St Patrick's Dumbarton

Month of August - is traditionally dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Lucy Dos Santos, oldest of the visionaries of Fatima, in her convent in Tuy, in Spain, in 1925 and 1926 in a series of visions was asked by Our Lady for the practice of the Five First Saturdays to help make amends for the offenses committed against her heart by the blasphemies and ingratitude of men. The practice parallels the devotion of the Nine First Fridays in honour of the Sacred Heart.
Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary recalls that not only was she conceived without Original Sin, (Immaculate Conception) but that there was no personal sin in her. The importance of this can be better understood when we realise that sin limits our view of things. We obsess about the details rather than seeing the totality. We choose what is limited when we should be choosing the infinite. As human beings, we are all limited by our nature but we are called to the infinite. The closest we can experience of that infinite is in love and the beauty it arouses in our soul. But in sin, we focus in on one beauty when we should be seeing the totality of beauty, we objectify beauty and love for our own pleasure because we cannot see the total beauty that is given to us. So, because of sin we lose sight of the hand of God in all things. Not so for Our Lady; she saw everything in God and God in everything. Notice that when we are tempted, it is an attempt to limit our attention to one particular aspect; we need to broaden our vision and see it in relation to all that has been created and to God. Then as Mary we would give thanks to God for his goodness present throughout our life and throughout the world.