St John Eudes – The Admirable Heart of Mary
Mary’s Heart, the Fiery Furnace of Babylon
Another symbolic picture of the admirable Heart of the most Holy Mother of God is the miraculous furnace described in the third chapter of the Prophet Daniel. St. John Damascene and many other holy Doctors affirm that the fiery furnace was a figure of the sinless Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary and its burning fire a reflection of the heavenly fire in the holy breast of the Mother of Fair Love. Here are St. John Damascene’s words: “Is it not true,” he says addressing Our Lady, “that this furnace, filled with a fire at once burning and refreshing, was a faithful image of thee and an excellent picture of the divine and eternal fire dwelling within thee?”
But you may well ask how anything so noble and holy as the Heart of the Queen of Heaven could be represented by the furnace of Babylon, an instrument of torture designed by the wickedness and cruelty of King Nabuchodonosor? Remember that the three young men, Sidrach, Misach and Abdenago, thrown into the furnace to be burnt to ashes, belonged to the people of Israel, and everything that happened to the Israelites was a figure and a foreshadowing of the great miracles that were to be fulfilled in Christianity, and in the Father and Mother of Christians. “All these things happened to them in figure.” Remember also that St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great tell us that Sacred Scripture mentions many objects which though profane and wicked in themselves, are nevertheless a representation of good and holy thoughts.
Certainly that furnace was the product of Nabuchodonosor’s impious rage, but divine Providence, without whose order and permission nothing can happen, designated it to show the extent of the power of God and the marvels of His goodness, through the miraculous protection given to His faithful friends.
In the furnace of Babylon we behold many marvels wrought by God’s omnipotence. Consider that in the midst of the furnace filled with fire and flame, there should be a refreshing wind, likened to fragrant dew. “The angel made the midst of the furnace like the blowing of a wind bringing dew.” What a marvel it is to behold a burning furnace whose flames protect those inside its crucible, while they destroy those who remain outside! What a miracle to see fire comforting and refreshing those cast into the sevenfold heat of its flames, while burning to death those standing at a safe distance! How miraculous for three young men to survive in a furnace whose flames leapt to a height of forty-nine cubits, not suffering injury but walking about with joy as in a place of delight! The three gladly sang the praises of Almighty God and emerged from their ordeal with greater strength and vigor than before while the fire could not so much as singe a single fibre of their clothing. Great indeed are the marvels to be found in Babylon’s furnace; yet they merely foreshadow the miracles which we find in the furnace of the glowing Heart of the Queen of Angels.
It is a great miracle to witness fire and water subsisting side by side in the furnace of Nabuchodonosor. The fire did not turn the cooling water into steam nor did the water quench the burning heat of the fire. What manner of fire is this? It is the fire of divine love burning in the Virginal Heart of Mary. What is the cooling dew? It is the water of tribulation, which so often flooded the holy Heart of the Mother of Sorrows. The fire of love did not dry up the waters of affliction; and the waters of tribulation were unable, I shall not say to extinguish, but even to diminish in the least degree the divine ardor of that heavenly fire.
Love has the virtue of fire, that it may unceasingly inflame the Virgin Mother’s purest Heart with its sacred ardour, and also the properties of water, as it extinguishes entirely the fire of self-love and of attachment to vain and perishable things. Is it not a great miracle to behold a fire refreshing, consoling and filling with joy the children of the Mother of God, while it pursues, burns, devours its enemies? Her virginal Heart, which is ablaze with love for her true children, directs the fire and flame of its anger against those who injure or scandalize her loved ones.
Three Hebrew children walked safely in the first furnace; yet the prophet saw there four, and the fourth was like the Son of God. “The form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” Actually it was an angel, representing the Only-begotten Son of God in the Babylonian furnace, but this same Son of God resides and dwells in person in the glowing Heart of His most holy Mother. He is all fire and flame of love and charity. “The Lord thy God is a consuming fire.”
We also notice that the three young men were bound hand and foot when thrown into the furnace, but immediately their bonds were consumed by the fire and they were freed within the furnace. Come, come, poor slaves of sin and of the world! Come, slaves of passion, of self-love and self-will, chained in the irons and fetters of Babylon! Fear not to plunge into our sacred furnace! These flames will not harm you; instead they will destroy your fetters and establish you in the holy liberty of the children of God and of His loving Mother. They will inflame your hearts with the fire of heavenly love, they will transform them into divine fire itself.
Your hearts must become furnaces of eternal love, if they would avoid being ranked with the miserable hearts of the wicked against whom the terrible sentence was uttered: “Thou shalt make them as an oven of fire, in the time of thy anger.” What dost Thou will to do, O Lord, with the ungrateful wretches, whom Thou didst create to love Thee, whose obligations to love Thee are boundless, yet who have loved everything but Thee, and have even kindled fires of insult and heaped outrages upon Thee? Thou shalt make of them furnaces of wrath, in the time of Thy terrible vengeance. Thou shalt hurl them into the eternal fire prepared for Satan and his minions, where they will be swallowed, burned and penetrated by the infernal fire. In life these souls would not permit the sweet and radiant flames of Thy holy love to burn within them, so they shall be yielded to the eternal torments of devouring fire in endless hell.
Would you avoid this tragedy, the greatest of all misfortunes? Then give your hearts to your admirable Queen, imploring her to offer them to her beloved Son with the prayer that He may kindle in them the fire He came to spread on earth, the fire He so greatly desires should be lighted. On your part, correspond by removing every obstacle from your hearts, and if this sacred flame is already burning there, make every effort to increase it more and more, by the practice of Christian virtues, the meditation of the gospel and especially the exercise of divine love and charity.
AnaStpaul 