Newsletter #73 – Our Lady of Mount Carmel USA

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

The Heart of God The Father is The First Foundation of The Devotion to The Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Harp of King David is the eighth symbolic picture of the Immaculate Heart of Mary the Queen of heaven and earth.

MARY’S HEART, THE HARP OF KING DAVID

The mysterious harp of King David, mentioned in several passages of Sacred Scripture, is another
symbolic picture of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, it is an excellent representation because Her Immaculate Heart was indeed the harp of the true David, namely Our Lord Jesus Christ. He fashioned it with His own hands: He alone always possessed it. No other fingers but His ever played its melodies, because her Virginal Heart never vibrated with sentiments, affections or impulses other than those inspired by the Holy Ghost.

The twelve strings of this royal harp are the virtues of Mary’s Immaculate Heart, especially her faith, hope, love of God, charity towards her neighbor, religion, humility, purity, obedience, patience, mercy, hatred of sin, love of the cross. On these twelve strings the Holy Ghost played with wondrous harmony, melodious canticles of love which so greatly charmed the ears of the Eternal Father that He forgot His anger against sinners, He laid aside the thunderbolts wherewith He vowed to destroy mankind and gave His own Son to be the Saviour of humanity.

Sacred Scripture tells us that King David employed his harp specially on four great occasions
and we with Jesus, the Son of David, using His mystical harp to accomplish four infinitely greater
achievements.

1 – In the first instance, David, the man of God, by the mere sound of his harp, put to flight the
evil spirit which possessed Saul. Similarly, the new David Jesus used the Heart of His loving Mother as a
sublime harp and consequently freed by its divine music the human race that groveled under the evil
dominion of Satan.

2 – The prophet David also employed His harp to sing many psalms and canticles to the honor and
glory of God, Our true King David, likewise, sang with His instrument five types of canticles in praise of
the Most Blessed Trinity. The first were canticles of love, the strongest, purest, most perfect love
that ever was or shall be. The second were canticles of praise and then thanksgiving for the benefits
of divine goodness on behalf of all creatures, for the Blessed Virgin Mary did not limit herself to
thanking God for the infinite favors she received from His hand, but she praised Him unceasingly for the
graces He pours on all created beings. The third were canticles of sorrow, of anguish and
bereavement at the time of the sufferings and death of her beloved Son. The fourth were canticles of
triumph for all the victories won by herself as general of the great King’s armies over His enemies
and, we may truly say, over Himself, having so often disarmed divine vengeance when it stood ready
to destroy the world and punish its innumerable crimes. The fifth were canticles of prophecy to
announce the great designs of God for the future, many of which were foretold by the Queen of
Prophets in the wonderful canticle she composed when greeting her cousin St. Elizabeth.

3 – The third purpose for which King David used his harp was to praise God and especially to
praise Him with joy. In like manner, Christ the second David, not only attuned His Holy Mother’s
Immaculate Heart to praise and bless His divine Majesty in every way, but He also induced Mary to seek her joy and bliss exclusively in His praises, and in all the acts she performed for His glory and in His service.

4 – King David chose as the fourth function of his harp to excite and attract other men to the
praise of God, with hearts full of joy and gladness like his own. So too Christ the King attracts
innumerable souls to the love and praise of His heavenly Father by the sweet sound of His precious harp, that is, by means of the Immaculate Heart of His glorious Mother. ‘The extraordinary virtues of her vibrant Heart resound so loudly and harmoniously throughout the entire Christian Church that numberless persons of all ranks and conditions find themselves urged to imitate the perfections
which adorn it, thus beginning to carry out on earth what the angels and saints achieve in Heaven. In
other words, they place their entire contentment and felicity in all that concerns the sovereign
Monarch in Heaven and earth.

Another point worthy of special mention is that Christ, our adorable David, possesses many
other harps given to Him by the Eternal Father to satisfy His boundless desire to hear the praise of
God unceasingly in every place, at every time, in all things and in every way.

His first and sovereign harp is His own Sacred Heart. It is this harp that He speaks of when He
says: “I will sing to thee with the harp, thou holy one of Israel.” (Ps. 70, 22) On this harp, in fact, He sang
continually during His mortal life on earth, and will forever sing in the glory of heaven a thousand
canticles of love, praise and thanksgiving to His heavenly Father, in His own home as well as in the
name of all His members and of all creatures God has made.

