Immaculate Heart of Mary
title of Mary, the mother of Jesus, signifying her purity and freedom from sin
The Immaculate Heart of Mary (Latin: Cor Immaculatum Mariae) is a Catholic devotion which refers to the view of the interior life of Mary, her joys and sorrows, her virtues and hidden perfections, and, above all, her virginal love for God the Father, her maternal love for her son Jesus Christ, and her motherly and compassionate love for all mankind. Traditionally, the Immaculate Heart is depicted pierced with seven swords or wounds, in homage to the seven dolors of Mary and roses, usually red or white, wrapped around the heart.
The Eastern Catholic Churches occasionally utilize the image, devotion, and theology associated with the Immaculate Heart of Mary. However, this is a cause of some controversy, some seeing it as a form of Liturgical Latinisation. The Catholic view is based on their understanding of certain verses of scripture, particularly the Gospel of Luke.
Veneration
The veneration of the Heart of Mary is analogous to the veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There are, however, differences in this analogy as devotion to the heart of Jesus is especially directed to the "divine heart" as overflowing with love for humanity. In the devotion to Mary, however, the attraction is the love of her heart for Jesus and for God. Catholic church teaching states that Mary's role as mother of humanity and veneration paid to her in this capacity "in no way obscures or diminishes [the] unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power".
The second difference is the nature of the devotion itself: in the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Catholic venerates in a sense of love responding to love; in the devotion to the Heart of Mary, study and imitation hold as important a place as love.
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This entry incorporates text from “Immaculate Heart of Mary” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.