Sinning against the Immaculate Heart of Mary

[dje101]

Auctoris,

Mary’s heart was totally directed to and dedicated to God. Mary is also a Type of the Church, that is, she is a true symbol of the Church. Sins against her heart are disparagement of total devotion to God, and also especially in regard to the the Church, mockery and disparagement of such devotion and of those having such total devotiion.

Secularism in its essence is anti-Mary.

-Steve

Not a bad explanation, thank you. Though it is still something a little difficult to wrestle with, this is starting to make sense. Thanks again.

 

[Beryllos]

… would read this thread, still have no idea what its talking about, and believe it doesn’t really matter in the first place.
…

I am one such Catholic. I have read a fair bit about Mary. I think I understand the arguments, but I just don’t see devotion to Mary as being essential to my faith.

Furthermore I am troubled by certain types of statements which I believe exaggerate Mary’s role. Earlier in this thread, 1Lord1Faith quoted this: “She suffered with Jesus to atone for our sins.” That seems to make her an equal to Jesus. St. Maximilian Kolbe wrote that “the Holy Spirit acts only by the Most Blessed Virgin, his Spouse. This is why she is the Mediatrix of all grace given by the Holy Spirit.” I am at a loss to put a favorable interpretation on Kolbe’s statement, I mean I think it must be erroneous or exaggerated, but Mariologists seem to accept it in full.

I’ll just say a Hail Mary and leave it at that.

 

[dje101]

Well, what are the traditional associations of the heart? Love, joys, and sorrows. The devotion to the immaculate heart of Mary is a devotion to her interior life. To her bearing and raising Christ. To the mysteries presented to her, from being chosen to bearing God, to finding him in the Temple and her child’s greater mission perhaps first hitting home. Perhaps the worries during his early ministry, people trying to kill him, and other members of the family thinking him mad. The joys she felt in her son’s life to the anguishing sorrow she felt during his passion. It’s a devotion to how Christ’s mother kept all these things in her heart (Luke 2: 51).

To keep it simple, it’s a devotion to and meditation on her personal relationship to and with Jesus throughout his life. That is a devotion to the immaculate heart of Mary. To sin against her immaculate heart? It’s an affront to that relationship and personal life she had with God and Christ. It’s to sin against a mother’s love for her child, in a mother with the purest of hearts and where the child is our Lord and our God.

While I can understand where auctoris is coming from, I actually think this is quite a clear explanation and a good launching pad for me as I begin to explore Mariology. For the first couple of years in my time as a Catholic, I’ve been very focused on the theology and doctrine of the Church, but realized recently that I haven’t given as much focus to the actual relationship part of knowing Jesus.

As a result, I’ve begun increasing my prayer life, praying the rosary more often, and have recently picked up a book called “Interior of Jesus and Mary” by Fr. Grou (have you heard of it?). I know many people and saints have talked about how the BVM have deepened their relationship with Jesus, so I’m trying to explore that in my own life now. Thank you for your explanation here.

Are there are other books that you or anyone else would recommend for someone in my position? I know there is a particular priest/saint (can’t remember his name, but I think it was french?) that has some pretty deep Mariology, but I’ve heard it can be difficult for new Catholics/Protestant to understand.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

I think I am doomed to not understand. I’ll seek answers elsewhere.

Can you imagine a mother who keeps mementos of her son’s childhood? Perhaps she keeps them in a closet in his old bedroom. She keeps the school drawings from kindergarten, the trophy from grade school sports, birthday cards from him to her with sweet things written in them, pictures, things he made for her…you get the idea.

Now, Mary did the same thing. Only she doesn’t have material objects for us to look at. Nevertheless, she invites us in to look at the things she has held on to. She keeps all those things, that our earthly mother would keep in a closet, in her heart. She wants to share them with us through the rosary specifically, but through other devotions as well, like the one Cardinal Burke is suggesting.

The term immaculate should be easy to understand. Mary is sinless. Immaculate would be a good description of sinless.

The rosary is just the same as if the mother of your father invited you into see her memento’s of her son’s life, and shared all her memories of her son with you while the two of you spent time together.

This all happens through meditative prayer of the rosary.

 

[Mintaka]

There is a common poetic and rhetorical device called “synecdoche”, and it means that a reference to a part of something can be used to mean the whole thing. This device allows the poet to concentrate on the details of that single part, while using them to comment on the whole. It is also a way to intensify emotional content and thought, because small things are easier to love and understand.

