Imitating the Immaculate Heart of Mary: A Fresh Look at a Traditional Devotion

Today, the Church celebrates the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Mary, the Mother of God, is honored under many names, and Christians all over the world implore her intercession under a variety of titles.

Some have a special love for Mary under certain names associated with particular miracles and historical events, such as “Our Mother of Perpetual Help,” “Our Lady of Prompt Succor,” or “Our Lady of the Rosary” (also known as Our Lady of Victory because of her intercession at the Battle of Lepanto, as well as for earlier historic victories.)

Some love to honor her under titles such as Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes, or Our Lady of Guadalupe (one of my personal favorites), which refer to places where she has appeared in recent centuries. I am particularly fond of certain Feasts of hers, such as her birthday on September 8th and March 25th, the Feast of the Annunciation.

The title under which we venerate her today is the “Immaculate Heart of Mary.” Devotion to her under that title was promoted in the 1600’s by St. John Eudes, who simultaneously promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary became even more widespread in the 1800’s. Our Lady herself spoke of the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart in her apparitions in Fatima in 1917. She told the children that “Jesus wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. I promise salvation to those who embrace it, and these souls will be loved by God, like flowers placed by me to adorn His throne.”

Why should we have a devotion to Mary’s heart in particular?

In Mary’s heart abides not only the incredible love she has for her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love she has for us as her children, but it also is the place where the Holy Spirit dwells. It is the place where she made her own self-gift through her fiat. It was the place where she pondered and treasured the events of the life of her Son (Luke 2:19, 51). And it was her heart that was pierced with sorrow as she was united with Him in spirit on the Cross. (Luke 2:35, John 19:25-27).

The “heart” represents the center of our being and is “the place of decision … It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation…”

Catechism of the Catholic Church 2563

While devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is often promoted in terms of doing the Five First Saturdays devotion (which carries with it both the request and promises of Our Lady), another way to approach this devotion is in terms of imitating her Immaculate Heart.

Here are just three of the many ways we can do that:

1. Mary’s Heart, completely embracing the Father’s will.

In the Incarnation, Mary’s fiat, her “yes,” to God taking flesh in her, was a whole-hearted one. It was an embracing “yes,” not one of resignation. 

This fact has been an inspiration to me in those moments of life, especially as a single woman, when I am struggling to accept my current state of singleness. I ask Our Lady that my “yes” may be one of embracing God’s will for me in this moment, not merely grudgingly accepting it.

2. Mary’s Heart, completely united with Jesus’ Heart.

The fruit of Mary’s fiat was not only that God became man, but that he physically took on her flesh.

His physical heart, as well as his whole body, came totally from her, since he had no human father. Hence, her union with her Son while she stood beneath the Cross was not “only” a spiritual one, but was a physical one too. Venerable Fulton Sheen explains that “[s]ince no one else in the world gave Him body and blood and heart but her, it was her own body and blood and heart that was feeling the thrust of the steel. The sword that pierced the Heart of Christ physically, pierced the heart of Mary mystically.” (Fulton Sheen, The World’s First Love, 261, as cited in Peter Howard, The Woman, 180).

Her union with Jesus during his self-gift on the Cross is more than we can fathom. Her heart was indeed pierced by a sword, and, burning with love for us, as his does, it is “capable of embracing every agony and loneliness in a universe of broken hearts.”

Sheen, “Mary and the Tabernacle,” quoted in Howard, The Woman, 181

Let’s pray that our “yes” to God’s will in our lives, as well as our physical union with Him in the Eucharist, will enflame in our hearts a deep love for our fellow humanity. May our hearts be pierced with compassion for the sufferings of those around us, especially with all that is happening at this present time.

3. Mary’s Heart, completely filled with the Holy Spirit.

As Scripture tells us, Mary was “overshadowed” by the Holy Spirit in the Annunciation. But she was also immaculately conceived, which means that she was “full of grace.” The Holy Spirit Himself dwelt in her heart. We too are temples of the Holy Spirit through Baptism.

As St. Paul reminds us, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

It is through the Holy Spirit that we’re able to love others with God’s love. “Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5).

I’ve been praying for a powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit in my life so that I can love more and love better and “be” Christ to others with more zeal. Through the Holy Spirit we can also see others as God sees them, with a reverence for the great dignity they have. Even the smallest change in our perspective, in how we see, can greatly affect how we act toward those God has put in our lives. 

Today is the perfect day to unite yourself to Mary's heart.

Let us consecrate ourselves to Mary’s Immaculate Heart, through which we simultaneously give ourselves to the Heart of Jesus.

May we strive to imitate her, asking for the power of the Holy Spirit to fill us as it filled Our Lady, so that we may live out our consecration to her through prayer, penance, and reparation, and joy, with burning love for a world which hungers so intensely for it.

As St. John Paul II reminds us, “if we turn to Mary’s Immaculate Heart she will surely help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasurable effects already weigh down upon our modern world.” (Address to the Participants of the Study Week of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Friday, 26 September 1986)

Beneath your compassion,

We take refuge, O Theotokos [Mother of God]:

Do not despise our petitions in time of trouble:

but rescue us from dangers,

only pure, only blessed one.

Oldest-known prayer to Our Lady