Part eight (*), Chapter IX: Heart of Mary, Sanctuary, Censer and Altar: Of Divine Love

Heart of Mary, Sanctuary, Censer and Altar

Of Divine Love

THE hearts of all the angels and saints of Heaven constitute, according to the different degrees of love possessed by those same hearts, as many diverse sanctuaries of divine Love, where Almighty God i s adored, glorified and loved forever. The divine Heart of our most amiable Saviour, however, is the Sanctuary of sanctuaries and the Love of loves. As from all eternity, ever shall it adore, glorify and love God in a manner infinitely worthy of divine grandeur and sublime goodness.

The most holy Heart of the peerless Mother of our Saviour is the second sanctuary of divine love, a sanctuary fashioned by the Holy Ghost Himself, Who is love essential and uncreated, a sanctuary never defiled by sin, but always adorned with the highest degree of every virtue. Mary's Heart always was, and shall forever remain, the glorious abode of the Saint of saints. In it there always existed and ever shall exist greater honor, glory and love for the Most Holy Trinity than in all material and spiritual sanctuaries that ever were, are or shall be in Heaven and on earth.

This adorable sanctuary comprises several features that we shall now have to consider.

The first is its perpetual sacrifice ceaselessly offered to God, a sacrifice of love and praise. Mary offered the sacrifice of love, for during her pilgrimage. on earth, and still much more since her Assumption into Heaven, her virginal Heart constantly made a perpetual exercise and sacrifice of love towards God, a love never surpassed, except by die love of the deified Heart of Jesus.

She also offered the sacrifice of praise, for her Heart is a perpetual host of praise and adoration, of glorification, of thanksgiving to the Most Holy Trinity, which is more worthily praised, more perfectly adored and more highly glorified by Our Lady than by all human and angelic minds and hearts in heaven and on earth.

Mary's is the Heart represented by the golden censer held in the hand of the Angel mentioned at the beginning of the eighth Chapter of the Apocalypse.(1) It is a golden censer, to show that Mary's immaculate Heart is unmixed love as typified by pure gold. The Angel in whose hand it is held is the Angel of the great counsel, namely, our Blessed Saviour Himself, to show that the holy Heart of Mary always belonged to God alone, and that it was ever possessed and guided by the Angel of the great counsel. If the heart of an earthly Sovereign is in the Lord's hand, to be ruled as He wills, how much more truly the Heart of the Queen of Heaven? The Angel of the great counsel fills the censer with fire from the altar, adding great quantities of incense, which are the prayers of the mints, to signify that the Son of God filled His holy Mother's Heart with the sacred fire He had come to bring upon earth, and that all the adoration, praise and prayers of her virginal Heart proceed from the adorable Heart of Jesus.

The prayers of the Saints are placed in Mary's Heart, represented by the golden censer, to make us understand that the Saints place their prayers, and all their praise and adoration rendered to God, in the admirable Heart of the incomparable Mother of their Saviour, that being united to her prayers, their own may become more acceptable and efficacious in the sight of the Divine Majesty.

So much concerning the nature of the sacrifice of love offered in the august sanctuary of Mary's most pure Heart. The victims of love there offered are threefold:

First is her Divine Son, the adorable victim offered by the Blessed Virgin with all her heart and love unspeakable in the Temple of Jerusalem. and on Calvary. She still continually offers Him to God in Heaven, and in each of the Sacrifices being daily celebrated throughout the world. If all Christians possess the right to offer to the divine Majesty the same sacrifice that is offered by those who are honored with the sacerdotal character, how much more truly must not the Mother of the sovereign Priest enjoy that right and power? I do not claim that Mary is corporeally present at the sacrifices offered on earth, but she does assist at each Holy Mass in spirit, heart and affection.

John Gerson, the pious Chancellor of the Paris University, says: "If Mary did not receive the character of the sacerdotal office on the night of the Lord's Supper, nevertheless, both then as well as before and after, she was anointed with the interior grace of the faithful. She was not to (1). Apoc. 8, 3

consecrate, but to offer a pure, holy and spotless Host on the altar of her Heart." (2)

The second sacrificial victim is the Saviour's Mother herself. As our adorable Redeemer immolated Himself for the glory of His eternal Father and for the salvation of mankind, so too His most holy Mother, wishing to imitate Her Son as far as possible, likewise sacrificed herself for God's greater glory with a Heart burning with love for His divine Majesty. Thus Mary lived on earth in a state of perpetual sacrifice of her whole being.

The third victim comprises countless souls that have been sacrificed to God in the marvellous sanctuary of Mary's virginal Heart. To understand this, we should remember that if the Eternal Father gave us all things when He gave us His Beloved Son, (3) this gift applies still more truly to her to whom He gave the Divine Word to be her own Son. Hence the Queen of Heaven and Earth, knowing full well that all things in the universe belonged to her, and wishing to employ all of them for the greater glory of Him from whom she received them, offered and sacrificed as victims of His divine Majesty every creature in the world. She knew that sacrifice is the greatest honor that can be rendered to God, and that we therefore cannot make a holier use of anything that belongs to us than to offer, give and sacrifice it to the sovereign Lord of all things, provided it be done in accordance with His holy will.