Just as the Five Wounds devotion and the Sacred Heart devotion are all about loving and understanding Christ as a whole through small parts of His self, the Marian devotion to the Immaculate Heart is about understanding Mary as a whole.

This has been something simple to understand for six year olds exposed to normal culture throughout most of history. But today, many adults are cut off from the standard human tools of expression, which causes a lot of misunderstanding of the Bible and basic Christian devotion.

 

[AmbroseSJ]

So how do I explain to a six year old what an “immaculate heart of Mary” is and give an example of a sin against it?

Your question is unreal. A six year old does not require answers to such questions.

A six year old would ask who Mary IS.

That can be answered simply enough.

A six year old would have to understand that Mary is in Heaven. (that may take some time to establish)

See?

Are you actually trying to talk to a six year old, or is your own intellect at a six year old level?

You complain that I was using “Catholic” jargon. Things like “church” or “doctrine.”

Sorry, but that is just religion 101 for ANY belief system.

I don’t know how to speak of sublime spiritual matters in baby talk. Maybe you could give us an example?

 

[Wesrock]

I think I am doomed to not understand. I’ll seek answers elsewhere.

May be so intertwined with specifically Catholic theology that there is no easy way to explain it. Maybe it’s my Protestant background (in RCIA now). I’ve been studying Mary but this just doesn’t make sense to me. I think it may be an esoteric aspect of Catholicism or for Catholics who put some particular emphasis on Mariology. I know for people like that it is hard for them to understand that many Christians go their entire lives without much thought about Mary as anything but a historical figure. For the non-Mary people, it is very difficult to understand the language being used since it comes across as so abstract and not directly related to the most important aspects of the Christian faith.

I know Mariologist believe it is tied intrinsically to the most important aspects of the faith. But also know lifetime Christians (Protestants and Catholics) who would read this thread, still have no idea what its talking about, and believe it doesn’t really matter in the first place.

So, I will assume it is some esoteric aspect I am missing until I find a better understanding elsewhere.

I would encourage Catholics to be careful in using “Catholicish” language as Evangelicals use “Evangelicish” language. Like, “She was slain in the spirit, blood bought, and washed in the blood as Jesus was the propitiation for our iniquities. We pray a hedge of protection as we offer ourselves up. Let the mercy seat of Melchizedek be satisfactory. May the angel of the Lord find the blood of the lamb on our doorway and pass over. Let us not have a jezebel spirit. Please let all the lost walk the aisle and find shelter beneath the cross.”

All of that means exactly nothing to most people. And that’s what “sinning against the Immaculate heart of Mary” sounds like to most people.

I thought I avoided Catholic-ish language on that one. Explaining it as a devotion to her personal relationship with Jesus, and to meditating on the love, joys, sorrows, and anguish she must have felt in regards to Jesus at certain points in her life (Biblical events) seemed simple enough to me. Maybe there’s still further background about devotions at all that I’m just taking for granted? One last try, it’s like seeking to better understand and empathize with Mary’s feelings in regards to Jesus in order to build up that same love in our hearts. People who feel like outsiders looking in on Jesus can find a relationship that they can really empathize with, that of a mother and son. Mary becomes a model for our relationship and love with Jesus. For the Church’s love of Jesus.

I don’t know. I myself feel like I have a decent, intellectual understanding of Christ on earth and what was done for us on the cross. But I feel at times that I lack emotional depth. I know… but I don’t feel. I’m a stranger looking in on what this other stranger did for me. (I’m oversimplifying here, there are times I greatly can empathize with Christ in a way, but I’m speaking of those bodily and rational limitations I am subject to, perhaps partly it’s my temperament). But seeing an actual relationship between two human beings… seeing a mother and her child… even now I just find myself welling with emotion and more easily empathizing with it. I can build up my own love for Jesus by looking to Mary. It makes that love for Christ more personal.

 

[patricius79]

Hello,

I was reading an article about the “operation: storm heaven” prayer movement that Cardinal Burke is starting, and it said that there are many things it is intended for, one of which was “make reparation for the sins and offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary”. Coming from a protestant background and still pretty new to the faith, this is somewhat confusing. I am only recently (as in, within the last couple of weeks) started to get interested in Mariology, so I don’t have very much knowledge when it comes to things related to Marian spirituality.

