St John Eudes – The Admirable Heart of Mary
The Heart of Mary in General
The first heart of Mary, the Mother of God, is the heart of flesh enclosed in her virginal breast. Although this heart is corporeal, it is nevertheless completely spiritualized by the spirit of grace and the spirit of God which fills it.
The second heart is her spiritual heart, made God-like, not indeed by the hypostatic union as in the Incarnate Word, but by a superlative participation in the divine perfections, as we shall see in the following pages. This heart is referred to by the words of the Holy Ghost: “All the glory of the king’s daughter is within,”
The third heart of Mary is divine and is truly God Himself, for it is none other than the love of God. This is the heart of which she says: “I sleep, and my heart watcheth,” which means according to the interpretation of several holy Doctors: “While I grant necessary rest to my body, my Son Jesus, who is my Heart and whom I love like my own heart, is always watching over me and for me.”
These three hearts of the Mother of God constitute a single Heart, through the holiest and most intimate union that ever was and will be, next to the hypostatic union. Of these three hearts, or rather, of this single Heart, the Holy Ghost has said twice: “Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.” Our Lady cherished the mysteries and marvels of her Son’s life, first of all, in her material and corporeal heart, the principle of life, the seat of love and of the other physical emotions. All the movements, every beat of this virginal heart, the material functions that it accomplished and the emotions that swayed it, existed solely for Jesus and for the things that concerned Him. Her love was spent in loving Him, her hatred in hating all that is contrary to Him, her joy in rejoicing in His glory and His grandeurs, her sorrow and compassion in bewailing His trials and sufferings. The same may be said of every emotion of her bodily heart.
Secondly, Mary kept all these things in her spiritual heart, that is, in the noblest part of her soul, in the inmost recesses of her mind, All the faculties of her soul were constantly applied to contemplating and adoring everything that took place in the life of her Beloved Son, down to the very smallest details. Thirdly, Our Lady kept all these things in her divine Heart, that is, in her Son Jesus, who was the mind of her mind and the heart of her heart. He in turn kept them for her and recalled them to her mind when necessary, that she might feed herself in contemplation upon the mysteries of His life, rendering them due honor and adoration, and repeating them to the holy apostles and disciples, who were to preach them to the faithful.
This then is what is meant by the admirable Heart of the beloved Mother of God.
AnaStpaul 