I have been thinking a lot about Our Blessed Lady lately. Most especially in her role as Mother. Very often when I think of Mary I compare her to my own mother. I come from a family of seven boys and three girls. One thing I noticed about my own mother was that she related to each of us individually, different from person to person. She did not treat any of us the same. It was a case of sauce for the goose and a different sauce for the gander. I suspect for each of us it is the same with our Lady. For me she has a good sense of humour and likes to smile and laugh. But I suspect that in this she relates to me at my own level as I love this myself. She also has a certain fierceness, a strength, but again I think she is coming to me at my own level. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this about her? That she is relating to them as they are?
I found in my own Spiritual Life perhaps the most surprising thing I have found is the way she steps back out of the way. I was crazy about her as a child, but most especially as a young man ,after I had seen her first hand. But later on she stepped out of the way. Her oen aim is to lead us to the Feet of her son, Jesus Christ. For Mary it is not about Mary, it is about Jesus and after this she goes. She is still there of course but in a different way. In this she also reminds me of my own mother. We were ten kids so twelve of us in a large old house. I recall how busy it always was with the door constantly being knocked by friends and visitors. But one by one we kids all moved out ,some to get married, others to move on other things and places. So, eventually my mother and father moved out too to their little appartment. My mother described this place as , 'Like being on holiday all the time'. Her children had all left her and yet she was very happy. They had gone on to their own thing. They were adults now. She had done her job. The old house was empty now and we had all gone. It is like this with Mary. Her job is to make us Spiritual Adults and to move on. My mother is long dead now, but from time to time she comes to visit still. I sense her beside me suddenly and surprisingly, smiling and pleased at how I am making out on the Spiritual Pilgrimage. With Mary too. A Mothers love never ,ever dies. She lets us go, but we are always her little, much loved babies.
Corrrect me if I am wrong but I don't see how St. Louis de Montfort is not a Doctor of the Church: Doctor of the Church - Wikipedia His writings are so accessible, "The Secret of the Rosary", I saw that book since I was a kid, I have the book "Jesus living in Mary", that's 1200+ pages, not even that big of print, newspaper sized I'd say and that isn't even his writings, that's just De Montfort A-Z, "God Alone" is the book that has all of his writings including "Secret of the Rosary", "True Devotion" and so on. He wrote songs, a few letters, much more. "The Love of Eternal Wisdom", Montfortian Spirituality - Christ-Wisdom He only lived until he was about 43, he usually slept on the floor or a mat since he was so busy travelling all the time, Can we love someone we do not even know? Can we love deeply someone we know only vaguely? (LEW 8)... To know Jesus Christ incarnate Wisdom, is to know all we need. To presume to know everything and not know him is to know nothing at all. (LEW 11) Montfort Priests and Seminarians must study this because there is so much. This book is pretty hefty too. 631 pages, the Montfortian Fathers went all out on this,. He was canonized in 1947. The War of the Vendée - The War of the Vendée - FORMED There is a movie (on Formed) "The War of the Vendee", it has a lot of less than 18 year-olds in it but I think that's part of the way it was. This is Brittanny, where St. Louis preached so much. The Seculary forces of the French Revolution and aftermath thereof, went after Christians, Catholics, I believe it is said the Catholics rallied around the banner of the Sacred Heart... so much history and many courageously fought and somewhat victorious in the end? A whole 'nother topic to study. It's suppose to be a good movie.
I have a very dysfunctional mother, so I've had to learn from Mary herself, since I asked her to be my mother around 9 years old, what she is like. There are things about her that I relate to, like deep empathy, a quiet nature, love and devotion to her children and a strong desire to see them all safely with God... But there are things about her that are so different from my own sinful nature: Her effortless humility, long-suffering patience, sweetness and gentleness... I see her great power lying in the fact that she considers herself the smallest of all, which is so confusing, terrifying, and humiliating to Satan, who sees how God has magnified this small, beautiful girl and mother. What Mary has done for me and my family is so very intimate and beautiful, it's something to just keep close to my own heart. She works with me in the quiet, teaching me bit by bit what she spent her life pondering in her own heart. St. Catherine Laboure, when Mary appeared to her, knelt, rested her hands in Mary's lap, and had a heart-to-heart with her...that is what I have always done and how I've learned what a true mother's love does for a needy soul. My great hope is that I will be the daughter she encourages me to be and help her lead many, many souls to Jesus.
One great thing that parents can teach us is that we stand on the shoulders of giants. That saints breed saints. That our parents are our ladders to heaven. Heaven would be empty but for the prayers of mothers. This should teach us a very,very particular reverence for St Anne, the Mother of Mary. I love it so much when I see a statue of her and her young daughter, Mary, in a Church. It causes me to stand there thinking. ..what was it like? ..when Mary was just a little girl?
Padraig, you brought tears to my eyes with the above highlight. It's been 46 years since my Mom died, a holy woman indeed, and the greatest prayer warrior I have personally encountered. On our frig when I was young, my Mom had a quote from Song of Songs: Song of Songs 2:10 My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; 11 for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. 12 The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. For me, she seemed to answer that call way too early, but then one's prayers offered face-to-face with God are even more efficacious. Psalms 27:8 Thou hast said, "Seek ye my face." My heart says to thee, "Thy face, LORD, do I seek."
