FEAST OF THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Blessed is the Virgin Mary,
who treasured the word of God
and pondered it in her heart. LK 2:1

ISAIAH 61:9-11

My Soul’s Beloved, 

We are the children of Mary, Your Mother, and ours. You gave her to us with Your dying breath, the last of all Your treasures You gave to us, and we have taken her home. She abides in the Church that was born from Your open side and pierced Heart, and she abides in the hearts of her children who have taken her home and given her a place of honour not only in it but in our hearts as well. 

Because we are children of Mary as we are children of the Father, and as Your sisters and brothers, we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nations. The one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is Your Bride, just as Mary is the spouse of the Holy Spirit. Unlike us though she is pure and chaste. But even though we are wrinkled and stained we are still Yours, just as we are hers. She, the mediatrix of all graces intercedes for us before You night and day for she cannot bear to lose any of her little ones whom You have entrusted to her intercession and love. 

Mary is the Woman who is extolled in the Word of God. Every holy woman in the Bible is a pale foreshadowing of the Woman clothed with the Sun. She recognizes her nothingness before God. She knows she is but a creature. But she is also aware of what God has done for her and she exults with joy and praise at the extravagance of God’s love for her whom all generations will call blessed.

‘I exult for joy in the Lord,
my soul rejoices in my God,
for he has clothed me in the garments of salvation,
he has wrapped me in the cloak of integrity,
like a bridegroom wearing his wreath,
like a bride adorned in her jewels.
‘For as the earth makes fresh things grow,
as a garden makes seeds spring up,
so will the Lord make both integrity and praise
spring up in the sight of the nations.’ 

All her children from one generation to the next of every race, in every nations will sing her praises and glorify God for the wonders that He wrought through her fiat. ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord, may it be done to me according to His Word.’ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Alleluia!

1 SAMUEL 2:1,4-8

My heart exults in the Lord.
I find my strength in my God;
my mouth laughs at my enemies
as I rejoice in your saving help.

The bows of the mighty are broken,
but the weak are clothed with strength.
Those with plenty must labour for bread,
but the hungry need work no more.
The childless wife has children now
but the fruitful wife bears no more.

It is the Lord who gives life and death,
he brings men to the grave and back;
it is the Lord who gives poverty and riches.
He brings men low and raises them on high.

He lifts up the lowly from the dust,
from the dungheap he raises the poor
to set him in the company of princes
to give him a glorious throne.
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s,
on them he has set the world.

My heart exults in the Lord my Saviour.

LUKE 2:41-51

My Soul’s Beloved, 

This incident narrated by the evangelist St. Luke, would have been told to him by none other than Your Mother. St. Joseph was dead by that time and Mother was the only one who could have told it to him and she did so with poignant detail. 

This journey to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover, when You were twelve years old, the discovery after a day’s journey that You were not among the group of relatives and friends who were returning home from Jerusalem to look for You is also the journey of our Christian life.

Each day from the moment the Holy Family sets out to Jerusalem until their return represents our entire life. We are busy and occupied every minute of our lives with the business of fulfilling all the demands made on us. We take most things, especially the really important things, for granted. It becomes a habit. We go to Church, pray the daily devotions, and try to live as best we can in the secular world full of temptations and often succumbing to its wiles. And then suddenly we find that God is no longer present with us. We have left You behind without even realizing it. We take Your abiding Presence in us and Your love for granted. Suddenly, after years of complacency, we discover our loss and make a frantic search for You. You are not in our usual activities, not among the people we know, and so with great sorrow, with broken hearts frantic with anxiety, we retrace our steps. We begin to examine our lives every step of the way and we begin to understand that without You there is neither meaning nor purpose for our lives. 

After three days, Mary and Joseph found You in the temple.

After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’ He said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. 

One can only imagine the surge of relief in the hearts of Mary and Joseph when they found You after three agonizing days of looking for You. 

So it is with us, Beloved, through the years we become unaware that You are no longer with us. We lose You in the busyness of our lives and then we suddenly realize that we have lost You and we do not even know how or when we did. We look for You frantically everywhere we make retreats, join different spiritual groups, and go on pilgrimages. You are in none of these and then suddenly when it seems we have exhausted every avenue, and we are quiet and still we find You in the temple of our heart, in the sanctuary of our being, in our soul. You O Lord, are always with us. It is we who lose sight of You. Like Mary, may we treasure and ponder the miracle of You in our hearts and in our lives every day we are alive until You take us home to be with You and those whom we have loved in this life, eternally.