Love and Confidence in the Heart of Mary

For today’s feast of the Most Pure Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I offer this translation of a text of Mother Mectilde de Bar. It is taken from a conference she gave on 7 February 1695.

I would not know how to incite you enough to the love and to the confidence that you ought to have in the most holy Heart of the Mother of God. There is no reason to fear not being received well, since she refuses no one. Love and confidence must grow in us, considering that our Institute came forth from her holy Heart.

You will say to me, “But I don’t have the capacity to love her, nor do I have all the devotion necessary to draw her benevolence and protection down upon me!”

We read in Scripture that she loves those who love her, but I will tell you something more: she loves even those who do not love her, inasmuch as she loves sinners. Affection and tenderness towards the holy Mother of God is a particular grace and a sign of predestination. Ask her to obtain this for you from her divine Son. However incapable you may be, you can always formulate desires: desire to love her, to exalt her, to honour her, each one of you individually, as much as and more than all the saints together.

When you begin to love her, she will teach you to know her divine Son and to love Him. Only through her is it possible to know our Lord Jesus Christ; it was she herself who revealed Him to me. “No one knows the Son if not the Mother, and no one knows the Mother if not the Son.” This is why all that we can think and say on her account is very far from the reality.