Lam 2:2,10-14,18-19;
Psalm 74:1-7,20-21;
Luke 2:41-51 Full Readings
Immaculate Heart of Mary
The Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Today we celebrate and honor the memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as we honored the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus yesterday. The two go in hand. As we saw yesterday, Jesus' heart represents God's divine love for humanity and is where mercy and Love for humanity flows. The Heart of Mary represents and is the perfect model of responding to God's love as human beings. In responding to God's love, Mary accepted to carry the Child Jesus in her womb, gave birth to Him, raised Him and passed through all the pain by receiving a heart piercing message from Simeon, by searching for her lost son in Jerusalem and by seeing her son die on the cross. Mary's experience with Jesus was not easy but she didn't regret and give up.
Today's gospel shows us the love that flows from the heart of Mary; love of God and love of humanity. When Joseph and Mary found Jesus in the temple after looking for him for three days, Mary asked him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” They embodied this definition of parenthood: “Parenthood is when a piece of your heart lives outside your body.” On today’s feast of the Immaculate Heart we can consider that, in the image of the Immaculate Heart, Mary’s heart is shown outside her body. Her whole heart lives outside her body because of her fire of love for God and the fire of her love for each of us. She is our Mother. We were given to her and her to us by Jesus as one of his last acts from the cross (John 19:26-27); Mary’s “spiritual motherhood extends to all men whom indeed (Jesus) came to save…” (CCC 501), and she intercedes for us before God in order to obtain the necessary graces for our salvation (Lumen Gentium 62). We are pieces of Mary’s maternal heart living in the world. She loves us and watches over us. We can ask her to form us as she formed Jesus.
Today's Gospel also tells us that she kept all these things at heart (Luke 2:51b). However her heart remained Immaculate for it was where God dwells, and means it remained pure and a source of Mother's love for all humanity. Mary is the mother of us all in order of Grace (CCC 968) and her mother's love never fades. Just as a mother cannot forget her child, Mary cannot forget us and she is always ready to help whenever we turn to her, she is keeping us in her immaculate heart.
The response that Jesus gave to Mary and Joseph, ‘Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ would have made Mary scold Jesus, but she didn't, she kept everything at heart. Mary's heart was a place of encountering God, contemplating God's word and also for looking for solutions with the motherly affection. What do we use our hearts for? For meditating on God's words and answer His call or for plotting evil and hatred? It is an invitation today to reflect on what occupies our hearts.
Let us contemplate on Mary's heart which is full of love, and ask her to always intercede for us as our Mother. When we pass through Mary our prayers are answered just as when the children want something from their father, they most times pass through the mother. As Mary opened her heart for the word of God, let us also open our hearts that God will speak to us and allow him to take charge of our lives and use us for His greater glory. Let us also ask Mary to intercede for us that as she managed to pass through all difficult situations and pain as she saw her son suffering, we too may also have that strength to overcome difficulties and pains in life.
Let us Pray.
Hail Mary, you are full of Grace. May that grace always be inspiration for us to strive for holiness and may your intercession always by your motherly love obtain for us what we ask from God. Amen
Be blessed and May the Immaculate Heart of Mary intercede for us.
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