By Fr. Joseph Edattu VC

The Catholic Church celebrates the feast of Immaculate Heart of Mary. Let us learn about the importance of Mother Mary in our life. 

First, we celebrate the feast of Sacred Heart of Jesus and the very next day is the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These are very important feasts of the church. 

Why these celebrations? – It is because these are the all-clear natures of our Lord Jesus and Mother Mary.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a broken, pierced heart; with the crown of thorns, piercing the Heart and the flame of love still active even though it is wounded. 

So, the whole character, nature, and the interior life of Jesus are explicitly expressed in the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus. That is why we have the feast of Sacred Heart of Jesus.

What does Immaculate Heart of Mary mean?

On the feast day, at the ‘Under My Roof’ discussion (which is through zoom conference) there were so many youths who had joined and they were asking very intelligent questions.

There were very active questions and Fr. Joseph was happy that the youth are interested in knowing the Bible, the word of God and about the life of Jesus Christ. They were curiously asking loads of questions.

Many of them asked very good questions. One question was related to the feast – What is the difference between Immaculate Conception and Immaculate Heart of Mother Mary?

Immaculate Conception means Mother Mary was born without original sin (Immaculate means no stain of sin). She was pure even from her birth that is why it is called Immaculate Conception.

Then what is Immaculate Heart of Mary? 

Immaculate Heart refers to her interior life. An example of this is the daily live streaming. You all know Fr. Joseph, Fr. Anthony, Fr. Jose, and Fr. George.

You know them because you listen to them every day – to their preaching. That means you know what they preach. You know their outer side. You know how they look. 

You know everything that you can see on the television or online services. But you do not know anything about their personal life. So, what you know is only the outer side of their life. This is very much common for everyone. 

But there is also a personal life inside. Their daily struggles, daily sorrows, daily pains; the struggles they have gone through, the sinful life and holy life. Whatever life they live, is there inside – the secrets of their personal life.

That is what we call the personality – the interior life. Like we all know the exterior life of Fr. Joseph because we all watch him every day. But there is also an interior life of Fr. Joseph. 

In the same way, we all know Mother Mary. She is mentioned in the Bible here and there in most Gospels. In the Gospel of Luke, we have a lot of information about Mother Mary. 

That is all we know from the Bible. So, that is the exterior life of Mother Mary. But there is an interior life of Mother Mary. 

Her sorrows – what she went through the three days when she lost Jesus. Just imagine a mother losing her son, who is only 12 years old – Losing him for not one day, but for three days. It is so painful and frightening.

In those days, there was no social media, no police force – nobody to help. They had to help themselves. They had to find the person by themselves. 

It was very common that bandits and thieves and all such kind, used to take away people those days.

Mother Mary went through a lot of sorrows from her childhood. She went through pain, struggles, misunderstanding, and family problems. 

Also, Joseph misunderstood her initially. There were so many struggles that she had gone through.

All these phases of Mother Mary’s life – her sorrowful life, happy life, hopeful life, joyful life and everything together – is called the interior life of Mother Mary. In short, we can call it as the Immaculate Heart to Mary.

The moment you say Immaculate Heart of Mary; it means the whole interior life of Mother Mary. That means it is good to reflect about the interior life of Mother Mary.

So many people, especially those who are not Catholic, may not be comfortable, when we speak about Mother Mary and reflect about Mother Mary. Many groups who are not Catholic, are very much disturbed the moment we say Mother Mary.

They do not even call ‘Mother’ Mary. They will call Mary. They are very disturbed when we say ‘Mother’ Mary. 

So, this is something that Fr. is always disturbed about. Not because he is calling ‘Mother’ Mary but because of the people who are disturbed when, we call ‘Mother’ Mary. 

Why are they disturbed about Mother Mary? Why are they disturbed when we call Mother Mary as Mother?

This is one of the reasons why Fr. Joseph normally speaks against these groups – Because they speak against his Mother. Why do we speak against any group? 

It is not that we are speaking against any group. We are speaking against their wrong ideologies that are misleading the true and poor ordinary Catholics/Christians. We do not want that to happen. 

There are so many people who are leading others to wrong paths – misleading, misguiding, misinterpreting the Bible and taking them away from the true path. They say that it is the true path. But they have some problem.

Fr. Joseph narrates one incident he remembers. It was some time back about a gentleman who was a non-Catholic. He belonged to a Protestant denomination. 

