Mother of God and Our Mother

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(proofread)

I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my Father, and Lord, my guardian angel, Intercede for me.

Mary said, Behold a handmaid of the Lord, be a donna to me according to your word. In this month of May, we look a little closer at Our Lady.

She is the Mother of God, and also our Mother. And there are many great truths tied up in that simple phrase.

Our Mother is always there for us. Our Lord has told us that she should always be looking at us.

Behold your child. We know that Our Lady never stops looking at us, even if we stop looking at her.

She is the Mother of fair love. And each year, the Church gives us this opportunity to look again to Our Lady.

St. Josemaria liked to use the phrase to turn our eyes once again to Our Lady. It's a simple little phrase also, to turn our eyes.

It means we turn away a little bit from the things of this world, from the things we are very much involved in, current worries, anxieties, and concerns, and we discover that Our Lady is truly our Mother. And often in the Hail Holy Queen, we tell her that she's our sweetness and hope.

Blessed Alvaro del Portillo liked to say, to Mary how sweet everything is. Everything changes.

The difficult things, the challenges, things that may seem so difficult, when we offer them to Our Lady, when we turn our eyes to her, well that changes everything. Like a little child who perhaps does not want to do something, but yes, its mother knows how to coax it in various ways, and for the sake of love, in the end, the little child ends up doing what it is the mother wants.

This month we have to try and bring Our Lady into everything. Into our getting up in the morning, or going to bed at night, the jobs we have in hand, aspects of our spiritual life that we are trying to grow in, or the crosses or the challenges that may be coming along on a daily basis.

This coming week we are going to celebrate on May 13, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima. In 1981 Pope John Paul II was shot on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima.

I heard some surgeons who were in the operating room that evening saying that he should have died in the ambulance. It was the considered opinion that just the trajectory of the bullets going through the abdomen, very close to the main vessels, he should have ruptured those vessels and he should have bled to death in the ambulance.

But somehow Our Lady guided those bullets, and the Holy Father, well he recovered. Many people said at the time that a 60-year-old man who gets a few bullets in his abdomen, well probably won't live very long.

Well, 190 international trips later they had to reassess their predictions. He had one of the longest pontificates in the whole of church history.

Changed the vision of the papacy, lifted the church and the international scene, international stage, did so many things. Left an incredible legacy of documents and ideas as a preparation of the church for the 21st century.

Well after he was a little bit better at the time President General of Opus Dei went to see him, now Blessed Alvar del Portillo. It's rather interesting looking back now on that meeting and on similar meetings.

Blessed Alvaro del Portillo goes to meet Saint John Paul II. If we had a recording of that meeting it could be very interesting.

But he told us that when he went to see Pope John Paul, he said to him, Holy Father, Our Lady has sent you these bullets. Rather an unusual thing to say, as though Our Lady goes around with an AK-47.

And he said, Our Lady has sent you these bullets because she wants to make you suffer. Because in making you suffer, she draws you closer to herself.

And in drawing you closer to herself, she draws you closer to her son. And he said the Pope sat up in bed and said, well that's the way I see things also.

And a year later Pope John Paul made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima to thank Our Lady for having saved his life. And with him, he brought the bullet that had pierced his abdomen.

And he said to Our Lady, I think this is yours. And now that bullet has been placed in the crown of Our Lady of Fatima to show how for all time Our Lady of Fatima saved the life of the Pope.

And we're faced with contradictions. Even those of the most absurd type, challenges, things that go wrong.

Things happening that we might consider the very opposite of what we would have liked. We're trying to go forward to do things and things seem to be going in a completely opposite direction.

In our marriage, in our family, in our work, in our finances, in our health. And we could think of those bullets.

Sometimes Our Lady sends us little bullets to make us suffer. Because in making us suffer, she sends us bullets.

Because in that way she draws us closer to herself. And in that process, she draws us closer to herself.

We're told in the Acts of the Apostles that all these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women. And with Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brethren.

In this period after Easter, Our Lady is gathering the apostles together again. She's in the background, but full of that spirit of unity.

They're praying with Mary and the other women. She's the symbol of unity.

She helps them get going again. Helps them to begin again, to go a little deeper.

Because she treasured all these things in her heart. She's the mother of God.

