by Michaelyn Hein –

I stood in the emergency department desperate for help. Though people glanced our direction – unavoidable, really, considering the screams of my 4-year-old son – no one came to our aide. They hurried about to other rooms and hallways as I stood in line, cradling my boy.
After what felt like hours, the couple waiting ahead of me was called over to the front desk. The man kindly looked at me and ushered us ahead of him. Finally, someone to offer a little assistance.
Although we had inched forward in getting checked in, the next couple hours would be an agonizing wait in getting answers to how damaged my child’s head was from his fall to the parking lot pavement. I would spend the long minutes cradling my inconsolable child as he arched his back and wailed in pain. As he squeezed his eyes shut and refused to open them from the ache. As he deliriously begged for his mommy even as I wrapped him in my arms and assured him it was I who held him.
Through it all, I whispered the same prayer. “Please, Lord, take his pain from him and give it to me. I will take all of it. Just ease his suffering and lay it all on me.”
Three hours into the ordeal, a CT scan finally offered comfort. No skull fracture, no bleeding. Just tissue swelling and a confirmed concussion. Bad enough, but not as bad as I had been fearing.
The next morning, as I recovered from the trauma of the previous afternoon, I contemplated the events more deeply. I played the words of my prayer repeatedly in my mind and envisioned the scene: a mini-Pieta with my living, though terribly suffering, child. And I thought of Mary.
How could I not? My plea was assuredly one she would have felt as she watched her own Son endure the worst agonies. Often, she must have looked around in desperation, searching for someone to help. And when the suffering was over, I imagine she stretched her arms out, aching for her Son’s body to be cradled in them. This must be so, I tell myself, because this is the heart of a mother.
Even now, Our Lady aches. She still yearns for consolations for her Son. She still begs for His heart to be loved and not despised. She still asks us to accept and to return His love.
But Our Lady’s sorrows do not end with Jesus. Rather, it is there that her suffering only begins. Mary is the epitome of motherhood, and, so, with a mother’s heart, she gazes upon us, her children, and seeing our agony, our suffering, our sometimes walk towards hell even as we desire heaven, she holds us in her heart and begs for assistance.
Indeed, Our Lady is a mother in the emergency room of this world, her eyes searching those of passersby, desperate for at least a few to see the plight of her children and come to her aide. We are the ones she calls, though often we forget this. Or we intentionally neglect to look at our Blessed Mother’s tear-stained face in preference for happier sights. But we need not be so hard-hearted. We can choose, rather, to be like the man I met in the hospital who offered what little he could give – his place in line.
At Fatima, in July 1917, Our Lady showed the children a vision of hell in order to inspire them to be this kind of soul. Lucia recounted that just after this vision, Our Lady said, “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If they do what I will tell you, many souls will be saved, and there will be peace.”
Our Lady’s words were those of a mother asking for assistance not in saving the physical lives of her children, not in alleviating their physical suffering as I had prayed in the emergency department over my own child; her words were of greater weight for they begged assistance in saving something more valuable: her children’s eternal lives.
About a month after that July apparition, the Blessed Mother reappeared to the children, imploring them again to assist her in saving souls.
“In a more sad way,” Lucia relayed, “the Lady said, ‘Pray, pray a great deal, and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to hell because they have no one to sacrifice and pray for them.’”
Mary’s request of Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta at these and so many other apparitions is a request for us all. It is a plea for our own sacrifices, an offering of our sufferings and of our lives for the salvation of other souls.
And, in effect, it is a request to console her Son’s Sacred Heart, which, as Jesus told St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in June 1675, “has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love.” In return, Jesus lamented to the saint, He receives “from the greater part (of humanity) only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt” they hold for Him in the Eucharist.
We can answer these calls. We can help to heal, not with bandages, but with prayer and rosaries; with sacrifice for sinners and true reverence for our Savior in the Eucharist. And with, as far as possible, keeping First Friday and First Saturday devotions. In a word, we help save souls with love and console the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
In these ways, we can be those who ease the maternal sorrow of our beautiful and Blessed Virgin Mother, as she breathes a sigh of relief and proclaims, “At last, someone to offer a little assistance.”
Note: June 24 and 25 is the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Console them each day with a rosary in reparation for the ungratefulness, indifference and offenses that wound their two Hearts.

Michaelyn Hein is a Catholic writer, spouse and mother, who resides in Hopewell, NJ.
11 Responses
Beautiful article!
Always Speak To “Mary” Our Blessed Virgin Mother With Consoling Words. …
I love the way this story began with the pain of the son head and the mother saying her prayers to take away any of his pain . Blessed there wasn’t a lot wrong with him , God must have Intervene with help and our Most blessed Mary ! Mothers are so sweet and gentle just the way Mary was with her son Jesus .
I think of Jesus a lot and how Mary must of felt seeing her own son die in front of her on the cross it breaks my heart but Jesus had to do this for the people to take away the sins of the world ! Nice write up and a pleasure to read ! Blessings sent to you and all who read this ! Kat G
I love the Blessed Mother and want to be able to make reparations like she has asked. This beautiful article has put me in the right place in my mind and heart. Thank you 🙏
Thank you for that inspirational article I read with the hopes that every time I pray for souls Articles like this keep me inspired thank you very much
God bless you ! This hit home … Our Lady- Our Blessed Mother- the pain she suffered… her poor baby being tortured & beaten and abused while all the while being tossed in a sea of hatred and malice… And now all mankind… the suffering; abortion, sexual abuse trafficking, hatred malice , prideful eyes turning away from poor souls begging for a bit of humanity or compassion in someones eyes- seeking to be seen, to be loved… Prayer & sacrifice and loving & forgiving those who hate you … are the Spiritual tools we have: First Fridays & First Saturdays… prayer & sacrifices is the very least we can do for our Mother & Her Blessed Son who died for all of us ✝️🙏🏻
Thank you for the wonderful reminder of the love Jesus and Mary have for each of us. We must pray for the souls that need to understand they are loved and Jesus does not want to have suffered so must for them (and all of us) and have them not know He and his mother.
God bless you for your good work.
Each day, I walk from 2 to 5 miles. While walking, I pray the rosary, the Joyful, Glorious, and Sorrowful Mysteries. In the past 2 weeks, I have prayed for the families of the poor victims who died in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas. What awful mass shootings!! I feel so sorry for them.
Excellent article. As a nurse a child’s head injury should have been bumped up in the front of the line. Saint Jacinta Marto suffered greatly before she died at the age of 9 for reparation and saving of souls. Thank you for reminding us of what the Blessed Mother is all about. God bless you!
This article has brought me closer to Our Lady and I want to make sacrifices and pray the rosary more than once, for all the souls that are walking in darkness.
God bless you. May the Holy Spirit quicken us unto fervency in prayer through the Holy Rosary.