He was so angry with Fr. and he said “I am okay with you all, but one thing I can’t tolerate is that you are worshipping Mother Mary”. Fr. said “we are not worshiping Mother Mary.”

He said, “No, you are worshiping Mother Mary”. Fr. again told him “No we are not worshiping Mother Mary”. He insisted saying, “No, all Catholics are worshipping Mother Mary”.

Then Fr. asked him, “Who told you that?” Then he said, “We can see every day in every church and all these Mother Mary’s churches, you are worshiping Mother Mary. You are putting garlands and carrying the statue of Mother Mary”.

He continued, “You are praying, you’re bowing down in front of Mother Mary. So, you are worshiping Mother Mary”. 

Then Fr. asked him, “Who decides whether we are worshiping or not?” Fr. further said to him “I should decide whether I am worshiping somebody or not, not the one who is watching me”. 

For the last two thousand years, the Catholic Church never tells anyone to worship Mother Mary. It is written in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that, we only venerate Mother Mary. Veneration means honouring and respecting Mother Mary.

We never ever worship Mother Mary. Fr. Joseph says that in his life he has never worshipped Mother Mary and he has never seen anybody asking another person to worship Mother Mary in the Catholic Church.

Fr. was taught this in the seminary and also during Catechism. Nowhere is it said that we should worship Mother Mary. But we should venerate Mother Mary and honour Mother Mary.  This is what Fr. told the Protestant gentleman.

Yet again, the man said, “No you are worshiping Mother Mary. You are bowing down in front of Mother Mary”. 

Fr. gave an example – Suppose Jeremiah comes in front of him and Fr. bows down in front of him to honour him, respect him and love him. 

Fr. bows down in front of Jeremiah, as in some cultures we have in India and even in China. When they greet each other, it is a custom that they fold their hands and bow down in front of the elders.

If someone watches this and says, “See Fr. Joseph is worshiping Jeremiah”. Then Fr. will say “No it’s not worship, but I am honouring”. Another person will say “No you are worshipping”. Fr. will say, “No it’s not, I am honouring”. This will go on and on.

This is exactly what these denominations are doing against the Catholic Church. They are putting such wrong things in the mind of the Catholics – which we do not do and this is an injustice.

They are unnecessarily blaming Catholics with wrong information. Many Catholics, including the youth, are misled by these groups, saying they are worshiping Mother Mary. In fact, it is not so. 

Then who is lying?

We have to remember that worship means ‘I have to decide whether I am worshiping’. Fr. says, when he was in the seminary, the classmates celebrated their birthdays in different ways.

Sometimes they used to secretly plan some special treat. Everyone used to collect money, go out and buy something special. Someone used to be in charge of decorations. 

While the person sleeps, they would decorate the door. Sometimes they would even decorate the classroom. Sometimes they would decorate his seat. 

In the morning, they would wake the birthday boy up suddenly, make him sit on the chair, put garland round his neck and carry him around. 

Then they would take him in a procession through the corridor, in the whole seminary singing the ‘happy birthday’ song. So, that everybody should know that it is the birthday of this person.

This is how they used to celebrate the birthdays. If a protestant will see this, he will be shocked. They will say that we are worshiping another classmate. Even if we tell them we are not worshiping, we are only respecting and honouring, they will not believe it. 

Surely, according to them it is worship. Because we are putting garlands, and are carrying the person in the chair and moving around. 

For us in the Catholic Church, worship means – sacrifice. The perfection of worship is sacrifice.

Even among the non-Christians, how do they worship their deities? They do give sacrifices – animal sacrifice, fruit sacrifice and many other sacrifices. Some people even sacrifice human beings.

So, sacrifice is the extreme point of real worship. In the Catholic Church also, sacrifice is the true worship and that is done only at the Holy Eucharist – the sacrifice of Jesus. 

Jesus is the worship and the sacrifice is taking place only in the name of Jesus Christ – that is the Eucharist.

We honour Mother Mary, all the Angels and all the Saints. We respect them and we ask their intercession and ask them to pray for us.

If anyone tells you that we are worshiping Mother Mary, just tell them you will not understand the difference between worshipping and honouring and respecting. This is something that we need to remember.

The same guy had further argued saying “The Catholic Church says, through Mother Mary you go to Jesus” Yes, we need Mother Mary. Mother Mary’s presence will help us to reach Jesus very fast. 

Then that man said “Why do we need Mother Mary? We can go directly to Jesus”. There are a lot of theological reasons why we Catholics believe that we need to go through Mother Mary to Jesus. 

