INTRODUCTION
“Our entire perfection consists in being conformed, united and consecrated to Jesus Christ. Hence the most perfect of all devotions is undoubtedly that which conforms, unites and consecrates us most perfectly to Jesus Christ. Now, since Mary is of all creatures the one most conformed to Jesus Christ, it follows that among all devotions that which most consecrates and conforms a soul to our Lord is devotion to Mary, his Holy Mother, and that the more a soul is consecrated to her the more will it be consecrated to Jesus Christ.”1
After first getting in touch with and preparing our hearts we then drew close to the heart of St. Joseph. We received from the loving protection and care of his virtuous fatherhood and we began to admire and even imitate his virtues. One of the decisions of St. Joseph that was most foundational and profoundly virtuous in his life was his entering into a marriage with the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. We will follow his lead and allow our hearts to enter into closer relationship with hers. In so doing we can learn her heartbeat, including her great dreams, her tender sensitivity, and her eager openness to God’s will. We will learn from her how to respond to God, how to contemplate him in his mysteries, how to make more room for God in our lives, how to embrace humility, how to receive from her compassion and how to be deeply formed by the Word. Ultimately we will learn from her how to give our “genoïto,” to God like she did, to give Him our “yes” with joyous desire.
This will be the perfect preparation for entering into the ultimate phase of our consecration, the consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Mary was perfectly consecrated to Him and she will lead us to make the most perfect consecration we can make as well.
Our prayers this week will consist of two short prayers — one is the most ancient prayer to our Lady, the Sub Tuum Praesidium, and one is a short prayer by St. John Henry Newman. As a slightly longer devotion, the Litany of the Immaculate Heart by Newman, the classic Litany of Loreto, a decade of the Rosary, of the Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary, will help us meditate at greater length on our Lady’s beautiful heart and her expansive love — for Jesus and for us.
- St. Louis De Montfort, Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. ↩︎
Day 20: A Perfect Response: Mary’s Heart of Undivided Love
READING 1
Luke 1:26-33
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
READING 2
From Mother Teresa: In the Shadow of Our Lady by Fr. Joseph Langford, M.C.
When Mother Teresa speaks of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, she is pointing to the perfection of Mary’s love. How often she would speak of the desire to give “undivided love” to God and neighbor. The only one who had done this fully was Our Lady; she is the model, the goal, and the grace-filled means to achieve this ideal. Mother Teresa saw the heart of Our Lady as a model of all the virtues she held dear: humility, silence, thoughtfulness, haste in service.
When Mother Teresa speaks of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, she is pointing to the perfection of Mary’s love. How often she would speak of the desire to give “undivided love” to God and neighbor. The only one who had done this fully was Our Lady; she is the model, the goal, and the grace-filled means to achieve this ideal. Mother Teresa saw the heart of Our Lady as a model of all the virtues she held dear: humility, silence, thoughtfulness, haste in service.
Understandably then, Mother Teresa chose Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart as her patroness, and established its feast day as the titular feast of her religious order. While other Marian feasts celebrate some single event in the unfolding of Our Lady’s life, the feast of the Immaculate Heart points precisely to her inner life; not to something she did, but to the love with which she did everything. In the heart of Our Lady, Mother Teresa found a path and portal into the mystery of Jesus’ love for us. The heart of Our Lady represented for her mankind’s maximum response to God, our highest and fullest response to his thirst to love and be loved. The Immaculate Heart of Mary refers not only to Our Lady’s love and virtues, but also to her interior emptiness of self in imitation of Christ who “emptied himself” to save the human race. Our Lady’s heart is the most empty of all human hearts, the most empty of self and empty of pride, and therefore the most ready to give a heart’s welcome and shelter to those who are shelterless. Mother Teresa saw this as the condition both for receiving and giving God to the full.
Reflection
Mary’s heart is the maximum response to God’s thirst for our love. Marked by humility, silence, thoughtfulness and service, her heart ultimately expresses the way she did everything—with the greatest love. The heart represents her inner life and also symbolizes a shelter she opens up to us and to others.
When you hold up your heart next to our Lady’s, how maximal is your response to God? With how much love do you carry out the various duties of your day? How is your humility? Silence? Thoughtfulness? Haste in service? How much room have you made in your heart for God and for others? In answering these questions, do not allow shame or regret to enter in, but to the degree that you fall short, only let yourself feel your need and be confident in Mary’s maternal response to those needs, especially coming from her littlest children.
O Holy Mary by John Henry Newman
Sub tuum praesidium
Litany of the Immaculate Heart of Mary or
Litany of Loreto or
at least one decade of the Rosary or
Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary
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