THE IMMACULATE AND PERFECT HEART OF MARY

20260613 THE IMMACULATE AND PERFECT HEART OF MARY

 

13 June 2026, Saturday, Immaculate Heart of Mary

Isaiah 61:9-11

⁹ Their descendants shall be known among the nations,

and their offspring in the midst of the peoples;

all who see them shall acknowledge them,

that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.

¹⁰ I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,

my soul shall exult in my God;

for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,

he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,

as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,

and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

¹¹ For as the earth brings forth its shoots,

and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,

so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise

to spring forth before all the nations.

 

1Samual 2 :1, 4-8

¹ Hannah also prayed and said,

“My heart exults in the Lord;

my strength is exalted in the Lord.

My mouth derides my enemies,

because I rejoice in thy salvation.

⁴ The bows of the mighty are broken,

but the feeble gird on strength.

⁵ Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread,

but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger.

The barren has borne seven,

but she who has many children is forlorn.

⁶ The Lord kills and brings to life;

he brings down to Sheol and raises up.

⁷ The Lord makes poor and makes rich;

he brings low, he also exalts.

⁸ He raises up the poor from the dust;

he lifts the needy from the ash heap,

to make them sit with princes

and inherit a seat of honor.

For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s,

and on them he has set the world.

 

Luke 2:41-51

⁴¹ Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. ⁴² And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom; ⁴³ and when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, ⁴⁴ but supposing him to be in the company they went a day’s journey, and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances; ⁴⁵ and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking him. ⁴⁶ After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; ⁴⁷ and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. ⁴⁸ And when they saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.” ⁴⁹ And he said to them, “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” ⁵⁰ And they did not understand the saying which he spoke to them. ⁵¹ And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.

THE IMMACULATE AND PERFECT HEART OF MARY

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SCRIPTURE READINGS: [Isa 61:9-11; 1 Sam 2:1,4-8; Lk 2:41-51]

What kind of heart does Mary have that leads us to call it “Immaculate”? To appreciate what the Church intends for us to meditate on this Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we take our cue from the adjectives used in the preface for the Votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It reads: “You gave the Blessed Virgin Mary a wise and obedient heart, that she might perfectly carry out your will, a new and gentle heart, in which you were well pleased and on which you inscribed the law of the New Covenant. You gave her an undivided and pure heart that she might be worthy to be the Virgin Mother of your Son and to rejoice to see you forever. You gave her a steadfast and watchful heart, so that she could endure without fear the sword of sorrow and await in faith the resurrection of her Son.”

The first pair of adjectives describes Mary as having “a wise and obedient heart, that she might perfectly carry out your will.”  Why is Mary said to have a wise heart? Simply because Mary was never reactive to the situations and events in her life. We hardly hear Mary speaking in the Scriptures except for a few instances: in her response to the angel when she was asked to be the Mother of our Saviour, in her reply to Elizabeth’s greeting, and twice to Jesus – at the Temple and at Cana in Galilee. Notably, Luke always presents Mary in prayer and contemplation. When the shepherds came to relate to Mary what the angels told them about the child, “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” (Lk 2:19) Again at the Temple when the Lord was presented, after the prophecies of Simeon and Anna, she was just amazed at what was said about Jesus. (cf Lk 2:33) There were no comments from her. And when Mary found Jesus at the Temple speaking to the teachers, and was awed by Jesus’ response that He must be in His Father’s house, she did not understand what He said to them, yet she “treasured all these things in her heart.”  (Lk 2:51) When Jesus was misunderstood to be out of His mind, or when He was crucified on the cross, Mary did not say a single word. Mary’s silence shows her consciously and always in contemplation.

