The Immaculate Heart of Mary: Part I

THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

 

St. Valentine’s Day (February’ 14) is a day for exchanging gifts and tokens of love.

Pages of local and national newspapers are given over to such messages. One particularly stays in the memory; “The disease that’s killing me hurts most on February 14. I can’t hug her. I can’t kiss her. Moreover, I can’t say I love her. But I do, ’till death us do part”.  This was an appeal for help to treat motor-neuron disease.

Looking at such a sufferer no doubt one would be struck by the crippled body and see little else. Yet the inner reality is incomparably richer than anything seen. ‘I can’t hug . . . kiss . . . say I love her, but I do ’till death . . . ‘ is the heart of someone who loves and longs though unable to express this by raising so much as an eyelid. Unable to express love conventionally,
still love and longing express his being and identity. One would not patronize such a sufferer unable to express love, but ‘the disease is killing me’ literally makes the point that the heart is the heart of the matter. Appearances when not positively misleading may say little or nothing when the heart is worn on the sleeve, In everyday speech, the heart speaks of all that is deepest in a person. Only at that level is personal contact genuinely made.

The inarticulate may love beyond the limits of their vocabulary. The genuineness of love is not measured (in the English language) on a sliding scale from Shakespeare to the possibly misspelt doggerel verse on a St. Valentine’s Day card. The clichés of so many love songs, whether operatic arias or Tin Pan Alley, are never such when the expression is heartfelt. Again, appearances can blind us to the underlying reality.

LOVE IS ONLY UNDERSTOOD WHEN THE HEART IS ENGAGED

Behavior too as an expression of love is only understood when the heart is engaged. A young man went up to a young woman alone at a dance and put some peanuts into her hand. ‘I wish they were emeralds!’ he said. Years later, after military service abroad, he came home to the same woman long-since his wife, and put some emeralds into her hand. ‘I wish they were peanuts!’ he said. This is the private, intimate, essentially particular and personal language of love. The heart expresses itself in a private code.

To share any insight into the nature of love given or received, therefore, the heart matters most. Cor ad cor loquitur. (The heart speaks to the heart). Insight not eye-sight reveals reality. Attempting to glimpse the immaculate heart of Mary, perhaps our being born into the human race and baptized into the Christian community gives us enough insight to make a start, though well aware that in approaching such holy ground we first take off our shoes.

Surely it is worth making the attempt. Julian of Norwich, for example, speaks for so many over the centuries of Christ’s heartfelt delight in his mother and his desire to share her with us. “He (Jesus) wills it to be known that all who delight in him should delight in her too, with the same delight he has in her and she in him”. (Revelations of Divine Love, 25). Others, of course, do not see this. Wilfrid Sheed was puzzled that his father, Frank, “loved the Blessed Virgin,” whereas he personally could not see what is there to love.

HOW I LOVE . . .

In view of this mixed experience (though over the Christian centuries there is little doubt where the balance lies) it may be best to begin with Our Lady’s own environment which first nourished and shaped her heart. A few stanzas from Psalm 118: 97-104 may offer a way in.

Lord, how I love your Law
It is ever on my mind.
Your command makes me wiser then my foes,
For it is mine forever.
I have more insight than all
who teach me
for I ponder your will
I have more understanding than the old
for I keep your precepts.
I turn my feet from evil paths
to obey your word.
I have not turned from your decrees;
you yourself have taught me.
Your promise is sweeter to my taste
than honey in the mouth.
I pain understanding from your precepts,
I hate the ways of falsehood.

. . . YOUR LAW

These few lines from the longest psalm in the psalter reflect the best insights in Israel. Clearly, such prayer is not far from the kingdom of heaven (See Mk. 12:32-34), as already the psalmist has entered the world of the new covenant. There the Law, far from being an external norm carved in letters of stone, is lodged firmly in the heart. “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when . . . I will put my law within them . . . write it upon their hearts for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest”. (Jer. 31. 31-34). This is assimilated insight, made one’s own through living. He savors what he has been given. It is heartfelt. The inspired perception of the psalmist, clearly blessed among his peers, may help illumine the heart of Mary “blessed among women”. (Lk. 1:28).

The note which sustains the longest psalm in the psalter by far, is immediately struck. “Lord, how I love your Law”!  The revelation of God has registered, and progressively shapes his understanding of God and life as “it is ever on my mind”.  Such is his delight in possessing what possesses him, that his heart locks in on the reality that he knows “is mine forever.”

GRACED HEART . . .

