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The Great Promise
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is this: "I promise you that in the
excess of My Heart's mercy, My omnipotent Love shall grant to all who will
receive every first Friday of the month, for nine consecutive months, the
grace of final perseverance. They will not die in disgrace nor without
receiving the Sacraments, My Heart shall be for them a sure refuge in that
final hour."
The Sacred Heart made this Great Promise to St. Margaret Mary
Alacoque. Her decree of canonization assures us of this, as Pope Benedict
XV says, "… precisely such were the words that the Blessed Lord addressed
to His faithful servant."
The Great Promise of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is this: "To all who for
five months, at every first Saturday, would confess, would receive holy
communion, would pray the rosary and would keep me company for fifteen
minutes meditating on the mysteries, I promise to assist them in the hour
of their death with all the necessary graces for their salvation."
This Great Promise was made by the Immaculate Virgin to Sr. Lucia
of Fatima on the 10th of December 1925. Our Lady appeared with the Child
Jesus who was the first one who spoke saying to Sr. Lucia: "Have
compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother surrounded with thorns
which ungrateful men continually inflict. There is no one who does acts of
reparation to remove them."
The content of these Great Promises of the Sacred Hearts is very striking.
We do not know whether to admire more the immensity of the mercy of the
Sacred Hearts or the preciousness of eternal salvation that They promise
to everyone.
The Conditions
For the Great Promise of the Sacred Heart of Jesus the following
are required:
1. Nine Confessions
and Communions
2. Every first
Friday of the month (and not in any other day)
3. For nine
consecutive months (if skipped, even involuntarily, one has to begin
again).
For the Great Promise of the Immaculate Heart of Mary the following
are required:
1. Five Confessions
and Communions of reparation
2. Every first
Saturday of the month (and not in any other day)
3. For five
consecutive months (without interruptions)
4. With the
recitation of the Rosary and a quarter of an hour meditation on the
mysteries of the Rosary.
These devotional practices of the nine first Fridays and of the nine first
Saturdays may be started at any month of the year. The important thing is
not to skip or interrupt these.
The Communion received with mortal sin (without confession) is not only
invalid, thus breaking the continuity of the first Fridays and of the
first Saturdays, but moreover is a horrifying sacrilege, of which Jesus
reveals to St. Brigitte to have "no existing torment on earth sufficient
to punish it!"
Whoever receives daily Communion and does weekly Confession, it suffices
for him to place once and for always the intention of desiring to offer
every first Friday and every first Saturday in reparation for the offenses
committed against the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and of Mary. 
The above article
was taken from the Italian work of Fr. Stefano M. Manelli's La Grande
Promessa dei S.S. Cuori.
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