The triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Eucharist

Adoracja z Niepokalanowa

Rounding off this succession of great celebrations - Easter, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi and the Sacred Heart of Jesus - today we mark the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The origins of this liturgical day stretch back over several centuries of Marian devotion. It was extended to the universal Church by Pope Pius XII in 1944, and later placed on the Saturday following the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart by Pope Saint Paul VI in the reform of the calendar in 1969, highlighting the union between the Heart of the Son and the Heart of his Mother.

Jesus received his human flesh from his mother Mary at the moment of the Incarnation. 

In the Ethiopian Anaphora of Mary (attributed to Abba Cyriacus of Behnesa) Mary is described in the liturgy as the one who bore the 'food' and 'drink' of salvation.

In other words, the Eucharist presupposes the Incarnation and the Incarnation presupposes Mary’s ‘yes’ to God at the Annunciation. The body we receive in the Eucharist is the same body first given to the world through her.

When we receive Our Lord in Holy Communion, we are, in a real sense, saying ‘yes’ to Christ within our hearts. This echoes Mary’s ‘fiat’ or ‘let it be done’ at the Annunciation. We strive to receive him with the same openness, freedom and self-giving that marked her life. Her heart beats with love for her Son and for all his people. We, too, are her children, and her desire is for peace - peace in our hearts and in our world.

Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is not an individualistic or merely private devotion. It has a deeply ecclesial and even social dimension. The call to such consecration became more prominent in the twentieth century, not least through the events associated with Fatima during the First World War, and later through Pope Pius XII’s consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart during the Second World War. These developments underline a conviction at the heart of the Church’s prayer: that conversion of heart is inseparable from the pursuit of peace among nations.

As St. Peter Julian Eymard, the founder of the Blessed Sacrament Congregation, taught that the closer we draw to Mary the more deeply we are led to her Son in the Eucharist. The Eucharist gives us the Body of Christ; the Immaculate Heart shows us how to receive him - faithfully, completely, and with love.  In receiving the Eucharist, we not only receive Christ; we are invited to become, like Mary, living bearers of his presence in the world.

For Saint Maximilian Kolbe, the martyr of Auschwitz (1894-1941), the surest way to receive Christ in the Eucharist is through the Immaculate Heart - because no one has ever received Him as perfectly as she did.

The urgency of that call is not confined to the past. In a world marked by conflict and uncertainty, the invitation to conversion remains pressing. A renewed commitment to God, a deeper openness to the intercession of Mary, and a more faithful living of the Eucharist in our daily lives - these are not abstract ideals, but the first steps on the path to the peace we so urgently seek.

It begins here.
Now.
With me, with you - with all of us.