I remember my first Easter Mass clearly. It was in the little church where my husband’s family used to go to the early Mass, in a teeny tiny town. It was a wood-framed building with polished wood floors, squeaky pews, and magnificent stained glass windows.

Though the name of the church was Sacred Heart, through some sort of mix-up, there was a beautiful window up in the highest part of the roof that was the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

All these hearts were pretty strange to me when I was exploring the Catholic Church. The images are a little gruesome and weird, though there’s something compelling too, something that draws me to them.

Read my reflections and some of the history of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in my column at Today’s Catholic Woman.