Today the Church celebrates the Immaculate Heart of Mary. To non-Catholics, and even to some Catholics, these titles may seem odd. They certainly are not in the Bible. But I would argue that they are rational, logical extensions of what is in the Bible.
Even if we stick to precisely what is in the Bible, have as a starting point the annunciation, the moment when the angel spoke to Mary. How must this moment have completely transformed her understanding of the world and her place in it?
In today's gospel we have the finding in the temple, when Jesus at a mere 12 years of age proclaimed
Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?
And the scriptures go on to tell us that even though she could not fully comprend the meaning
his mother kept all these things in her heart.
How full must that heart have been with things she could only ponder and try,in some small way, to comprehend. How full that heart must have been with the love of God. And when she watched her only son die on the cross how full that heart must have been with sorrow.
Does the Bible use the phrase immaculate heart of Mary? No. But can one reasonable believe that hers was a heart fixed solely on the understanding and doing the will of God? It seems to me that the answer is an unequivocal yes. Her heart remains forever the model for every human heart. She remains the absolute model of single-hearted devotion to doing the will of God.
Today every Christian is invited to look into our own hearts and ask if we too are ready to allow our hearts to be cleansed of every desire that might separate us from God, and be filled with the courage to utter those most powerful and awesome words
Let it be done unto me according to thy word.
