Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - In this month of June love for the Sacred Heart of Jesus is especially visible since this is the month of this special devotion. Looking at the Heart of Jesus we encounter immediately next to It, indeed within It, the Heart of His Mother Mary which beats in unison with the Heart of her Son.
The blood which flows through the Heart of Jesus comes entirely from that of Mary, the fibres of her Immaculate Heart nurtured the Most Holy Humanity of Christ which, in the Heart, is particularly signified. This is why the Heart of the Mother is in Heaven with her Son; it is the only Heart Christ took with him, the one and only one!
We tend to forget that Mary was assumed into heaven body and soul: this is a dogma of faith pronounced by Pius XII, 1° November 1950. This means the heart of flesh of Mary is in glory, entirely transfigured and similar to that of her Son. On earth He took on her human traits, She in heaven received from the Son the traits of glory typical of Him: like Him she too is in Heaven with her body! In the liturgical calendar the memory of the Immaculate Heart of Mary follows the solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus: one Heart calls the other, one Heart follows the other.
It is good to contemplate the mystery of Mary in the mystery of the Son and vice versa; in this way Marian devotion is not something on its own, it is lived as part of love for Jesus who on the Cross gave us Mary as our Mother. Numerous teachings of John Paul II in his long pontificate brought us forward on this path in the wake of Vatican II.
Precisely the Totus tuus of the Servant of God - as Pope Benedict XVI recalled a year after his death - “summarises this spiritual and mystical experience, in a life totally oriented to Christ through Mary: "ad Iesum per Mariam" (homily 3 April 2006).
Being oriented to Christ through Mary means the Christian lives fully the relationship with the Church, which is the mystical Body of Christ and therefore the daughter of Mary. The title “Mother of the Church”, proclaimed by Paul VI, further illuminates this mystery of grace.
In this context we find the words of Pope Benedict XVI on the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary; contemplating the mystery of Mary within the mystery of Christ and the Church the Pope said: “The Mother of the Head is also the Mother of all the Church; she is, so to speak, totally emptied of herself; she has given herself entirely to Christ and with him is given as a gift to us all. Indeed, the more the human person gives himself, the more he finds himself. The Council intended to tell us this: Mary is so interwoven in the great mystery of the Church that she and the Church are inseparable, just as she and Christ are inseparable.” (homily 8 December 2005).
So at the school of the Supreme Pontiffs we are reminded that love for Christ, Mary and Peter is for the Christian an inseparable love which lives and grows in the truth of the Gospel, in sacramental life, in prayer and in charity to others ! (Agenzia Fides 21/6/2006 - righe 37, parole 563)
