Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
“Every year his parents used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up for the feast as usual. When the days of the feast were over and they set off home, the but Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing it.”
In her mystery of humility, Mary disappears behind the other person, behind Jesus.She never stops marveling at him.’ How is it that the mother of my Saviour came as far as me?’ - such are the words she hears from the mouth of her cousin Elizabeth.“Blessed are you, my daughter, by the Most High, amongst all women on earth, and blessed is the Lord who created Heaven and earth and who led you to strike at the head of the chief enemy. The hope you showed will never be wiped away from mankind’s memory but they will remember for always the Word that comes from God!”In the New Testament we see that Mary’s faith “draws to her”, so to speak, the gift of God, the Holy Spirit, most of all in the conception of the Son of God. This is a mystery that the Archangel Gabriel himself explained in this way : ’The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will take you under its wing.“(Lk 1, 35). Mary’s heart, in perfect harmony with the Divine Son, is the temple of the Holy Spirit of Truth(Jn. 14, 17. In it each word and each event are conserved in faith, in hope and in love, says Benedict 16th.”They assumed he was somewhere in the party, and it was only after a day’s journey that they went to look for him among their relations and acquaintances.When they failed to find him they went back to Jerusalem looking for him everywhere. It happened that, three days later, they found him in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them, and asking them questions; and all those who heard him were astounded at his intelligence and his replies.“In her anguish, Mary shows the poverty of her existence. She doesn’t understand what is happening to her, she needs light. She situates herself before the doctors of the Law and how they marvel by surrendering herself to God. Mary teaches us how to suffer whilst trusting. She had always followed the Lamb wherever he went.Mary teaches it to us, it is the mystery of her Immaculate Heart that is also, during the whole of a home that was ardent in constant prayer and attention to the Holy Spirit. What happened at the wedding feast of Cana bears witness to this particular harmony between mother and son so as to seek God’s will. In a situation loaded with symbols of the covenant, such as the nuptial banquet, Our Blessed Lady intercedes and provokes, so to speak, a sign of abundant graces’. The good wine’ sends us back to the mystery of the Blood of Jesus. That leads us directly to Calvary where Mary stands at the foot of the Cross with the other women and the apostle John. The mother and the disciple gather the last testament and his final breath, in which he begins to spread his Spirit and they gather the silent cry of his Blood, poured out completely for us. Mary knew where this blood came from : it had been formed in her by the operation of the Holy Spirit and she knew that this same creative power was going to bring Jesus back to life, as her son Jesus had promised.”They were overcome when they saw him, and his mother said to him, ’My child, why have you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been, looking for you. he replied, ’why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house? But they did not understand what he meant.“He went down with them and then and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority.”
Mary learns a new pathway to trust! She is the first person whose heart beat at the same rhythm as God’s! The Heart of the tiny little Jesus first formed in her flesh, is the receptacle of the Gift that she herself makes to God. It is at the Cross that this mystery will be revealed, the finding of Jesus in the temple had already announced this to us. This Heart that we celebrate the day after that of the Sacred Heart of Jesus beats in echo to Jesus’ Heart. It must become our own heart!
But for this to happen, how many trials do we have to got through! All events in our lives, happy or sorrowful, are at the school of Mary. Our heart needs to become more tender and to encompass as much as it can those threes days that seem to never end and already announce Jesus’ Passion.