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(28th June 2025) Homily for the Feast of Immaculate Heart of Mary

READ: (Isa 61: 9-11; Lk 2: 41-51)

REFLECT:

Dear friends, today we celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Marian feast is celebrated immediately the following day after the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. The history of Catholic Church holds a view that after the apparitions of our Lady of Fatima, the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was instituted by Pope Pius XII in 1944 for the universal Church and this Marian feast was initially celebrated on August 22nd but later it was moved to the next day after the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

We trace back the Devotion to Mary’s immaculate Heart we find the manifestation of the Miraculous Medal to St. Catherine Laboure in 1830 and the Appearances of Our Lady in Fatima. It was on May 13 to October 13, 1917, our Blessed Mother Mary appeared to three children, Jacinta, Francisco Marto and their cousin Lucia dos Santos in Fatima, Portugal. On July 13 she conveyed a message: “to save poor sinners, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” The entire Fatima message is one of prayer, penance and making sacrifices and reparation to God for the many offences against Him.

The feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary refers to the interior life of Blessed Virgin Mary, her love and compassion for entire humankind.

the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a devotional name used to refer to the interior life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, her joys and sorrows, her virtues and perfections, her love for God, and her Divine Son and her compassionate love for mankind.

·   Salvation of our own soul. To all those who, on the First Saturday of five consecutive months … ...

·   Salvation of sinners. So numerous are the souls which the justice of God condemns for sins committed against Me that I come to ask for reparation. ...

·   Peace in the world.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary signifies, first of all, the great purity and love of the heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary for God. This purity is manifested in her “Yes” to the Father at the Incarnation, Her love for, and cooperation with, the Incarnate Son in His redemptive mission, and her docility to the Holy Spirit, enabling her to remain free of the stain of personal sin throughout her life. Mary’s Immaculate Heart, therefore, points us to her profound interior life, where she experienced both joys and sorrows, yet remained faithful, as we, too, are called to do. In 2023, we celebrate the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on June 17.

The Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a devotional name used to refer to the interior life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, her joys and sorrows, her virtues and hidden perfections, and above all, her virginal love for God the Father, her maternal love for her son Jesus, and her compassionate love for all persons.

The image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary with the pierced heart is the most popular representation.  St. John’s Gospel further invites us to the attention of Mary’s heart with its depiction of Mary at the foot of the cross at Jesus’ crucifixion.  St. Augustine tells us that Mary was more blessed in having born Christ in her heart, than in having conceived him in the flesh. 

Since then devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, has gradually grown more widespread in the Church, particularly since the apparitions at Fatima.

The love of her heart is meant to be a model for the way we should love God. The fact that her heart is immaculate, that is sinless, means that she is the only fully human person who is able to really love God in the way that he should be loved.

The aim of  the devotion is to unite mankind to God through Mary's heart, and this process involves the ideas of consecration and reparation. A person is consecrated to Mary's Immaculate Heart as a way of being completely devoted to God. This involves a total gift of self, something only ultimately possible with reference to God; but Mary is our intermediary in this process of consecration.

Because of the strong analogy between Jesus and Mary, the consecration to Mary's Immaculate Heart is closely linked to the consecration to Jesus' Sacred Heart, although it is subordinate and dependent on it. That is, although the act of consecration is ultimately addressed to God, it is an act that is made through Mary.

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is primarily based upon the Sacred Scriptures. In the New Testament, there are two references to the Heart of Mary in the Gospel according to St. Luke: “Mary treasured all these things and reflected on them in her heart. ” (Lk 2: 19) and ” His mother meanwhile kept all these things in her heart. ” (Lk 2:51)

A heart that rejoices:

A heart that cares:

A heart that treasures:

In his homily during the Lenten penance service, Pope Francis had said the Act of Consecration was “no magic formula but a spiritual act” of trust by “children who, amid the tribulation of this cruel and senseless war that threatens our world, turn to their mother, reposing all their fears and pain in her heart and abandoning themselves to her.”

“It means placing in that pure and undefiled heart, where God is mirrored, the inestimable goods of fraternity and peace, all that we have and are, so that she, the mother whom the Lord has given us, may protect us and watch over us,” the pope had said.

God bless us all…

Live Jesu