“But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43)

“The beauty of Jesus is inexhaustible. Like the Vision of God in Heaven, it is ever diversified, yet always the same, always cherished as an old and familiar joy, yet ever surprising and refreshing the spirit as being, in truth, perpetually new. He is beautiful always, beautiful everywhere, in the disfigurement of the Passion as well as in the splendor of the Resurrection, amid the horrors of the Scourging, as well amid the indescribable attractions of Bethlehem. But above all things our Blessed Lord is beautiful in His Mother.

If we love Him we must love her. We must know her in order to know Him. As there is no true devotion to His Sacred Humanity, which is not mindful of His Divinity, so there is no adequate love of the Son, which dis-joins Him from His Mother….

Now it is our daily task to love Jesus more and more…and unerring experience has told us that we never advance more rapidly in the love of the Son than when we travel by the Mother, and that what we have built most solidly in Jesus has been built with Mary. There is no time lost in seeking Him, if we go at once to Mary; for He is always there, always at home. The darkness in His mysteries become light when we hold it to her light, which is His light as well. She is the short road to Him. She has the “grand entry” to Him. She is His Esther, and speedy and full are the answers to the petitions which her hands present” (From: Chapter One of “The Foot of the Cross” by F.W. Faber, slightly adapted, emphasis added).

Comment: The unerring wisdom of the saints and the church is that devotion to Mary is a sure and safe means of persevering in our love of Jesus. The first beats of our Lord’s Sacred Heart took place in her womb, and her own heart was pierced by a sword when she stood faithfully by Him at the foot of the Cross, when he bequeathed her to us, saying, “Behold, Your Mother.” If Jesus has given us such a tremendous gift – His very mother, the Mother of God – than we should have every confidence in approaching her tender, maternal heart with love and true devotion.

The spiritual journey wearies and tires us. Discouragements seem to lurk around every corner. Our great need is for perseverance. Devotion to Mary is a tried and tested means of perseverance, according to the experience of the saints.

“On their difficult path through history, between the “already” of salvation received and the “not yet” of its fulfillment, the community of believers knows they can count on the help of the ‘Mother of Hope’. After experiencing Christ’s victory over the powers of death, she communicates to them an ever new capacity to await God’s future and to abandon themselves to the Lord’s promises” (Saint Pope John Paul II).

Tom Mulcahy, M.A.

Image: Our Lady of Good Counsel by Pasqualle Sarullo (Public Domain, U.S.A.).

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