Praying with Mary

YES, we need to pray with Mary. Contrary to what may be largely implied by our seemingly mainstream attitudes and actuations in these dizzying times, Mary has not fallen obsolete in our life. If anything, she has acquired greater relevance.

We have to find a way to be near her and intimately close to her. We need to learn how to read her mind and catch the slightest insinuations she makes, because all these are tremendous help in our spiritual life.

That’s precisely because with all the bombardment of things we are subjected to these days, Mary, the Mother of Christ who gave her to us to be our mother too, shows us how to be spiritual and supernatural in the midst of our glutting human affairs.

Let’s remember that the present mad race to technological progress can stimulate us wrongly, pressuring us to succumb to mindless activism and to drift to uncharted territory guided only by ignorance, confusion if not outright error.

In this way, she shows us how to live our life to the full, not reduced to the purely earthly and material levels. She shows us how to fall in love properly, since love is why we have been created, the principle that gives meaning and direction to our life. And to think that there are endless bogus versions of love!

This she does through the ordinary things of our daily life. She tells us that we don’t need big things and extraordinary circumstances to acquire the love proper to us. It’s in the little things of our day where the seeds and the opportunities of true love are found.

She is indeed a great beacon of light for us to see the whole picture of the meaning and purpose of our life. She leads the way that brings us both to God and to all other men. She teaches us how to properly cruise in this world of ours, now whirring in accelerated action.

Her way of simplicity and humility, of abiding focus on our Lord, of constant and prompt obedience and docility to God’s will, ever repeating her initial response of “Fiat” (Be it done to me according to your word), etc. is the clear highway for us to be with God and with everybody else, and how to use earthly things.

The way she was and continues to be has always proven that she attracts God to her, and that whatever she asks for from God, God cannot deny. Remember the miracle of the wedding at Cana. Christ could not refuse her request.

Mary’s unique role in our faith, in our economy and history of salvation, makes her both the Mother of God and our Mother. Many people do not understand that, and right now, I’m in no mood to go scholarly theological to explain that.

Suffice it to say that since she is the Mother of the Son of God who became man in her virginal womb—in short, the Mother of the one who is both perfect God and perfect man—her relation with both God and man acquires tremendous significance and implications.

If we have a little bit of sense in our coconut, we would readily realize how sensible it is to deal closely with our Lady. Praying to God could have no better way than doing it with Mary.

With the Holy Rosary, we have a good opportunity to get close with God, to be familiar with his mind and to follow his will. This prayer allows us to go through the whole life of Christ, who is the perfection of our humanity, and to draw precious insights and lessons.

The Rosary helps us to recover and keep our human and Christian bearing, now subtly undermined by overwhelming pressures of our times. Mary, our Mother, would show us how love is to be found and developed as we get immersed in our earthly concerns.

Our Lady will show us in her motherly ways what are the good prospects as well as the dangers that face us as we handle new things and go through new situations.

It’s good that we take time to be with our Lady. We tend to take her for granted, to treat her like an aging mother whom we love but who has lost immediate usefulness or who is simply giving us some problems.

Our Lady will always be helpful especially in our daily and moment-to-moment struggles. She is an omnipotent intercessor who will surely lead us to God. We need her!