CULT OF THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY. - The questions concerning the cult of the Heart of Mary can be reduced to two fundamental ones: its legitimacy and its historical development.
I. LEGITIMACY OF THE CULT PAID TO THE HEART OF MARY
It was contested, like that of the cult paid to the Heart of Jesus, especially by the Jansenists of the 17th century, who denounced such a cult as new, erroneous and very dangerous, resorting, in order to prevent it, to every weapon, especially to ridicule.
To understand well the legitimacy of this cult, a clear idea is necessary of its object, both mediate and immediate, both material and formal. The mediate object of this cult is the person of Mary, to whom the Heart belongs, since only to a subsistent object can cult be paid. The immediate object, on the other hand, is the Heart of Mary, and it is subdivided into material, that is, that to which cult is paid, and formal, that is, the reason for which such cult is paid. The material object of the cult of the Heart of Mary, as of the cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is the physical heart, considered in its material reality. This appears evident from the revelations and the writings of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, from the first writers and postulators of this devotion, the fathers Croiset and Gallifet, followed by all the other writers both ancient and modern, as well as from the authentic documents, doctrinal and liturgical, of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, from the liturgy itself (Mass and Office) and from the votes of the consultors questioned by the same Sacred Congregation. The formal object of the cult of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is Mary's love toward God and toward men. This too results evidently from all the documents cited above.
II. HISTORY OF THE CULT PAID TO THE CULT OF THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY OF M
A twofold cycle can be distinguished: the traditional one and the legal one.
The first cycle, the traditional one, runs from the beginnings until 1640, and can be divided into three periods: biblical, patristic and transitional. The biblical period embraces the first century of the Christian era, that is, the time in which the Gospel of St. Luke was written, in which devotion to the Heart of Mary is contained as in a germ. Twice the Gospel makes express mention of the Heart of Mary, presenting it to us as a casket in which the deeds and sayings of Christ were gathered: "Mary," writes St. Luke, "kept all these things carefully, pondering them in the secret of her heart" (Lk. 2:19). And elsewhere: "And his mother kept all these things in her heart" (Lk. 2:51).
The patristic period embraces the time of the Fathers, in whose writings various allusions to the Heart of Mary are found. Indeed St. Ephrem, Prudentius, Hesychius, St. Fulgentius, etc., allude to it. Other patristic allusions can be found collected in books VII and IX of the work Le Coeur admirable de la très sacrée mère de Dieu by St. John Eudes (3 vols., Caen 1681). The transitional period begins in the 13th century, with pseudo-Bernard, with Richard of St. Lawrence (d. after 1254), and particularly with Ernest of Prague (1296-1364), who wove ample praises of the Heart of Mary. Also deserving special mention are St. Matilda, St. Gertrude, St. Bridget of Sweden, Gerson, St. Lawrence Giustiniani, Niccolò Saliceto, and, above all, St. Bernardine of Siena, hailed by some as "the Doctor of the Immaculate Heart of Mary" because of his ingenious commentary on the seven words of Mary reported by the Gospels. All these, with words, figures and comparisons full of refinement, exalted the Heart of Mary. The 16th century, despite the troubled agitations of which it was prey, did not succeed in turning the gaze of scholars and saints away from the Merciful Heart of Mary. John Lanspergius, St. Peter Canisius, Louis of Blois, Louis of Granada, St. Francis de Sales, Fr. F. Poiré, Card. P. de Bérulle, with their writings, kept the flame of this delicate devotion burning in the hearts of men and prepared its full flowering.
The second cycle, the legal one, that is, of public cult, runs from 1640 to our own days. It too can be divided into two periods: of preparation and of triumph. The period of preparation (1650-1805) is marked by the passage from private devotion to public devotion. The first traces of this public cult are found in Naples in the Confraternity of the Heart of Mary, founded in 1640 by Fr. Vincenzo Guinigi, of the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God (cf. S. Bongi, Dissertazione sopra il culto del S. C. di M., pp. 54-59). Also worthy of mention for their activity in this regard are Fr. Ignazio Del Nente (1642) and Fr. Antonio Barbieux (1661). But the one who promoted the liturgical devotion to the Heart of Mary was St. John Eudes (1601-80), as appears from the explicit declarations of Leo XIII (Jan. 3, 1903) and of Pius X (Apr. 11, 1909); Pius X indeed calls him "father," "doctor" and first "apostle" of the devotion and particularly of the liturgical cult to the Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary, to which he wished the religious of his Congregation to be specially consecrated.
The period of triumph runs from 1855 to 1944. The causes that paved its way, besides the institution of the feast of the Heart of Mary as early as 1805, were the following: 1) the confraternities of the Heart of Mary, ever more flourishing, comprising today 19 million members; 2) many religious congregations founded under that title, eight of men and very many of women, of which 36 are of pontifical right and countless of diocesan right. In 1914, on the occasion of the reform of the Roman Missal, the feast of the Heart of Mary was transferred from the body of the missal to the appendix, among the feasts "pro aliquibus locis." Many petitions, promoted especially by the missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Claretians), were presented to the Holy See imploring the extension of that feast to the whole Church. On Oct. 31 (and then solemnly on Dec. 8, 1942, in the Vatican Basilica) Pope Pius XII consecrated the Church and the human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In perpetual remembrance of that solemn act, on March 4, 1944, by the decree Cultus liturgicus (AAS, 37 [1945], p. 50 ff.) the Pontiff extended the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to the whole Church, assigning it to Aug. 22, the octave of the Assumption, with the double rite of the 2nd class.