She was wise in discerning God’s will and being obedient to it without hesitation or compromise. Whether she came to realise the will of God at the Annunciation, or at the cross of Jesus, she was ever ready to do it. Mary’s heart was undivided in being faithful to the will of God. Her response at the Annunciation demonstrated her fidelity when she said to the angel, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  (Lk 1:38) In His ministry, Jesus praised Mary saying, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”  (Lk 8:21) And when a woman praised Mary for being His mother, the Lord said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!”  (Lk 11:28) Indeed, for Mary, doing God’s will required contemplation and discernment. This was why, when she saw the wedding couple run short of wine for the guests, and after making her Son aware of their need, she simply instructed the servants to, “Do whatever he tells you.”  (Jn 2:5)

The second pair of adjectives describes Mary as having a “a new and gentle heart, in which you were well pleased and on which you inscribed the law of the New Covenant.”  Her heart is described as new and gentle because it is the heart of the New Covenant. We remember what the prophet Ezekiel said about the New Covenant that God would make: “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.” (Eze 36:25-27) Jeremiah also prophesied, “this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me.”  (Jer 31:33f)

Truly, Mary is not just the Ark of the New Covenant, but she is the exemplar of what God desires for each one of us. Mary conceived Jesus in her heart before she gave birth to Him in the flesh. We are called to be true disciples of the Lord by following Him and living out His teachings. Mary has a heart of docility, not rebelling against God even when she could not fully grasp what the Lord intended for her. She accepted the explanation of the angel without question and did not doubt the angel’s words. She was compassionate towards the enemies of her Son. She was gentle and did not retaliate, whether facing Herod’s persecution, the betrayals of the apostles and disciples in His last days, or when her Son hung on the cross – stripped, beaten, and pierced by a lance. She showed the utmost patience and mercy. After her Son’s ascension into heaven, she gathered the apostles together and taught them to wait for the Holy Spirit in prayer.

The third set of adjectives used for Mary is that God “gave her an undivided and pure heart that she might be worthy to be the Virgin Mother of your Son and to rejoice to see you forever.”  Mary’s devotion to God and to her Son was total and complete. When called upon to be the mother of the Saviour, she did not hesitate to say “Yes” to the call. It is important to note that she was not ambitious or vain, nor did she seek her own glory. She remained humble and pure in her response to God’s call. There was no ulterior motive of wanting to be better or greater than other women. There was a purity of mind and heart in serving God. Indeed, her first reaction to her role as the mother of God was to be a channel of God’s grace to Elizabeth, who had conceived in her old age. She thought immediately of her cousin’s need in her pregnancy and set off right away to assist her upon hearing that she was already into the sixth month of her pregnancy.

And when she arrived and Elizabeth praised her, she sang the Magnificat, which was a hymn directed to God’s mercy and graciousness, and what He would do for His people. She began by acknowledging God’s mercy and attributing everything to God’s graciousness: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” (Lk 1:47-49) Then she expressed her faith in what the faithful and merciful Lord was going to do for His people. “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”  (Lk 1:51-55) Mary makes it clear that mercy is given only given to those who fear Him. (Lk 1:50) A purity of heart, unselfish and moved by compassion to serve others, is the hallmark of Mary’s heart.

Finally, the last pair of adjectives describes Mary’s perseverance and fortitude – her devotion and faithfulness to the Lord even during trials and sufferings: “You gave her a steadfast and watchful heart, so that she could endure without fear the sword of sorrow and await in faith the resurrection of her Son.”  Truly, Mary was faithful in doing God’s will until the end of her life. The prophecy of Simeon was fulfilled in her when he said to her, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”  (Lk 2:34f) Mary was indeed a strong woman because she had a strong heart, singularly devoted to God and to her Son. Her wise, obedient, pure, and gentle heart kept her faithful to God. To conceive Jesus in our hearts, we must imitate her in her devotion to her Son so that we too can have a share in her Immaculate Heart – a heart truly given to the Lord and to His mission. In this way, we will truly be the bride and exalted people of God, as Isaiah prophesied.

Best Practices for Using the Daily Scripture Reflections

• Encounter God through the spirit of prayer and the scripture by reflecting and praying the Word of God daily. The purpose is to bring you to prayer and to a deeper union with the Lord on the level of the heart.
• Daily reflections when archived will lead many to accumulate all the reflections of the week and pray in one sitting. This will compromise your capacity to enter deeply into the Word of God, as the tendency is to read for knowledge rather than a prayerful reading of the Word for the purpose of developing a personal and affective relationship with the Lord.
• It is more important to pray deeply, not read widely. The current reflections of the day would be more than sufficient for anyone who wants to pray deeply and be led into an intimacy with the Lord.

Note: You may share this reflection with someone. However, please note that reflections are not archived online nor will they be available via email request.

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Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved. 

