As we move from the Month of Mary to the Month of the Sacred Heart, it is opportune to cite the message of an angel to the deaf nun Sister Agnes Sasagawa at Akita, Japan.

“The world today wounds the most Sacred Heart of Our Lord by its ingratitudes and injuries,” it said (July 5, 1973, around three a.m.). “The wounds of Mary are much deeper and more sorrowful than yours. Let us go to pray together in the chapel.”

Let us go likewise, this month.

It was at the altar, on the right side, that a statue of Mary began to speak to the nun, who was suffering a piercing stigmatic pain  in one of her hands. Said Mary, in this the first message from the Blessed Mother, “Pray in reparation for the sins of men. Do you say well the prayer of the Handmaids of the Eucharist? Then, let us pray it together.”

When Sister Sasagawa got to the word, “Jesus present in the Eucharist,” the angel, who was joining the nun and Blessed Mother in prayer, interrupted to say, “‘Truly present.’ From now on, you will add TRULY.”

The three voices then together prayed:

“Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, truly present in Holy Eucharist, I consecrate my body and soul to be entirely one with Your Heart, being sacrificed at every instant on all the altars of the world and giving praise to the Father pleading for the coming of His Kingdom.”

Not a bad idea for us this day, this week, this month, every day: that prayer.

“Do not pray only because of your sins, but in reparation for the sins of all men,” to repeat, quoting the angel, applying it to our own time.