Why? Because whether you are a Protestant or Catholic or any other denomination, if you really want to believe Jesus as the Messiah, you need Mother Mary.

Fr. explains why he is saying this?  

Now, we have more than 50 thousand denominations in Christianity. This was some years ago. Every year, there is an increase of around 5 to 10 thousand to this. So, we have so many thousands of Christian denominations in the world. 

But if we go back around 1000 years, there were less than 10 denominations or 10 groups. If we go back almost around 1500 years, then we will see, maybe, only one or two denominations; only one or two groups. 

One is, of course, the Mother Catholic Church and there may be another group. There might be some more groups.

If you go back two thousand years ago, then you will see one group, one church – The disciples, the twelve apostles and the followers – The only one Church which is the original Church.

If you go back around 30 years from there, then you can see in Bethlehem, a small Church – The Holy Family – Mother Mary, St. Joseph and Jesus – the beginning of everything. 

Then if you go some months back from that time, then you see Mother Mary alone in the house in Nazareth. In one room, Mother Mary is sitting there praying alone. 

St. Joseph is not there. Jesus is also not there. Nobody is there. No one is taking a video. No one is writing down what is happening.

No one is writing down the chronicle. No one is watching. There is no CCTV. Mother Mary was alone in that room and then suddenly an Angel came in front of Mother Mary and gave the annunciation; The announcement.

What is the announcement?

“Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you” and then the Angel said “you will give birth to a baby – he is the Messiah. 

He will sit on the throne of his ancestor David. He will be great. He will be the son of the Most-High God. His reign will last forever and his kingdom will come”.

So, the Angel made all these promises. Now we know Jesus is the Messiah. It is because Mother Mary told us. No one else was there. Nobody else was witnessing. No one else was writing down.

No one was recording. No CCTV. Then how do we know that these things happened in that isolated room, where only Mother Mary was present? How do we know?

It is because Mother Mary told the disciples and they wrote it down in the gospel and we got to know about it. Now how did the Protestants know Jesus is the Messiah? Mother Mary told. 

How do we know Jesus is the son of David and the Messiah; the one who was going to come to save the humanity and he is the one who is reigning over the house of Jacob? Mother Mary told exactly all the sentences which Angel Gabriel spoke.

What does it mean? It means, the whole Christianity, the Christian world, the Christian faith is hanging on the testimony of Mother Mary. Therefore, only through Mother Mary you can go to Jesus.

That is why the Catholic Church always encourages everyone that through Mary you can go to Jesus. Fr. says to the Protestants, “You just examine your conscience and see how you believe in Jesus? Why do you believe Jesus is the Messiah?”

It is because Mother Mary gave this testimony. If you do not accept Mother Mary and you do not honour Mother Mary, then you are denying the foundation of your faith. 

It’s an injustice to the Church and to Christianity. Therefore, accept Mother Mary as your mother too. She is the mother of Jesus. 

Sometimes many people feel bad that we are giving too much of honour to Mother Mary. Do not feel bad in giving too much honour to her. We should honour her. She is the only mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We should honour Mother Mary more than St. Joseph, St. Anthony, St. Padre Pio, and all the Saints. That is why in the Catholic Church there is a gradation of honour. 

One is called Dulia. Dulia means veneration of the saints. Another is Hyper Dulia, a higher degree of veneration, which is for Mother Mary only. 

We should have a special honour and respect for Mother Mary, not like all the Saints. 

We should respect and honour all the Saints. But Mother Mary should be given higher veneration. 

The third one is called Latria. Latria means Adoration. Adoration is only meant for God. It is meant for the Heavenly Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit – the triune, one God. We have only one God. The Adoration is meant only for the Holy Trinity. 

There is a very famous Saint called St. Montfort. He has written a very good book about Mother Mary. It is a long book but after reading that book, we will never ever speak against Mother Mary.

It is a very powerful book. Fr. Joseph has forgotten the name of the book. He had read it, when he was in the seminary. The book is available everywhere and also online.

Do check St. Montfort’s book about Mother Mary. One sentence from that book touched Fr.’s heart very much. It was about Mother Mary. He said that the evil spirit is frightened of Mother Mary more than of God.

It means the Satan/Lucifer is more frightened of Mother Mary than of God. When Fr. read it for the first time, he was shocked. He wondered what this Saint was talking about. Whether he was giving more importance to Mother Mary than God?

