WORD 2day: 28th June, 2014

Remembering the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Lam 2: 2, 10-14, 18-19; Lk 2: 41-51

Following the Sacred Heart, we remember the Immaculate Heart - so fitting and meaningful a tradition! The Heart of Mary, immaculate originally by the grace of God, but manifests more than that the total dedication to God and the role God has to play in the salvation history of human kind.

The heart of Mary gives us three lessons to live by.

1. The heart was pierced by sorrows as Simeon predicted. The first reading gives us a picture of the lamenting daughter of Sion and Mary is prefigured in this imagery. But no matter how much it was pierced and hurt and tortured, the heart always glowed for the love of God and the fulfillment of God's will.

2. The heart of Mary was absolutely open to the working of the Spirit and it was at the beck and call of the Word. We see this right from the moment she heard the greeting from the angel. Openness to the Spirit is a matter of the heart and Mary exemplifies it to the utmost.

3. The heart of Our Blessed Mother was filled with 'God-thoughts' and that was because she kept everything that was happening in her life in her heart and pondered over them. She recognised, acknowledged and accepted interventions of God in her life, and found herself being moved and animated by the Lord, the Lord's Word and the Lord's Spirit.

Imitating Mary, let us open our hearts to God, glow for God and allow ourselves to be guided by the Lord and we will experience strongly the presence of the Lord in our hearts.

மனுவுருவான அன்பு

Celebrating Love made Flesh

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Dt 7: 6-11; 1 Jn 4: 7-16; Mt 11: 25-30

Today we celebrate the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the fount of love, the most symbolic expression of our relationship with God. The great devotion that we have for the Sacred Heart, has come from and passed through immense experience of God's love in a concrete manner. Sr. Margaret Mary Alacoque was chosen as the champion and apostle for this devotion and today we have a treasure in its form, to reflect upon, to learn from, and to attach ourselves to.

The Sacred Heart symbolises...

1. The Covenant: God's initiative in love towards humanity, towards you and me. The heart reminds us of the covenant we have with the Lord - to belong to the Lord, to be people of the Lord! (First Reading)

2. The Compassion: God's continued relationship filled with compassion towards us. The compassion which calls us to 'come and rest'; the wounded, scarred, pierced heart, offers to heal, soothe and fill our hearts. (Gospel Reading)

3. The Commitment: God's invitation to imitate the total, self giving love of God. Loving one another is a commitment, not merely a sentiment or a wishful feeling. It is a concrete commitment towards the over-all well being of each other. Only when we love are we born of God's love, if not our very sonship or daughtership in relation to God becomes null and void. (Second Reading)

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, fill us with the same love that your heart burns with - Amen.