Homily For Saturday Tenth Week in Ordinary Time Year A, 17th June, 2023. The Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Reading: 2Cor. 5:14-21; Ps. 103; Luke 2:41-51

Rev.  Fr. Emmanuel Emenike  Onyia

 

 IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY A MODEL FOR ALL HEARTS

 

One of the most important organ of the human person is the heart, for the heart plays an important role in understanding the human body. The heart is the seat of intelligence, motion, and sensation, it is the three-chambered organ at the center of vitality in human body. Little wonder yesterday we celebrated the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Heart where we embrace God’s infinite love and mercy for humanity and His will for universal salvation. And today we are celebrating the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary the Mother of Jesus.

 

Hence, the liturgy today invites us to contemplate and venerate the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As we know the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a devotional name used to refer to the interior life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, her joys and sorrows, her virtues and hidden perfections, and, above all, her virginal love for God the Father, her maternal love for her son Jesus, and her compassionate love for humanity. Here we recall Mary’s great love for God, her faith and piety, her commitment to serve the Lord wholeheartedly, and how she loved her Son dearly from the moment before he was born, his finding in the Temple and even up to the way to the Cross, when Mary followed her Son faithfully as he picked up his Cross and bore that burden of the Cross to Calvary, she bears and pondered all this sorrows deep within her Immaculate Heart.

 

This is the event we celebrate today, of which our Gospel passage tells us how Mary having struggled to understand the mysterious events in the life of her Son Jesus, stored up all these events in her heart. A heart that is propelled by love and filled with genuine faith in God, a heart so pure and contemplative. For such is the immaculate heart of Mary having been conceived without sin and pure from any taints of evil and wickedness.

 

Yet, this loving and caring Immaculate Heart has to endure great sorrows and in the midst of these sorrows she did not stop being loving, compassion and caring to her Son and also to all of us, as she fulfills the mandate entrusted to her by Jesus at the Cross of Calvary saying: Mother behold your son and son behold your mother. By this mandate all of us are blessed to have been placed under the maternal care of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a great saint and our role model.

 

Dear friends, today we are called to imitate and embrace the Immaculate Heart of Mary as a model for hearts. For Jesus at the Cross of Calvary commended us into her maternal care. We are truly fortunate to have received such abundant love and compassion from the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary his mother, who is also our loving mother. Let us therefore cultivate a heart that mirrors that of our mother, let us imitate the purity of her heart, let us be caring, loving, contemplative and compassion in our relationship with one another.

 

LET US PRAY: Lord God, as we imitate the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, graciously grant that through her intercession we may be a worthy temple of your glory and make our hearts a loving, caring and compassionate vessel for all through Christ our Lord. Amen. Do have a fruitful weekend.