The graced heart of Our Lady too would so easily echo to the Law, “ever in my mind . . . for it is mine forever”.  Words, initially learned by heart, in time are lodged in the heart, as the wonder of what they imply is received in growing awareness of the creative presence of God. The Law was given as an expression of God’s love who had brought the community into being “on eagles’ wings”.  The people created and gripped by this, logically worshipped God, “enthroned on the praises of Israel”.  Our Lady would make that tradition her own, hearing such words from the heart of the tradition through assimilated faith. “My soul magnifies . . . and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior . . . holy is his name” (Lk. 1:46-49).

So it is that ‘your command makes me wiser . . . ,’ as must be the case for anyone willingly trying to live within the mainstream of the will of God. Life, no matter how it comes, will be enriched with insight when seen through that perspective. ‘Peanuts’ are changed into ‘emeralds’ as the assimilating heart transforms the currency of everyday living into the underlying reality of God’s presence.

. . . OF OUR LADY

It is surely such an insight which evokes the heartfelt response.  “I am the Lord’s slave. Let it be done to me according to your word”. (Lk. 1:38). This is spoken from the heart of the new covenant. Prophets and kings longed to hear what Mary heard . . . see what she saw . . . when told “you will conceive . . . and bear a son . . . great . . . called Son of the Most High . . . the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David . . . reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end”. (Lk. 1:31-33). This and more is implied in the unconditional offering of herself in whole-hearted acceptance of the will of God. The fulness of her heart will express itself through her body and unbelievably enrich humanity, as the assimilated Word becomes flesh in her.

So “the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Lk. 1:35). The Word first lodges in her heart, therefore, without ever leaving God, which argues a personal exchange of unquantifiable intimacy. She is whole-heartedly engaged on behalf of us all.

I PONDER YOUR WILL

“How shall this be … “? (Lk. 1.34) is our question as well as Our Lady’s. If we stay at the level of appearances seeing what we know – a Galilean girl, historically conditioned by life in rural Palestine so many years ago, we may never understand. just as by only attending to the crippled body of the motor- neuron sufferer, we could not begin to glimpse the underlying reality of love and longing, so with Our Lady. A one-dimensional perspective cannot speak to her heart. No one, least of all Our Lady, graced by a call to live from the heart of the new covenant, is ever understood without a positive recognition of the place of the Holy Spirit. Within this light only is the pattern glimpsed.

So, in an exchange initiated by God – “the angel Gabriel was sent from God to . . . Mary . . . Hail, O favored one . . . “ (Lk. I.26-27) – Mary’s question and ours is answered by inviting us to attend to “The Holy Spirit (who) will come upon you, and the power of the Most High (who) will overshadow you; therefore …”.  (Lk. 1:35). Here lies the source of insight. Enlightened by and therefore alert to the creative Spirit of God, while living in faith, one can see.

HERE LIES THE SOURCE OF INSIGHT

This same creative Spirit had called Israel into being and guided and formed the community for centuries. The ever-deepening, life- giving river Ezekiel saw flowing from its source in the Temple has reached Mary – “so everything will live where the river goes“.  (Ezek. 47:9). From the mainstream of that current she would absorb so much. “I have more insight than all who teach me for I ponder your will”.  Reflective contemplation expressed in wonder and worship leads to insight. Here Mary, as the Gospel reveals her, is at one with the psalmist. “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart and his mother kept all these things in her heart” (Lk. 2: 19, 51).

It is such insight that separates us one from another and, we may believe, helps give Our Lady her unique place in Christ. A. J. Heschel, reflecting on the prophetic gift of insight, can help us deepen our insight into Mary’s heart, graced by such a gift. Always, he says in a truly revelatory distinction, we should try to know what we see not just see what we know. The motor- neuron sufferer is perhaps seen primarily from what are assumed to be the limits of a handicapped body.

SEE WHAT IS THERE . . .

We see what we know. Whereas if we really knew what we saw, unsuspected depths would open to us enabling us literally to ‘see,’ and so empathize at a correspondingly personal level. Heart could speak to heart even if a word was not exchanged. The Spirit-created reflective heart of Mary, as glimpsed in the Gospel, reflects that reality.

We may be additionally inhibited from knowing what we see if we are victims of ‘chronological snobbery.’ We assume as self-evident that contemporary insights are superior to those of earlier times. It may be that the limitations of our own environment – partial faith, less than whole-hearted commitment, insensitivity to the Spirit – may leave us ill-equipped to see what is really there. Lacking insight we cannot see. We must dig deeper than archeology to habitually know what is really there in the heart of a person.

