Already in the 1980s, there was a growing controversy as to whether it was more appropriate to celebrate the Octave of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary with the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, or to call to mind that latter Feast the day following the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
I very much appreciate the significance of the making of a theological point about the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, insisting on her Immaculate Conception as a motive, as it were, for her to have been assumed soul and body into heaven.
Rebel that I am, however, I also very much desired to see the two feasts celebrated together, or at least with the one following the other. I was always disappointed with the demotion of the Feast in the Extraordinary Form to a memorial in the Ordinary Form.
Decades ago, there was a push in many parishes to have all-night adoration of the Blessed Sacrament from Friday night to Saturday morning. I always loved that idea, and was surprised at the some of the bitter blow-back from some “traditionalist” camps. I’m not sure why adoration in such circumstances was seen as something terribly modernist and horrible. It wasn’t a point about calendars, or contrasting old and new, but something along theological lines. I just couldn’t fathom that at all.
As it is, I think both placements in the Extraordinary and Ordinary Form calendars are appropriate, though I should like the Immaculate Heart to be retained as a higher level feast in the Ordinary Form for sure. It had been a mere optional memorial until Blessed John Paul II raised it to an obligatory memorial. That may seem to be a small gesture, but I rejoiced greatly. I vividly remember, with great joy, the consternation this brought to the more liberal clergy, who would otherwise ignore this remembrance of our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, saying that they saw no connection between the two Hearts. Imagine that.
You might also easily imagine, then — as I’ve recalled on this day in past years on this blog — that in my spiritual direction for the seminarians up at the Pontifical College Josephinum, I would emphasize how to go about developing a lively childlike devotion to the Immaculate and Sorrowful heart of Mary. We can be afraid of such purity of heart because it can bring such great pain. Mary had such clear spiritual vision, such agility of soul, that she could see her Divine Son for who He is: God Himself, who loves us so very much. She could also see, perfectly, and in contrast, all the sin of mankind from the first man to the last, seeing this all at once on the crucified Body of her Son. There is no one who could ever have been more sorrowful than she, precisely because her heart was so immaculate. Her heart was pierced by a sword of sorrow (see Luke 2,35).
Lamentations 1,12 — “Come, all you who pass by the way, look and see Whether there is any suffering like my suffering, which has been dealt me When the LORD afflicted me on the day of his blazing wrath.”
Now, all this is not to say that Mary had no joy! In fact, it was because she knew such joy — the joy of being with our Lord, the joy of doing the will of our heavenly Father, the joy of being in His grace — … it was because of that great joy that she so wanted to share this joy with us. We however, were of a different opinion, in our sin, causing her great anguish. How very, very joyful she is when we are her good children in the grace of her Divine Son.
What a joy it is to be the cause, however indirectly, of the joy of such a Mother. Thanks, Immaculate Mary, for having interceded for me, for us, and for continuing that prayer to this very moment.
I don’t mind celebrating the Immaculate Heart of Mary every day of the year. It’s obligatory to be festive!
To the young, the pure, and the ingenuous, irony must always appear to have a quality of something evil, and so it has, for [...] it is a sword to wound. It is so directly the product or reflex of evil that, though it can never be used – nay, can hardly exist – save in the chastisement of evil, yet irony always carries with it some reflections of the bad spirit against which it was directed. [...] It suggests most powerfully the evil against which it is directed, and those innocent of evil shun so terrible an instrument. [...] The mere truth is vivid with ironical power [...] when the mere utterance of a plain truth labouriously concealed by hypocrisy, denied by contemporary falsehood, and forgotten in the moral lethargy of the populace, takes upon itself an ironical quality more powerful than any elaboration of special ironies could have taken in the past. [...] No man possessed of irony and using it has lived happily; nor has any man possessing it and using it died without having done great good to his fellows and secured a singular advantage to his own soul. “On Irony” (pages 124-127; Penguin books 1325. Selected Essays (2/6), edited by J.B. Morton; Harmondsworth – Baltimore – Mitcham 1958).
Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio;
After a year or two, I might ask for a special indult for Holy Souls Hermitage, that I might be able to have an appropriate liturgical calendar, including feasts of some of the saints not on the calendar, and raising the level of certain feasts (such as the Immaculate Heart of Mary). I would also ask for a privilege which I noted in the 1962 rubrics concerning certain Masses offered at various shrines (such as Lourdes). Some Masses, such as those for the Holy Souls, for priests and bishops and the Supreme Pontiff, would then be possible on more days.
Like Son, like Mother, and vice versa…
In my spiritual direction for the guys up at the Pontifical College Josephinum, I would emphasize how to go about developing a lively childlike devotion to the Immaculate and Sorrowful heart of Mary. We are afraid of such purity because it can bring such great pain… Mary had such clear spiritual vision, such agility of soul, that she could see her Divine Son for who He is: God Himself, who loves us so very much. She could also see, perfectly, and in contrast, all the sin of mankind from the first man to the last, seeing this all at once on the crucified Body of her Son. There is no one who could ever have been more sorrowful than she, precisely because she her heart was so immaculate. Her heart was pierced by a sword of sorrow (see Luke 2,35).
The Catholic Church in America launched what is perhaps the largest legal defence of religious liberty in history, but the “mainstream” (= leftist) media won’t carry the story of the persecution of the Catholic Church by the Obama Administration. This is exactly how things worked out in Germany before the Holocaust. Yep. Will we refuse yet again to learn from history? Perhaps the MSM is waiting for the decision about commerce laws coming up in June. If it’s decided that everyone must purchase a certain product (abortion insurance, thus paying into the pot which will pay for abortions), and this against their consciences, mayhem will ensue. The next decision, more specifically about religious liberty, if this is not taken up within the commerce decision, will need to happen before 1 August, or mayhem will ensue. What to do, I mean, you know, practically speaking?
Actually, the most practical thing one can do is to pick some flowers, put them in a little vase, and bring them to church, and put them before a statue of our Lady, the Immaculate Conception. I hope no one has forgotten that she is the Patronness of the United States. I hope no one has forgotten that she, as a mother, is solicitous for our welfare. I hope no one has fogotten that her intercession is most powerful before the throne of the Most High. We are her little children, are we not? Don’t little kids pick flowers to bring to their mothers? Sure, it’s a simple thing to do. But, you know, it changes everything. 
It sets everything in proper order. We are in humble thanksgiving for the intercession that our heavenly mother provides for us. Aren’t flowers appropriate? Don’t underestimate the fortitude for facing what is to come with a small action like this. Just do it.
This is from a French-Roman style “fiddleback” vestment made for yours truly when I was a chaplain in Lourdes for a couple of years by a wonderful group of ladies from a parish north of Toulouse, whose pastor was concerned that a chaplain in Lourdes responsible for reinstituting the Extraordinary Form of the Mass was surely to have the proper vestments. I think that, in fact, the new vestments were made using bits of pieces of vestments which had been discarded from Lourdes when the shrines suffered wreckovations on every level imaginable. I sure did and do make good use of these vestments to this day!
I’d like to go one step further. Let’s take a look at the Greek version!
In the Gospels, the word used for the Lord’s mercy is a passive verb — ἐσπλαγχνίσθη — His Heart was sacrificed… Yikes! Yes, Jesus’ Heart was uniquely sacrificed for us. And… and… the Immaculate Heart of His Mother was also pierced with a sword of sorrow as none of our hearts could ever be, for she had a clear vision in her immaculateness of the goodness of her Son, and therefore also saw all the hell vomited upon Him with incisive clarity. What sorrow! What intercession for us! What mercy! What a sacrificing of her heart for us… The Greek used for “protection” refers instead to a goodheartedness which in turn refers to just how good a Heart our Lord had, sacrificed for us, and therefore just how good a heart His Mother had, also sacrificed for us.
Accompany me, Father George David Byers, S.S.L., S.T.D., as I begin life as a Catholic Priest-Hermit by choice. Holy Souls Hermitage is dedicated to the sanctification of my fellow priests, bishops, deacons & seminarians going through the purgatory of this life or the next. Prayer and sacrifice go up, of course, for both Benedict XVI and the next Successor of Saint Peter. 
