I have just finished praying the Rosary, sitting under the shade of the oak woodland.
The sun is shining, filtering through the beautiful new oak leaves. There is fresh new growth all around me. The birds are singing, there is a gentle breeze and Osiris our cat is sitting on my lap.
This is how I prayed my Rosary this morning – in this quite idyllic setting.
Yet audible in the distance, if not overwhelmingly so, was the constant sound of bombs exploding, machine guns and grenades.
We are situated six kilometers from military land, where the soldiers practice war most days.
As I prayed and marvelled at the beautiful surroundings, I often had tears running down my cheek, knowing that in certain places in the world at this moment, war is not practice – it is reality.
That there, the sounds of those guns and bombs mean that people are really being maimed and killed.
Instead of moving to a quieter spot, I attempted to move my prayer more to my heart, for all those at war.
I felt my breath deepen, as my heart ached with the pain of the reality of war in our world.
As I prayed to Our Lady, I imagined how her heart must feel – pierced continually with a pain that is a response to her children at war with each other.
Both realities are true. The beauty of my surroundings and the tragedy of war.
Both realities are true: The Love of Our Mother and the sword which pierces Her Immaculate Heart.
My aim is about becoming acutely aware of both – simultaneously.
Update 2023:
We are now updating this website in 2023, many years after this entry was written. The post above was written many years ago in France. Today, my dear husband Roger and I have a YouTube Channel and Roger has written several books on Catholic tradition published by Angelico Press. Here is a highly-recommended EWTN interview with Roger about our life in Catholic France and Ireland and below that you may see his books.
Foreword for Monarchy by Roger Buck
Buying Books at Amazon Through These Links Gives Us a Commission. This Supports Our Apostolate. Thank You if You Can Help Us Like This!
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2 responses to “Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart Pierced by a Sword”
The heart pierced
true Christian contemplation
to hear the pain in the silence of God
wounds run red with blood
a heart in an eternity of love
Matrimony: enter into my Wounds
and suffer with me for others
Ecstasy: a Love that is Knowledge (gnosis)
fusion, union, devequt
that is all a cleaving with those who suffer
and are felt
in the Sacred Heart of Jesus
and Immaculate Heart of Mary
effort, intercession
in the heaven of Heavens,
the Sacred Heart
when the Eternal Father sees
sees it covered with your Precious Blood
and we unrest in Contemplation
in sweat, tears and blood
to see and love with Him
I want to apologise to you Edwin and others for my failure to write and respond publicly and privately.
I am currently living a life where I have virtually no time to think or write.
Edwin the poem you posted in response to my blog is so beautiful and evokes the depth and pain of what it really is to love, love with Our Lord, and to love with Our Lady.
It certainly is not comfortable.
There is a place in the heart I experience that does indeed cause unrest.
For it will not let us ignore the suffering and is bursting out of itself – crying for us to love more deeply