June 13, 2026
Memorial of The Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Lectionary: 364/573
Reading 1
Elijah set out, and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat,
as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen;
he was following the twelfth.
Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak over him.
Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said,
"Please, let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,
and I will follow you."
Elijah answered, "Go back!
Have I done anything to you?"
Elisha left him and, taking the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them;
he used the plowing equipment for fuel to boil their flesh,
and gave it to his people to eat.
Then he left and followed Elijah as his attendant.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm
16:1b-2a and 5, 7-8, 9-10
R. (see 5a) You are my inheritance, O Lord.
Keep me, O God, for in you I take refuge;
I say to the LORD, "My Lord are you."
O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup,
you it is who hold fast my lot.
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.
I bless the LORD who counsels me;
even in the night my heart exhorts me.
I set the LORD ever before me;
with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.
Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices,
my body, too, abides in confidence;
Because you will not abandon my soul to the nether world,
nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed is the Virgin Mary who kept the word of God
and pondered it in her heart.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Each year Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of
Passover,
and when he was twelve years old,
they went up according to festival custom.
After they had completed its days, as they were returning,
the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem,
but his parents did not know it.
Thinking that he was in the caravan,
they journeyed for a day
and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances,
but not finding him,
they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.
After three days they found him in the temple,
sitting in the midst of the teachers,
listening to them and asking them questions,
and all who heard him were astounded
at his understanding and his answers.
When his parents saw him,
they were astonished,
and his mother said to him,
"Son, why have you done this to us?
Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety."
And he said to them,
"Why were you looking for me?
Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"
But they did not understand what he said to them.
He went down with them and came to Nazareth,
and was obedient to them;
and his mother kept all these things in her heart.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/memorial-immaculate-heart-blessed-virgin-mary
Commentary on 1
Kings 19:19-21
Immediately following the passage describing Elijah’s
meeting God at Horeb (Is 19:11-16) comes today’s short passage which is
actually borrowed from the Elisha cycle or tradition. Elijah has basically
finished the work God had given him to do and is getting ready to hand on to
his successor, Elisha.
Coming from the mountain where he had met the Lord (in the
“sound of sheer silence” or “a gentle breeze” in some translations), he comes
upon Elisha ploughing behind twelve oxen yoked to ploughs. Elisha himself was
following the last one. It seems the other eleven were being driven by Elisha’s
servants.
That number of animals and assistants indicated that Elisha
was a farmer of some means, perhaps even rich by the standards of his time and
place. As Elijah passed by he threw his cloak over the shoulders of Elisha. The
meaning was clear. He was passing over to Elisha the prophetic vocation which
had been his. The cloak represented both the person and his authority. And, in
Elijah’s case, the cloak had miraculous powers which were also being passed on.
Elisha immediately accepted the call and ran after Elijah. He just made one
petition, namely, to go back and say a final farewell to his parents. Elijah
granted his request.
Elisha went off, but at the same time, he slaughtered his
pair of oxen; used the wood of his plough as fuel to roast the meat; then
shared the meat with his servants. The meaning was very clear. He was ‘burning
his boats’ and committing himself totally and unreservedly to his calling as
God’s prophet and spokesman. Elisha’s break with his past vocation was
complete. He then went off and followed Elijah as his attendant. ‘Attendant’ is
the same word in Hebrew to describe Joshua’s relationship with Moses.
The story is one of a calling being passed on and being
generously accepted. Elisha’s request to go back and say goodbye to his family
(whom he probably never saw again) and a relatively prosperous way of life
reminds us of the man who wanted to say goodbye to his family before becoming a
disciple of Jesus (see Luke 10:59). Jesus said that, for a disciple of his,
even that should be set aside. As Peter would say:
Look, we have left everything and followed you. (Mark
10:28)
And indeed they had.
But Elisha did show the level of his commitment by disposing
of all his property and following the Lord and his teacher, Elijah, with only
the clothes on his back.
We might ask what do we still cling to in our following of
Jesus? What things would we find it most difficult to let go of if we were
asked? What is the level of our commitment to following Jesus right now?
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The Immaculate
Heart of Mary – Gospel
Commentary on Luke
2:41-51
The Gospel reading is the story from Luke of Jesus as a
young boy staying on in the Temple at Jerusalem. We are told that Jesus’
parents used to go to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the Passover.
When Jesus was 12, the year when a Jewish boy was regarded
as entering adulthood and subject to the Law, he went with Mary and Joseph as
usual on their annual pilgrimage. But on their way back to Nazareth, Jesus,
unknown to his parents, stayed behind in the city. Presuming he was with other
members of what was probably a large party of relatives and neighbours, Mary
and Joseph continued for a day without seeing him.
But then they became worried and returned to the city to
look for him. To lose a young boy in a large city at any time would be a source
of great anxiety to parents, but during the Passover when Jerusalem would be
full of strangers from all over, it could be terrifying. Anything could have
happened to him.
It was finally on the third day of searching that they came
across him in the Temple where he was sitting among the teachers of the Law,
listening to them and asking them questions. The teachers were amazed at his
intelligence and at the answers he gave to their questions. Mary and Joseph,
naturally, were astonished to see him in such company.
But they were also upset. Mary asked her Son,
Child, why have you treated us like this? Your father and
I have been anxiously looking for you.
But Jesus made no apology for his behaviour:
Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I
must be in my Father’s house?
But Mary and Joseph did not understand the meaning of his
words. They did not comprehend the two uses of the word ‘father’—“Your father
and I…” and “my Father’s house”?
Mary (and Joseph) did not yet recognize that Jesus’ life had
reached a watershed. He would pass from the care of Mary and Joseph, his foster
father, and move into his calling as the Son of a higher Father. Yet on this
day, he would of course, go home with them and become an obedient son in the
family. But a signal had been given and, later on, he will leave his home for
the last time to begin his official work.