And also, the mother of each one of us. She was the mother of the apostles.

She would have treated them in a very motherly way. Encouraging them, helping them to understand certain things.

Helping them to begin again. And communicating her joy to them.

So that they would have great joy in fulfilling the very mission that Christ had given them to fulfill. I met a priest in Dublin many years ago, in 1972.

Well, I met him later, but he talked about 72. How there had been a bomb that exploded in Dublin on Friday evening.

And 30 people were killed. This priest was in an inner-city parish.

And he said a lady came to him at 9 at night and said her son was missing. She was very worried.

And so he accompanied her to visit the three inner city hospitals to see if they could find him. But there was chaos in each one of these places.

There were so many injured. They went from hospital to hospital.

But there was no sign of her son. When they finished the three hospitals, they decided well the only thing to do is to begin again.

They started to do another round of the hospitals. And by this time some order had been restored.

And there was a list there of people who had been admitted. But in the hospital, the first hospital they went to, there was no sign of her son.

And then they went to the second hospital. And they found him.

He was there. And he was alive.

And this priest described the joy of that mother at finding her son alive. He said to me, if the human joy of a mother on this planet can be so great when she finds her son alive, what must the joy of Our Lady have been during this Easter period?

And every day in the liturgy of the Mass, we are referred a little bit to that joy. Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

Our Lady is there in the background communicating that joy. To the apostles.

Helping them to begin again with joy. In this meditation, we could perhaps try to see how we could communicate that Easter joy in our family, to our spouse, and to our children.

To show a little more love and affection for them in concrete ways. More tenderness, more attentiveness.

In this month of Our Lady. So that somehow, they see that there is a gentle presence of Mary in the background of our life.

That gives us a certain sensitivity. Especially in our charity.

Charity is always manifested by order. There is meant to be an order in our affections.

And sometimes the seemingly trivial acts that we perform can be the most important. A little word here or there.

A little action, a little gesture. A little bit of courtesy.

We use this, or we call this phenomenon different things. Civility, good manners, good behavior, good conduct, politeness, decency, respect for others, thoughtfulness, kindness, and consideration.

But no matter what you call it, courtesy is not trivial. Our Lady had the great courtesy of going to see Elizabeth.

Leaving Joseph behind. Facing the challenges of the hill country.

And she didn't just stay there a few minutes or a few hours, but three months. A long time.

It was a serious contribution. Where she must have had plenty of opportunity to be attentive to Elizabeth.

Take care of her in all sorts of little ways. Maybe performing small trivial little acts, but which were so eloquent.

There was a famous writer in the 1700s called Edmund Burke, who says manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe.

Corrupt or purify. Exalt or debase.

Barbarism or refine us. Corrupt or purify.

Exalt or debase. Barbarize or refine us.

By a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation. Like that of the air we breathe.

And often charity is manifested through manners, little things. Are those words very strong or too strong?

Probably not at all if we think about it. Would a considerate person steal?

Would a kind student bully? Would a thoughtful person cheat?

Or a respectful person murder? Well, probably not, because manners and morals flow from the same principle.

Consideration for others. In Our Lady's visitation, on the speed with which it was done, she went with haste into the hill country.

She gave us a great example in this month of May of friendship, of closeness to people, of reaching out, of going the extra mile. Of forgetting about ourselves.

Whenever someone treats us kindly, it's important that we show our consideration. If you're driving around the place, you get a little wave from somebody or a courtesy of letting you enter the traffic, well, it's always very much appreciated.

It's very good to show our appreciation. It's a good example to show that appreciation.

To offer our thanks. Sometimes the sweetest words in the whole of the English language are thank you.

We must try and bring those simple words into our family life to make it smoother. Kindness is often manners, the oil that takes the friction out of life.

There's an educationist in the States called Stenson who says the key phrases of family life, please, thank you, I'm sorry, I was wrong. Life functions on those phrases.

A kind word is a most inexpensive gift. And sometimes that's the greatest gift we can give to our spouse, or our children, that little bit of encouragement, of affirmation, of appreciation.

Somebody said once, success in marriage is not so much in finding the right person, but in being the right person. The period that we spend in prayer, our exposure to formation, all this becomes very important.

