8 June 2013
Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
There is a beautiful icon which shows the child Jesus in a circle over Mary’s heart. Who is at the center of our being? People who are selfish, egotistical, are limited to themselves: they are their own centers. Eventually, their hearts become spiritual black holes, where everything and everyone becomes sucked up into an endless darkness of “me.” All the beautiful diversity of creation, all the rich variety of experience, is crushed like a grinder in a heart that is closed in on itself.
A loving heart is quite the opposite: it is open to receive and to give, it is a channel, a conduit of grace and of love. It is always open to the other. Mary’s heart was like that, for her heart was perfectly open to God the Father, and her heart was perfectly open to her Son, Jesus. This tremendous openness, this total freedom which virginity gives means there is no spot on which negative material could gather or become fixed. Rather her love allows for a perfect freedom to love all: that is because she is “full of grace,” and the Spirit of God rested, and rests, upon her.
So we want to be conformed to her beautiful heart in our own love of the Father and the Son, in the Holy Spirit. With the gentleness of a Mother, she leads us to her Son, never getting in the way of His will for us, but rather facilitating the encounter with the warm, unobtrusive grace of a perfect hostess. Let us ask Mary to teach us to love as she loves, and let us let ourselves be loved by her, our most gentle lady, our mother.