FEAST OF THE IMMACULATE HEART OF
MARY OF TRUST
February 22, 2004
Franca Salvo
We are gathered here today to celebrate Mary, Mother of God and our Mother; to honor her
under the title of Mary of Trust, and precisely today - the Sunday preceding
Ash Wednesday - to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of
Trust.
We, the Pro Sanctity Family -
Apostolic Sodales (Priests), Apostolic Oblates, Cooperatives, Social Animators,
and members of the Pro Sanctity Movement - love our Lady of Trust very much and
foster devotion to her. Mary of Trust originally was venerated in Todi
(Northern Italy) and in Rome at the Major Seminary by St. John Lateran. From
there veneration of our Lady of Trust has spread all over the world …
especially where the Apostolic Oblates and Pro Sanctity are!
I wish to briefly share with you on
the following points:
1. Mary’s love for God and for us
2. Our Founder’s devotion toward
Mary, Mother of God and our Mother
Our Lady of Trust
The Immaculate Heart of Mary of Trust
3. The Exhortation of our Holy Father John
Paul II to go to Mary’s school
1
Mary’s love for God and for us.
Scripture, especially Luke’s Gospel,
presents Mary to us. She is “full of
grace” (Lk 1:28), and has an attitude of total availability to God’s will, “Behold,
I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word,”
(Lk 1:38). She is aware of the
greatness of God and of the wonders He has done in her life (Lk 1:46-55).
Mary’s
love for God is without measure. We learn from her the art of listening to God,
of dialoguing with Him, of receptivity to His plan of love and of total
responsiveness to His will.
Her love for us is maternal.
She cares for us and is concerned about each one of us. The Evangelist John
narrating the episode of Cana (John 2:1-11) says how Mary sees needs and,
firmly and clearly, involves her Son in answering those needs. The Lord Himself
then entrusts us to her at the foot of the Cross (Jn 19:26).
The many apparitions of Mary manifest
her love for us and her concern for us to journey as children of God. Some
principal apparitions are: Syracuse in Sicily in 1954; Banneux in Belgium in
1933; Beauraing in Belgium in 1932-33; Fatima in Portugal in 1917; Knock in
Ireland in 1879; Lourdes in France in
1858; La Salette in France in 1846; in 1830 Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in
France and Guadalupe in Mexico in 1531.
Mary’s messages are beautiful!
Yes, Mary loves God, loves us and wants
us to live in peace, use the talents the Lord gave us and strive to give our
full contribution for the building up of the culture of life and love.
2.
Our Founder’s devotion to Mary,
Mother of God and our Mother
Our Founder had a profound love for
Mary and an intense Marian life. He celebrated all of Mary’s feast days, prayed
the rosary daily, wrote poems, preached, and sang about Mary in various
languages. He frequently and deeply meditated on the bond of love between Mary
and her Son and shared his reflections with us in a way that helped us all
savor the love between Mother and Son and grow in the desire to live as
children of such a noble mother. I remember a meditation that he delivered in
1991 about the bond of love between Mary and Jesus. I wish to share some main
points with you in his own words:
“We all have
been born from a mother; we treasure within our very being
the special,
unique bond we have with our mother. I will analyze four aspects of this bond
of love:
1.
A love of tenderness. When a woman
starts to feel her child within her womb and hears the baby’s heart beating,
she develops a bond of tenderness that is special. The relationship between
Mary and Jesus was characterized by this bond of tenderness and, being Jesus
the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, He responded to His mother’s
tenderness... Mary loves us, too, with tenderness. Knowing that we have a
Mother who loves us with tenderness, don’t we experience a profound sense of
joy, serenity and abandonment?
2.
A love that cares. When a child
is born, he is in need of everything from A to Z. Mary cared for Jesus. Mary
cares for us. She takes care of our needs and sees that we grow healthy, happy
and sound.
3.
A love that
respects. Mary watches her Son growing and one
day... “as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but
his parents did not know it” (Lk 2:43). Questioned later, the Boy responded,
“Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s
house?” (Lk 2:49). The Gospel continues, “His mother kept these things in her
heart” (Lk 2:51). Mary respects her Son Who is starting to live His life, His
mission, His history.... Mary does the same with us. She respects us because
she wants us to develop the talents God gave us for the building of His Kingdom
in the particular historical moment in which Divine Providence has placed us.
