Yesterday we celebrated the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
We follow up that celebration by remembering the heart which was, and still is, most like His heart.
Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady's Immaculate Heart, Our Lady whom St. Gertrude called the ever-resplendent jewel of the Most Holy Trinity.
Isn't that beautiful?
The ever-resplendent jewel of the Most Holy Trinity.
So today we'll offer just a tapestry of thoughts on Our Lady's heart for Her feast day.
In His “Glories of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” St. Alphonsus shares that Our Lady once said to St. Bridget, she said, Adam and Eve sold the world for a single apple.
My son and I bought it back with a single heart, she said.
If it's true, as we read in Acts 4:32, that the first Christians were of one heart and soul, how much more was that true regarding the Redeemer and the co-Redeemer, regarding Jesus and Mary?
The son and the mother were so in sync with each other that it was as if they did share really one heart together.
In John 3:35, we read, The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.
And Jesus, talking about His disciples in John 17:24, says, Father, they are your gift to me.
So, believe it or not, we are the gifts of the Heavenly Father to Jesus.
And what does Jesus do with those gifts?
He entrusts them to His mother.
We become Jesus' gifts to her, actually.
We know that from our Lord's words to her at the foot of the cross, right?
Behold, woman, behold your son, John 19:26.
There Jesus is telling her, John, and all His spiritual brothers and sisters are my gift to you.
We're all enclosed in Our Lady's Immaculate Heart because we're all gifts that Jesus has given to her, gifts which Christ Himself received from His Heavenly Father.
So it's no joke to say that you're a gift from God.
Just don't say it proudly.
Say it humbly and with gratitude, too.
What's one of the differences between us and Our Lady?
Well, on our end, we often have to be discerning.
We have to ask ourselves, you know, the desires of my heart, when are they in line with God's desires for me and my life?
It's not always clear when our desires are actually God's desires as well, too.
With Our Lady, we could say it was as clear as day.
She never really had to discern in that way, at least, because her desires were never self-seeking.
She sought goodness and love and God's glory and everyone's well-being, not only in everything that she said and did, but in every movement of her heart and every thought that she had as well.
All of Our Lady's affections were for God, for her Son, and for others.
She was devoted to loving and serving God and others, too.
We read in Jeremiah 17:9, it says, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt.
Who can understand it?
That wasn't true at all of Our Lady, though.
No deception in her heart.
As often happens, even here, Our Lady is the exception to the rule.
She's often the exception to the rule, even in this scripture passage, too.
We know that the mother is the heart of the family.
She rules the family with her heart.
In the spiritual life, it's not too much different, either.
The Church is the family of God, Jesus, Savior, and Redeemer, is the head of the family.
Mary, mother of the Church , is the heart.
And the heart really is the symbol of her whole interior life, too.
In getting to know Our Lady's heart, we get to know our mother.
It's really a beautiful thing when you think about it.
The more I know Our Lady's heart, the more I understand my mother.
Even the gospel today invites us to enter into the heart of Our Lady.
Twice, St. Luke, in talking about Jesus's early life, two times, he says that Mary kept all these things and pondered them where?
In her heart.
Right?
Luke 2:19, and Luke 2:51.
So how do we penetrate?
How do we go more deeply into the mysteries of Christ?
We do so by going into the heart of our mother.
One of the reasons we pray the rosary, the mysteries of our Lord, we pray them with Our Lady, entering her heart to understand those mysteries.
And as a side note, one of the best ways to actually enter into Our Lady's heart, simply by loving her.
Just by loving her.
Through baptism, we already belong to Our Lady.
Loving her and doing things for her will lead her to open her heart more to you.
And it will lead our heart to be more open to her, too.
And our Lord says in the gospel, where your treasure is, what there your heart will also be.
Matthew 6:21.
So just as the treasure of a mother is her children, again, Our Lady is no different here.
After God, her next best treasure is us.
But her love for us is a virginal love.
It's a pure love.
It's a quote, St. Paul, her love's not self-seeking in any way.
First Corinthians 13:5.
Again, her desires, she always desires and seeks what's best for us.
The only self-interest Our Lady has in all this is wanting to please God and wanting to see her children happy and healthy, truly happy, not just happy in a worldly, superficial sense.
Happy because they're living in the grace of God, happy because they found the freedom which is found in following God's will and obeying His commandments.
And God's will and His commandments are not just something that are externally imposed upon us and have no correspondence to who we are or who we should be.
God's commandments actually form us.
They bring out the best in us, too, when you think about this.
If you tell a child to clean their room, for example, right, tell a child to clean their room and to take a shower or a bath.
To a child, that may seem like an unfair, arbitrary, external imposition of an annoying rule that they have to follow, right?
But in reality, it's a command that helps them to embrace their dignity as human beings, helps them to become responsible.
So it corresponds to who they really are and who they really should be.
And when they're older, maybe they still don't clean up their room very well, but at least usually, by the time they're older, they've learned the value of a shower or a bath, right?
You'd hope so, at least when we get older.
It's not too dissimilar with God's commandments.
They're not just arbitrary, external impositions.