FINDING THE CAPACITY TO LOVE LIKE JESUS

20260612 FINDING THE CAPACITY TO LOVE LIKE JESUS

 

12 June 2026, Friday, The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

First reading

Deuteronomy 7:6-11

The Lord set his heart on you and chose you

Moses said to the people: ‘You are a people consecrated to the Lord your God; it is you that the Lord our God has chosen to be his very own people out of all the peoples on the earth.

  ‘If the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, it was not because you outnumbered other peoples: you were the least of all peoples. It was for love of you and to keep the oath he swore to your fathers that the Lord brought you out with his mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know then that the Lord your God is God indeed, the faithful God who is true to his covenant and his graciousness for a thousand generations towards those who love him and keep his commandments, but who punishes in their own persons those that hate him. He is not slow to destroy the man who hates him; he makes him work out his punishment in person. You are therefore to keep and observe the commandments and statutes and ordinances that I lay down for you today.’

How to listen

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Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 102(103):1-4,6-8,10

The love of the Lord is everlasting upon those who hold him in fear.

My soul, give thanks to the Lord

  all my being, bless his holy name.

My soul, give thanks to the Lord

  and never forget all his blessings.

The love of the Lord is everlasting upon those who hold him in fear.

It is he who forgives all your guilt,

  who heals every one of your ills,

who redeems your life from the grave,

  who crowns you with love and compassion,

The love of the Lord is everlasting upon those who hold him in fear.

The Lord does deeds of justice,

  gives judgement for all who are oppressed.

He made known his ways to Moses

  and his deeds to Israel’s sons.

The love of the Lord is everlasting upon those who hold him in fear.

The Lord is compassion and love,

  slow to anger and rich in mercy.

He does not treat us according to our sins

  nor repay us according to our faults.

The love of the Lord is everlasting upon those who hold him in fear.

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Second reading

1 John 4:7-16

Let us love one another, since love comes from God

My dear people,

let us love one another

since love comes from God

and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.

Anyone who fails to love can never have known God,

because God is love.

God’s love for us was revealed

when God sent into the world his only Son

so that we could have life through him;

this is the love I mean:

not our love for God,

but God’s love for us when he sent his Son

to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away.

My dear people,

since God has loved us so much,

we too should love one another.

No one has ever seen God;

but as long as we love one another

God will live in us

and his love will be complete in us.

We can know that we are living in him

and he is living in us

because he lets us share his Spirit.

We ourselves saw and we testify

that the Father sent his Son

as saviour of the world.

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God,

God lives in him, and he in God.

We ourselves have known and put our faith in

God’s love towards ourselves.

God is love

and anyone who lives in love lives in God,

and God lives in him.

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Gospel Acclamation

Mt11:29

Alleluia, alleluia!

Shoulder my yoke and learn from me,

for I am gentle and humble in heart.

Alleluia!

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Gospel

Matthew 11:25-30

You have hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to little children

Jesus exclaimed, ‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do. Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

  ‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’

 

FINDING THE CAPACITY TO LOVE LIKE JESUS

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SCRIPTURE READINGS: [Dt 7:6-11; Ps 103:1-4, 6-8, 10; 1 Jn 4:7-16; Mt 11:25-30]

The Gospel today is consoling to all of us without exception. All of us feel the weight and burden of life and its responsibilities. Whether it is looking after the family, our children, or the elderly, it can be a great challenge trying to deal with their demands. Or, in our work, whether as bosses or employees, the stress, anxieties, and trials can weigh us down. And over and above all these stresses and concerns, some of us have to bear our responsibilities whilst suffering from ill health or even terminal illness. Many times, we feel like giving up because we cannot seem to find the strength to continue to give of ourselves.

It is in such a predicament that the words of our Lord are such a blessing and consolation to us: “Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.”  Hearing His words immediately makes us feel that Jesus identifies with us and understands our burden. Surely, He understands what it is like to labour and be overburdened because of obstacles and difficulties. We can be sure that Jesus, as a man, faced multiple challenges even when He sought to enlighten and help the Jews in His ministry. In spite of His unconditional love for them, He was misunderstood, used, taken for granted, abused, falsely accused, insulted, beaten, and ultimately, betrayed.