4.
A love of admiration. Mary, seeing
Jesus becoming a man, performing miracles, and listening to His teaching, was
filled with motherly pride and admiration. Mary rejoices, too, when she sees us
becoming the person the Lord has in mind, receiving God’s gifts to us, and
responding to His plan of love. Mary sees and rejoices.
However, who
of us does not have difficulties, sufferings, pains, defeats, set-backs —
who? And behold, there is Mary, our
Mother, who stands by us as she stood by Jesus at the foot of the Cross... Are
we aware of Mary’s love for us? How do we respond to her love?”[1]
Our Lady of Trust
We venerate Mary under the special title of Our Lady of Trust, Our Lady of
Confidence. Bishop Giaquinta, who
studied in the Major Seminary in Rome, had a great devotion for Our Lady of
Trust and chose her as patroness of the Pro Sanctity Family. He taught us that
Mary of Trust inspires confidence, gives us courage, helps us understand and
come in touch with the good that is in us, in others, in the world. He said
also to us that our charism to live personal/family/social holiness and to
spread the universal call to holiness all over the world is a hard, demanding
challenge, and only by placing our trust
in Mary can we hope to pursue it. The invocation, “My Mother, My
Confidence” was often on his lips, an invocation that he learned as a youth
from Cardinal Borgoncini from Lucca. In
the Prayer to Our Lady of Trust, Bishop Giaquinta wrote,“When sin entices us, stay with us and be our strength; when mediocrity
absorbs us, do not leave us; when the ascent to the perfection of the Father
makes us weary, whisper a word of help, O Mary, Trust!”
All our Bethanies and Pro Sanctity Centers have pictures of our
Lady of Trust.
Here follows
a brief history of the picture of our Lady of Trust.
The first picture of Our Lady of
Confidence was painted by the great Italian painter Carlo Maratta (1625-1713)
who was knighted by Pope Clement XI in 1704 and was made court painter by Louis
XIV the same year.
Maratta gave the picture to a noblewoman, Claire Isabella
Fornari (June 25, 1697-December 9, 1744), who was the Abbess of the Convent of
Poor Claire of St. Francis in the city of Todi. The Abbess - today the
Venerable Sister Claire Isabel - embraced a life of severe penance and was
favored with many mystical graces. She had a great devotion to sacred images,
especially those of Mary. She treasured the picture Maratta gave her and
meditated on it during her prayer time.
Our Lady promised Sister Claire that she would give special graces to
all those who would venerate the image of our Lady of Trust throughout the
ages. "My Heavenly Mother assured me,"
said the Abbess, "that she would
give a special tenderness and devotion toward her to everyone who contemplated
this image" (the original and copies).
Sister Claire advised her
spiritual director, Father Gazali, to take the picture with him whenever he
traveled. Father Gazali always found a great sense of peace and consolation
from it. He kept the picture until his death on July 29, 1762. Then his
possessions, including the image, were given to the Sisters of the Monastery of
St. Francis of Todi where they are today.
In
the Major Seminary in Rome, there is an identical picture of our Lady of
Confidence. How can this be? Sister Claire had another spiritual advisor,
Father Crivelli, who was the spiritual director of the German College in Rome.
While visiting Foligno, Father Crivelli became seriously sick, but was suddenly
healed as soon as Sister sent him the original painting. He was so moved by
this healing that he wanted a copy of the image which he took to Rome and then
to the local seminary. From this simple beginning the devotion spread so that
by the 1830's Our Lady of Trust had become the patroness of the Major Seminary
in Rome.
Our
Lady of Trust protected the seminarians in times of crisis. In fact in 1837,
the scourge of Asiatic flu claimed many lives. The seminarians and their
families were put under the protection of Mary; not one of them contracted the
disease! In thanksgiving, two crowns were fashioned in gold and placed on the
images of Mary and the Child Jesus.
During
World War I, more than 100 seminarians were forced into the Italian military.
The seminarians placed themselves under the special care of Mary of Trust. They
all returned home safely. To repay the goodness of their Queen, the seminarians
put diadems on the crowns of Mother and Child!
