Anna Nuzzo recorded a song based on the Children’s Entrustment Prayer, and it features the vocals of Etta Tidd and Annelyse Radon. (Submitted photo)
It was 2018 when Anna Nuzzo first came across the Children’s Entrustment Prayer to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
She said that she sensed immediately that the Holy Spirit had put this prayer in her path.
“I had never seen a prayer quite like this and written this way — in simple, lovely, childlike phrases,” said Nuzzo, a parishioner at St. Anne Parish in Pleasant Prairie. She had come across the prayer on the website ChildrenoftheEucharist.org, an apostolate devoted to spreading the message of Our Lady of Fatima to children throughout the world. “It just really struck me and greatly inspired me to want to turn it into a song.”
Nuzzo is a singer-songwriter and recording artist who has released six albums of music inspired by her Catholic faith. Many of her compositions are based on traditional devotions and prayers, including her “Marian Consecration Song,” which was derived from Fr. Michael Gaitley’s Marian Consecration prayer and was featured on Nuzzo’s first CD, 2014’s “Be Love.”
“I still get countless messages from people saying how much they love that song and how it has brought them closer to the Blessed Mother,” she said. She hoped that this song might do the same for children.
“Entrusting ourselves and our children to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is very important to help make reparation for sin,” said Nuzzo, referring to the words of Our Lady of Fatima that “God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.”
“If what I say to you is done,” said the Blessed Mother, according to the Fatima seer Servant of God Sr. Lucia, “many souls will be saved and there will be peace.”
“God grants us graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; we just need to ask for them,” said Nuzzo. “And we should pray much, and pray especially for peace now. Entrustment to her Immaculate Heart is a major key to the salvation of souls and peace on earth. Who doesn’t want that?”
In early March, with the help of music director Richard Sosa, Nuzzo recorded the song at St. Anne in Pleasant Prairie. Also featured on the track are the vocals of Nuzzo’s goddaughter Etta Tidd, age 13, and niece Annelyse Radon, age 9. The song has already been translated into 10 languages. Just two weeks after it was uploaded to YouTube, it had already garnered more than 50,000 views.
Now Nuzzo is working in collaboration with ChildrenoftheEucharist.org to evangelize the practice of children’s entrustment to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The sheet music has been made available on Nuzzo’s website free of charge, along with versions of the video that feature the words of the prayer so it can be easily learned. Nuzzo hopes that this will make it easy for families, classes, church groups and choirs to learn the song and consecrate themselves to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
“It feels like a mini-miracle how everything and everyone is coming together so quickly to spread this song and devotion worldwide. I’m truly amazed,” said Nuzzo. She has already received messages from people around the world who say the song has resonated with them, including a video of 80 Ukrainian schoolchildren from Canada performing the song. EWTN’s Youth Choir is also planning to perform the song May 13, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima.
Though she had first encountered the Children’s Entrustment Prayer four years ago, it was only this spring that Nuzzo completed the composition and recording of the song. She doesn’t see that as a coincidence at all: it was on the Feast of the Presentation earlier this year that she awoke with a renewed sense of purpose to finally finish the project. Just a few weeks later, Russia invaded Ukraine, and Pope Francis announced his plans to consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
In a time of turmoil, the song is a reminder to rest in the strength of God and the hope of Heaven. “I want to be what you want me to be,” says the chorus. “I want to do what you want me to do. I am not afraid.”
Children all around the world “are suffering more anxiety and fear and uncertainty,” both in recent weeks because of the war in Ukraine and in recent years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Nuzzo. “I think entrusting their lives to the Immaculate Heart of Mary every day by singing this song or praying this prayer will help them feel more peace, be less afraid and help them grow in a close relationship with their Spiritual Mother who loves them very much.”
To hear the song and access free resources about the children’s entrustment to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, visit annanuzzo.com.
