Immaculate Heart of Mary
A heart pierced by a sword: the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Catholic devotion to the love and sorrows of the Virgin Mary.
Meaning
Devotion to the Heart of Mary is, in the words of the Catholic Encyclopedia (1910), “a special form of devotion to Mary”. The heart stands for her inner life: her joys and sorrows, her virtues, and above all her love for God, for her Son and for people. Its commonest image is a heart pierced with a sword, which comes from Simeon’s prophecy to Mary when she and Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple. It is a Catholic devotion. The same heart appears beside the Sacred Heart on the back of the Miraculous Medal, and the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal in Paris explains the sword there by Simeon’s words.
Origin and history
Christians first came to the Heart of Mary, the Catholic Encyclopedia says, “at the foot of the Cross”, out of compassion for her sorrow. A regular devotion can be seen from the late eleventh or twelfth century, in a sermon of St Bernard, and the nuns St Mechtilde (d. 1298) and St Gertrude (d. 1302) kept it. St Jean Eudes made it public, and had a feast of the Heart of Mary celebrated at Autun in 1648. Rome refused his request for an approved Office and feast. In 1799 Pius VI, then a captive at Florence, granted the feast to churches in the diocese of Palermo, and a further concession by Pius VII in 1805 spread it widely. In Paris the Miraculous Medal of 1830 and the Archconfraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Refuge of Sinners, at Notre-Dame-des-Victoires gave the devotion new life, and in 1855 the Congregation of Rites approved an Office and Mass of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, without making it binding on the whole Church.
What Lucia reported at Fatima
At Fatima in Portugal the devotion took a new form. In the account of the “secret” of 13 July 1917, which the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published in 2000, Lucia reports Mary saying that God “wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart”, asking for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and for Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays, and promising: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” John Paul II thought at once of consecrating the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and Lucia confirmed that the act of consecration had been done “just as Our Lady asked, on 25 March 1984”.
Often confused with the Sacred Heart
The two hearts are drawn alike and often shown together, and the details tell them apart. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is crowned with thorns and has a cross; the Heart of Mary is pierced by a sword. The Chapel of the Miraculous Medal puts it plainly: the heart crowned with thorns is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the heart pierced by a sword is the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The devotions differ too. The Catholic Encyclopedia says devotion to the Heart of Jesus looks above all to his love for people, and devotion to the Heart of Mary to her love for Jesus and for God.
Read next
- Next in Catholic symbolsMiraculous MedalAn oval medal showing the Virgin Mary standing on a globe with rays falling from her hands, with an M, a cross and two hearts on its back. It comes from the visions of Catherine Labouré in Paris in 1830.
- The same shape in Andean and Inca symbolsInti Raymi (festival of the sun)The Inca festival of the sun, held at the June solstice in Cusco. Banned under Spanish rule, it was revived in 1944 and is staged every 24 June at the Coricancha, the main square and Sacsayhuamán.
See also
Sacred Heart, Keys of St Peter, Papal tiara, Rosary, Marian cross, Monstrance.
Sources
- Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907–1912), via New Advent, Nature of the devotion; history
- The Message of Fatima, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, The Message of Fatima (26 June 2000), Holy See (vatican.va), First and second parts of the “secret”; Introduction
- The apparitions and the Miraculous Medal, Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, rue du Bac, Paris (Daughters of Charity), “The apparitions and the Miraculous Medal”, Chapelle Notre-Dame de la Médaille Miraculeuse (official site), The back of the medal
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves or lines.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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