I don't think Terry, that our mothers, whether in heaven or on Earth are ever far away from us. There love is simply too strong. But I do find as I get older my regard for my own mother increases more and more. We tend to take them for granted when we are younger but when we are older we start to realise that real love is all about giving, not some shallow emotion and we realise that that is what they did for us. Gave real unselfish love. Your mother must have been very, very special to have been quoting from the Song of Songs, the Book above all Books of the Mystics. Such a consolation to know that death is not the end only a beginning and that we will meet again were as Isiah tells us, 'Every tear will be wiped away' . Incredible thought. But one thought surprises me lately. In all probability I will soon be much older that my mother was when she died. She seemed so old to me at my age. I wonder do other people see me as so old? I don't feel it! But perhaps the greatest gift our mothers gave us was a wonderful door way to devotion to the Blessed Mother. They taught us what a mothers love is and so helped us understand the Theotokos a lot better . We tend to love Our Blessed Lady because our mothers loved us.
One of my brothers, Colm, was always in trouble. I remember even as a baby a cat sat on his face one time and scratched it. He was always fighting and the police were never far from the door. I think even my father was a little bit frightened of him, alone of the seven brothers, for he had the most shocking temper. He had a faulty valve in his heart and was forever in and out of hospital and my mother was forever visiting him. Later during the war he fought and was imprisoned for 14 years and my mother was forever visiting him there too. He died eventually when he was just 26. Two of my sisters one time blamed my mother for giving Colm too much time. My mother looked confused and sad but answered, 'I take care of Colm because he is the one who needs it'. Which reminds me of the story Jesus told. Luke 15:4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? So it is with our Father in Heaven and Our Blessed Mother. They treat none of the same. Just as there are nine choirs in heaven, so there are nine circles in hell. Everyone is different and when we go to either heaven of hell we will be placed either higher or lower. God is not a Communist, all His children are different. I listened to a documentary one time about down and outs in the King's Cross area of London . They spoke to one old tramp and asked him how he had ended up sleeping on the streets. He had been a properous businessman , married with seven children. One day on returning from work he found his street blocked of by the police and fire engines. His wife and children had burnt to death when his house caught fire. He said he tried again and again to get over it, but just could not. It would have been easy to place that old tramp in a box, but everyone is different, everyone has their own story. Our Lady knows this. She knows to treat us all differently, to come to us where and how we are.
https://blog.littleflower.org/prayers/pearls-of-wisdom/st-thereses-wisdom-garden-of-souls/ St. Thérèse’s Wisdom: Garden of Souls Jesus has been gracious enough to teach me a lesson about the mystery of the differences in souls, simply by holding up to my eyes, the book of nature. I understood how all the flowers God created are beautiful- how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away from the perfume of the violet or the simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wildflower. And so it is in the world of souls… Jesus’ garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but he created small ones as well… and theses must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God’s glances, when he looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing God’s will… in being what He would have us be. -St. Therese of Lisieux
It is love that teaches us to each person as an individual, rather than as an anonymous other. So for Our Blessed Mothers love teaches her to treat each of us as her very own child. We often tend to think of people in terms of groups, are, 'They' are, 'Blacks', 'Hispanics, 'Teens', 'Women', 'Men', 'Gays', or whatever, but for Our Blessed Lady we are each her very own individual children. She never sees us a group or a bad name. We are never anonymous to her. It is easy to hate someone you do not know. It is nearly impossible to hate someone who is your child. Your very, very own.
Today, feeling wearied about the state of the world, I knelt down with my little book of the Gospels and asked the Holy Spirit to show me what is going on, just to help me make some better sense of what God is doing right now. And this verse that you just quoted above was what I opened my Gospels to. I felt God telling me that the abandonment we "elder brothers" who are faithful Catholics feel from our own Church parallels in a way the 99 sheep left by the shepherd as he goes looking for the lost sheep, or the older brother as the father scans the horizon each day watching for his prodigal son's return. I went on to read the story of the prodigal son, and noticed how when he ran out of money, he didn't go to his father yet. He went and lived with the pigs for a while, choosing misery in the hopes of solving his own problems. And therein lies what we see in the world today. The majority of the world is choosing to live with the pigs and they are in misery. We feel like our Church has abandoned us, but while Jesus is going after His lost sheep, we always have Him with us. I think God is telling me His ways are not our ways; He knows what He's doing; He's letting the world go to the pigs because He knows the prodigal sons are eventually going to realize they will be better off returning to the Father. We must be patient while the shepherd is gone looking for His lost sheep. Patient, long-suffering, and ready to use whatever sufferings lie ahead to win the biggest return of the prodigals the world has ever seen.
Yes, God does not punish us as men think of punishment. If we want to leave home He let's us. He is permitting us all to experience the consequence of our actions. He is permitting us to punish ourselves. Tough love. We want to live our lives without God. He is letting us to do so. This is the very definition of Hell. Living without God is Hell and this is what is happening to the World. We are descending into Hell. A hell of our very own making and choice. Tough love indeed..
Such a sad story about your brother, Colm, he was so young. I can only imagine how your mother must have suffered over her son, but she never gave up on him. All of those visits from your mother must have brought Colm great comfort.
I remember there was a song, I think Dolly Parton used to sing called, 'No charge'. It was about a child who was asked to something my her mother and she tried to charge her mother for doing it. Then the mother rhymes off a whole list of things to the child that she has done and says at the end, 'No charge'. I thought this was a lovely song with a real message but it made my mother angry. 'No one forced me to have children', she said, 'Therefore I have to take care of them. It's not a matter of, 'No charge.''
Eternal rest grant unto Colm's soul Oh Lord, may he rest in peace. Amen May Colm's soul and may all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.
Yes! Beautiful and comforting Padraig. I feel the same about my own mother. With my own children I can only hope and pray they may one day understand and come back to Christ and His Church.
