Today, June 28, as we celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I’d like to reflect not on all those things that make us think of Mary as being so high above the rest of us mortals (conceived without original sin, a model of endless patience, constantly contemplating the Divine Presence, assumed bodily into heaven, etc.).
Rather, in reflecting on Mary’s Immaculate Heart, I would like to find a lesson or two that might be of help to you and me as we try to live the gospel each day.
The Collect of the mass for the feast suggests an approach:
“O God, who prepared a fit dwelling place for the Holy Spirit
in the Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
graciously grant that through her intercession
we may be a worthy temple of your glory.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ …"
This feast, then, celebrates the fact that Mary’s heart was a “fit dwelling place for the Holy Spirit.” Isn't this something we can aim at as we go through our everyday lives?
We can ask Mary’s help as we try to keep our hearts free from the clutter that often fills our hearts. When the Lord wants to come into our hearts will he find any room left there? Of will he find our hearts stuffed with worries and fears and preoccupations about our jobs, our children, our insurance coverage and car payments.
Here's an exercise for the feast: Examine your own heart and look for the things that make it hard for the Lord to find there a “fit dwelling place.”
On this feast of the Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, let us pray in the words of the day’s Collect that “through her intercession we may be a worthy temple of your glory. Amen.”
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