“Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew, 5:8)

Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, while yesterday was the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. For Catholic Christians, the beautiful and evocative devotion honoring the Love of God through The Sacred Heart of Jesus is set as the theme of the whole month of June. In harmony with that resounding chorus of God’s love for us through Christ, the pure love of Mary, known in the image of The Immaculate Heart is also celebrated. Mary, whose purity enables her to see the suffering of her son through the eyes of absolute trust, sets before us an example of perfect discipleship.

I made this little oil painting while I was pregnant with my son. Perhaps I was pondering the sure evidence of the love of God growing within me as I conceived it.

The shape of Mary’s face was based on a fragment I stumbled upon—a black and white photo of a portion of the face of a statue of “Our Lady of Akita” in Japan. Lately, I like to use photo references of other art works—statues in particular—as prompts for my drawing and painting. They begin as tentative studies, and then the idea takes over. The piece grows apart from the original “seed” and transforms into something surprising, based on whatever theme occurs to me while I’m working.

My whole practice is compact and spontaneous these days, due to the demands of motherhood. They are really pulled-off by the skin of my teeth. I feel a bit like a magician when I’m able to conjure them out of next to nothing—in whatever media I have at hand with whatever fragmentary time I have—while taking care of babies. I cherish them all the more because they are rare.

This little portrait is no exception. It depicts a bust of Mary in a typical frontal pose, with the symbol of the Immaculate Heart radiating mystically from her chest. The two hands extended in blessing are also typical of images of this devotion. What is perhaps more unique to this particular painting, is the sense of “conjuring” that the image evokes. There is a weightlessness to the image—the way she seems to be both beholding and offering her Immaculate Heart to us. Perhaps this was a bit how I experienced my own being at the time—contemplating and offering, both the artistic vision and the life within me, as if by “magic.”

I find it an absorbing challenge to meditate on well-known emblems like this, which we see so often in Catholic devotion, by whatever means I have within me to render them authentically. No matter what my be my preconceptions, I’m always surprised by what actually comes out.

“Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”

(Luke 2:19)

I ended up giving this to a priest of The Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), Fr. Joseph Heffernan, in thanks for the pastoral care he showed us during the pandemic. Without concern for himself, this loving priest baptized our daughter, Magdalen at home when all local churches were closed, brought the other Sacraments to our home at the same time—and attempted to bring Sacraments to my father while he was in the ICU with Covid. He went above and beyond to help us fight against the maddening hospital restrictions, even driving for hours just to pray with us in the hospital parking lot, and calling for prayers from his parishioners for my dad.

Dad did eventually receive The Anointing of the Sick through a miraculous and unforeseeable opening of doors, thanks in part to the spiritual efforts of Fr. Heffernan—and, by the will of God, he was healed. I was and still am grateful for this loving priest in our lives, and was sad to see him transferred away to his next assignment when the time came.

God bless Fr. Joseph Heffernan, and all priests who embody the mercy of God through their tireless service. May the Immaculate Heart of Mary through the grace of Jesus Christ protect and sustain them.