Immaculate Heart of Mary | iPray with the Gospel

His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom; and when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. … After three days they found him in the temple… And when they saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.”

Luke 2:41-51

Imagine how Mary must have felt searching for Jesus for those three long days: her anxiety… Her Immaculate Heart was full of love for Jesus and suffered at His absence. But her Heart is also full of love for us and she suffers when we are far away from God. As St Louis de Montfort explains: “If you put all the love of all the mothers into one heart it still would not equal the love of the Heart of Mary for her children.” You have a place in her Immaculate Heart and so now, if you are lost, she is in distress until she gets you back.

Mary’s Immaculate Heart is the Refuge of Sinners. They say of the whale, that when she sees her young in peril she opens her mouth and receives it into her to protect it. That’s what Mary does. She revealed to St. Bridget, “As a mother who sees her son exposed to the sword of the enemy makes every effort to save him, thus do I, and will I ever do, for my children, sinful though they be, if they come to me for help.”

“If the winds of temptations arise, if you run into the rocks of tribulations, look at the star, invoke Mary. If you are tossed about by the waves of pride, look at the star, invoke Mary. If anger or avarice or the seductions of the flesh shake the little boat of your soul, look at Mary. If, troubled by the enormity of your crimes, confounded by the uncleanliness of your conscience, frozen with fright at the thought of judgement, you start to be swallowed up by the gulf of sadness and the abyss of despair, think about Mary. In perils, in anguish, in doubt, think about Mary, invoke Mary. If you follow her, you do not go astray. If you pray to her, you do not despair. If you consult her, you are not wrong. If she supports you, you do not fall. If she protects you, you fear nothing. If she leads you, you do not tire. If she is favourable to you, you reach your aim” (St Bernard).