Do we indulge in a devotion that pacifies and conciliates the difficulties in life and its tormented steps as we enter the month of May extending our gaze to the Holy Virgin?
Undoubtedly, if understood as some sort of talisman enabling us to persevere along the same path.
Moreover, Church tradition teaches us that the sons and daughters of our Merciful Father are redeemed by His gaze. And if that gaze reached out to Him through a mere act of devotion? It is good practice not to deprive anyone of their style of prayer which reflects their relationship with the Almighty, the One and Only who can read the meanders of our heart. Yet the best practice is to accompany those we meet along our road and walk together to open ourselves to the mystery of life and assimilate its gift that does not end with the conclusion of human existence but flows into the very mystery of life of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
We are endlessly accompanied by the Holy Virgin, our Mother, who is always by our side.
She follows our steps, however faltering, cautious or diffident they may be, enabling us to take in the splendour that is already embracing us, in the troubled wanderings already penetrated by God’s Presence. She does not take our place, She does not burden us by imposing Herself. She rescues us, She watches over us and penetrates our thriving desire, albeit unexpressed, to give it shape and offer it to the Lord. We should learn to have faith in Her, to asker Her counsel in the act of discernment. We all lived through Alfie’s tragic, painful predicament; She was always by his side, compensating for our unconcern, our neglectfulness, our inability to react to save human life, at all costs. One life? The life of us all was at stake in Alfie’s. Pope Francis has signed a Decree that officially recognizes Mary Mother of the Church, calling upon all of us to strengthen our bond (namely, devotion) rooted in Gospel proclamation. We should render thanks to Mary for her generous offer that is not a crown of perfumed flowers: it represents the act of collecting and receiving the crown of thorns of the Son, for us. For
She received the Son’s testament of love and embraced humankind, embodied by the beloved disciple, sons and daughters to be regenerated into divine life, as the loving nurturer of the Church engendered through the Spirit, by the Crucified Lord. In the beloved disciple, Christ elected all his disciples as vicars of His love for the Mother, entrusting Her to their filial embrace.
Are we equally capable to receive this gift, day after day, in this month of May and stand in awe before the transformation of the thorns into perfumed flowers?
It is not the umpteenth attempt to experience the delirium of almighty creation through cellular or DNA manipulation.
It is a different direction: that of the Word that transforms and transfigures our world pierced by thorns into a gift of everlasting, flourishing love. Mary is the Mother of the Church because she allowed herself to be transfigured by the Love that demanded full devotion, in order to pour it onto the whole of humanity and ensure its presence in every war, in every conflict, in every migration, in every calamity, and in every human sorrow, as Mother of a life whose gaze was directed to the Risen Lord, and to the Light that from that tomb inundated the Creation transfiguring death in eternal life. A popular devotion snubbed by many can thus become evangelical bond, enriched by Her presence that leads us to the Father.
