Sacred Heart of Jesus: Furnace of Love for His Mother

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a Furnace of Ardent Love for His Most Holy Mother. Nothing is easier than the proof of this truth. The ineffable graces with which our Savior endowed His Blessed Mother clearly manifest that His love for her is a love without measure or limit. She is, after His Divine Father, the first and most worthy object of His love. He loves her incomparably more than all His angels, saints and other creatures together. The extraordinary favors with which He honored her and the wonderful privileges He conferred upon her, far beyond any other creature, are clear proofs of this truth. Let us examine these numerous and impressive privileges.

First of all, the Blessed Virgin is the only human being whom the Son of God chose from all eternity to elevate above all created things, to set on the highest throne of glory and grandeur, and to adorn with the most admirable of all dignities, the Motherhood of God.

Let us descend in spirit from eternity to the fullness of time, and we shall see this hallowed Virgin alone among the children of Adam in her preservation from original sin, through a very special privilege, in testimony of which Holy Church celebrates annually throughout the world the Feast of her Immaculate Conception.

Not only did the love of God's Son for His most holy Mother preserve her from original sin, but over and above that, He filled her from the moment of her conception with such eminent grace that, according to several great theologians, it surpassed the grace of the chief of the Seraphim and of the greatest of all the saints even taken in its perfection. She alone among all the children of Adam enjoyed this privilege.

Moreover, from the first moment of her existence, she possessed the privilege of the light of reason and faith, by which she began to know God, to adore Him, and to give herself to Him. In virtue of another privilege she alone began to love God from the initial moment of her life, and she loved Him more ardently than the most flaming of the Seraphim. She alone loved Him continuously, incessantly, throughout the whole course of her life. For this reason we say that her life was one single act of love from the first to the last moment, an act that was never interrupted.

She is the only creature who has always perfectly accomplished the first of the divine commandments: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength" (Deut 6:5). Hence several Doctors of the Church assert that her love was doubled with each hour, or even, according to some, with each moment. When a soul makes an act of love with his whole heart and according to the whole extent of the grace within him, his love becomes twice as great as it was before. The Blessed Virgin loved God continuously with all her heart and all her strength. If she had ten degrees of love at the first instant of her life, she had twenty at the second; if she had twenty at the second, she had forty at the third. Thus her love was doubled every moment or at least every hour throughout the course of her life. You can imagine, therefore, what a furnace and what fires of divine love inflamed that virginal heart in the last days of her abode upon earth.

Let us pass on to the consideration of the matchless privileges by which the Only Son of Mary enriched His holy Mother. According to several eminent Doctors, He gave to her alone the grace to merit, by her prayers and tears, the accomplishment of His Incarnation. She alone gave human flesh, from her own substance, to Him who was born from all eternity in the bosom of God of the substance of the Father. Yes, Mary gave a portion of her virginal substance and of her most pure blood to fashion the sacred humanity of the Son of God. In addition, she cooperated with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the union which was formed of her substance with the Person of the Son of God. Thus she participated in the accomplishment of the mystery of the Incarnation, and consequently in the greatest miracle that God ever has or ever will or even ever can perform.

There is another privilege that contributes to the matchless honor of Our Lady. The most pure blood and the virginal flesh which she offered for this mystery will remain united forever, by the hypostatic union, to the Person of the Incarnate Word. The virginal blood and the precious flesh of Mary are, therefore, to be adored in the humanity of the Son of God with the same adoration that is due to that very humanity itself, and they will be forever the object of the adoration of all the angels and saints. O incomparable privilege! O ineffable love of Jesus for His most holy Mother!

There are still other prerogatives. That loving Mother also gave the flesh and blood from which the adorable Heart of the Child Jesus was formed. The Sacred Heart of the Son of God received its nourishment and its increase from that same blood, during the nine months of its abode in the holy womb of the Blessed Virgin.

The incomparable Virgin is alone in occupying the place of father and mother in respect to the God-Man, and hence in having paternal and maternal authority over Him, and in receiving the honor of being obeyed by the Sovereign of the Universe, an honor that is greater than she would receive from the homage of all created beings.