These, then, are the three types of victims that were offered to God in the sanctuary of the immaculate Heart of the Mother of our Sovereign Priest. Mary will forever continue to offer these victims in Heaven, just as her Son Jesus Christ continues the perpetual offering of Himself and His possessions to the Almighty Father.

Let us, in turn, give ourselves unreservedly to the Son of God and His Blessed Mother, that we, and all that we have, may be joined in their sacrifices, and united to them in the ardent love of their offering.

The true identity of the High Priest who offers all these sacrifices in the sanctuary of Mary's virginal Heart is none other than her Heart itself, which is therefore the sanctuary of divine love and, in part, the victim of love offered therein, as well as the officiant who offers it with peerless love.

Another adornment of our admirable sanctuary is the altar of divine love, on which all the foregoing sacrifices have been and will forever be (2). Tract. 9 super Magnif. alphab. 49; lit. B. (3). Rom. 8, 32.

offered. It is again the most loving Heart of the Mother of Fair Iove. Let us listen again to the saintly and illustrious doctor John Gerson, who wrote: "After the divine sacrifice offered by Our Lord Himself on the altar of the Cross, the one most pleasing to God Rod most useful to mankind, is the sacrifice offered to the divine Majesty by the most holy Virgin on the altar of her Heart, when she so often and with so great a love' offered her beloved Son as a living Host. Here is the true altar of holycausts whereon the sacred fire of divine love was continually burning without interruption day or night. It is the golden altar seen by St. John before the throne of God in Heaven." (4)

Of this altar of the glorious Virgin's ardent Heart, united as it is with the divine Heart of her Son Jesus, do we my at the beginning of Holy Mass, Introibo ad altare Dei. "I shall go up to the altar of God." These two Hearts being only one Heart, as we have often said, they arc likewise but a single altar. On this altar the sacrifice we are about to offer has been offered time and again by both Mother and Son. Therefore does Holy Church put those words three times on the lips of the priest at the beginning of Mass, to admonish us that we should offer our sacrifice on that divine altar, and not merely on the material and visible altar, which is only a shadow of the former. Having therefore to offer our sacrifice on so holy and divine an altar, we must offer it in union with the love, charity, humility and holiness of the admirable Hearts of Jesus and Mary who are in a sense but one Heart and one altar. We also designate it as the Holy of Holies when, on ascending to the altar, we pray God to deliver us from our iniquities "ut ad Sancta sanctorum puris mereamur mentibus introire," that we may be worthy to enter with pure minds into the Holy of Holies." Holy Church refers again to the Heart of Mary when we are made to Say during the wonderful sacrifice: "We humbly beseech thee, Almighty God, command these to be carried by the hands of thy holy angel (the Angel of the great counsel) to thine altar on high, in the presence of thy divine majesty, that as many of us as shall, by partaking at this altar, receive the most sacred Body and Blood of thy Son, may be filled with all heavenly blessing and grace." Notice that when the priest says: Ex hac altaris participatione, he kisses the material altar as being the figure of the true mystical and spiritual altar; namely, the Heart of Jesus and Mary. This reveals the intimate union our own heart should have with that most amiable Heart at all times and i n all places, but more especially during the oblation of the divine Sacrifice. (4).Tract. 9 sup. Magnif. Partit. i.

0 admirable heart, 0 heart most loving, thou art the foremost sanctuary of Divine Love, the holiest earthly victim, the golden thurible offering perpetual incense of prayer and sacrifice, the altar of sacrifice. Thou are the saint of saints and the queen of all those privileged to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

0 reader, priest of God, think of the august sanctuary of Mary's Heart, and the holy love, purity and fervor with which you must offer the same sacrifice every day. In the name of God I counsel you to realize the words: Introibo ad altare Dei, remembering that you go in to the altar of God, which is the heart of Jesus and Mary. And when you mount the altar steps, give yourself yet again to Jesus and Mary, that you may be united to their immaculate purity and to a holiness higher than that of the Seraphim.

Those of you, 0 readers, who are not priests, when you enter a church to assist at the Holy Sacrifice, or to say your prayers, hearken to the heavenly voice that strikes your ears: Pavete ad sanctuarium meum." (5) Reverence my sanctuary." Tremble because you are sinners coming before your judge, and having humbled your heart, beg pardon and implore of Him the grace of perfect repentance.

0 Mary, mother of Mercy, 0 mother of loving grace, hide us in thy blessed Heart, draw us to share in thy constant sacrifice, and immolate our hearts forever in thy sanctuary and in thy altar, to the eternal glory of Thy Beloved Son. (5). Lev, 26, 12, 254-