Hearts

And being without sin, what a terrible thing it must be for Them to feel the weight of that pain on Their Chests and in their Sacred and Immaculate Hearts… 

Sacred and Immaculate Hearts of Jesus and Mary

I was praying the other day – in front of a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  While I prayed, I spoke to the Queen of Heaven in my mind.

You see, someone who is close to me had hurt me very badly.  And this was causing me considerable pain.  I had not merited the treatment I had received (though I was certainly not blameless), and I was struggling to reconcile my feelings of hurt and disappointment with conflicting feelings of love and care for this person.

The physical sensation that I experienced during this time was very profound.  I felt as though there was a terrible weight on my chest and that weight was bearing down on me.  I felt that the love that I wished to express to that person was trapped inside my chest because I was unable to move forward in my feelings with that person because their actions were so terrible that they had effectively blocked me from loving them the way that I wished to care for them. 

And as I was praying to the Blessed Virgin for patience and forgiveness and for some general feeling of the love and mercy of God, it suddenly occurred to me that this feeling – this weight of the conflicting emotions on my chest – is perhaps not a weight that I carry alone.

When the Blessed Virgin appeared to the three shepherd children at Fatima, she showed them her Immaculate Heart.  Her Heart was bleeding and pierced with thorns.  Previously, Christ had appeared to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, who was a French Nun and mystic, and He showed her His Sacred Heart.  Here too the Sacred Heart was bleeding and pierced with thorns and this pain was physically evident in the Heart.

As I was reflecting on my own pain the other day, I was struck by the far greater pain of my God and His Holy Mother.  And it occurred to me that while my pain will last for my lifetime – perhaps and in the worst of circumstances – the pain of my Immortal Father and of His Heavenly Mother will last eternally.  Forever, They will experience the profound love for miserable sinners and simultaneously the dreadful disappointment of sin itself.

And as I reflected on this it occurred to me that I spend an awful lot of time focused on my own sadness and discomfort and not much time at all reflecting on the eternal discomfort and suffering of my Beloved and His Mother.

For I am sinful and have merited my pain.  But They are not.  And being without sin, what a terrible thing it must be for Them to feel the weight of that pain on Their Chests and in their Sacred and Immaculate Hearts…  What a terrible terrible thing.

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.