To be that better person that God wants us to be. St. John XXIII said we should see everything, overlook a great deal, and correct a little.

Those are not bad indications for a successful life. The month of May also, it's a month for us to look a little more at the virtue of purity.

Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God. Detecting what is both around us and in our hearts, so that we can always look at others with a clear gaze.

And this involves, well, a new battle in self-mastery. Remind ourselves that we're temples of the Holy Spirit.

We need to control all the basic instincts that are there. Our thoughts, our imagination, our memory, the internet, and our eyes are the window of the soul.

Our Lady may often tell us to flee from temptation. Our good humor and charity in family life, well, may be closely related to how we live this virtue.

In this month when we pray the Rosary, we try to pray it with special piety and devotion. Perhaps thinking of souls as we go through each of the beads of the Rosary.

Or to say our three Hail Marys before we get into bed at night with particular childlike piety. And to remember Our Lady at the return of the Virgin Mary.

Or to look at her images. Or to try and see if we can bring our family to visit some place where Our Lady is venerated.

In our town, in our city, or sometime in our life, maybe on one occasion to go to some national shrine. So that we form our family in prayer.

We ask Our Lady to give us that clean heart that we know we need so much. Well, there are many great benefits that come with that.

Blessed is the clean of heart for they shall see God. Not just in the next life, but in this life.

And we pray not just in the next life, but in this life.

We get a penetrating vision for what is divine. We learn to see God in the little things of each day.

We develop new confidence in Him. And also, sincere repentance for things of the past.

That leads us to want to run to our mother with greater childlike piety and devotion. Our refuge and our strength.

That we need so much. Where would we be without it?

That cleanness of heart helps us to know ourselves a little more, a little better. And to know our sins.

That leads us to deeper repentance. This helps true humility.

Reminds us to be feet of clay. And that cleanness of heart will help us to have a greater love of God.

And also, for others, because there's order in our affections. Order in our heart.

And that in turn gives us a great capacity to do apostolate. The Holy Spirit can work more easily within us, setting us on fire.

May can be a good month to try and bring the family together to pray a little more. A man told me recently how he and his wife pray the Rosary.

They're some very young children. And of course, they run in and out, but they sit up here and pray.

They grow with an awareness of what the Rosary is. A man told me once, many years ago, that he was a priest.

And he told me how he and his wife would pray the Rosary. And they had a four-year-old little girl.

And she would start off the Rosary with them, but after the third Hail Mary, she'd had enough. She would go off to play with her dolls.

But she always came back for the listening. Because she loved to say, pray for us, pray for us, pray for us.

So, she found her place at that particular moment. And of course, she was hearing all of the prayers.

And she was listening. She found her place at that particular moment.

And of course, she was hearing all of the different titles under which Our Lady is invoked from a very early age. She was learning that Our Lady is always in our midst.

And somehow that message that Our Lady is our mother was coming across to her in very concrete ways. If Our Lord gave Our Lady to us as a mother, well it corresponds to us to talk to her as a child.

The fact that we know Our Lady and so we know so much about her is a great gift in our life. In the first Eucharistic prayer, when we say, in union with the whole Church we honour Mary, the ever-virgin Mother of Christ our Lord and God.

The Holy Father is saying this global rosary now from country to country, asking for the end of this pandemic. And so truly in union with the whole Church, we may or may not be able to unite ourselves there, but we can physically unite ourselves in intentions to that prayer of the Holy Father, the spiritual leader of the world, leading the whole world to Our Lady.

It's interesting to see the Holy Father before his international trips, going to make a little pilgrimage, a short little pilgrimage to the shrine of St Mary Major in Rome, the mother church of all the churches of Our Lady all over the world. And when he goes there he carries a little bouquet of flowers.

It's not a big thing, it's something very small, but he carries it himself. It's like a small childlike gesture.

To place this trip under the care of his mother, to look after the trip in various ways, so that she might sow all the seeds she wants to sow. And if we look at all the countries that he's gone to, and there's been quite a few international trips already, some of them are very, well, not very well-known places, Iraq, Myanmar, Central Africa, the Middle East, the Middle East, not very well-known places, Iraq, Myanmar, Central African Republic I think he went to.

