Reflections from the Heart – January 1, 2023

Mary the Mother of God
by Fr. Ivan Olmo

“Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”  The spirituality of our Mother Mary teaches us to seek the quiet, to long for the stillness, to desire prayer from the heart, to ponder on it in the sacred silence of the interior, and to reflect the Word of God gloriously in our thoughts, in our words, in our lives, in every aspect of our fallen and risen nature.  To magnify like Mary the greatness of the Lord in every breath of our glorified and sanctified humanity. To emanate from one’s soul the warmth and care of God’s love.  His love, his loving goodness, his holy innocence, his everlasting love.   To seek in truth its meaning, his purpose, his longing and his most holy will in the most intimate and personal depths of one’s heart. Mary seeks the love of God with a hopeful expectation, in a joyful anticipation, in a blessed celebration for truly the Lord has done great things with Mary.  Truly, the Lord has done great things for you and for me in Mary. Now, our Mother Mary invites us into spiritual hunger for the Word made flesh.  Into the spiritual thirst of the Holy Spirit. Into the peace and joy, the Father shares in Christ.  Our Lady graciously receives it all and keeps all that God has given her protecting it, preserving it, blessing it in her very being and in the core of her Immaculate Heart. May we entrust ourselves to Mary in all we do.  As the Father has chosen you dear Mother Mary to be his Immaculate Child, his holy vessel, his Mystical Rose to be a spouse to Joseph, a mother to Jesus, an advocate to the Holy Catholic Church, so we choose you this day as Mother to guide and protect our lives. And we consecrate to you through the Sacred Heart of thy beloved Son, Jesus our heart and mind, our body and soul, our strength and spirit, all that we have, all that we are, all that we say, all that we do without exception.  Help us dear Lady through the grace and gift of the Holy Spirit, to receive the Father in the depth of our heart, the place of union and communion.  Please help us dear Lady to remain in Holy Communion with the Sacred Mysteries of thy Son, Jesus.  Pray sweet Lady that Jesus may live always in me.  Pray that I may become obedient child of our loving Father, eager to do only his Holy and Divine Will.