As with any mother experiencing the challenges of a child
growing up, we are told that Mary:
…treasured all these things in her heart.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/the-immaculate-heart-of-mary-gospel/
Saturday,
June 13, 2026
Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Opening Prayer
O God, who has prepared a worthy dwelling
place of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, through her
intercession grant that we, your faithful, may be a living temple of Your
glory. We ask this, through Christ our Lord ...
Gospel Reading – Luke 2: 41-51
Each year Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem
for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up
according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were
returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not
know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and
looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him,
they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.
After three days they found him in the temple, sitting amid the
teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him
were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him,
they were astonished, and his mother said to him, "Son, why have you done
this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great
anxiety." And he said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Did you
not know that I must be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand
what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was
obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.
Meditation
•
"Every year the feast of Passover."
These words help us to define the spiritual context in which the passage takes
place and thus become, for us, the gateway to enter the mystery of His
encounter with the Lord and His work of grace and mercy upon us.
Together
with Mary and Joseph, with Jesus, we too can live the gift of a new
Passover, a "crossing," an excess, a spiritual
movement that takes us "beyond.” The passage is clear and strong. What the
Virgin Mary intuits in this experience with her son Jesus is the step from the
street to the heart of the dispersion to interiority, from anguish to peace.
All that remains is to journey down
the street and join the feast, the feast of pilgrims on their way up to
Jerusalem for the celebration of Passover.
•
"Their way" This is only the first of
a series of verbs of motion, which follow one another along the verses of this
passage: "they went",
"return to the path", "group" (from the Latin cum-ire,
"walking together"); "journey"; "back";
"went down with them, " " arrive .”
In parallel with this great physical movement, there is
also a deep spiritual movement characterized by the verb "look",
expressed over and over again: "they began to look for,"
"returned in search of Him," "looking for You anxiously,” "
why you sought Me?”
This tells us that the journey, the true path to which the
Lord's word calls us, is not a physical journey, but a journey in search of
Jesus, of His presence in our lives. And this is the direction in which we
move, together with Mary and Joseph.
•
"They began to look for Him" Here we
can identify the core of the text, its fundamental message. It is important
that we open ourselves to a deeper understanding of this reality. Also because
Luke uses two different verbs to express the "search,” the first indicating accurate, repeated,
careful, as some of those who browse, from bottom to top, and second which
indicates the search for something that is lost and you want to find. Jesus is
the object of all this movement and deep inner being, is the object of desire,
the longing of the heart.
•
"Distressed" It is great to see how
Mary opens her heart to Jesus, telling Him what she felt within herself. She is
not afraid to tell the truth to her Son, to tell Him the feelings and
experiences that they felt deeply. But what is this anguish, this pain that you
saw in Mary and Joseph in search of Jesus, who went missing?
These 3 days of looking, the journey to Jerusalem, and not
understanding His words afterward, may also be considered a prefiguring the
narrative of His death and Resurrection.
•
"Kept all these sayings in her heart"
Mary does not understand the words of Jesus, the mystery of His life and His
mission and for this remains silent, accepts, makes space, keeps them in her
heart. This is the true path of growth in faith and relationship with the Lord.
Once again, Luke gives us a very beautiful and meaningful
word which means literally "keeping through.” That is the spiritual
operation that Mary carries within herself and that give us as a precious gift,
a legacy for our good relationship with the Lord, so that it can take us into a
journey deep, deep, that does not stop at the surface, or half, which is not
coming back, but it goes deep down. Mary takes us by the hand and guides us
through all her heart, all her feelings, her experiences. And there, in the
secrecy of ourselves, in our hearts, we can learn to find the Lord Jesus, whom
perhaps we had lost.
There is also a loss for Mary and Joseph. Up until now,
Joseph was identified with “my father”. Now it is changed. He is not just her
son, or their son, but son of our Heavenly Father. In all this is another
sorrow, one of parents, that they do not understand their child: “But they did
not understand what He said to them.”
Some Questions
•
* There are many foreshadows of
the Passion in this passage. Can I identify the depth of things symbolized
here?
•
Do I feel like I am seeking the Lord? Or does it
not seem important? Is it an active part of my life every day?
•
Has anxiety, spoken by Mary, ever been my
companion on the journey of my life?
Maybe, thanks to this passage, I discovered that the
anxiety is caused by the absence of the Lord, the loss of God. Does this passage help me, give me a light
and a key for my life?
As a parent (past, future, or present), do I see a
relationship and partnership with God the Father in raising my children, and do
I give room for God to be an active participant in this? Am I a wall between
God and them, or am I translator, or do I allow them to build their
relationship at the same time?
Closing Prayer
1 Samuel 2: 1-8
And as she worshiped the LORD, she said:
"My heart exults in the LORD, my horn is exalted in my God. I have
swallowed up my enemies; I rejoice in my victory. There is no Holy One like the
LORD; there in no Rock like our God.
"Speak boastfully no longer, nor let
arrogance issue from your mouths. For an all-knowing God is the LORD, a God who
judges deeds. The bows of the mighty are broken, while the tottering gird on
strength. The well-fed hire themselves out for bread, while the hungry batten
on spoil. The barren wife bears seven sons, while the mother of many
languishes.
The LORD puts to death and gives life; He
casts down to the nether world; He raises up again. The LORD makes poor and
makes rich, He humbles, He also exalts. He raises the needy from the dust; from
the ash heap He lifts up the poor, To seat them with nobles and make a glorious
throne their heritage.
For the pillars of the earth are the LORD'S, and He
has set the world upon them.
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