Immaculate Heart of Mary
Luke 2: 41-51
“Give Me Your Heart, O Mary”

Yesterday, the Church celebrated the Sacred Heart of Jesus—a feast that invites us to contemplate the depth of Christ’s love for us, a love that led Him to the Cross and continues to be poured out in the Eucharist. Today, fittingly, we celebrate the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Pope St. Paul VI, in 1969, moved this feast to immediately follow the Sacred Heart to show us something important: the hearts of Jesus and Mary are deeply united—two hearts beating in perfect harmony.

We prayed yesterday, “O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto thine.” But if we truly want to have hearts like Jesus’, we must also look to Mary. Her heart is the one most united to His. It was her heart that Jesus heard even before He was born, and it was her heart that first welcomed and responded to His love.

Today, with saints like St. Louis de Montfort and St. John Paul II, we pray, “Give me your heart, O Mary!” Because we don’t just admire Mary—we want to enter into her love for Jesus, to learn how to love Him like she does.

Why? Because Mary’s heart is not just the heart of a mother; it is a heart entirely Eucharistic. She offered her body and her whole being so the Word could become flesh. Before the Eucharist was instituted at the Last Supper, Mary had already said her “Fiat” at the Annunciation—her “Amen” that mirrors our own at Communion. She became the first tabernacle, holding within her the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ.

St. John Paul II once asked a beautiful question: what must Mary have felt the first time she heard the apostles say, “This is my Body, given for you”? That was the same body she carried in her womb, the same heart that beat in unison with hers. Every time we come to the altar, Mary teaches us how to receive Jesus with a heart like hers—pure, obedient, and full of love.

And we need that love. We live in a world wounded by conflict and division. Pope Francis has reminded us to keep praying for peace—especially for the suffering people of Ukraine—and to entrust this cause to Mary, the Queen of Peace. Her heart has room for all of us. She walks with us in sorrow and in joy, and she longs to bring each of us closer to her Son.

So today, let us consecrate ourselves once more to her Immaculate Heart. Let us ask her to train our hearts to be like hers: wise, gentle, steadfast, Eucharistic. Let us become, like her, living tabernacles of Christ’s love, bringing Him to others with faith, courage, and joy.

“Give me your heart, O Mary,” we pray—and through your heart, lead us ever closer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Amen.

© Claretian Publications, Hong Kong, China
Cum Approbatione Ecclesiastica 2025