Newsletter #57 – 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 center of the earth is the third symbolic picture of the Immaculate Heart of Mary the Queen of heaven and earth.

MARY’S HEART, THE CENTER OF THE EARTH

“God hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth. (Ps 73, 12)

What is this earth and what is its center? The first is the earth created by God at the beginning of the world, which He gave to Adam and his descendants. The second is the earth made for the new man, Jesus Christ, Our Lord. This second earth is a land of blessings, grace and light, a land of eternal life, a land that has become nobler, more august, more luminous and holier than all the heavens. What is this priceless renewed earth? It is the most Blessed Virgin Mary. Of this earth did the Holy Ghost speak in Scripture: when He said through the Prophet, Isaias: “Let the earth be opened, and bud forth a saviour.” (Isa. 45, 8)

It was in Mary, the center of this blessed earth, that God worked out the salvation of mankind. “He hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth: (Ps. 73, 12) Both St. Jerome and St. Bernard (Serm. 2 in die Pentec.) apply these words to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Notice, however, that the Holy Ghost who uttered these words through the lips of the Royal Prophet, David, does not proclaim merely that God worked the salvation of the world in this earth, but in the midst of the earth, in media terrae, or according to mother version, in intimo terrae, in the center or in the heart of the earth. By that is meant the heart and bosom of the spotless Virgin Mary. Yes, it was in the midst of this “good earth,” or better, in the good and excellent Heart of Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ, “in a good and perfect heart,” (Luke 8, 15) that the Eternal Word, coming forth from the Father’s bosom to save mankind, was received and zealously nourished, producing fruit a hundredfold and one hundred thousand times a hundredfold.

What is this overflowing measure of fruit (wheat), if not the only Son of God, the true wheat of the elect, the bread of God, Who is the life and strength of man’s heart? “Bread may strengthen man’s heart.” (Ps. 103, 15) The Eternal Father scattered this sanctifying wheat when He gave us His Divine Son with such great love in the mystery of the Incarnation and He still scatters it every day in full measure when He continues to give us Our Lord daily with consummate goodness in the Blessed Eucharist.

We can, therefore, say in truth that Jesus is the fruit of Mary’s Heart as well as of her womb, and that the faithful are the fruits of the same Heart, because the very virtues of faith, humility, purity, love and charity, which rendered her worthy to become the Mother of God, made her also the Mother of all God’s children. As the Eternal Father gave her the power to conceive His Son in her Heart and in her virginal womb, by clothing her with the divine virtue whereby He generates His Divine Son from all eternity in His own adorable bosom, so also did God grant her the power to form Christ and give birth to Him in the hearts of the children of Adam, who thus became members of Jesus Christ and sons of God.

Even as Mary conceived and will eternally bear her Son Jesus Christ in her Heart, she also conceives and holds forever in the same Heart all the holy members of our Divine Head. They are her beloved children, the fruits of her maternal Heart, and she offers them to the divine majesty as a perpetual sacrifice.

Thus did Our Lady, “the good earth,” fructify the grain of wheat which she received from God.
Her Son had to die even as the seed must die and, as it were, become annihilated that He might not remain alone, but might produce numberless other grains. In this sense did the King of Kings work out our salvation in the center of the earth.

Many holy Fathers and illustrious Doctors show how Almighty God saved mankind “in the midst of the earth,” that is, in the Holy Heart of Mary, Mother of Jesus. Her Heart cooperated with His divine mercy, having received such a plenitude of grace, according to the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas, that she became enabled to cooperate with her Son in the salvation of all men. (Opus. 8) This inspires St. Bonaventure to say that her Heart is the source of universal salvation. “All salvation springs from Mary’s Heart.” (In Psalt. B. Virg. Ps.79)

All this being conceded, what must be our obligations towards the most charitable Heart of our
Blessed Mother! What gratitude can we show, what praises can we sing, what feast can we celebrate in honor of her Heart, that will be worthy of her excessive charity towards us, and of the favors granted to us by divine mercy through her intercession?

Mary is the center of the earth in which our salvation was wrought. She is also the center of
the renewed world, the Christian world, the world of the new man, the world of divine love and holy charity. Here are three reasons to show that Mary’s Heart is the center of the Christian world.

First, all beings consider their center the seat of their repose, their conservation, and, as it
were, their salvation. The salvation of man having taken place in the Heart of Mary, all Christians must consider her as the source of their life after God and as the cause and the center of their happiness.

Here is what St. Bernard has to say. His words refer to the person of the Blessed Virgin, but can be applied especially to her Heart. “With good reason is Mary called the center of the earth, for all the inhabitants of Heaven, and those of hell, those who come before us, and those who will come after us, their children’s children and their entire posterity look to her as to the midst and the center of the earth. She is, in fact, next to her divine Son, the mediator between God and Man, between the Head and the members of the Mystical Body, the Church, between the Old and New Testament, between Heaven and earth, between justice and mercy.

These words of St. Bernard not only may be applied to the Heart of the Mother of God, but are actually more applicable to her Heart than to her person. The cause being nobler than its effects, her Heart so, full of humility is, as we shall see, the cause and the source of all virtues which adorn Our Lady and render her worthy to be the object, the refuge, and as it were, the center of every creature past, present and to come. Hence her marvelous Heart is indeed the midst and center of the world of the new man.

Secondly, the Heart of Mary is the center of this new world, meaning the world of divine love and holy charity, a world of tenderness and delectation, having charity as its only law, because all holy love and divine charity contained in the hearts of angels and men, who love God for Himself and their neighbor for the love of God, are found united in the Heart of the Mother of Fair Love as in their center. Mary’s Heart is like a beautiful mirror, large enough to reflect all the Sun’s rays focused on its polished surface.

Thirdly, you will remember that the most humble and pure Virgin ravished and attracted to herself the adorable Heart of the Eternal Father, His Beloved Son, and that He became the Heart of her Heart. Jesus is, therefore, the true Heart of Mary. Is not this amiable Jesus the love, the delight, the center and the joy of Heaven and earth? Is it not certain, therefore, that the true Heart of Mary, namely Jesus, is the center of all the hearts of angels and men? They must ever be turned towards it, gaze upon it unceasingly and make it the object of their aspirations and desires. It is the seat of their perfect repose and of their supreme felicity. Out of it there is only trouble, fear, anxiety, death and hell.

O Jesus, true Heart of Mary, take possession of our hearts, and draw them nigh to Thee. Inspire them to love, desire, seek and relish only Thee. May they ever long for Thee, may they always seek their rest and happiness in Thee, may they remain in Thee forever and be consumed in the ardent furnace of Thy Divine Heart so as to be transformed eternally in Thee!

Fr. Pancras Raja
Spiritual Director
July 14, 2021

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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

https://youtu.be/AydWqFgmU6Q?t=1338

Featured Sermon
Given By His Excellency Bishop Pfeiffer

Posted in Newsletters and tagged Father Pancras Raja, July Newsletter