Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary 2022

Title

Immaculate Heartbreak

Outline

Many people see God, Jesus, and Mary as impassive as a statue

Like a gray statue of Mary in a garden or church, often with a blank look on her face

Like a corpus of Jesus on a crucifix, unresponsive, dead

Like God at those times when the heavens are brass and your prayers seem to bounce off

But while those may be how we feel or the best way to make an image, we are reminded that neither God nor Mary are like such popular images.

In the gospel we see a caring Mary and a characteristic Mary

She and Joseph notice that Jesus is missing

He was old enough to be on his own with friends and relatives

But at mealtime he is missing - it turns out he was never with the company in the first place

They rush back to Jerusalem and search

They did not say, He is God’s youth - God, take care of him

No, perhaps starting in the evening, perhaps only early the next morning they push on uphill to Jerusalem and then retrace where they had been in the city and where they think he may have gone

The immaculate heart of Mary is always searching for Jesus; she will not let him get far away again

They find him where they do not expect, in the Temple, for he was no rabbi nor even in rabbinic school. Mary expresses the fact that they do not understand why he had stayed and why he was there. The immaculate heart of Mary is finite. She probably did not understand why as she stood by the cross either. But the truth here is to follow Mary and she will lead you to Jesus

Jesus explains, although they will not get it for some time: “I must be in my Father’s house.” He was spending time with his Father, time in his Father’s house, and had drawn them into his Father’s house. And that is where we will eventually leave Mary, in a house where the body of Christ meets, a local part of the new Temple. She will not stray far from where he is.

They went back home and life went on, but life, I am sure, was never the same, even if Jesus was working with Joseph every day.

Turn back to Lamentations and see Mary as the daughter of Zion

Now we see her in her heavenly role, looking over her children, very much as in Revelation 12.

They children are not in good shape, but she is not scolding, she is mourning. She cradles some in her arms even when they are dying. She sorrows over those who misled her people. And her cry goes up to God as she and the prophet are one, and their mourning is also the mourning of God.

Surely there are some that she saves, some that she nurtures, some over which she can only lament, as she surely did at the cross.

Here we see Mary as the universal Mother of the Church - it is her children who suffer, who are scattered, who flee and fall. This is not the impassive statue or the Stoic mother, but the immaculate heart.

Sisters, this is the heart of Mary we celebrate today.

We can stand before the statue, but our thoughts and prayers go to her heart.

It is immaculate, so she will always lead us to Jesus. “Come, she says, we will find him. Oh, there he is, in his Father’s house. The Father is waiting for you too.”

It is indeed a heart, a caring place. She is one with the Father and the Son so she cares like God does. She sees the lost one, she sees the one fleeing, she sees the wounded one. She sheds heaven’s tears and heaves her sighs up to her Son and his Father. They are the Spirit’s groaning, too deep for words. And the Father hears, for she is, as we will be, one with them.

We celebrate the immaculate heart of Mary, as it was on earth and as it is in heaven.

Readings

Catholic Daily Readings 6-25-2022: Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary

FIRST READING

Lamentations 2:2, 10–14, 18–19

2 The Lord has devoured without pity

all of Jacob’s dwellings;

In his fury he has razed

daughter Judah’s defenses,

Has brought to the ground in dishonor

a kingdom and its princes.

10 The elders of daughter Zion

sit silently on the ground;

They cast dust on their heads

and dress in sackcloth;

The young women of Jerusalem

bow their heads to the ground.

11 My eyes are spent with tears,

my stomach churns;

My bile is poured out on the ground

at the brokenness of the daughter of my people,

As children and infants collapse

in the streets of the town.

12 They cry out to their mothers,

“Where is bread and wine?”

As they faint away like the wounded

in the streets of the city,

As their life is poured out

in their mothers’ arms.

13 To what can I compare you—to what can I liken you—

O daughter Jerusalem?

What example can I give in order to comfort you,

virgin daughter Zion?

For your breach is vast as the sea;

who could heal you?

14 Your prophets provided you visions

of whitewashed illusion;

They did not lay bare your guilt,

in order to restore your fortunes;

They saw for you only oracles

of empty deceit.

18 Cry out to the Lord from your heart,

wall of daughter Zion!

Let your tears flow like a torrent

day and night;

Give yourself no rest,

no relief for your eyes.

19 Rise up! Wail in the night,

at the start of every watch;

Pour out your heart like water

before the Lord;

Lift up your hands to him

for the lives of your children,

Who collapse from hunger

at the corner of every street.

Catholic Daily Readings 6-25-2022: Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary

RESPONSE

Psalm 74:19b

19 Do not surrender to wild animals those who praise you;

do not forget forever the life of your afflicted.

PSALM

Psalm 74:1b–7, 20–21

1 A maskil of Asaph.

Why, God, have you cast us off forever?

Why does your anger burn against the sheep of your pasture?

2 Remember your people, whom you acquired of old,

the tribe you redeemed as your own heritage,

Mount Zion where you dwell.

3 Direct your steps toward the utter destruction,

everything the enemy laid waste in the sanctuary.

4 Your foes roared triumphantly in the place of your assembly;

they set up their own tokens of victory.

5 They hacked away like a forester gathering boughs,

swinging his ax in a thicket of trees.

6 They smashed all its engraved work,

struck it with ax and pick.

7 They set your sanctuary on fire,

profaned your name’s abode by razing it to the ground.

20 Look to your covenant,

for the recesses of the land

are full of the haunts of violence.

21 Let not the oppressed turn back in shame;

may the poor and needy praise your name.

Catholic Daily Readings 6-25-2022: Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION

(Proper)

Luke 2:19

19 And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.

GOSPEL

(Proper)

Luke 2:41–51

41 Each year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, 42 and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. 43 After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. 44 Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, 45 but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, 47 and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” 49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he said to them. 51 He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.

Notes

Catholic Daily Readings 6-25-2022: Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary

SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2022 | MEMORIAL

IMMACULATE HEART OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Saturday following the second Sunday after Pentecost. The Gospel for this memorial is proper.

YEARS 1 & 2 | ROMAN MISSAL | LECTIONARY

From Saturday of the 12th Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading Lamentations 2:2, 10–14, 18–19

Response Psalm 74:19b

Psalm Psalm 74:1b–7, 20–21

Gospel Acclamation Luke 2:19 (Proper)

Gospel Luke 2:41–51 (Proper)

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