491. The Immaculate Heart of Mary

Meditations no. 234 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

In Mary’s Immaculate Heart we find grace for our journey.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. The Church gives us a particularly lovable feast to celebrate today, that of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to encourage us to trust in our Blessed Lady at all times. She is a fount of grace and mercy, a Mother who is able to give her children the grace they need for their journey at every stage of their lives.

During his life on earth, our Lord taught us that the good man out of his good treasure brings forth good. Our Lady’s heart is filled to overflowing with love for God; it is the home of the Holy Spirit, and is moved by the very sentiments that move Christ’s own Heart. From her heart, then, comes a flood of mercy and forgiveness. I am the Mother of fair love, of fear, of wisdom and of holy hope. In me is all grace for the way and the truth, in me is all hope of life and virtue. Come to me, all you who desire me, and fill yourselves with my fruits. For my spirit is sweeter than honey, my inheritance sweeter than the honeycomb.

Our Mother’s Immaculate Heart shows us the true feelings we should have in our own, and she encourages us to open our soul fully to God’s grace, so that her Son, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, can come and make their home in it. From this heart, says St Bernardine of Siena, as from a furnace, does the Virgin bring forth good words, aflame with divine love, and thoughts of glowing hot charity. From a jar full of good wine, only good wine can be poured; from a furnace, only a raging fire can issue; so too, from Christ’s Mother, nothing can come but sentiments of radiant love for God.

In Mary’s heart we learn how to be contemplative souls; it is a school where we are taught how to treat God our Lord with true love and affection. She carried Jesus very close to her heart for nine months, and after he was born she stayed close to him throughout his journeying on earth, looking on everything God told her with the eyes of faith, treasuring up all these things and pondering on them in her heart. Today is a good day for us to enter fully into our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, and there to conform our thoughts and affections more completely with hers, so that we rejoice at what makes her happy and suffer for whatever hurts her. We will then be able to renew our desires and put right whatever needs to be corrected in our life.

Living as children in our Lady’s heart.

When our Lady consented to be God’s Mother, and the Word was made flesh in her womb, that same generous fiat gave birth to us for ever in her heart. At that moment, the Mystical Body of all of God’s children, numerous as the stars in the sky, was born. For by her charity, St Augustine tells us, Mary cooperated to bring the faithful to birth in the Church, members of the Head whose mother she is according to the flesh. From then on we began to live in our Mother’s love for Jesus. Her heart holds one single love, for Jesus and for us. Everything our Lady did for him on earth, feeding him and caring for him, she now does for us from heaven.

No matter how many of us there are, our Lady loves each of us as a mother loves her only child. And so if we find there have been times when we failed to be gentle and kind towards this good Mother of ours, we should feel sorry. I ask you now, as I ask myself, how are we honouring her?

Let us return once again to our everyday experience and see how we behave towards our own mothers. What does a mother want most of all from her children, from those who are flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood? Her greatest desire is to have them close to her. When the children grow up and it is no longer possible to have them at her side, she waits impatiently for news from them, and everything that happens to them, from the slightest illness to the most important events, concerns her deeply.

Look: in our Mother Mary’s eyes we never cease to be little, because she opens up the way to the Kingdom of Heaven to us, and it will only be given to those who become little children. We should never separate ourselves from our Lady. How should we honour her? By keeping close to her, talking to her, showing her that we love her, pondering in our hearts the scenes of her life on earth and telling her about our struggles, successes and failures.

What a great debt we owe Mary! From the moment we started to have a real relationship with her, from the moment we felt how much she loved us, a new perspective was opened up on our life: the joy of knowing that without any merit on our part, having no right to it other than by virtue of being small and needy children, we were living in the heart of a Mother who loves us infinitely, even though we may not have realized it.

We should thank the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit for the road we have already covered, our Founder explains, offering our thanksgiving through the Virgin Mary: Cor Mariae dulcissimum, iter para tutum! (Most Sweet Heart of Mary, prepare a safe way!) She is the Mother of God, the Mother of men, the Mother of Opus Dei, the Mother of each one of us.

And we should be full of confidence as far as the future is concerned, trusting in the maternal, loving intercession of our Lady: Recordare, Virgo Mater Dei, dum steteris in conspectu Domini, ut loquaris pro nobis bona. (Remember, Virgin Mother of God, while you stand in the sight of the Lord, to speak good things on our behalf. ) A trusting and tender recourse to our Mother is a principal part of our spirit Mary has given us tangible proof of her special favour; she has always smiled on us. Whenever we realize how small and weak we are, and how often we go wrong, we will seek all the strength we need from God through our filial devotion to Mary.

The most sweet heart of Mary is a model for our own purity of heart.

Father, you prepared the heart of the Virgin Mary to be a fitting home for your Holy Spirit. By her prayers may we become a more worthy temple of your glory.

The most pure heart of Mary is a call to us to purify our own heart, which often still clings to things of this earth that we haven’t detached ourselves from fully. Your thoughts, your desires, your work, your eyes, all have to be in heaven. Christ won’t share your heart: he wants the whole of it.

Our Lady’s love for God was total and exclusive, the virginal love that can only exist in a pure, undivided heart. The two hearts of Mary and Jesus always beat as one. Therefore she is the best person to teach us how to keep the love of our heart for God alone, and to love everyone and everything in her Son’s heart.

You pour out your tenderness lavishly. -And I say to you: charity towards your neighbours, yes: always. -But - listen carefully to me, apostolic soul - for Christ, and for Him alone, is that other feeling which our Lord himself has placed in your heart -Besides… , isn’t it true that drawing back any one of the bolts of your heart - and you need seven bolts - has more than once left a cloud of doubt floating on your supernatural horizon… , and then, tormented in spite of the purity of your intentions, you have wondered: Haven’t I gone too far in my outward expressions of affection?”

We need to be constantly attentive to keep our heart free of attachments, but we have learnt not to trust ourselves. Therefore we run to be with our Lady, close to her Immaculate Heart, so that her love can burn up our heart and purify us of any disordered affection there may still be in our life. Get accustomed to entrusting your poor heart to the Sweet and Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that she may purify it from so much dross, and lead it to the most Sacred and Most Merciful Heart of Jesus.

We can resolve now to ask our Lady for help in breaking any shackle, once and for all. Her motherly love will fill our heart, to the point where our affection, wholly placed in our Lord, is one and the same with her own. We will give up whatever is necessary to make room in our heart for a deep, vibrant love as the fruit of greater self-giving; and we will be filled with peace, serenity and joy.

This is a grace that flows abundantly from our Lady’s heart, and she freely makes us a gift of it. It moves us to say: Lord, we are celebrating the feast of your Son’s Mother. We beg that we may rejoice in the fullness of your grace and grow constantly in holiness.