“It’s a twister! It’s a twister!”- Zeke in The Wizard of Oz
Imagine being in the middle of a large grass field. All you can see is miles and miles of flat grassy plains. No trees, no building, no ditches. Just flat grass. Then you see something in the distance coming straight towards you. A giant tornado! What do you do? Do you run? Where is there to go? Do you hide? Where is there to keep cover?
This never happened to me, but this was a dream that I once had that vividly stayed in my memories. It stayed with me because of what I did next. In my dream, I got down on my knees and started to pray:
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and Blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
And I prayed again “Hail Mary…” and again “Hail Mary...” and again “Hail Mary…” The more I prayed, the more at peace I became even though a giant tornado was still heading straight towards me. Finally, I woke up still praying the prayer but thankful it was all a dream.
If this was all a dream, why was that moment so important to me? This dream gave me confidence to call on my Mother Mary to come protect and grant me peace in times of distress. This might have been the first time I called on Mary to protect me but it would not be the last. What was interesting to me was that my go to prayer in that time of distress was the Hail Mary. Why was that? Why not the Our Father, Glory Be, or even just “Jesus save me!” In times of distress, we search for peace. Who better than the Queen of Peace herself should we call on in those desperate times of searching for peace.
One thing that is very special about Mary is that she is the Ark of the New Covenant. The Ark of the Old Covenant was a chest created perfectly to hold the Word of God, the Ten Commandments. God did not let anything defiled touch the Ark of the Old Covenant that held His Word. It was holy, free from blemish and God’s glory cloud would cover the old Ark to protect it and keep it holy. The New Ark of the Covenant was what held the Word of God made Flesh, Jesus. Mary, as the mother of God, is that New Ark. She was the tabernacle that held the flesh of God in her womb. Because of this, Mary had special graces. Just as the Ark of the Old Covenant was created special to hold the Word of God, She was created without sin, holy, and God’s spirit overshadowed her at the Annunciation. Meditating on these wonders of how important Mary was as the Ark of the New Covenant can remind us of the amazing power of God’s love for His mother.
At the foot of the cross, we are blessed that Jesus gave us the gift of His mother. When Jesus was going through all the pain and agony of dying on the cross, “seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near her, Jesus said to his mother, ‘Woman, this is your son’. Then to the beloved disciple he said, ‘This is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his home” (John 19:26-27). Not only on Holy Thursday did Christ give us his body in the Eucharist, and His whole life on the Good Friday, He also gave us His mother that same day.
Sometimes as Catholics we try to stay away from this gift because we are scared. Protestants accuse Catholic of worshipping Mary and we only want to worship God and in return never try to form a close relationship with her. We might hear someone say “why talk to Mary when you can talk directly to God?” so we never take the time to pray with Mary. However, St. Maximilian Kolbe reminds us, “Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin Mary too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did.”
Without me realizing it for many years, Mary was the person that first opened my eyes to having an intimate relationship with God. It was not until I read a book about Mary and three little children that I realized that religion is more than just remembering something that happened 2,000 years ago. In this book, I learned about three young shepherds named Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta ages 9, 8, and 6 that were tending their sheep as shepherds in Fatima, Portugal. The three young children did not see the importance of having a strong prayer life. They would quickly say their prayers without any meaning. One day while they were in the fields, a woman appeared and told the children to pray the rosary with her. She would reappear every month on the same day to pray with the children. She also kept telling the children to pray for the conversion of Russia to end the war. The lady appeared, talked, and prayed with the children for six more apparitions. During her final apparition seventy thousand people went to the spot to see if the lady would appear. The lady appeared, and she talked to the children. As she started to leave back to heaven, the sun started to spin and shoot out colors everywhere. Saint Joseph appeared next to her while holding the Infant Jesus and then the vision vanished.
This great miracle did not happen 2,000 years ago, or even 1,000 years ago. It happened on October 13, 1917, which was closer to only 100 years ago. The little girl, Lucia, died in 2005 which was during my lifetime. After I read this for the first time, I was amazed. I knew that Jesus had performed unbelievable miracles when He was alive, but what I did not know was that unbelievable miracles like that still were happening today.
