From the Hermitage
Immaculate Heart of Mary
Dear Friends,
What does this feast mean for us today? Consider if you will all of those places in our world where there is an assault to every human being. So many places throughout the world where bombs, drones, gunfire and other instruments of destruction have turned against people. See in your mind's eye today the faces of distraught men, women and children not only in the impoverished areas of our nation, in some inner-city housing where poverty abounds, loneliness lives, and utter despair prevents any decent style of life. Recall, if you can, some of the pictures various media have put before us on televisions, in magazine or newspapers that bring you to those war torn areas. Faces of pain, faces of starvation, faces of abandonment.
Now recall the pictures of artistic representations of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. What do these picture have to to with the images of the first paragraph? Mary, artistically presented, is meant to represent our Church and the concerns it seeks to awaken in our hearts and minds for all of these people called to your minds. Mary's outstretched hand and her other hand pointing to her heart: these are the artistic symbols calling us to pray for those hundreds of thousands around the world who need our prayers, our concern.
Oremus pro invicem!
Fr. Milt
