Cultivating a Heart Like Mary’s: The Rose Among Thorns
“... (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:35).
According to a Catholic News Agency article, the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was first celebrated by St. John Eudes and his congregation in France in 1648 (he called it the Feast of the Holy Heart of Mary), and the devotion became popular after Mary appeared to St. Catherine Labouré in 1830 to share the Miraculous Medal with her. The back of the medal shows both Mary’s Immaculate Heart and Jesus’ Sacred Heart.
As women, we are called to imitate Mary. St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (also known as Edith Stein) wrote, “Mary is the prototype of pure womanhood,” and in his “Letter to Women,” Pope St. John Paul II wrote, “The Church sees in Mary the highest expression of the ‘feminine genius’ and she finds in her a source of constant inspiration.”
So, what can we learn from Mary’s Immaculate Heart? How can we form our own hearts in imitation of this most beautiful one? Here’s one lesson that I think is particularly relevant this year:
Mary’s Immaculate Heart is typically pictured with roses, hearkening back to St. Ambrose, who described her as “the rose without thorns.” He wrote that in the Garden of Eden, roses didn’t have thorns, which were the result of the fall. Mary, conceived without sin, has no thorns — she is a pure rose. Roses also are a sort of calling card for Mary, who used them as a sign when she appeared to St. Juan Diego in Mexico and when she appeared to St. Bernadette in Lourdes, as a blog post by the Franciscan Handmaids of the Immaculate points out.
The blog post also quotes St. Brigid: “The Virgin may suitably be called a blooming rose. Just as the gentle rose is placed among thorns, so this gentle Virgin was surrounded by sorrow.”
Mary was surrounded by sorrow. Her people were persecuted. They were poor. Like today, there was sin and fear and pain everywhere.
Mary responded with faith. She responded with her fiat — not a one-time “yes” at Christ’s conception, as Jeanne Kun writes in “My Soul Magnifies the Lord: A Scriptural Journey with Mary,” but a yes that would be “repeated over and over in the days and years ahead” — a continuous “yes” to our Lord.
We, too, are called to say yes to God. We are surrounded by thorns, by hatred and violence and sin and death. But God made women to be roses. He made us to find hope, to demonstrate faith, and to live with courage. It feels impossible sometimes, especially this year, but if God made us to do so, then He will give us the strength to live our own fiat.
We live in a society that is often violent, in a culture that is often hateful. Sin leads to great sadness. But in the midst of that sorrow, we can still bloom. With prayer, with love, with dedication to Christ through the Immaculate Heart of His Mother, we can create peace.
Meet Taryn Oesch
Taryn Oesch is a writer and editor in Raleigh, N.C. She is the managing editor of Catholic Women in Business, a contributing writer and assistant editor at FemCatholic.com, and a fertility awareness educator in training. When she’s not correcting grammar and helping women craft their stories, you can find Taryn reading Jane Austen, drinking Earl Grey tea, playing the flute or the piano, and spending time with her fiancé and their families and friends. You can find Taryn on Instagram @Taryn_Oesch and on her blog, EverydayRoses.blog.