A sword shall pierce you own heart

[Fergal]

I am having difficulty with this quotation of Simeon about the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I don’t seem to have any clear cut ideas of what was meant by the following:

***"****35 And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed."

***What exactly did Simeon mean in saying this?

 

[Cockney_Clive]

Simeon said to Mary [Lk 2:34]

He [Jesus] is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, destined to be a sign that is opposed

{Lk is citing Jeremiah 15:10 here}. meaning that Jesus will bring hostility and persecution on his own head.A sign opposed meaning that Jesus is destined to be a sign and a contradiction to many.

And a sword will pierce your own soul too - so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare

As a true daughter of Zion Mary will herself hear the sorrowful destiny of her race. With her son she will be at the very centre of this contradiction, where secret thoughts will be laid bare, for or against Jesus. She will see her son raised up on a tree and the sorrow (sword) will pierce her heart.

 

[Benadam]

Meditation on the title of this thread

Mary enjoys a unique exclusive bond with God through her divine Son. A sword in prophetic language describes the Word as it divides truth from deceit, light from dark, upper from lower waters the bone from the marrow and so on. The Word pierces and divides so is likened to a sword.
Mary would be the most intimate witness of her Son’s greatest work of salvation. The Word at it’s most profound and sublime expression possible on the earthly plain. At this moment, with the Father, she is offering her Son for the salvation of the world. Here the earthly trinity of male female and offspring introduced in Genesis finds it’s fulfillment on earth and Mary experiences a union with God no other mere human could. God the Father , God the Man, and Man through Mary have formed the bonds of family as mother father and child. In this way man shares the most intimate bond with God possible.

Christ reveals man to himself and Mary experiences this revelation. The depths of her heart are exposed as she shares in her Sons death and willingly with the Father offers Him for Passover. Mary’s immaculate heart is pierced by the light of Her Son’s Sacred heart now fully revealed in His Passion. The Word is fully revealed. The sword is fully unsheathed, pierces and divides Mary’s heart and joins it to Christ’s, and conforms her into a more perfect image of her Son. As Jesus recieves the baptism He was so anxious for, Mary’s soul is pierced, a piercing through which Grace, once bound within the maternal bond she shared with God, can flow to all man.

Mary’s soul is transformed by the sword and her immaculate heart is revealed. Consequently, through Mary’s immaculate and sword pierced heart all hearts can be pierced and opened by the firy light of Christ’s Sacred Heart.