Could someone please explain what this means, and clarify why we would need to make reparations for sins committed against Mary rather than against God?.

I don’t know much. But I know that Mary loves us very much, and suffered for us very much. This is putting this in a very understated way. So God loves Mary so much. And when we fail to show her the love she deserves, it hurts Mary and offends God. Not because Mary is concerned with herself, but because she loves us so much, and to the degree that we don’t love her, we cannot receive the fullness of God’s love which she wishes to give us.

If only we knew how much Mary loves us!

 

[Googler]

If only we knew how much Mary loves us!

Right on, patricus79!!

The Immaculate Heart of Mary is an expression of the most wise and pure mentality of Our Lady that, among other things, symbolizes her ineffable goodness, her incomparable sweetness and her endless mercy. For these reasons, the Angels and Saints of Heaven love her intensely, as much as it is proper to love someone other than God.
Our Lady touches the hearts of people, sending them abundant graces so that many will follow her.
Her Heart, therefore, is the scepter by which she governs all those who obey her on this earth.
Mary is the Mediatrix of All Graces.
It is God’s will that we seek unique, powerful graces from the Virgin by means of a special devotion to her Immaculate Heart.
These extraordinary graces will, in turn, help remove the obstacles (the five sins) which currently restrict the ordinary flow of graces from her Heart, producing a condition which permits evil to grow at an alarming rate, plunging many souls into Hell.
An ever-spreading cancer, these offenses against the Virgin Mary are effecting among the faithful a decrease of belief in her special role as Mediatrix of All Graces, producing a corresponding dwindling of those graces. At the same time, these sins preclude the possibility that the people in large numbers will seek special, extraordinary graces from her Heart, powerful graces offered to all by our Redeemer through trust and confidence in her Immaculate Heart. A decline in the flow of grace permits the forces of evil to grow in power, resulting in a massive surge of sin, both in quality and quantity.

O Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of heaven and earth and most tender Mother of men, in accordance with Thy ardent wish made known at Fatima, I consecrate to Thee myself, my family, my brethren, my country, and the whole human race.
Reign over us and teach us how to make the Heart of Jesus reign and triumph in us an around us, as it has reigned and triumphed in Thee.
We desire to atone for the many grievous sins and offenses committed against Jesus and Thee. We desire to call down upon our country and the whole world, the peace of God in justice and charity.
We promise to imitate Thy virtues by the practice of a Christian life without regard to human respect. We resolve to receive Holy Communion on the First Saturday of each month, and to offer Thee five decades of the Rosary each day, together with our sacrifices, in the spirit of reparation and penance.
Make our hearts like unto thy Heart. Make me wise, according to thy wisdom. Make me pure with a purity partaking of thy own purity. My Mother, I am not strong enough to give myself to thee. Enter into my soul with graces that I am unable to resist, shatter this door that in my misery I do not want to open. I will be awaiting thee behind that door with all my appreciation and gratitude. Amen.

 

[Mort_Alz]

Hello,

I was reading an article about the “operation: storm heaven” prayer movement that Cardinal Burke is starting, and it said that there are many things it is intended for, one of which was “make reparation for the sins and offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary”. Coming from a protestant background and still pretty new to the faith, this is somewhat confusing. I am only recently (as in, within the last couple of weeks) started to get interested in Mariology, so I don’t have very much knowledge when it comes to things related to Marian spirituality.

Could someone please explain what this means, and clarify why we would need to make reparations for sins committed against Mary rather than against God? I know we don’t worship her, but the wording is somewhat confusing to me. Thanks.

Being a married man, I often work to “make reparations for the sins and offenses” I may have committed against my wife. It is the same thing.

 

[godisgood77]

You should also point out to the OP that Catholics are not obligated to believe in private revelations or follow what they say.

Thank-you for this post!!

OP- I personally would not waste any time or effort on this. I applaud your curiosity, but there is no need to create layers between you and God based on private revelation…

 

[BayCityRickL]

the link in your post did not work on my computer. Perhaps, for the benefit of the original poster, you need to point out that the alleged apparitions at Fatima and the “messages” of St. Lucia are considered private revelation and are not binding on Catholics, even if the Church has so-called “approved” them. Likewise, for the “sins against Mary” One could argue that all sins are against Mary, in the broadest sense but it is far more important that they are sins, period. It’s not worse because someone construes that it is against the immaculate heart of Mary.