Funny, I should post on the Immaculate Heart of Mary but not the
Sacred Heart of Jesus! Anyway, in Luke we read the story of Joseph
and Mary returning to Jerusalem after Passover to look for the missing
Jesus. They find him with the
teachers. When they approach him he tells
Mary and Joseph “Why were you looking
for me? Did you not know I must be in my
Father’s house?” (Lk. 4:49 NAB)
Luke tells us that Joseph and Mary “did not understand what
he said to them,” but that Mary held these things in her heart. Parents who have struggled with their
children will get this. When our
children’s hidden disabilities emerge, or when they are severely injured, or
perhaps get addicted to drugs or alcohol, or at the very worst, die, we hold these things in our
hearts and struggle with them. We
struggle with our purpose, we struggle with life, and we struggle with
God. It is at times like these that
theological explanations often fall short.
It is in times like these that our pure faith…our pure love and trust in
God, the God who loves us…is what will cause us to both carry on and carry
through what life has dealt us. Mary,
our example of the pure loving response to the loving Father, shows us exactly
this response in this story. We do not
know, we do not understand, yet we respond with love.
I joked a bit about not posting yesterday. However, I did have a homily for the day, and
I pointed out that the heart is our symbol of love, from heart-shaped candy
boxes to the “I Heart…” bumper stickers.
The heart represents love. The Sacred Heart is the ultimate
representation of the ultimate love, the complete and total love the Father has
for us that we see in Christ on the Cross and Christ Risen. Today, we see the human response, the love
of the human heart from the one whose Immaculate Heart shows us more than any other what it means
to respond to the Sacred Love we are given.
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