From the heart

God is love.

We experience that love in the Sacraments, in prayer, and in His work of salvation. Our most tangible experience of that love, however, is very often in the hearts of those who love Him.

For most of us, our first experience of this love was in the love we received from our parents, most especially from our mothers. We also experience it in people who are truly kind and holy. We learn about it in the lives of the saints and we try to unite with that love as we join with the saints in prayer.

This experience of love comes in varying levels of intensity and of perfection. Today’s memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary calls to mind the most intense and perfect example of this love, by God's grace second only to her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The love in Mary’s heart is a mother’s love at its most intense. The love in Mary’s heart is the love of a true Christian at its most pure.

It is God’s love: based not on human desires but on truth, not selfish but selfless, not a mere show of piety but a concrete love that goes up to God and extends to all His children.

As God loves, as Mary loves, so must we love.


Glory be to God the Father;
glory be to God the Son;
glory be to God the Spirit;
glory to the Three in One.

From the heart of blessèd Mary,
from all saints the song ascends,
and the Church the strain reechoes
unto earth's remotest ends.
("Sing of Mary" )

(adapted from an earlier post)