Reflection for Saturday, June 28, 2014: Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Abstract

|The Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is one of the interesting "diptychs" that crop up during the liturgical year, nearly always in relationship to a Feast of Solemnity of the Lord. A diptych is two paintings which are attached to each other and inform the meaning of each other. They often were painted to serve as an altar front or set of tabernacle doors. Often a painting of a mystery of Jesus on one side has a parallel depiction of Mary on the other to show the relationship of Christ to the Church. A liturgical diptych is celebrated when we have a Feast or Solemnity of the Lord followed soon by a kind of subordinate, but similar celebration in honor of Mary. | The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart and the memorial of the Immaculate Heart provide one of the examples of such a diptych. In this case the two liturgical celebrations are actually based on visual imaginations of Jesus and Mary that have been given as deep spiritual experiences to persons in mystical prayer. The Sacred Heart discloses the incredible love of God made present in Jesus' incarnation into human life, and his passion and death. The heart of Mary similarly is a profound symbol of the human love of the Church for God, which is enacted in the Church's loving service of all humanity. |The Old Testament reading, from Lamentations, in today's liturgy helps us to recognize that Mary's very human love illuminates and gives immediacy to our ecclesial vocation to love God by loving our broken and sinful world. For me it was very powerful to pray the first reading while gazing at some of the recent pictures of the war in Syria, the attacks in Iraq, the desolation after recent tornados or other devastating natural disasters. The text speaks poignantly of grieving old men sitting and staring in dazed amazement on the devastation of their land caused by sin and greed; the loss of life of children and adults, of houses and businesses in ruins; mothers weeping, shrilly lamenting their stunning losses of children and spouses; hungry and disconsolate toddlers wandering aimlessly through terrible devastation looking for parents or begging for food or water. We can almost hear the groans, weeping and shrill cries of anguish as we listen to the Biblical passage. And the writer of the Book of Lamentations commands us to gather up such suffering and grieving and present it from our wounded hearts to God in prayer. So we, the Church, are called, through the person of Mary, to stand in the presence of God's deep and abiding love on behalf of our own broken hearts and all the shattered and grieving peoples of the world, who have been brought to destruction by the lying promises of false prophets. |Pope Francis reminds us that all of us who call ourselves Christian must stand with Mary and exercise the same profound compassionate care to those who are suffering among us. That is true of nations as well as individuals. The Immaculate Heart, standing in a subordinate posture next to Jesus's Sacred Heart, helps to illuminate the interaction between God's love for us and our responsive love for God BOTH poured out to heal a deeply wounded and suffering world.| Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord; Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your little ones who faint from hunger at the corner of every street. (Lm 2.18-19)