In the seminary today the Feast of Our Lady of Trust is celebrated on
the Saturday before Ash Wednesday.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary of
Trust
How did the veneration to Mary of Trust
bloom and become veneration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Trust? Let us listen to Bishop Giaquinta
himself as he shared with us in 1992.
“I had a desire in my heart
to delve into the mystery of the relationship of Mary with us. As I was
meditating on and deepening the bond between Mary and us, it came spontaneously to me to think of the
heart of a mother, a heart that is on fire, in love with God and with us. So...
I thought of the Immaculate Heart of
Mary of Trust! It is not a matter of having another celebration, but of
trying to more deeply understand the meaning of our devotion and to express it
to the best of our ability. The
invocation that we well know “O Immaculate Heart of Mary ... give trust...”
says it all. It is the result of personal meditation or of a light from above.
I desired to have a heart painted on the picture; I wanted to have an image
that would represent my insight: Jesus pointing to the heart of Mary! I asked the Franciscan sisters in Via Giusti
- who were the ones who painted the images of Mary of Trust in the Seminary- to
introduce the new element of the heart in the same image of Mary of Trust. Several people helped, but I was not satisfied with the paintings. Finally
the image that we have was painted: it is the original picture of our Lady of
Trust with the Son pointing to Mary’s heart. Even though the image did not
perfectly respond to what I was dreaming for, I was happy with it[2].
In the prayer
to our Lady of Trust that I composed, I mentioned the heart of Mary two times:
1.“To your feet
we come, O Virgin of Trust, to pour out to the heart of a
mother our wishes and failings”
2. “But your
motherly look which follows us as well as your immaculate
heart
which your Son points out to us), opens our souls to a new
feeling: the assurance of your help.”
You
wonder, “Why this preference for the Immaculate heart of Mary of Trust?” There
is a basic reason: as members of the Pro Sanctity Family, as people devoted to
maximal love, as consecrated or committed members, we try to see the core of
matters, to go deep into matters, to avoid remaining at the surface. We
celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the Sunday preceding Ash
Wednesday.” Our Founder made it
clear, “Saturday is the priestly
celebration of our Lady of Trust; Sunday is the celebration of the people of
God, a priestly people, too, born from the ordained priesthood.” And so he
prayed, “Thank you, Jesus, for helping us
understand it. Give us an intense love for you and for Your Mother; grant this
love to us priests and to those who are born from our priesthood.”[3]
3
Exhortation of our Holy Father
John Paul II to go to Mary’s school
Our Holy Father John Paul II is a lover
of Mary! His motto is Totus Tuus (All yours, Mary). His encyclicals end with a
chapter or a prayer dedicated to Mary; his Apostolic Exhortations- especially
those regarding the various states of life in the Church, for example, on the
laity, consecrated life, the priesthood and bishops - end with an invocation to
Mary and the invitation to follow her example.
On October 8, 2000 he entrusted the world and the millennium to Mary. He
called Mary “star of the third millennium as she was at the beginning of the
Christian Era, the dawn that preceded Jesus on the horizon of history. She
teaches us how we must love and praise God” ( March 21, 2001). In the Apostolic
Letter On the Most Holy Rosary he invites us to pray the rosary and introduced
the mysteries of light. He invites us “...to contemplate the face of Christ in
union with, and at the school of, Mary.”
He knows that the Lord needs
Mary today! Yes, the Lord needs people who love Mary and imitate her virtues,
who are ‘other Marys’. He needs people of faith, hope and love; people who are
logical, reflective, focused, attentive to His ways; people who are present,
who listen, are involved, enter in dialogue with others, see needs and respond
to them; He needs people who are committed and love as Mary loves; people who
reflect Mary’s humility, peace, fortitude, generosity and know how to stand by
the Cross. He wants them among laity -children and adults, single and married -
in family life, among consecrated people, and among ordained ministers
-deacons, priests, bishops.
May the Lord find these Marys among us
for His glory and for the building up of the culture of life and holiness, of
the culture of love. May “ALL SAINTS, ALL BROTHERS AND SISTERS” be
“the ideal of life
the goal of dreams
the apex of light
the experience of touching the eternal
through a vocation lived
in the awareness
of Mary’s poverty.”
Bishop Giaquinta
Founder of the Pro Sanctity Family