Presenting our hearts

Going to Jesus through Mary

Collecting journals is one of my guilty pleasures. I guess there’s something inexplicably alluring about their aesthetic covers and crisp, blank pages. Birthdays, holidays, and random jaunts to Barnes & Noble usually culminate in at least one new journal. For a while, they sit prettily atop a shelf, waiting for that first mark, that first crease in the spine. Many of them will become prayer journals. I still have the first spiral-bound notebook that I used for writing my ten-year-old prayers. I remember propping the notebook atop my lap and addressing my hopes, fears, and needs to Jesus with a child’s simplicity.

Recently, I picked up the habit again. Committing to daily personal prayer often means wrestling with stillness, silence, and sudden inspirations. Just like when I was little, sometimes I find it helpful to trace the movements of my heart on paper.

My journal pages are a testament to my long-standing closeness to Jesus, but for most of my life, I lacked a strong devotion to Mary, his mother. That bewildered me; almost all of my Catholic friends and family seemed bound to Mary by due affection and admiration. Why not me?

Turns out, it was only a matter of time.

Last Christmas, I sensed Jesus’ growing desire for me to really behold Mary, not as some aloof figure captured by artists in marble and oil paints, but as a near and dear confidant, protectress, and friend. In short, as my spiritual mother.

So I started journaling to Mary about my day.

Entrusting myself to the Blessed Mother

I remember one January night in particular, sitting in bed with my journal atop my lap. I propped a holy card with a painting of Mary against a pillow and gazed at it for a moment. I prayed that she really would come and sit beside me. I could almost feel that she did.

At the time, I’d been feeling buffeted by a dizzying onslaught of emotions. I was bewilderingly distracted, confused, and at a loss as to how to reorient my heart. In prayer, I shared my innermost thoughts and posed my deepest questions to Mary. I admitted my disordered desires. I begged Mary to wrap me in her mantle and keep my heart close to her Immaculate Heart.

This dialogue continued for almost two weeks. Paradoxically, it was one of the most spiritually rich times of my life and yet also one of the most spiritually trying. I felt indescribably close and yet unspeakably distant from Jesus. I slipped in and out of surrender and self-seeking, fortitude and forgetfulness. Interiorly, I was a tangled knot of contradictions.

Soon it was February. On the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, I wrote in my journal:

“Dearest Mother,
Today, you presented your Son in the temple of the Lord.
Today, I ask that you present me, too…
Mary, present my heart to the Lord that He might make it whole.”

That night, I found myself lying in bed with the same desperate prayer. As wholeheartedly as I could, I cried out to Mary one more time. I prayed that she would take the heart I kept trying to hold (and inevitably kept dropping) and give it to Jesus. I prayed that, through her intercession, he would release me from what felt like spiritual and emotional bondage.

Waiting for sleep, I pressed play on that day’s episode of “The Bible in a Year Podcast,” asking Jesus to speak to me through his word. I listened to Father Mike Schmitz read from Exodus, Leviticus, and Psalms, but the moment of clarity came during the improvised prayer Father Mike offered after our daily dose of Scripture.

That day, he prayed for the freedom of our hearts. Almost immediately, I sensed the jumbled pieces of my own heart shift back into place. I felt gently convicted, washed in warmth. It was like a light I’d been fumbling for had finally turned on.

And I knew that Mary’s prayers for me had more than something to do with it.

She’d heeded my request and presented my heart to God the Father, just as she did with Jesus about two thousand years ago. And God the Father didn’t turn his face away from his handmaid. He took my heart in his hands and released me, while (I imagine) Mary looked on fondly, serenely, lovingly.

Through this experience, I not only learned about my heart, but about Mary’s Immaculate Heart.

Mary’s heart treasures us

Twice in Luke’s Gospel, Mary is described as treasuring, pondering, or keeping the events surrounding Jesus’ life in her heart (Luke 2:19, Luke 2:51). I imagine her gentle, attentive gaze shifting from the elated shepherds to the infant God-child cradled in her arms. Mary had accepted the most sacred maternity. Perhaps she wondered at the incomprehensibility of her Creator and Savior becoming her son. Surely, Mary pondered this mystery all her life, treasuring Jesus’ first words, his first sermon, everything, even his last breath.

It was there, gasping on the Cross, that Jesus gave us Mary to be our spiritual mother. Perhaps her gentle, attentive gaze shifted from the face of her beloved son to the face of the beloved disciple. At that moment, St. John stood for all of humanity. At that moment, Mary embraced a universal maternity, one in which she treasures each of us with undivided love.