She alone is Mother and Virgin together, and according to some holy Doctors she made the vow of virginity from the moment of her Immaculate Conception. She alone bore in her womb for nine months Him whom the Eternal Father embraces in His bosom for all eternity. She alone gave life to Him who is eternal life and who gives life to all living things.

Accompanied by St. Joseph, she abode with that adorable Savior for the space of thirty years. O wondrous thing! Our divine Redeemer came upon earth to save mankind. Yet He set aside only three years and three months of His life for the work of preaching and instructing. The other thirty years He devoted to the ever-increasing sanctification of His holy Mother. What a wealth of graces and blessings He incessantly poured into the soul of His Blessed Mother! With what flames of heavenly fire did the divine Heart of Jesus enkindle ever more and more the virgin Heart of His most worthy Mother, especially when those two Hearts were so close to each other and so firmly united, while she bore Him in her womb, nursed Him, and held Him in her arms; during the whole time that she lived with Him familiarly as a mother with her child, eating and drinking with Him, praying with Him, and hearing the divine words coming from His adorable lips as so many coals of fire ever enkindling more and more her most holy Heart with the sacred fire of divine love!

After this who can estimate how ardently the blessed Heart of the Mother of the Savior was afire with love for God? Certainly there is great reason to believe that, if her Son had not miraculously preserved her until the decreed hour of death, she would have died of love, not only once, like St. Teresa, but a thousand times, since her love was immeasurably more than that of the great Carmelite mystic. From earliest childhood her love was sufficiently intense to have caused her death and, when her Beloved Son did call her, she died of love that He might give her, after His own, the happiest and most glorious life possible.

Let us repeat concerning the marvelous Virgin that she is the only one, after her Divine Son, to have been transported body and soul into heaven. In accordance with the tradition of Holy Church, Mary's Assumption is solemnly celebrated throughout the world. She alone is raised on high above all the choirs of angels and saints and sits at the right hand of her Son. She alone is crowned Queen of heaven and earth, of angels and men, the Sovereign Empress of the universe. She alone has all power over the Church Triumphant, Militant, and Suffering. "My power was in Jerusalem" (Sir. 24: 11). She alone has more influence with her Divine Son Jesus than all the citizens of heaven together: Data est tibi omnis potestas in caelo et in terra, says St. Peter Damian. There is yet another particular privilege, emphasized in these words of St. Anselm: "O my Queen, if you pray not for anyone or for anything, no one shall proffer help, but when you pray all the saints pray with you, all the saints put forth their aid."

Is it not true then that here is a great number of privileges and advantages with which our Savior has honored His most holy Mother? What has constrained Him to do so? The burning love with which His filial Heart is all on fire for her. Why does He love her so much ?

1. She is His Mother, from whom He received a new being and a new life by the new birth which she gave Him on earth.

2. He loves her alone more than He loves all creatures together because she loves Him more than all created things.

3. He loves her most ardently because she cooperated with Him in the accomplishment of His great work of the Redemption of the world. Her cooperation was to give Him a mortal body capable of suffering and of sustaining the torments of His Passion. She also imparted to Him the Precious Blood which He shed for us, and she offered that body, that blood, and that life as a sacrifice at the foot of the Cross.

As our Savior’s love for His Blessed Mother is so great, we must be obliged to love and serve her to the best of our ability. Let us then love her with her Son Jesus, and if we love them let us hate what they hate and love what they love. Let us have but one heart with them, a heart detesting what they detest, that is, sin, especially the sins against charity, humility and purity, and a heart that loves what they love, particularly the poor, all Christian virtues, and trials. O Mother of goodness, obtain for us these graces from Thy Son!

The preceding excerpt is taken from St. John Eudes, The Sacred Heart of Jesus, P. J. Kenedy and Sons, 1946, pages 5-9, and edited by the Order of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts of Jesus and Mary, at www.heartsofjesusandmary.org The Order of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts of Jesus and Mary is a contemplative community of lay and religious dedicated to serving the Hearts of Jesus and Mary through Eucharistic Adoration, contemplation, and corporal works of mercy.