Fr. was confused but he continued reading, and then he understood. It is not a big theology explanation, but just common sense. The reason for the fear, according to St. Montfort, is that Lucifer and his followers are full of pride.

Pride means they do not want to submit to anyone. They cannot tolerate failures and humiliations. Lucifer and his followers are personifications of pride.

If Lucifer goes and stands against God, surely, he will be defeated. After all he is only an angel. God is God. 

Lucifer knows that going against God is not easy. He will be defeated. He is always trying to fight against God to show that they are equals.

But at the same time everybody knows that they are not equals. God is God and Lucifer is only a fallen angel. But he still wants to show that he is somebody and that he is almost equal to God.

That is why he is always in constant battle with God to prove that he is great. He wants all the reverence and respect which is given to God for himself.

That is why he is giving an impression to the whole humanity that ‘I am great. I am powerful. Be afraid of me. I can do many things’. This is the impression he wants the whole humanity to have of him.

That is why many people are frightened of the devil, evil spirit and Lucifer. All these things are frightening to people. We need not be so frightened of him. He is just a loser.

Satan is giving an extra importance to himself, by showing that he is always in constant battle with God. But God is not bothered about him. That is the reason he is still alive. If God wants, he can destroy him within seconds.

Once, one person asked Fr. Joseph, “Fr., then why is God not destroying the Devil?” It is because to God, he is not an enemy. In the sense, God doesn’t consider him as equal.

If we are frightened of someone, then we will try to eliminate that person. But, if we are not frightened, then we will say, “Let him live somewhere, why should I worry about him?”

When we are frightened of someone, we will want to destroy him. Suppose, we are frightened of our enemy, we will pray to Lord to let the fire come and consume him.

Just like John the disciple said about a village where they did not accept him and the disciples. He said to Jesus, “Shall I command that the fire should come and consume them?” Jesus said, “Stop! Don’t do that”.

What does it mean? John was so sure, if he commands it will happen. That is why he asked Jesus, “Shall I command”? He just needed permission; that’s all – He would do the rest. 

If Fr. was in Jesus’ place, he would have said go ahead and try it, let me see. It is because, even Fr. has a doubt whether this fire will come down. 

But Jesus said, “No, don’t do that” What does it mean? Jesus knew that if this apostle commands, it will happen. That is why Jesus said don’t do that. 

It must have looked funny for those people who were watching it. One is asking for permission to bring down fire from heaven and consume the whole village, and the other one is stopping and saying, ‘Don’t do that’.

It is a clear message the Lord wants to give us through that word of God – that, if an apostle says ‘in the name of God’, it will happen. The fire will come down from heaven and consume. That is why Jesus did not allow it.

That is why the anointed ones/apostles have the authority to command; and it will happen. We have to be very careful, especially the priests – the successors of apostles.

When you say something, you have to be very careful about what comes out of your mouth, because it can happen. Here John is asking permission. Thank God, he asked permission otherwise there would have been a mass burial.

Coming back to our Faith, Christianity hangs on the testimony of Mother Mary. 

As St Montfort says, the Devil is more frightened of Mother Mary than he is of God. He doesn’t mind fighting with God to give an impression that he is equal to God. But he is afraid to come against Mother Mary. 

Mother Mary is not God. She is an ordinary human being, just like all of us. But Mother Mary is without sin. She never committed sin and therefore, she is full of Holiness and Grace.

Therefore, if the devil fights against Mother Mary, he and all his followers will be defeated within seconds. Mother Mary’s one command, her very presence, her one glance is enough; they will run away from that place. 

So, for the devil, it is a big humiliation to be defeated by an ordinary human being. He prefers to be defeated by God himself, then being defeated by an ordinary person.

For example, all the members of the divine Retreat Centre play football every day. All the team members, small children and everyone come together and play football once in a while as they need some exercise. 

Suppose the Divine Retreat Centre’s members are confident that they are a very powerful team and will be able to defeat the Liverpool team. 

If they invite them for a friendly match, and if the Liverpool team knows that the Divine team will be able to defeat them, they will never ever come to play with them.

They don’t mind playing against Manchester or Leicester. Even if they are defeated by these teams, they will not feel humiliated. But if they are defeated by the Divine team, it will be a great humiliation for them.

They will feel, it is better that they commit suicide. They won’t be accepted anywhere, after the humiliation. They don’t mind being defeated by the other teams like Manchester or Leicester or some other famous team.