They correspond to becoming the person we were created to be.
They correspond to true freedom, true joy, true happiness.
Fatima, on June 13th, 1917, our Blessed Mother told Lucia, she said, Jesus wants to establish devotion to my Immaculate Heart in the whole world.
I will never abandon you.
My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way which finally brings you to God, she said.
So devotion to Mary and to her heart isn't just a Catholic thing.
It's a Catholic thing because it's first a Jesus thing.
It's first His desire and His will for us.
And if St. Paul says in Philippians 2:5, that we are to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, wouldn't you think that he had a tender devotion and love to his mother?
Of course, he did.
Of course, he wants the same for us, too.
Also, the Franciscan Blessed Gabriel Allegra says, Our Lord had a heroic love for His Heavenly Father, a burning and filial love for His Immaculate Mother, and a tender and strong love for His Bride, the Church.
The saints and the Church writers throughout the centuries have spoken of Mary's heart in different ways.
They've called Mary's heart the Paradise of God.
They've called it the Eden of the new Adam, the Ark of the New Covenant, the Ladder to Heaven, the Throne of the Messiah King, the Holy Temple of God.
Franciscan James of Milan, in the 13th century, he wrote that all salvation is dispensed from Mary's heart.
It would make sense if she's the mother of the Church and Mediatrix of all graces as well.
St. Godfrey, in the 11th and 12th centuries, wrote, The Holy Spirit bestowed all gifts of grace on Mary, and they all rest in her heart so that she can heal souls.
And as we mentioned in yesterday's reflection, the Catechism at number 368 says that the heart, in the biblical understanding of the term, the heart refers to the depths or the center of one's being, where the person decides for or against God.
Mary, of course, decided totally for God, and so she had a pure heart, an immaculate heart, a heart full of goodness and love, but also a heart full of suffering too.
We see this in the images of Our Lady's heart, either pierced with a sword or pierced with seven swords.
Our Lady was never sorry for herself or for the sins that she committed.
Why? Because she never committed any.
She was full of sorrow for the pains of her son that he had to endure, full of sorrow for the pains and sufferings that we endure, sorrow for the sins that we commit too, but also sorrow for the children that are eternally lost as well, very deep sorrows that she had to carry in her heart.
Her heart was a sorrowful heart, but there's an ocean of mercy, an ocean of joy underneath that sorrow.
There's joy in knowing that God wins in the end, that goodness wins in the end, that she is on God's side, she's on the winning side.
There's great joy also in knowing that it's through her sorrows that she has the blessing of becoming a spiritual mother.
As her heart suffered under the cross, Jesus again said to her, behold, your son, John 19:26, referring to John the evangelist, but also to us by extension.
So the greatest suffering typically in life, as they say, the greatest suffering is a mother in labor, right?
What does it do?
It brings the greatest gift into the world, brings the gift of a new child into the world.
It's the greatest joy of the mother as well too.
In this, Our Lady's no different, and we are her greatest joy and her greatest suffering, her greatest sorrow at the same time.
Mary's heart is a pure heart, a suffering heart, a joyful heart, it's also an encouraging heart too.
Our mother encourages us, she encourages us to do good, to do what's right, to live in a way that pleases the Lord.
Her heart's also a place of refuge for us, it's a safe haven, it's even a hiding place where we go when we're really struggling.
Go to Our Lady's heart, go there knowing that you are loved, accepted, welcomed, and cared for.
Lastly, the Immaculate Heart is an open heart.
It's open to love, it's open to surprises, at least when Our Lady was on this earth, I'm sure our Lord had a number of surprises for her, as we read about one in the gospel.
Her heart's also open to attacks as well.
She's wounded by our sins, wounded by the disrespect that people show to her, especially those that claim to love her or claim to love her son.
An open heart is a vulnerable heart, and Mary refuses to close her heart in spite of the fact that it constantly gets wounded by others.
In that way, she's very much like her son, whose heart remains open in spite of all the times we hurt him and offend him.
And we can console Our Lady's heart by saying no to sin, by saying yes to doing good, by praying the rosary, by practicing devotion, the devotions of the first Saturdays by consecrating ourselves to her, by asking her to help heal our hearts so that our hearts can once again, or maybe even for the first time, be open, open to surprises, open to God's grace, open to others, open to love.
Let's ask Our Lady today for the grace to open up our hearts just a little bit so that the grace of her heart can actually enter more deeply into us.
Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.

If you would like to grow in love and knowledge of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, consider a subscription to the Missio Immacalatae magazine.
The Missio is a bi-monthly magazine published by the Franciscans of the Immaculate for over 15 years.
Every issue of the Missio features articles about Our Lady's privileges and her mission in the Church and world for the sanctification and conversion of souls.
The Missio takes to heart the ancient saying of the Church, De Maria Numquam Satis, of Mary, you can never say enough.
You can subscribe online at missiomagazine.com, that's m-i-s-s-i-o-magazine.com, or go to the homepage of airmaria.com.
Back issues of the Missio are also available upon request.
The Missio is a practical way to behold your mother and take her into your home.
Ave Maria.