I learned a lot of things about my Catholic faith from this one story of Our Lady of Fatima. First, that Mary cares about us; and more specifically she cares about me. Previously, I knew that Mary was the mother of God. I pictured her as being young, beautiful, holy, humble, and quiet. She had a great love for Jesus; she was His mother after all. After Jesus resurrected from the dead and rose to heaven, that was not the end of the story for Mary. She came back. She came back to talk and pray with three little shepherds that were simple everyday people just like me. Learning about this story gave me confidence in knowing that Mary cared about me as my mother and wanted me to pray with her. More importantly, since Mary cared about me, this showed that God cared about me.
Second, I learned why we pray. I knew you were supposed to pray. At least, I thought that was what you had to do in church every Sunday and that praying was the job of nuns and priests. I did not know how important it was for me personally to pray, especially the beautiful prayer of the rosary. If Mary thought it was necessary to come to earth to tell three simple children to pray to end a war, then that prayer must be very powerful! Not only are the prayers of priests and nuns powerful, but also the prayers of small simple children, and also the prayers of simple me.
Our Lady of Fatima is not the only story of Mary coming back to pray with her children. Some of her other apparitions include when she appeared to a young girl in Lourdes, France as the Immaculate Conception and a man in Mexico as Our Lady of Guadalupe. Another one of her appearances that is very special to me personally was when she visited Saint Catherine Labouré and asked her to have the Miraculous Medal created. During her apparition, Mary promised that great graces are given to those who wear the medal when blessed. When I first learned about the story of the Miraculous Medal, there was one particular miracle involving this medal that stood out to me. There was a man that had fallen away from his faith that had become ill. A priest secretly slipped a miraculous medal under the man’s pillow in hopes that Our Lady would help the man to have a conversion before his soon to be death. Before the priest came back to visit the man again, he did have a change of heart, reconciled his sins, and gained a strong faith in God. When the priest came back to give the man his last rites, the priest showed the man the medal and the man immediately kissed it and he was miraculously healed. After his miraculous conversion and recovery, the man always kept the medal close to him and kissed it frequently out of gratitude to God and Mother Mary.
On this medal is printed one of my favorite prayers: "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." It is a very short prayer but one that grants me strong peace every time I am distressed. The miraculous medal is the one sacramental I always have with me either on my necklace, in my car, or on my keys as I never leave home without it. Just touching or kissing the medal while praying those words, I always feel Mary come and wrap me in her mantle of peace.
The story of the man being healed spiritually and physically through the miraculous medal reminds us how powerful Mary’s intercessory prayer is for us. When we look back to the very first miracle performed by Jesus in John Chapter 2, we realize it was through Mary’s intercession that Jesus changed the water into wine. “When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine.'” At the wedding of Cana, Mary pleaded to her Son to solve the problem and as any good son would do, He listened to His mother’s request. We don’t pray to Mary to do miracles for us. We go to Mary as our Mother and ask her to talk to her Son for us. Out of all the people in the world, who better is there to ask to pray for us than the Mother of our Lord.
Having Mary as our mother is a gift. We can choose to avoid her or we can give Mary a chance to be our heavenly mother on Earth. Jesus did not give her to us as our Mother to replace our relationship with Him but to lead us to a stronger and closer relationship with Him. Mary loves Jesus and wants all of us to love her Son as well. Whether we ask for her help or not, Mary is always working in our lives to guide us to Him. When we invite Mary into our lives as our Mother, we begin to see all the beautiful ways she leads us to grow closer to God. Give Mary the opportunity to be your heavenly mother. Ask her to watch over you. Ask her to wrap you up under her mantle when you need peace. Ask her to pray for you and see what miracles happens through her intercession. Remember these words from St. Josemaria Escriva next time you are in need:
"So your strength is failing you? Why don't you tell your mother about it?...Mother! Call her with a loud voice. She is listening to you; she sees you in danger, perhaps, and she--your holy mother Mary--offers you, along with the grace of her son, the refuge of her arms, the tenderness of her embrace...and you will find yourself with added strength for the new battle."
Resources:
Blessed Jacinta and Francisco Marto: Shepherds of Fatima by Anne Eileen Heffernan, Patricia Edward Jablonski
The Miraculous Medal by Mary Fabyan Windeatt
Comments