08/06/2024

The Immaculate Heart of Mary

The Apostles and disciples who had known the Lord in his lifetime had accepted their mission and had gone out to preach the Good News. They first of all would follow the Temple ritual prayers and met in the Portico of Solomon. They prayed, as had Jesus, the Psalms and they studied the scrolls of the Old Testament as enlarged upon by the " Translator ", the Targum in the Synagogue and by their Rabbi during their three years with him.

It was  there that they announced the Good News of the Resurrection and recalled the teachings and deeds of Jesus. They did this by word of mouth; the only texts that they had were written in Aramaic, Hebrew or in Greek.Their world was governed by Caesar, it was the Roman Empire but its language and its culture were Greek. 

We do not have any fragments of written New Testament texts earlier than the end of the second century. Scholars know that they existed but our original "Church" was just men and women who accepted their own belief in the scrolls of the Old Testament and Jesus as the living faith that, as did St Paul, they had received from the Apostles. It was in this spirit of faith that they would meet on the first day of the week  to give thanks for their resurrected founder's new commandment sealed by his eternal sacrifice, the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.

God can do anything he wants to. There are no limits to his being. God could have just "cancelled" us if we were displeasing to him. But we have to try to understand that we are "Good" and we are "Loved".

We are loved to the extent that he prepares a sinless human body from which to procreate himself as a complete human being to live all the stages of human life before accepting death in atonement for the sins of the world. This is the will of our God revealed by Jesus. This is how much we are loved.

Mary is the perfect human being. She is sinless Woman as her Son is sinless Man. Jesus spent the first months of his humanity physically close to her heart and he never loses the sense of that closeness to Theotokos. Even in this today Mary and Jesus are close to each other in Eternity which reveals that the Immaculate Heart of Mary really is an essential part of the merciful forgiveness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. She is not God but there is none closer to his Love than she. Thank God for Mary the Mother of Our Lord.

Dear Lord, May I learn to love you as do your saints. Let it always be a struggle for me to find what seem to be the right words to express what is the meaning in the tangle of words, wishes, images and memories that is  my inner self. Let me be honest with a sincere desire for atonement for my sins. May all the world recognise that the riches and ambitions that are of this world are themselves nothing that will last. The only lasting joy is ours if we can follow your footsteps even to Calvary if you so wish. Help me to accept with an open heart the grace to atone for our sins that the prayers of Mary and the other saints of heaven win for me and all other sinners living and dead. Help me to know you better, love you more sincerely and to serve you more honestly in this world so that I can become ready to be engulphed by your Glory in the next.