2026 Theme

This year’s worldwide theme for The Flame of Love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is entirely unexpected for me. When I set last year’s theme of “Help me save the country”, I told myself that this year’s theme would continue that idea of looking outward – creating a wildfire to change the world instead of just a rapidly growing prayer devotion within the Church – breaking through the idea that the Flame of Love is ONLY about prayer cenacles and prayers (they are important) but, more importantly, about helping our Blessed Mother light the Flame of Love of her Immaculate Heart in ALL hearts to draw them to her Son – the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

I wanted to once again remind us that the mission we have received from our Blessed Mother is “Help me save the country” (April 13, 1962) and the purpose of the Flame of Love is to blind Satan:

“this priest understood the essential message, which is ‘to blind Satan.’ This is the principal and only purpose of the Flame of Love of the Blessed Virgin.”

February 23, 1964

However, how do we accomplish this purpose and thus fulfill the mission? How do we blind Satan? Not by poking out his eyes but by shining a light so brightly that he can’t see and that light is the light of Jesus literally living and loving in us as the effect of grace. “through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5). If we do not let this light of the love and life of Jesus shine in us, we will not blind Satan no matter how many prayers we say and how many cenacles we start. But, stated more positively, WHEN we let this light of the love and life of Jesus shine in us, we WILL blind Satan! Thus, our theme throughout the world this year is “Add your love to this Flame and pass it on” (April 13, 1962 – the same paragraph as last year’s theme).

Add your love to this Flame and pass it on

While in prayer over the last several months, I keep coming back to the words of a wonderful, holy, and humble Franciscan priest with whom I dined after a Flame of Love presentation at the Saint Pio Shrine in Kampala, Uganda. He said, “in Uganda, we understand faith but we have not yet learned love.” I believe this is true for much more than Uganda.

It is very simple; everything comes down to this: we are to love as God loves – not in imitation but in reality for it is God who loves in us through the life of Jesus within us by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are to be partakers of the Divine Nature (II Peter 1:4) so that we think, feel, act, be, live, and love as God for it IS God in us just as Jesus prays to the Father:

I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.
. . . that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.

John 17:23,26

Everything else is not an end in itself but a means to this one, all-important end. All private revelation is not an end in itself; it is a means to bring us to this end. Let’s not be so focused on the means that we forget the end! Even the public revelation is not an end in itself but a means to this end. The Bible, the Sacraments, Grace itself – the Creation of the world, the Birth of Jesus, His Death, His Resurrection were all ordered to an end – this end – that we love with His love, that we live in complete union with Him – the Unity Prayer – His eternal desires.

Truly, love is everything. Without it, we are wasting our time. With it, we blind Satan and will change the world. Let us adapt this famous passage from Saint Paul in I Corinthians 13:

If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains; if I pray five novenas a month, attend two prayer cenacles seven days per week, pray four Rosaries each day, and wear every color scapular, but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast; if I fast three times in the week, make every meal tasteless, keep two hours of vigil every night, and beat myself until I’m bloody but do not have love, I gain nothing.

And, as we know, this is not the “feel good” love of self-fulfillment; it is the self-sacrificial love of the Cross:

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

We can say that it knows how to lose, how to hold its tongue even when it is right, how to yield its place even when it has the right of way in traffic, how to sacrifice what it wants and even that to which it has a right.

And when we do this, something remarkable, miraculous happens. Many of those activities which were means to this end become expressions of this end. Prayer, which was a means to come to this love, now becomes an expression of this love. Bible Study is no longer just a means but also an expression of love. Participation in Sacraments such as Mass or Reconciliation is no longer just a means to this love but an expression of this love. Alms giving becomes not just a means to learn this love but an expression of this love. The practices of the Flame of Love become not just a means to learn love but the expression of this love (more about that soon!). We become love because God IS love (I John 4:8).

And let us note one last thing about this love that we can learn from Saint Paul. Love never fails. Yet our love often does fail. This is why we need our Blessed Mother’s help – the love that is in her heart. She is so united to Jesus that her love never fails. So let us let her add her love to our love so that we can love in every moment. Let this be the hallmark of those who call themselves Flame of Love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary – LOVE IN EVERY MOMENT because we have joined our love to our Mother’s love. This is the light that blinds Satan – the flame that puts out the fire of hatred and of hell.

Please brothers and sisters, the darkness is so great. The world is in such straits. The powers of destruction have become so overwhelming. We must shine – all the time . We cannot let this light that blinds Satan go out for even a moment. We must help set the captives free; we must help our Blessed Mother “free this world darkened by hatred and contaminated by the sulfurous and steaming lava of Satan.” May 19, 1963

Look at this Advent passage from 1965:

Jesus: “My brightness penetrates you and surrounds you. Through Me, you shine into the dark Advent of those souls who are still waiting for Me. But united with My merits, your life’s sacrifices will become light for them also. I had said that you all, whom I flood with the special light of My graces, are the light of the world. You, and all of you must shine light onto the dark spots of the world which are overshadowed by sin, so that My divine brightness might turn to the true way those souls which are groping along in the shadow of sin and death.”
All day today I meditated on the words of the Lord Jesus, particularly when He said: “United with My merits, your life’s sacrifices will become light for them also.”

December 17, 1965

We must shine continually, love in every moment. But we can’t – not without help. Please let our Blessed Mother help us. Let us be wiling to take our small love and add it to her blazing, perpetual love – to sacrifice in love in every moment – to shine continually. For all this year and for an eternity to come, ADD YOUR LOVE TO THIS FLAME AND PASS IT ON.