English

PRAYER OF PIUS XII FOR THE CONSECRATION OF THE WORLD
TO IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

Today at the beginning of this fourth year of war, sadder than ever before because of the sinister developments of the conflict, today more than ever, let us have confidence in God, and in that Mediatrix whom one of Our predecessors, during the First World War, wished to be invoked as Queen of Peace. Let us invoke Her often, for She alone can help us. She, whose maternal Heart was moved at the ruins accumulating in your mother country, and who so wonderfully preserved it. She who, sharing the suffering of that immense misfortune by which the justice of God chastises the world, had already indicated prayer and penance as the way to salvation. She will not refuse us Her maternal tenderness nor the efficacy of Her patronage.

Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, Refuge of the human race, Victress of all God’s battles, we humbly prostrate ourselves before thy throne, confident that we shall receive mercy, grace, and bountiful assistance and protection on the present calamity, not through our own merits, but solely through the great goodness of thy maternal Heart.

To thee, to thy Immaculate Heart, We, as Common Father of the great Christian Family, as Vicar of Him to whom was given all power in heaven and on earth and from whom We received the care of all souls redeemed by His Precious Blood, — to thee, to thy Immaculate Heart, on this tragic hour of human history, we confide, deliver, and consecrate, not only the Holy Church, the Mystic Body of Jesus, now in such suffering and agony in so many places and sorely tried in so many ways, but also the entire world torn by fierce strife, consumed in a fire of hate, victim of its own wickedness.

May the sight of the widespread material and moral destruction, of the sorrows and anguish of countless fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and innocent children, of the great number of lives cut down in the flower of youth, of the bodies mangled in horrible slaughter, and of tortured and agonized souls in danger of being lost eternally, move thee to compassion.

O Mother of Mercy, obtain peace for us from God, and above all pro­vide for us those graces which prepare for, establish, and assure peace.

Queen of Peace, pray for us and give to the world now at war the peace for which all people are lon­ging, peace in the truth, justice, and charity of Christ. Give peace to the warring nations and to the souls of men, that in the tranquillity of order the kingdom of God may prevail.

Extend thy protection to the infidels and to all those still in the shadow of death; give them peace and grant that on them, too, may shine the sun of truth, that they may unite with us in proclaiming before the one and only Saviour of the world: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will”. Give peace to the peoples separated from Us by error or by schism, and especially to those who profess such singular devotion to thee and in whose homes an honoured place was ever accorded thy venerable icon (today perhaps often kept hidden to await better days); bring them back to the one fold of Christ under the one true Shepherd.

Obtain peace and complete freedom for the Holy Church of God; stay the spreading flood of modern paganism; enkindle in the faithful the love of purity, the prac­tice of the Christian life, and an apostolic zeal, so that the servants of God may increase in merit and in numbers.

Lastly, as the Church and the entire human race were consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so that in reposing all hope in Him, He might become for them the sign and pledge of victory and salvation: we in like manner also consecrate ourselves forever to thee and to thy Immaculate Heart, our Mother and Queen, that thy love and patronage may hasten the triumph of the kingdom of God, and that all nations, at peace with one another and with God, may proclaim thee blessed and with thee may raise their voices to resound from pole to pole in the chant of the everlasting Magnificat of glory, love and gratitude to the Heart of Jesus, where alone they can find truth, life and peace.