Unwearying Tenderness

‘God is love, and so that we may have some idea of this love, he gives a share of it to mothers. The heart of a mother with her unwearying tenderness, the constancy of her solicitude, the inexhaustible delicacy of her affection, is a truly divine creation, although God has placed in her only a spark of his love for us. Yet, however imperfectly a mother's heart reflects the divine love towards us, God gives us our mothers to take his place in some manner with us. He places them at our side, from our cradles, to guide us, guard us, especially in our earliest years when we have so much need of tenderness.

Hence imagine the predilection with which the Holy Trinity fashioned the heart of the Blessed Virgin chosen to be the Mother of the Incarnate Word. God delighted in pouring forth love into her heart, in forming it expressly to love a God-Man.

In Mary’s heart were perfectly harmonised the adoration of a creature towards her God, and the love of a mother for her only Son’.

Blessed Columba Marmion OSB, 1858-1923

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary didst prepare an habitation meet for the Holy Ghost: mercifully grant that we, celebrating with devout mind the festival of the same Immaculate Heart, may be enabled to live after thine own Heart; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Divine Worship: The Missal.