This weekend, we celebrate the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Thus, it is fitting that today we celebrate the immaculate heart of his mother. Mary was single-hearted in her faith and in her devotedness to God. She is an example and an inspiration for us, as sin and anger, frustration and impatience, our ambitions and our jealousies can take us away from our single-hearted devotion to our faith.
Much of the devotion to the immaculate heart of Mary that we have today has its origin in the medieval period of the Church, especially with St Anselm of Canterbury and St Bernard of Clairvaux. In our modern era, John Paul II had this to say in his encyclical letter Redemptoris Mater: “By her loving consent, Mary first conceived Christ in her heart and then in her womb accepting fully and with a ready heart everything that is decreed in the divine plan. ”
In looking at the immaculate heart of Mary, we can say that Mary faced a lot of situations in her life that she did not completely comprehend: including when the Angel Gabriel appears to her in the Annunciation, when she received the prediction from Simeon in the Temple, when she loses track of Jesus on their visit to the Temple, when Jesus is faced with starting his earthly ministry at the wedding of Cana, and when Mary witnesses her son dying on the cross. Mary pondered all these things in her heart. Mary places her trust in God even when she does not completely understand. She moves forward in her life and in her faith in her single-hearted devotion.
In our first reading from the first book of Kings, we hear the call of Elisha to be a prophet. In response, Elisha gives a radical surrender to his vocation. When the prophet Elijah casts his mantle upon Elisha, showing the passing of the prophetic authority and grace, Elisha immediately leaves his livelihood to follow God's call, burning his plowing equipment as a sign that there is no turning back. The single-hearted devotion to faith that is symbolized in the immaculate heart of Mary is embodied in Elisha response in following the will of God as well.
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