
of Christ’s Heart and expresses the fruits of her contemplation
in works of charity.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus cannot be separated from
devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary nor from special
veneration for her sorrows because, by divine design, the Mother
of the Redeemer stood at the foot of the cross, consenting to
the immolation of her Son, suffering with Him, and uniting her
own bloodless martyrdom to the sacrifice He offered for the
redemption of the world.
Clelia Merloni writes that Mary “was the most fervent apostle,
and the first martyr.” (Letters p 156) “since the Sorrowful
Mother herself suffered on the way to Calvary, she will sustain
the Apostle in the inevitable difficulties and sufferings of the
religious life; she will teach them reparative devotion to the
Sacred Heart of her Son, and will give them fortitude and
constancy during the trials and sacrifices sustained in their
mission.” (Manuscript Rule)
Sr. Cora
Lombardo, A.S.C.J.
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