SATURDAY AFTER CORPUS CHRISTl
Fr. Leonard's summary came through listening at the Night Office Reading. The picture embraced both St. John Eudes and the Heart of Mary in thought and prayer.
In the 17th century St. John Eudes promoted devotion to the hearts of Jesus and Mary. He even composed an Office and Mass in honour of the Heart of Mary. It became a feast of the universal Church only in the 20th century and is celebrated on the day after the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The New Testament mentions Mary's heart only twice.
Luke 2:19 says: "Mary treasured all these things and reflected on them in her heart." Luke 2:51 has a similar text, though the New American Bible translates "heart" as "memory."
Both in Scripture and in later reflections on Mary's heart, it is obvious that the usage is symbolic. The physical heart stands for the inner reaches of the human personality. It includes or connotes the mind, the soul, the will, the spirit, the core of one's being. It. is the place where a person thinks, remembers, feels, desires, makes decisions.
Medieval saints such as Mechtilde, Gertrude and Bridget promoted devotion to the Heart of Mary. Franciscan and Jesuit theologians made their contributions. St. Francis de Sales dedicated his Treatise on the Love of God to Mary's heart. But it was St. John Eudes who wrote extensively about this theme. He says that the divine Word printed on Mary's heart a perfect likeness of the divine attributes and a share in the properties of each person of the Trinity.
Perhaps this devotion is coming into its own in the 20th century. It is a special theme of Fatima. In 1942 Pius XII consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and established the feast for the universal Church.
QUOTE: "We can say that the mystery of the redemption took shape beneath the heart of the Virgin of Nazareth when she pronounced her 'fiat. I From then on, under the special influence of the Holy Spirit, this heart, the heart of both a virgin and a mother, has always followed the work of her Son and has gone out to all those whom Christ has embraced and continues to embrace with inexhaustible love. For that reason her heart must have the inexhaustibility of a mother" (John Paul Il, Redeemer of Man, 22).
COMMENT? To honour Mary's heart is to honour her total dedication to God. As she pondered in her heart the mysteries of Jesus' infancy and childhood (Luke 2: 19, 51), she must have done the same for all the mysteries of his life, death and resurrection. This feast suggests that Mary is the greatest of the mystics-totally wrapped up in God and committed to God's will. Her spirituality
is a model for all the me(members of the Church.
