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Diocese of Montpellier, for the work of teachirig and
the care of orplians. They "ere approved by Pius^ IX
and Leo XIII, and have institutions in Ireland, Eng-
land, Portugal, and the United States.
Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregalionen {Paderbom, 1908); PiOLET. Missions catlioliques franfaises (Paris, 1899-1903); Helyot. Diet, des ordres religieux (Paris, 1859). For XI see Kath. Missionm (1875), 117 sqq.; Vermeersch, La question conoolaise (Bnissels, 1906).
F. M. RUDGE.
Heart of Mary, Devotion to the. — As in the article on devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, this subject will be considered under two heads: (1) the nature, and (2) the history of the devotion.
(1) Just as devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is only a form of devotion to the adoral)le Person of Jesus, so also is devotion to the Holy Heart of Mary but a special form of devotion to Mary. In order that, properly .speaking, there may be devotion to the Heart of Mary, the attention and the homage of tiie faithful must be directed to the physical heart itself. However, this in itself is not sufficient; the faithful must read therein all that the human heart of Mary suggests, all of which it is the expressive symbol and the living reminder: Mary's interior life, her joys and sorrows, her virtues and hidden perfections, and, above all, her virginal love for her God, her maternal love for her Divine Son, and her motherly and com- passionate love for her sinful and miserable children here below. The consideration of Mary's interior life and the beauties of her sovd, without any thought of her physical heart, does not constitute our devotion; still less <lues it consist in the consideration of the Heart of Mary merely as a part of her virginal body. The two elements are essential to the devotion, just as .soul and body are necessary to the constitution of man.
All this is made .sufficiently clear in the explanations given elsewhere (.see He.\rt of Je.sus, Devotion to the), and, if our devotion to Mary must not be con- founded with our devotion to Jesus, on the other hand, it is equally true that our veneration of the Heart of Mary is, as such, analogous to our worship of the Heart of Jesus. It is, however, necessary to indicate a few differences in this analogy, the better to explain the character of Catholic devotion to the Heart of Mary. Some? of these differences are very marked, whereas others are barely perceptible. Devotion to the Heart of Jesus is especially directed to the Divine Heart as overflowing with love for men, and it pre- sents this love to us as despised and outraged. In the devotion to the Heart of Mary, on the other hand, what seems to attract us above all else is the love of this Heart for Jesus and for God. Its love for men is not overlooked, but it is not so much in evidence nor so dominant. With this difference is linked another. The first act of the devotion to the Heart of Jesus is the love eager to respond to love; in devotion to the Heart of Mary there is no first act so clearly indicated: in this devotion, perhaps, study and imitation hold as important a place as love. For, although this stuily and imitation are impregnated with filial affection, the devotion presents itself with no oliject sufficiently conspicuous to call forth our love, which is, on the contrary, naturally awakened and increased by the study and imitation. Hence, accurately speaking, love is more tlie result than the object of the devotion, the olijcct being rather to love God and Jesus better by uniting our.selves to Mary for this purpose and by imitating her virtues. It would also seem that, al- though in the devotion to the Heart of Mary the heart has an essential part as .symbol and sensible object, it does not stand out as prominently as in the de- votion to the Heart of Jesus; we think rather of the thing symbolized, of love, virtues, and sentiments, of Mary's interior life.
(2) The history of the devotion to the Heart of Mary
is connected on many points with that to the Heart of
Jesus; nevertheless, it has its own history which,
although very .simple, is not devoid of interest. 'I he
attention of Christians was early attracted by the
love and virtues of the Heart of Mary. The Gospel
itself invited this attention with exquisite discretion
and delicacy. What was first excited was compassion
for the Virgin Mother. It was, so to speak, at the
foot of the Cross that the Christian heart first made
the acquaintance of the Heart of Mary. Simeon's
prophecy paved the way and furnished the devotion
with one of its favourite formula' and most popular
representations: the heart pierced with a sword.
But Mary was not merely passive at the foot of the
CYoss; "she co-operated through charity", as St.
Augustine says, "in the work of our redemption".
Another Seri])tural passage to help in bringing out the ilevotion was the twice-repeated .saying of St. Luke, that Mary kept all the sayings and doings of Jesus in her heart, that there she might ponder over them and live by them. A few of the Virgin's sayings, also recorded in the Gospel, particidarly the Magnificat, disclose new features in Marian psychology. Some of the Fathers also throw light upon the psychology of the Virgin, for instance, St. .Ambrose, when in his commentary on St. Luke he holds Marv up as the ideal of virginity, and St. Ephrem, when lie so poeti- cally sings of the coming of the Magi and the welcome accorded them by the humble Mother. Little by little, in consequence of the application of the Canticle to the loving relations between God and the Blessed Virgin, the Heart of Mary came to be for the Christian Church the Heart of the Spouse of the Canticles as well as the Heart of the Virgin Mother. Some pas- sages from the other Sapiential Books, likewise under- stood as referring to Mary, in whom they personify wLsdom and her gentle charms, strengthened this impression. Such are the texts in which wisdom is presented as the mother of lofty love, of fear, of knowledge, and of holy hope. In the New Testa- ment Elizabeth proclaims Mary blessed because she has believed the words of the angel; the Magnificat is an expression of her humility; and in answering the woman of the people, who in order to exalt the Son proclaimed the Mother blessed, did not Jesus himself .say: "Blessed rather are they that hear the word of God and keep it ", thus in a manner inviting us to seek in Mary that which had so endeare<l her to God and cau.sed tier to be .selected as the Mother of Jesus? The Fathers understood His meaning, and found in these words a new reason for praising Mary. St. Leo says that through faith and love she conceived her Son spiritually, even before receiving Him into her womb, and St. Augustine tells us that she was more blessed in having borne Christ in her heart than in having conceived Him in the flesh.
It is only in the twelfth, or towards the end of the eleventh, century, that slight inrlications of a regular devotion are perceived in a sermon by St. Bernard (De duodeciin stellis), from which an extract has been taken by the Church and used in the Ofhces of the Compassion and of the Seven Dolours, ,'^tronger evi- dences are discernible in the pious meditations on the Ave Maria and the Salve Regina, usuallv attributed either to St. Anselm of Lucca (d. lOSO) or'St. Bernard; and also in the large book " l)e laudibus B. Maria" Virginis" (Douai. W2r>) liy Richard de Saint-Laurent, Penitentiary of Rouen in the thirteenth centurv. In St. Mechtilde (d. 12!)S) and St. Gertrude (d. 1302) the devotion had two earnest adherents. A little earlier it had beei) included by St. Thomas Bccket in the devotion to the joys and sorrows of Marv, by Blessed Hermann (d. 124.5), one of the first spiritual children of St. Dominic, in his oiher devotions to Mary, and somewhat later it appeared in St. Bridget's "Book of Hevelations". Tauler (d. VMM) beholds in Mary the model of a mystical, just as St. Ambrose perceived
