| Dear Friends of
the Arch of Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and International
Shrine of the Holy Innocents,
It is December 24, the feast day of Saints Adam and Eve, our first parents. Tomorrow the world celebrates the birth of Christ, a triumph of the Light over darkness-- and as well, a triumph of Mary's Immaculate Heart. Through Mary's obedience, born of her pure heart and faith, we received our "second parents," Jesus and Mary, the new Adam and Eve. Because of this great undertaking on behalf of Our Blessed Mother, Our Lord, and their innocent unborn, already many non-Catholics are beginning to ask what is meant by the "Immaculate Heart of Mary." Indeed, one Baptist minister earnestly writes me that he visited a Catholic bookstore seeking this information, and had even called a priest he picked from a phone book, who admitted that he "doesn't really know" what Immaculate Heart of Mary means. What a shame, for any person of good faith and with a basic knowledge of the Gospel can say what is meant by Mary's Immaculate Heart. Immaculate means clean, pure, without spot; such a heart is totally free of sin and viciousness; it is the pure heart of an innocent child, like whom Jesus taught we must become, in order to enter into the Kingdom of God. The Virgin Mary's purity of heart, if greater in degree is not of a different kind, than the purity of that little girl whose inquiring letter years ago evoked the famous editorial, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." Love believes all things, wrote Saint Paul; he might as well have written purity believes all things, understanding both love and purity in their most exalted senses as extending into the very heart of God, and the things believed by them to be His things. Love and purity exist together, in the same degree as each other, and die if they are separated. That is why we know Mary to be our loving Mother, and why those Christians who do not gaze beyond the reported fact of Mary's physical virginity upon the spotless soul of Mary, and marvel at its shimmering beauty, deprive themselves of the greatest blessing of salvation after knowing God Himself--and indeed, self-limit their knowing of Him. An artist's true greatness cannot be fully appreciated without contemplating his greatest creation, nor can God's. Mary herself exclaimed under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, "My soul doth magnify the Lord" (Luke 1:46). Without a doubt, Mary's revelation at Fatima, that "God wishes to establish in the world, devotion to my Immaculate Heart," anticipated the steady decline of morality that has brought us now to the seeming bottom of an abyss of license and profligacy. Cardinal Ratzinger's commentary on the Third Secret of Fatima makes it clear that Mary's Immaculate Heart is offered for our imitation, and in full accord with scriptural principles: "In biblical language, the 'heart' indicates the center of human life, the point where reason, will, temperament and sensitivity converge, where the person finds his unity and his interior orientation. According to Matthew 5:8, the 'immaculate heart' is a heart which, with God's grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore 'sees God.' To be 'devoted' to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart, which makes the fiat - 'your will be done' - the defining center of one's whole life. It might be objected that we should not place a human being between ourselves and Christ. But then we remember that Paul did not hesitate to say to his communities: 'imitate me' (1 Cor 4:16; Phil 3:17; 1 Th 1:6; 2 Th 3:7,9). In the Apostle they could see concretely what it meant to follow Christ. But from whom might we better learn in every age than from the Mother of the Lord?" Also undoubtable, the violence and wars of the last century, and violent start of the new millennium, are intimately intertwined with the impurity and lust so rampant in our day, for impurity and hatred are mates, as are purity and love. But Mary promised at Fatima that in the end, her Immaculate Heart will triumph, and the world would know peace. She made this prediction and all her appearances at the Cova da Iria, the Hollow of Irene, a name that means Queen of Peace-and a sign that proves wrong those who would say that Fatima is but the product of over-imaginative children's minds. May the Queen of Peace and her glorious Son reign in our hearts and in our world, and may you and your loved ones enjoy the most blessed and merriest of Christmases. For the Triumph
of the Immaculate Heart,
Laurence D. Behr LDBehr@ArchofTriumph.org Executive Director, Ass'n for the Arch of Triumph Of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Int'l Shrine Of the Holy Innocents, Inc., A NY Non-profit 501(c)(3) Corporation 43 Court St., Ste. 600 Buffalo NY 14201 (716)856-1300 (FAX -1494) www.ArchofTriumph.org TOLL FREE: 1-866-205-6512 Address for donations by check: Arch of Triumph of the IHM, P.O.Box 3396, Buffalo NY 14240. Make checks payable to Arch of Triumph of IHM. All contributions are fully tax-deductible. |