Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

This memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary celebrates Mary as one whose heart is given over completely to God’s will and purpose for her life. The Sacred Heart of Jesus reveals God’s unconditional love for us all. Mary’s immaculate heart reveals her total love for God, with all her heart, mind, soul and strength. At the end of today’s second reading, Saint Paul says that God ‘made the sinless one (Jesus) into sin, so that in him we might become the goodness of God’. Because Mary’s heart was given over to God, her life reveals the goodness of God in a special way. The Holy Spirit is at work in all of our lives helping us to become the goodness of God. We only fully become the goodness of God in eternity, but here and now the Spirit is helping us to keep growing more fully into the goodness of God. On this journey of growth into God’s goodness, we can look to Mary for prayerful support, asking her to pray for us, sinners, now, as well as at the hour of our death. To speak of God’s goodness is really to speak of God’s love. We understand a good person to be a loving person. Becoming the goodness of God means becoming as loving as God is loving. Mary’s life revealed God’s goodness, God’s love, in a special way. In today’s gospel reading, her love for Jesus finds expression in her willingness to let Jesus go to God’ purpose for his life. When her young son said that he must be about his Father’s business, herself and Joseph didn’t understand what he meant. Mary, we are told, ‘stored up all these things in her heart’. She didn’t understand what was going on in her son’s life, but because she loved him so deeply, she let him be, allowing him to be true to his deepest self, his calling from his heavenly Father. This is how the goodness and love of God often shows itself in our lives too. It shows itself in our willingness to allow others to be true to their deepest nature and calling.