This is why today, after celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Church sums up the entire Paschal Mystery of Christ in the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart. In Jesus, we see the heart of God; in Jesus, we come to know the inner life of God – how He feels and how He loves us. Jesus loves us with a human and divine heart. The divine love of God is present in the person of Jesus, who is not an abstract love, but one demonstrated in His humanity. For us to understand the heart of God’s love, it is necessary to contemplate the human heart of Jesus. Only He can reveal to us the heart of His Father. For this is what the Lord said: “Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

What is the Father’s love like? Moses tells us He has chosen us in love and for love. His love for us is unconditional and without any merit of our own. Moses told the people of Israel. “You are a people consecrated to the Lord your God; it is you that the Lord our God has chosen to be his very own people out of all the peoples on the earth. If the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, it was not because you outnumbered other peoples: you were the least of all peoples.”  Indeed, God chose Israel not because they were great but because they were small – not because they were important but because they were the least among all peoples. That is how God sees us. Out of His graciousness, He chose us to be His own.

And God did all these simply because He loves them as His own. He saw their cries and miseries. Moses reminded the people, “It was for love of you and to keep the oath he swore to your fathers that the Lord brought you out with his mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”  God said to Moses, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Ex 3:7f)

In the Gospel, Jesus repeats these words in a similar manner. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” (Jn 15:13-17)

Even when His love is rejected again and again by His people, God never forsakes them. One of the most moving passages in the Scriptures is God’s words of compassion spoken through Hosea. He said, “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.” (Hos 11:8f) And in Isaiah, when Israel accused God saying, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.” His reply was, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.” (Isa 49:14-16)

This fidelity and love are fully shown in the death of His only Son. St John wrote, “My dear people, let us love one another since love comes from God and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is love. God’s love for us was revealed when God sent into the world his only Son so that we could have life through him; this is the love I mean: not our love for God, but God’s love for us when he sent his Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away.” Our capacity to love comes from this awareness and consciousness of God’s prior love for us, especially on the cross, with Jesus sacrificing His life for us to show us the mercy and love of our heavenly Father. And as St Paul reflected, “What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?” (Rom 8:31f)

The consequence of realising God’s utter love for us in Christ is the call to love others as St Paul wrote, “For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.” (2 Cor 5:14-15) As we love others, we come to experience God’s love in them. In feeling with those who suffer, we enter into the heart of God’s love and mercy as well.

So, if we feel that God does not care about us in our sorrows and difficulties, the Scriptures clearly show that this is not what the people of God throughout the ages experienced. The testimonies of God’s faithful and compassionate love are found all over the Scriptures. The psalmist proclaims, “The love of the Lord is everlasting upon those who hold him in fear.” To come to Jesus, who shows us the Heart of God, humility is what is required. Humility leads to receptivity. Only the humble can come to appreciate God’s love, not the intellectuals. We do not need to be Scripture scholars or theologians to receive God’s love. The Lord assured us, “I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do.”

To encounter His love, we must open our hearts to the Lord in prayer and friendship. We must allow Him to dwell in us and fill us with His love, especially when we pray before the Blessed Sacrament or receive Him in the Eucharist – and particularly when we contemplate the Heart of Jesus. His is a heart that feels with us, that cries with us, that shares our sorrows, and a heart that is always forgiving and non-judgmental. Let us come before Him and find strength from His love for us, so that we can truly also say, “Make our hearts like unto thine, O Lord.”  This is the secret to overcome all trials in love. With John, we can say, “We ourselves have known and put our faith in God’s love towards ourselves.”

Best Practices for Using the Daily Scripture Reflections

• Encounter God through the spirit of prayer and the scripture by reflecting and praying the Word of God daily. The purpose is to bring you to prayer and to a deeper union with the Lord on the level of the heart.
• Daily reflections when archived will lead many to accumulate all the reflections of the week and pray in one sitting. This will compromise your capacity to enter deeply into the Word of God, as the tendency is to read for knowledge rather than a prayerful reading of the Word for the purpose of developing a personal and affective relationship with the Lord.
• It is more important to pray deeply, not read widely. The current reflections of the day would be more than sufficient for anyone who wants to pray deeply and be led into an intimacy with the Lord.

Note: You may share this reflection with someone. However, please note that reflections are not archived online nor will they be available via email request.

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Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.