The exposed Immaculate Heart of Mary is the Gospel both proclaimed and fulfilled. It is a visual sign of the eternal redemption of all humanity revealed in the person of our Holy Mother Mary. In the Immaculate Heart of Mary we see the fulfilment of the two greatest commandments – to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and strength and to love our neighbour as ourselves. In it we see what we were made for and what we are called to. We see what being made in the image and likeness of God looks like. Our Blessed Mother reveals, in herself, the intention of God for all His children and its realisation which is loving communion with Him both now and forever.
All the great Marian Feasts teach us, through Mary, what God's will is for us. Our Holy Mother shows us in the Assumption that our own, God willed, destiny is to follow her into Heaven. In the Immaculate Conception the new Eve shows us that this path is traced through loving communion with God (which means no sin, no separation from Him) attained by grace and living according to His holy will. In the Annunciation, Mary shows us that the humble acceptance of God's will leads to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the conception of Christ within which is the necessary condition for our eternal salvation. All these celebrations point to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a heart that desires only one thing - that God's will be done. Mary's heart is Immaculate because it is pure and, "purity of heart is to will one thing." - (Soren Kierkegaard). Mary's heart beats out, "Thy will be done." Mary's life proclaims, "Thy will be done." Mary says, "let what you have said be done unto me." And this singular desire for the will of God to be accomplished in all things can only come from a heart of pure love. Mary's heart tells us that she wants us to love God as she does and to love one another as she loves us and as God desires. Mary's Immaculate Heart is indeed an image of the perfect disciple who glorifies the Lord and who comes to the fulness of being by participating in the Divine Life.
To understand the Immaculate Heart of Mary, it is helpful to look at the unfathomable profundity of her relationship with The Holy Trinity. St. Clare of Assisi wisely said, “We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become." Mary loves the Father - she is the second Eve and His obedient and loving daughter. She is the Mother of the Son, Jesus Christ, who is her treasure and her very heart. She is the spouse of the Holy Spirit, intimately and eternally joined to Him. She becomes what she loves, “My soul glorifies the Lord..” she truly shares in and manifests the life of the Most Holy Trinity, the God who is love, and this is what we are all called to – participation in the Divine Life.
To be devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary will indeed bring about a transformation in our lives. We will become what we love and, like Mary, be singularly focussed on loving God and doing His will. In this, we will become reflections of the Immaculate Heart and instruments of salvation for our brothers and sisters in the world.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary burns with flames of intense love for God and all humanity, but it is also surrounded with thorns. These thorns pierce the Heart of Mary, who said to Sr. Lucia, "Look my daughter at my Heart, surrounded by thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude." (Apparition at Pontevedra - Spain 1925). She asks Sr. Lucia for consolation through reparation brought about by the observance of the First Saturday Devotion.
Meditating on the beauty of the Immaculate Heart also includes meditating on the wickedness of human beings directed towards this radiant goodness. Our Lord, in an apparition to Sr. Lucia in 1930, describes the offences committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary for which reparation should be made on the Five First Saturdays: blasphemies against her Immaculate Conception, her Perpetual Virginity and Divine Maternity; and reparation for those who try to publicly implant in children’s hearts indifference, contempt and even hate for His Immaculate Mother and for those who insult her directly in her sacred images.
When we see the radiant beauty of the Immaculate Heart, we will surely be devoted to it and desire to make reparation for all offences against it. Let us be transformed into the likeness of what we love (our Mother’s Immaculate Heart) and let us intercede for all sinners who are loved by Mary and Jesus.
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.
By Father John Rice
Parish Priest
Shaftesbury – Plymouth Diocese
