If Mary were a blogger – her own words – Father Bob Stone, CM offer the following

21^ST CENTURY REFLECTION ON MARY AND HER ROLE IN OUR LIVES TODAY

The following short piece is a small reflection I wrote after some of us had a spirited discussion about the role of Mary in our lives as an intercessor.

First, I present a reflection on Mary written as if she had blogged in the present time about her life within heaven.

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, because He has looked with favor on His lowly servant; all generations will call me blessed. The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.”

My name is Mary. I am mother to Jesus, the spouse of Joseph, and a Christian from the day of Pentecost. My son gave me to the apostle John just before He died, and Christians have considered me not only Jesus’ mother, but theirs as well. I lived with John until the end of my earthly life in Ephesus, and then I found myself from one moment until the next in the presence of the life-giving Trinity, truly caught up in the Beatific Vision.

From this place in heaven, everything that God sees I see, just as do all the angels and the saints. The effect of all I see leads me more deeply each minute into the life of God. I do see people’s joys and sorrows, sins and suffering, the cruelties they experience and their wishes for a better world. Every one of us joined together in the Beatific Vision sees as God sees.

This ability to see as God sees has asked for some effort from me. As a young girl I learned to pray, and in and around the birth of my Son I pondered all the things that happened. As I reflected on them in my heart, I grew in faith, hope, and love. I found that these virtues required me to be humble, simple, meek and gentle. I learned that I couldn’t crowd my mind or heart with things too sublime for me. Living this way was never easy. Even though I don’t think I ever sinned, I had to struggle to maintain my balance. I longed to love Joseph totally, but it didn’t seem to me that God wanted that. I wanted to take a leading role in my Son’s ministry, but He wanted everyone to hear the Word of God and keep it. I did continue to follow Him, and so I was present for His death, a moment so difficult, yet as tender as was the moment of His birth. I was not among the first to see Him after God raised Him up, but I rejoiced with everyone. I watched Him ascend above all the heavens, and found great comfort in His words, “I am with you always until the end of the world.”

My life here in heaven is simple. Although Christians of East and West have adorned me with many titles, as if I were a ruler or a superstar, I am Mary, mother of Jesus, mother of God (because my Son is both human and divine), and mother of all His brothers and sisters. I care about everyone, as any adult mother cares about her adult children. Every title which others use for me expresses just how deeply the salvation given us all (me included) by my Son touches every part of human life. Catholics of East and West believe I am sinless (though in different ways), and always a Virgin. They all call me the God-bearer, the Mother of God. Again, in different ways, they believe that God brought my body to heaven with my soul in the glorified state of the Resurrection.

All of us within the Beatific Vision give God praise and thanks. We spend most of our time in this attitude. We ask God’s help for everyone in the world, and we even lament with the hurting, the oppressed and the downtrodden. God hears all our prayer, as He continues to give Himself to the world in merciful love. I trust God, as I learned to do in my lifetime. I asked nothing special from Him, except perhaps a heart to know Him and His love as much as possible. If you wonder why nothing seems to change, it is because we do not change.

Miracles do happen, as God disposes. God has already disposed that all will be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Whether or not he heals a sick person, feeds a starving person, or changes the course of human history, does not depend on the prayer of those of us who surround Him, but on how the revelation of His love through, with, and in Jesus Christ works itself out in history. Although I see and hear things that might make someone mad, sad, bad, or scared, I maintain the joy of the Lord in all things because He has been good to me, in death as in life. After all, I faced many difficulties in my own lifetime and came through them all because I trusted in God.

You may think I need more titles, or honors, or privileges. While I may be the first after my Son to be in heaven body and soul, I am just like everyone else within the Beatific Vision. We trust in the Father. We trust my Son. We trust in the Holy Spirit. They will take care of your every need, and then you will know that I and all of us who participate in the mediation of salvation through the Beatific Vision always remember you, never forget you, and continually pray for you, and, above all, with you. The more you grow in sinlessness, the more you embrace the theological virtues, and the more you are humble, simple, meek, and mortified, you will come to know, to trust, and to give yourself to God. “The Almighty has done great things for me,” and He does them for you, “and holy is His name.”

