Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
On October 31, 1942, Pope Pius XII consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and two years later, on May 4, 1944, he introduced the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary throughout the Church. Until the reform of the Second Vatican Council, it was celebrated on August 22, at the end of the octave of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and now it is Saturday after the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
HEART BY HEART
“Mary's heart hides within itself in a human way the mystery of God's eternal love”. (Saint John Paul II)
The events related to Jesus' Passover and His Resurrection end with eloquent solemnities: the Holy Trinity, the Body and Blood of the Lord and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They bring together the central mysteries of the faith told during the Holy Triduum and the Easter season. Immediately after this last celebration, there is a modest commemoration of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. After the Heart of God, the liturgy immediately points to the human heart, as if to say: Wear it all in your human heart. And not just anyway, but just like Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
Heart of Jesus
There is an intimate and special bond between the two Hearts of Jesus and Mary. The pierced heart of the Lord is a symbol of what its interior is and at the same time it is a symbol of love and a luminous center, showing the unity of the three main mysteries of faith: the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation and the Redemption. At the center of salvation history, on the Cross of Christ, God used the symbol of the heart so that the whole of the mysteries of faith would appear in its coherence. According to Karl Rahner, S.J. "heart" is the only word of religious experience that so effectively describes the fullness shown to us in Christ, and at the same time internalizes this fullness. The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus points to Love as the essence and motive of God's action in human history and the content of the inner life of the Three Divine Persons.
The Heart of Mary
There is also the Heart of Mary. The Gospel according to St. Luke shows us the Heart of Mary as a symbolic place where the mystery of God's love is read and understood for the first time. She kept the events related to Jesus and His words in her heart, recalled them from memory, from imagination, they came to her with her human thoughts and feelings. The heart of Mary was a place of merging and integrating all of these, that reminded of Jesus. The Heart of Mary is a place where the story of Jesus is told from the very beginning and over and over again. (After all, this is what a mother does when she looks at her child.) And that is precisely why this maternal heart is the source of the Church's living Tradition, i.e., it is the beginning of the personal side of what our faith is. In the sign of the human Heart of Jesus, the collection of the mysteries of faith finds an objective coherence, but the first subjective experience of these mysteries happens in the heart of a woman - wrote E. Glotin, SJ. The mystery of the Heart of Jesus, and more precisely the whole teaching of our faith and its center, Love, is therefore directed from the very beginning to prayer that takes place in a concrete human heart, beating, pondering and tasting the mysteries of Jesus. So, if we live our faith too externally, it is worth turning to the Heart of Mary and asking for the grace of internalization, personal involvement.
Mary was the first to practice a kind of "prayer of the heart", synchronizing her heart with theheart of Jesus. As St. Luke pointed, She did not understand Jesus at first, but wanted to know Him, wanted to reason with His intelligence, to want with His will and to remember His memory. For this reason, she constantly returned to contemplate the life and person of Christ, so that she would be permeated and possessed by the "sense of Christ". And Mary probably succeeded because she did not have to be at the Resurrection of Jesus. She knew.
The intimate bond of Hearts
How to enter into the dynamics of the spiritual relationship between the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, into this intimate bond of Hearts? It is worth going back to the Bible. Jesus Christ is the Word of God. The Church Fathers said that the written text of the Bible was the body of the Word of God. It is like a preparation, getting used to the Word of God to be among people. First, in the human spoken and written word, and finally in the human body. However, the Word of God is a word spoken from the Heart of God and addressed to the heart of man, not to his ear, sight or mind. A pierced heart means that the book of Scripture has been opened, which must be read with a heart, with an attentive and deliberate heart, with the Heart of Mary. How to do it? Allow yourself to receive in the depths of your heart the Word of God, which you hear or read as a spiritual excitement, and see how this excitement wants to be put into practice, that is, into a specific commitment to actively pursue charity, imitating and synchronizing with the desires of the Lord. After a while, you might even experience joy when the question arises: am I acting? No, not I, but Christ who works in me and I in him (cf. Gal 2:20). In this way you will enter into the experience of Mary's Heart and discover the mystery of God's eternal love.
Do not be afraid to bring Mary to you. Entrust yourself each day to her Immaculate Heart. Trust your loved ones to her. Be with her like a little child. Share with her joys and worries. Sing prayers and songs in honor of your Mother. Praise her with all creation! She will surround you with such love that you will experience joy and sweetness even in the midst of suffering. You will desire God with your whole being. You will break away from all evil. You will throw away the darkness and desire to live as a son or daughter of the light.
Love Mary with all your heart and passionately believe that you are loved by her. From the moment you came into existence, she surrounds you with love! You have a unique place in her heart. Do not be afraid. Your Mother will never abandon you. She will never renounce you. She will never accuse you of anything. She will always protect you. She will soothe your pain. She will show you the way out of difficulties. She will show you a love greater than any of your miseries - the love that the Divine Heart of her Son Jesus burns for you.
Until Tomorrow
fr. George