Bringing the attention of the world to those places, asking Our Lady to intercede for all the different situations of those countries. Our Lady's intercession has a different dimension to it, there's a maternal dimension.

A mother always understands, she knows what's going on in a child's heart. She knows the solution to problems.

I was watching a lady once in a school many years ago in the Philippines, her five-year-old son was playing with his basketball, and then his big sister, age seven, came along and took away his basketball. And he went wailing to his mother, who was standing a few meters away, chatting to a friend of hers.

The child was the youngest of eight, he was making a bit more noise than the situation warranted, and I was a little distance away, observing this whole situation, and wondering how this very experienced mother was going to handle this crisis. She was chatting to her friend, and without interrupting her conversation, she whipped out a handkerchief from up her sleeve, and without even looking at the child, she wiped his nose.

She seemed to know by instinct where the nose was, as she kept up her conversation with her friend. And observing this from a distance, I found this rather interesting, because it was his eyes that were streaming, but she wiped his nose.

I learned from this that mothers are people who learn, and who know what to wipe. And so she turned him around, patted him on the back low down, and sent him off and got his business, and the child was quiet.

The crisis was averted. I thought he wanted justice from his big sister, he wanted his basketball back, but in fact, he just wanted a little bit of maternal affection and encouragement.

And that was enough to solve all his problems. And we know that every time we turn to Our Lady, she will always solve all our problems because she knows the answer.

She knows our needs; she knows what's going on in our hearts. This is an opportunity to get very personal with Our Lady, who's always smiling at us.

I perhaps think among our colleagues, who could we bring on a little pilgrimage to a shrine of Our Lady? Sometimes there are people who are not very willing to attend different activities, formations, recollections, and retreats, but you bounce a little pilgrimage to a shrine of Our Lady with them, or a family pilgrimage, and often you may find them very responsive.

It's also something that families can do. Our Mother looks at us with human eyes and a human heart.

She's truly our sweetness and our hope. It's a nice little aspiration to use as we look at her image as we move around the house or have a picture of her on our desk in front of us as we work.

Her motherhood is a special gift to us, a gift that God has made to every individual on the planet. And Our Lady loves us as if we were her only child as if she only had eyes for us.

Children in a family, they often take on the family atmosphere created by their mother. We can try to imitate the divine affiliation of Our Lady.

Small gestures of love are never lost on the mother. The Church invites us to have those small gestures of love like the Holy Father bringing those few flowers.

For children to bring flowers to a shrine of Our Lady, or perhaps to a picture of Our Lady in their bedroom, or some little flower somewhere that they place at her statue, well it can be a great act of Marian piety. And often it's in small children that spiritual formation has its deepest impact.

Small things that little children learn to do when they're young, and very often they won't forget those little gestures as they get older. Each one of us every day could offer Our Lady a rose.

A rose of our good intentions, a rose of our smile. The rose of offering her our work and the things we have to do today, at the start of this day, or at the end of the day.

We can offer Our Lady a rose of love. At the start of this day or at the end of the day.

By the rose of some little apostolic effort or prayer. And we know also that Our Mother is the cause of our joy.

A very beautiful title. Our Mother brings us all our joys.

Well, thank you Mother for all the joys you've given to me, in the whole of my life. And all the talents and abilities that you've crowned me with.

Even if with time they might seem to be disappearing. Well, we have other joys from perhaps more spiritual realities.

If human things pass a little bit. Our Mother speaks to us about warmth and security.

The very mention of Her name goes straight to our hearts. Our relationship with our own Mother can teach us how to talk to Our Lady.

The Lady of the Sweet name. Whereas children don't like to let their mothers, small children like to let their mothers out of their sight.

Well, the same thing with us. Not to be close to Her.

Not to wander away. Take care to look after those little practices of Mary and piety.

The Church teaches us to have. And that love of Our Lady.

That love of Our Lady will lead us to preoccupy ourselves with all the needs of those closest to us. Just like Our Lady did in relation to St Elizabeth.

It will lead us to practice affection in daily situations. And also, to live out our friendship with others.

Even at times when it involves sacrifices. And maybe particularly when it involves sacrifices.

So that in those moments we show the quality of our friendship. Just like Our Lady did.

I thank you my God for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, St Joseph, my Father and Lord, my Guardian Angel intercede for me.

JO