But the love that inspires these canticles is infinitely higher, their song is immeasurably holier than those of the canticles He sings on His second harp, which we have just described, namely the Immaculate Heart of His Mother.

These two Hearts and these two Harps are nevertheless so closely attuned that in a certain
sense they constitute one single harp, vibrating in unison, giving forth but one sound and one song,
singing the same canticle of love. If the first sounds a canticle of praise, the second echoes it with its
own chords. If the Heart of Jesus loves God the Father, Mary’s Heart unites in that love, if the Heart
of Jesus pours itself out in thanksgiving before the Most Holy Trinity, Mary’s Heart sings an
identical hymn of gratitude. The Heart of Mary loves and hates all that the Heart of Jesus loves and
hates. What rejoices the Son’s Heart rejoices the Heart of the Mother as well; what crucifies the
Heart of the Son likewise nails the Mother’s Heart to the Cross. “Jesus and Mary,” says St. Augustine,
“were two mystical harps. What sounded on the one, also sounded on the other, even though no one
touched it. When Jesus was in sorrow, Mary was in sorrow; when Jesus was crucified, Mary was
crucified.” (Serm,. de Pass. Dorn)

The Eternal Father gave His Divine Son innumerable other harps, namely, the hearts of all the
angels and saints, on which to praise and glorify His Almighty Father while they were pilgrims on
earth, and forever to praise and glorify Him in blissful eternity. All the glory, honor and praise that
ever was or will be rendered to God the Father by the angels and saints was and will be rendered
through His Divine Son, Jesus Christ. “By Him, and with Him, and in Him, is to thee, God the Father
Almighty, all honor and glory.”

These are the harps mentioned in several passages of the Apocalypse, (Apoc. 5, 8; 14, 2; 15, 2) where St. John tells us that God permitted him to behold the Saints all holding harps on which they sang many canticles in
honor of the Lamb of God. But a learned author, (Viegas, in Apoc.) in his commentaries on the Apocalypse notices a striking difference between these harps and the harp of the Mother of God. The former, while on
earth, were often discordant, because of human weakness and frailty, and they sometimes wearied of
praising God; hence it was necessary to tune them from time to time and urge them to do their duty.

The harp of the Queen of all Saints, on the other hand, never suffered any weakening or interruption in its song, having praised and glorified the Most Blessed Trinity with a changeless love and the most perfect harmony. Hence Viegas says that Our Lady did not exclaim, as though exhorting herself: Magnificat, anima mea, Dominum, but Magnificat “anima mea” Dominum; (Luke 1, 46) not “0 my soul, magnify the Lord,” but “My soul magnify the Lord.”

The Eternal Father has given His Beloved Son yet another harp, which like the hearts of all
Christians is meant to chant the praises of His Holy Name, and this harp is your own heart. Beware
lest you follow the miserable example of those who take away from Christ the hearts given to Him by
the Heavenly Father and purchased by His Precious Blood. Unlike an ordinary instrument, the harp of
your heart cannot remain silent. It must be played either by the hand of God or by the hand of the
devil. Either it will sing the divine canticles of Our Lady and of the saints, or it will echo the cursed
and unhappy songs of the worldlings here below in dishonour to God its Maker, and vibrate eternally
with the blasphemies and horrid laments of the damned in hell.

To make your heart, a harp of Our Saviour, the true David, you must pluck out the strings of
vice and replace them with the strings of virtue, which must be set in tune with the peace and charity
of the hearts of your fellow- men. Sound your harp in unison with the inspired eulogies of true
Christians, of the angelic host and of the saints, above all with the sublime Harp of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of all saints, joining in the chorus of praise and love of Almighty God, led by the Royal Harpist, Our Lord, “singing with one voice: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts.”

Fr. Pancras Raja
Spiritual Director
March 16, 2022

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Consecration of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel to Immaculate Heart of Mary
http://ourladyofmountcarmelusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Consecration-to-Immaculate-Heart-by-Our-Lady-of-Mt.-Carmel-SSPX-Marian-Corps.pdf

Featured Sermon
Given By His Excellency Bishop Pfeiffer

Posted in Newsletters and tagged 2022, Father Pancras Raja, March, Newsletter