I felt this love while sharing my interior life with Mary those few months ago. Even though some of my journal entries felt packed with inconsequential details and embarrassing confessions, I believe that Mary treasured every word. Just like she did with the words of the shepherds, Mary collected mine in her mantle, pressed them to her heart, and relayed them to Jesus on my behalf.

And it doesn’t matter if our prayer is made while writing, washing dishes, or wishing away the hours at work. Even if we can’t muster a prayer at all, Mary sees us and treasures us in her Immaculate Heart.

Mary’s heart understands us

Forty days after cradling Jesus in her arms for the first time, Mary presented him in the temple. There, a man named Simeon waited with a prophecy resting on his tongue: a sword would pierce Mary’s heart “so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:35). I imagine a contemplative Mary adjusting the cloth that enfolded Jesus’ tiny body, soaking in every blink of his eyes and every flare of his nostrils. Perhaps a ghost of the pained expression to come flitted across her face. Perhaps she took a steadying breath as she and St. Joseph left the temple.

Undoubtedly, Simeon’s prophecy came to pass with the soul-crushing ache in Mary’s chest as she watched her son denied, tortured, and brutally murdered by those he willingly gave up his life for. How many steadying breaths Mary must have taken on Calvary as she beheld every blink of Jesus’ blood-stained eyes and every flare of his oxygen-deprived nostrils. But she didn’t turn away.

Neither did Mary turn away when I came to her, beaten down in spirit and brittle from my own sin. Instead, she drew near. In that closeness, I entrusted my heart to her with all its cracks and crevices, the sharp pieces that didn’t seem to fit into place. She didn’t stuff her hands in her pockets, unwilling to hold what was painful for me to carry. Instead, she cradled my heart.

And when we present our hearts to Mary, she doesn’t just cradle them; she understands them. Her Immaculate Heart knows what it’s like to be pierced, and it’s in that knowing that she comforts us.

Mary’s heart guides us

Approximately thirty years after her encounter with Simeon, Mary found herself with Jesus, now a grown man, at a wedding feast in Cana. Perhaps the furrowed brow of a server or the whispers of a family friend brought Mary into their unexpected predicament: the wine had run out. But she didn’t try to procure the wine herself; she knew she could leave that to the True Vine. I imagine Mary weaving through the crowd to find Jesus, touching his sleeve, and asking for his help. Perhaps she turned back to the perplexed servers with a knowing, hopeful smile and said those words: “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5).

Perhaps that knowing, hopeful smile returned when Mary joined the disciples in the Upper Room, weeks after Jesus’ crucifixion. She didn’t try to fix their stagnated ministry or internal conflict herself; she knew she could leave that to the promised Advocate. Instead, Mary waited and prayed. Any disciple who glanced at her serene presence must have been reminded to turn their heart back to Jesus.

Just like the disciples in the Upper Room, I situated myself close to Mary’s side, looking to her for comfort. Just like the servers in Cana, I poured out my needs to Mary, showing her my empty places. Perhaps she looked at me with that knowing, hopeful smile as her intercession opened my heart to receive her son’s love and mercy. She was unceasingly guiding me back to him.

And this guidance seems natural when we consider that, as a baby, Jesus physically rested below Mary’s Immaculate Heart. When we do the same spiritually, we recognize the imprint of Jesus’ divine life.

“If, then, we establish solid devotion to our Blessed Lady, it is only to establish more perfectly devotion to Jesus Christ, and to provide an easy and secure means for finding Jesus Christ.”

— St. Louis de Montfort, “True Devotion to Mary”

So let us keep presenting our hearts to Mary, whether by confiding to her in a prayer journal, making a Marian Consecration, reading Scripture, praying the Rosary, or simply glancing up to her in heaven. Mary’s Immaculate Heart is always ready to embrace us and share the Sacred Heart of Jesus with us.

Grace is majoring in English and minoring in textual studies at the University of Washington. Her favorite places on campus are the Prince of Peace Catholic Newman Center and Suzzallo Library. She loves quiet visits with Jesus in Eucharistic adoration, time spent praying to St. Thérèse, and long drives that end in a forest. Her interest in writing, art, and paper goods has culminated in an Etsy shop, Graces & Glimmers, where she hopes to commemorate the daily gifts we receive from God and each other.