“WE say anything is pure or clean when there is nothing of a lower or coarser nature mixed with it or resting on it. In this way we speak of a pure spirit as one not made for union with a material body; pure water, again, that is not mixed with any foreign matter that will dull its brightness. Remark that purity does not mean coldness or stiffness. If snow is the emblem of purity, it is because of its heaven-born whiteness and stainlessness–not because of its coldness. Once let the clay and soilure of earth be mixed with the drift, and though it has not ceased to be cold it has ceased to be pure. The icicle which the poet has made the emblem of chastity is no fitting emblem either in its coldness or sharpness–but (if it be a fit emblem at all) in its transparent clearness. To-day, however, we see the true emblem of purity, better than snow or ice, however spotless; for we see a human heart, warm with the warmest human love, throbbing and yearning as with the love of all hearts in one, and yet, nay by very reason of its vehement love, the home and emblem of purity–the most loving of the loving, and the purest of the pure.”
— “The Pure Heart of Mary” by Rev. Arthur Ryan, 1877
From readings and devotions on today’s Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The day on which we celebrate this feast was instituted by Pope Pius XII on May 4, 1944, in honor of a devotion that began in the 17th century.
Heart of Mary, refuge of sinners, pray for us.
Hymn {from the Common or Feast}
The God whom earth, and sea, and sky
Adore, and laud, and magnify,
Who o’er their threefold fabric reigns,
The Virgin’s spotless womb contains.
The God, whose will by moon and sun
And all things in due course is done,
Is borne upon a maiden’s breast,
By fullest heavenly grace possest.
How blest that mother, in whose shrine
The great artificer divine,
Whose hand contains the earth and sky,
Vouchsafed, as in his ark, to lie.
Blest, in the message Gabriel brought;
Blest, by the work the Spirit wrought;
From whom the great desire of earth
Took human flesh and human birth.
All honour, laud, and glory be,
O Jesu, Virgin-Born, to thee;
Whom with the Father we adore,
And Holy Ghost, for evermore.
Amen.
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