Visitation of the Immaculate Heart

Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(31 May)

Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
(Saturday following Sacred Heart)

Today is a happy meeting, indeed! On the day that we remember the visit of the Virginal Mother to care for her saintly cousin Elizabeth, the elderly new mother, we also honor the same Virgin's Immaculate Heart.

Mary, in her condition, was pregnant. In her estate as mother of the Messiah, she was Queen of Heaven and Earth. Forgetting both her condition and her estate, she hurried off to care for the mother of the Baptist. The purity of her heart enabled her to devote herself entirely, with unmixed motivations, to the service of God. In this case, she carried out that service by devotion to her elderly relative. Let us take Mary, mother of our Lord and our mother, as an exemplar of purity of heart, and of self-forgetful service. The perfect loving service of the Blessed Mary will be our own when we, like she, carry in our inmost being Jesus Christ.

O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys and suffering of this day – for all the intentions of the Sacred Heart, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, in reparation for my sins, for the intentions of all my associates and for the general intention recommended this month by our Holy Father, the Pope. Amen.