SATURDAY HOMILY OF 9TH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME – YEAR B (THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY)
SATURDAY HOMILY OF 9TH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME – YEAR B (THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY)
HOMILY THEME: “HIS MOTHER STORED UP ALL THESE THINGS IN HER HEART”
BY: Bishop Anthony Ewherido
Isaiah 61:9-11; Psalm (1 Sam 2:1, 4-8); Luke 2:41–51
The apple, they say, does not fall far from the tree. The wonderful heart that we celebrated yesterday was given human flesh through a mother, whose heart provided the human formation for the love that flowed from the heart of her Son. So, following immediately after the Solemnity for the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, we celebrate the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That heart started treasuring great mysteries right from the moment of Jesus’ conception; even as she said “behold I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.”
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When Jesus was presented in the temple, what that heart would endure later was foretold by Simeon: “and you yourself, a sword shall pierce your heart.” That was the heart that bore the pain of losing an only Son in today’s gospel, when Jesus was 12 and stayed back in the temple, doing his Father’s bidding. That heart would endure the abuses, rejection, persecution, passion and death of a beloved Son, who did nothing deserving of a shameful death on the Cross. That was the heart that received us all, the Church, as a parting gift from a dying Son, from upon the Cross, and beheld the Church’s birth from his side, through the blood and water that flowed forth for her cleansing and animation. That is the mother’s heart that embraced the Holy Spirit’s birthing of the Church at Pentecost. Mary’s Immaculate Heart is the seat of motherly love, joy, gratitude, compassion, generosity, outreach, intercession, and empathy. Because she is our mother, she holds us close to her heart and our own hearts must be molded after hers, so that we may imitate her many virtues that have been sources of blessing to us.
Lord, may your mother pray for us. Amen.
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