An Immaculate Heart – the Solution to Our Cultural Ills

Here we are in August – summer’s crescendo and the month of the Immaculate Heart.

Just like time at the beach is good for the soul (or mountains, or lake, or backyard, or wherever genuine recreation may be found), so is time spent with the Immaculate Heart.

In fact, the interior life of our Blessed Mother shows us the solution to most of the world’s ills.

Seeking Our Spiritual Zamboni  

Have you ever been at a skating rink right after the Zamboni polished the ice?  The ice is smooth as glass.  Just watching the Zamboni glide by and transform the choppy ice into a pristine glassy surface is fun in and of itself.  For that matter, just saying Zamboni puts a smile on your face.

If you can’t relate to the Zamboni imagery, maybe you can relate to my grandmother’s magnificent double chocolate layer cake.  The frosting was her own chocolate butter cream recipe, and she had unmatched skill with the spatula.  When she finished frosting the cake its surface was so creamy and smooth you could almost dive into it.  It was flawless.

But instead of rethinking what you’re having for dessert tonight, consider, instead, Our Blessed Mother’s heart.

Mary’s Immaculate Heart

Mary’s heart was immaculate.  It was pristine, pure, flawless, spotless.  In and of itself that sounds pretty great – who doesn’t want a spotless heart?  But it’s what you can do with it, that is truly majestic.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that “the object loved is in the lover … the beloved is contained in the lover by being impressed on his heart.”  When you truly love something, that something is imprinted on your heart.  It’s not for nothing that the first affection St. Thomas associated with love is “melting.”

Love gives you a soft heart (just as bitterness and anger makes a person hard-hearted).  What you love becomes imprinted on your heart.

But what if one’s heart is marred with all manner of blemishes and debris from attachments to fallen things?  The imprinting will be disfigured by those contaminants.

Mary’s immaculate heart was soft and pure – so that Christ’s Sacred Heart could be perfectly imprinted upon it.

That is what we desire and it is what the world needs.  That is why Mary is a model for us.  She shows us exactly what it looks like when a human being has the Divine Heart imprinted on a human heart.  And that is the solution to the world’s problems.

Abortion

Venerable Mary of Agreda, in her private revelations, as recorded in “The Mystical City of God,” recounts Mary’s humble response to the Annunciation:

“. . . she raised her humble heart to the Lord, who could not refuse her any petition, and in the secret of her spirit she asked new light and assistance by which to govern herself in such an arduous transaction; for, as we have said in the preceding chapter, the Most High, in order to permit her to act in this mystery solely in faith, hope and charity, left her in the common state and suspended all other kinds of favors and interior elevations, which she so frequently or continually enjoyed” (p 169).

For many mothers (and fathers) an unexpected pregnancy is an “arduous transaction” (in the words of Ven. Mary of Agreda).    At that moment, for a host of reasons, it may seem to be an unbearable burden.  Abortion offers a seemingly quick and “harmless” solution.

When we stand as witnesses in front of abortuaries, and pray Rosaries, and make other offerings on behalf of women considering abortion, we are interceding for them to receive “new light and assistance.”

Again, in the words of Ven. Mary of Agreda, God ordained our Blessed Mother to bear the weight of being Mother of God in her “common state” without additional extraordinary assistance.  Mary shows us the proper response – she asked God for “new light and assistance” to support her in her role as mother.

Trans-mania

There is a particularly diabolical element behind transgender ideology.  Satan is working through that movement, and its philosophical big brother of transhumanism, as his ultimate plan to destroy humanity.

According to “The Mystical City of God,” Mary was prepared for the Incarnation during a nine-day period (the first novena) preceding the Annunciation.  On the third day of the novena, “God manifested to her in a special way the desire of His divine love to come to the aid of men and to raise them up from all their miseries.”

From the very beginning, Mary was infused with God’s own love for, and desire to uplift, fallen humanity.  Devotion to our Blessed Mother, especially by meditating with the Rosary, is indispensable for growing deeper in our love for humanity (particularly those who are being swallowed up by the trans ideologies) and breaking the power of the devil.

Cancel Everything

The foundation of cancel culture is “critical theory,” which is little more than a bunch of intellectual mumbo jumbo to justify throwing out anything the elites don’t want.  And they don’t want anything to do with our Christian heritage.

If anyone had a right to think themselves above the “patriarchy” it was our Blessed Mother.  She was Mother of God after all.  It seems this title should come with a few perks.  And yet she is the model of obedience and submission.

Here are the Blessed Mother’s words to St. Brigid on the occasion of her Purification and the Presentation of Jesus (from “The Life of Mary as Seen by the Mystics,” by Raphael Brown): “I did not need purification, like other women, because my Son who was born of me, made me clean.  Nevertheless, that the Law and the prophecies might be fulfilled, I chose to live according to the Law.  Nor did I live like worldly parents, but humbly conversed with the humble.  Nor did I wish to show anything extraordinary in me, but loved whatever was humble.”

Our Christian culture, flawed as it may be, is a priceless gift.  Mary shows us that great humility and charity can restore our culture. It is in reaching out to the least among us, that both parties give and receive the love of Christ.

Euthanasia

Euthanasia continues to advance as one of the planks of the culture of death.

Our friendly neighbors to the North have proven to be particularly effective at killing off the sick, the elderly, and the unwanted.  I’m sure they are super-friendly as they dispense life-ending chemicals.  “You have a nice little vacation in eternity, eh?”

As one might expect, the Canadian MAID act (Medical Assistance in Dying) is following the same trajectory as abortion going from safe, legal, and RARE to being shouted with pride.  The MAID act continues to expand access to assisted suicide.  But what is more concerning, is that it is the people themselves who are demanding it.

Many in the US seem determined to bring Canadian-style end-of-life-friendliness to our borders.  Physician Assisted Suicide is currently legal in eleven jurisdictions: California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Montana, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.  My home state of Maryland is fighting hard to be added to the list and has adopted the same name “MAID” moniker as Canada.

Canada shows us the real concern isn’t so much that state and federal governments are going to force euthanasia on the populace.  The real concern is whether sometime soon most of the populace will desire and even demand it – no forcing required.

Context

Our Blessed Mother put death and suffering in proper context in her words to St. Brigid, “After the Ascension of my Son, I still lived a long time in the world.   Such was the Will of God, in order that by seeing my patience and my conduct many more souls might be converted to Him, and in order that the Apostles and other elect souls of God might be strengthened.  Also the natural constitution of my being required that I should live longer and that thereby my crown might be increased” (“The Life of Mary as Seen by the Mystics”).

Many different mystics have revealed the anguish Mary experienced by remaining on earth for 15 years after the Ascension of her Son.  Mary understands with a mother’s heart the pain and suffering of people with severe and terminal illness.  She also shows us, by her own example, that by accepting the length of life that God ordains for us, “many more souls might be converted” and our own “crown might be increased.”

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart

One can never go wrong giving Fulton Sheen the final words:

“If Our Savior could have thought of any better means of leading us back to Him, He would have put us in other than hers [Mary’s] . . .  The level of any civilization is the level of its womanhood.   What they are, men will be, for love always goes out to meet the demands of the object loved.   Given a woman like the Mother of Our Lord as our supernatural Mother, we have one of the greatest inspirations for nobler living this world has ever known” (“Lord Teach Us to Pray,” pages 152-154).