I believe that this imagined locution of Mary is faithful to many things. It takes into account the four Marian doctrines of our Church: Mary as Mother of God; the Immaculate Conception; Mary’s perpetual virginity; and Mary’s Assumption into heaven. It expresses what I believe the Beatific Vision means for everyone to whom God has united Himself by the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.

More importantly, it presents a vision of what the spiritual life is like, and how we live it. The “depths of the riches of the wisdom of the knowledge of God” requires that we not so ennoble ourselves that we are separated from the earth. Not only must we be humble, simple, gentle, and mortified, we must be poor. The first person that the Scripture talks about in the presence of God is the poor, sick, emarginated beggar, Lazarus. He reclined “in the bosom of Abraham,” completely at rest and at peace.

Our communication is primarily directed within the Beatific Vision to the three Persons of the Trinity. They, and they alone, are the source and the fountain of the love of God. No one else needs to “channel” grace to any one else because “God is all in all.” While it is entirely probable that those in glory are aware of the feelings, thoughts, and actions of those in the world, only God’s love motivates them. In heaven, flattery gets one nowhere. All the titles that we hang upon the angels, the Blessed Virgin Mary. and the saints, are meant to help us in this life to come to know, love, and serve God in this world. Once we are with Him in the next world, all these titles fall.

In regard to the Marian titles, one that should give us pause is that of “Queen,” no matter of what. Jesus, in speaking of Himself as a King, says simply “I have come to testify to the truth.” Especially in the 20th century, after the Bishops of Mexico petitioned Pope Pius XI to grant them the title “Jesus Christ, the King,” this notion became quite political, given Mexico’s situation. I wonder if the same thing happened with the title of Mary as “queen” after the insistence of the Fatima Vision that “Russia will be converted.” I do know that, while he was still Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, St. John XXIII wrote to Pius XII (in response to a general query about the appropriateness) that, on the one hand, he thought that a feast of the “Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary” to be inopportune, given the Eastern Christians’ aversion to such a title, as well as other ecumenical considerations. However, he ended his reflection by saying, “But I will still happily pray “Salve Regina, Mater Misericordiae.”

In our Vincentian family we make great use of the title of Mary as Immaculate, as well as that of “Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal.” The Daughters of Charity have had in their Book of Prayer a text called “Most Holy Virgin,” which some believe was written by St. Louise herself (though Fr. Antonino Orajo, CM, who studied this prayer, does not seem to think so). They have used it since 1810 as a prayer between the mysteries of the Rosary. It says:

Most Holy Virgin, I believe and confess your holy and Immaculate Conception. Pure and without stain, most Holy Virgin, through your Immaculate Conception, through your perpetual virginity, through your unique privilege as Mother of God, obtain for me from your Divine Son humility, simplicity, charity; great purity of mind, heart and body; a great love for my dear vocation; the gift of prayer; a good life, and a happy death.

This prayer recognizes the gifts that God has given to Mary. In view of these gifts those who pray turn to her as an intercessor with Jesus the virtues necessary to serve the poor; that purity which enables them “to see God;” fidelity to their life of service (impelled by the charity of Christ); the ability to pray in good, bad, indifferent, and threatening times; and a life well lived as well as a death that leads them into the Beatific Vision.

Our devotion or Mary under the title of the Miraculous Medal is quite similar. Just as the people of Paris feared that the Revolution of 1830 would again put barriers between them, God, and the Church, so our recourse to Our Lady seeks nothing more than God’s help in trying times. This prayer steers away from the “dangerous P‘s:” position, power, preeminence, prestige, and privilege. Mary retains God’s “predilection” for her in such a way that she remains a creature who takes the love of God and translates it into the simplicity by which the account of the Marriage Feast at Cana sees her relationship with her Son, and how we should relate to Him: “do whatever He tells you.”

I hope these simple reflections help us to retain a “Gospel vision” of the role of Mary in our lives. As we say in these days after Easter, “through her intercessions, may we come to the joys of eternal life.”

Bob Stone, CM