. . . WHEN GRACED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT

Yet again, therefore, Our Lady echoes the psalmist – “I have more understanding than the old for I keep your precepts”.  She accepted life from God, “according to your word” (Lk. 1:38), later advising the same implicit trust in her Son – “Do whatever he tells you“ (Jn. 2:5). The psalmist’s insight is further confirmed when the exemplary old people found in Our Lady’s company, are able to see what is there when graced by the Holy Spirit. The possibly failing eyesight of the elderly is more than replaced by the insight given by the Spirit. Elizabeth, for example, who “in her old age has . . . conceived a son,” responded as she did to Our Lady’s voice – “the babe in my womb leaped for joy“ – because, “when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary . . . Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit”. (Lk. 1:36, 41, 44).

Later, Simeon can die in peace having seen in the child in Mary’s arms, “salvation . . . light for revelation to the gentiles, and for the glory of . . . Israel”.  (Lk. 2:30-32). This insight was only possible the Gospel insists because “the Holy Spirit was upon him . . . revealed to him by the Holy Spirit . . . inspired by the Spirit”. (Lk. 2:25-27). Elizabeth and Simeon saw because they were graced by the same presence that overshadowed Our Lady. The insight to be able to know what we see is in the Spirit’s gift.

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Our Lady was immaculately conceived. Here we are wholly out of our depth. We have no experience of such clarity. Marked by sin, inevitably we fall short of God’s glory. We just do not see. Momentarily perhaps, we glimpse what such light might mean – “I turn my feet from evil paths to obey your word” – but it is never ours as an intuitive, permanent possession. Rather, as A.J. Heschel suggests interpreting the prophetic tradition, do we sit too easily with evil, unlike the prophets. As therefore, we rarely know what we see, our hearts lack a focus on the will of God.

The need, as our psalmist saw, is for God’s creative word to lodge in our hearts – permanently. “I have sought you with all my heart: let me not stray. I treasure your promise in my heart lest I sin against you”.  Mary is what he so wants to be. Preserved from sin through her Son – “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord”.  (Lk. 2:11). Her heart is therefore so alive to God that, “whether you turn to right or left your ears will hear these words behind you, ‘This is the way, follow it’ ”.  (Is. 30:21). What matters is assimilated knowledge forming the heart and reflected in everyday living.

We can only wonder at the interchange between Our Lady and her God – “The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Ex. 33: 11) – but the Gospel does give a hint of what her gift meant to people around her. When told of Elizabeth’s marvelous news, “Mary arose and went with haste” (Lk. 1:39) to be with her.

SPIRIT GRACED . . .

There, their hearts went out to each other in spirit- graced insight. Later, taking her own child to the Temple, “his . . . mother marveled at what was said about him” (Lk. 2:33), although told that her son – “a sign that is spoken against“ (Lk. 2:34) –  might break her heart too. Her heart went out to her ‘lost’ Son and worried husband on the bitter-sweet occasion when “after three days they found him in the Temple . . . Son why have you treated us so . . . your father and I have been looking for you anxiously”? (Lk. 2:46-48). How she felt for them both.

Similarly in the Fourth Gospel, the mother of Jesus present at a wedding party in Cana notices that “They have no wine” (Jn. 2: 10).  Feeling for the people there she brings her concern to her Son. “You have kept the good wine until now” (Jn. 2: 10) was the verdict on her blessed intervention. The hint that “My hour has not yet come” (Jn. 2:4) with its undercurrent of worry, is fully realized at the Cross where, “standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother . . . Mary Magdalene.

. . . INSIGHT

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman behold your son!’ ”.  (Jn. 19:25- 26). Already standing there crucified with her son, what does this mean? Her maternal heart is invited to open yet wider. Our last glimpse of her is precisely that among the regrouped apostles and disciples prior to Pentecost, who “with one accord devoted themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus”. (Acts 1:14).

In all of this is a consistency of behavior that is tender and human and yet much more. Literally open- hearted, alert to the lives of others in good and bad times, she is even asked to see “the disciple whom Jesus loved” as her son when surely she thought she had no more to give. She gave with the clarity of the sinless living by faith, reflecting to others what she sees of God in Christ. Her voice and person carried so much of what was in her heart. In view of what she sees, her integrity translates ‘peanuts’ into ‘emeralds.’

 

(To Be Continued: Part II May Be Found Here)