Being defeated by an ordinary local team will be humiliating for them. So, they will never ever dare to do that, if they are 100% sure the Divine team is very strong. 

In the same way for the devil, it is fine for him to be defeated by God. But it is a big humiliation for him to be defeated by Mother Mary, an ordinary woman. 

Therefore, the devil is ready to stand against God. But he will never stand against Mother Mary, as he cannot tolerate that humiliation.

This is the logic that St. Montfort has mentioned in his book. 

That is why the best way to get protection from evil spirit is to hold onto the Holy Rosary and ask the protection of Mother Mary.

The moment Mother Mary is in your home/community, the devil will never come against that family, against the community anymore, because he does not want to experience such a terrible humiliation in his life.

These are the reasons why we need to remember that Mother Mary is our mother. We have to accept Mother Mary as our mother. We have to honour her and keep her in our home.

The first one to consecrate Mother Mary to the people, is Jesus. When did he do that? It was when Jesus was dying on Mount Calvary. From the Cross, Jesus looked down and he saw the disciple John who was standing below the Cross.

Jesus knew this disciple is a hot-tempered person. He was the one who said “Shall I command the fire from Heaven” and Jesus had rebuked him and stopped him. If Jesus was not there, he would have asked fire from Heaven every now and then.

The fire from heaven would have consumed everyone, who comes against him. So, Jesus did not want to leave him alone. Jesus knew John needed a mother. John is a representative of each and every one of us.

We all have this tendency – every time we are angry with somebody, we pray that the Lord may send, if not Sulphur and fire, at least an accident. We pray like this. We have this character.

We all need a mother and that is why Jesus looked at John and said “John, I don’t want to leave you alone so, I am giving you my mother as your mother. Take her in your home” 

From that moment John took Mother Mary in his home as his own mother. After that, John’s behaviour changed.

His attitude changed. All that attitude of bringing fire from Heaven vanished. He no more wanted the first position. He was the one who had earlier come in front of Jesus and had asked Jesus to give him the first place.

‘When you become King, I will be the first Prime Minister and my brother the Assistant Prime Minister and you can give the rest of them any position; Maybe, the bodyguard or anything else. 

You give them any position but my brother and I, will have the first and second place’. This is what John said. He wanted the first position. But Mother Mary came to his house and within two days, he changed. 

In Jerusalem, when Jesus resurrected and John and Peter were running to the tomb, John reached the tomb first. He could have entered the tomb and been the first one to see the resurrected Jesus. 

But then, he suddenly stopped. He felt, he shouldn’t go inside. He let Peter go inside the tomb first. He waited outside and allowed Peter to go inside first. 

He had changed. Initially, he wanted the first place but now he did not want the first place. He did not mind the second place now.

How did this change happen? It was because the previous two days Mother Mary was in his house. 

He must be sleeping on the lap of Mother Mary and Mother Mary would have said “John, this is the same lap where Jesus used to sleep and you need to get the character of Jesus. You are so far from Jesus. You need to humble yourself”.

“You need to learn how to sacrifice your life. Don’t think about possession and position always. You need to think how to sacrifice”. Then John must have nodded his head and said “Yes mother, I will try”.

His first try was when Jesus was resurrected. He tried and he gave the first preference to others. After that he went through all the suffering and when he was sent to the Patmos Island, he became an apostle of love.

He is the one who spoke more about love. His whole life changed because of the presence of Mother Mary in his home. That is why Jesus wants every Christian to have Mother Mary in their home. Only then we will become like Jesus Christ.

Fr. Joseph says, “My mother is a good mother. That is why through her life and through her role model, her discipline and teachings, she could make me a priest. But she cannot make me like Jesus.

She can only give me some good examples and disciplines and all these things and make me a priest. But if she wants to make me like Jesus, then she needs Mother Mary.”

Fr. needs Mother Mary in his home. That is the reason we should welcome Mother Mary in our home. Your mothers can make you a good person, but if you really want to become like Jesus, you need Mother Mary in your home.

That is why Jesus told John “Take my mother in your home so that you will become like me. Otherwise, you will continue to be John”. 

Therefore, this feast of Immaculate Heart of Mother Mary is very important for us. That is why we have this feast. 

Let us consecrate ourselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mother Mary, so that we will be protected from the vile of the devil and the evil powers of the darkness. We will be always covered and protected by Mother Mary and become like Jesus Christ.

Transcribed by Greta Furtado