Sunday, July 29, 2007



THE HEART OF MARY

3. The Formal Object.
We can leave aside the question whether indeed our heart of flesh influences us in our love. One thing is certain: our affections have a repercussion on our heart, they affect it. Whether it is sadness or joy, fear or anger, all is recorded in our heart; they speed us, or slow down, its beatings. They sometimes even paralyze it. Evidently there is a close connection between the physical life of our heart and the affective life of our soul.

Perhaps on account of this everybody refers to the heart as to the cause, the reason, the seat, or, at least, the symbol of love. And it is in this current and popular meaning that we may refer to it.

Consider then that in every man what interests us is his heart and therefore his love. This being so, how much interest should we have in the Heart of Our Lady!

Man is what he is on account of his heart. All his science, all his ability and shrewdness, all his genius, have very little use for us if they happen to exist in a man about whom we say, "Oh, he has no heart!" How repulsive such a one is.

On the contrary, how nice, how love-inspiring is a person, who has a large heart, a noble and worthy heart. Everything is explained in the saying, "He has a large heart." Look now to your Heavenly Mother who is at the same time the Mother of God. What kind of heart must God have placed in Her? If it had depended on you, what kind of heart would you have given Her? It could not actually depend on you but depend it certainly did on God. It was in God's hands that the Mother of His son, that the Mother of all mankind should have this or that heart. So if it was given to Her by Him, how great it must be, how lovable in His sight! Mary had to love both God and men with a love that stands second only to God's own love. How great then must be a heart that enclosed such love!

[Excerpted from 'MARIAN MEDITATIONS' Book by Rev. Dr. Ildefonso R. Villar, Salesian Philippine Province, Nihil Obstat; Imprimatur]

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