St. John Paul II had a deep and abiding love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He prayed frequently to the Virgin Mary under this title and often invoked her intercession.
In 1982 he recited a particular prayer to the Immaculate Heart of Mary at the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.
It is a beautiful prayer, one that we can use today to consecrate our lives to God, through the hands of the Virgin Mary.
Oh, Immaculate Heart! Help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasurable effects already weigh down upon our modern world and seem to block the paths towards the future!
From famine and war, deliver us.
From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us.
From sins against the life of man from its very beginning, deliver us.
From hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us.
From every kind of injustice in the life of society, both national and international, deliver us.
From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us.
From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us, deliver us.
Accept, O Mother of Christ, this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings, laden with the sufferings of whole societies.
Let there be revealed once more in the history of the world the infinite power of merciful Love. May it put a stop to evil. May it transform consciences. May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope! Amen.
And today we celebrate...