V — OUR MOTHER

Presence of God. — O Mary, since You are truly my Mother, grant that I may be your true child, worthy of you.

Meditation

1 — By giving her consent to become the Mother of the Son of God, Mary joined herself in a most intimate partnership not only with Jesus’ person, but also with his work. She knew that the Savior would come into the world to redeem the human race; therefore, by accepting to become his Mother, she accepted also to become the most intimate collaborator in his mission. And in fact Mary, by giving us Jesus, source of grace, collaborated in the most direct way in the diffusion of grace into our souls. “If Jesus was the Father of our souls,” says St. Alphonsus, “Mary was the Mother, since by giving us Jesus she gave us true life, and then by offering on Calvary the life of her Son for our salvation, she came then to give us birth to the life of divine grace.”

As one woman - Eve - had cooperated in the loss of grace, so, by harmonious disposition of divine Providence, another woman - Mary - had to cooperate in the restoration of grace. Certainly the life of grace comes to us from Jesus, who is its only source and the only Savior; but insofar as Mary is the one who gave Him to the world, insofar as Mary is intimately associated with the whole life and work of Jesus, one can rightly say that grace also comes to us from Mary. If Jesus is its source and spring, Mary, as St. Bernard loves to say, is its channel, the aqueduct that conveys it to us. As Jesus willed to come to us through Mary, so all grace, all supernatural life comes to us through Mary. “This is the will of Him who established that we should have everything through Mary” (St. Bernard). All that Jesus merited for us properly, by right, Mary merited for us secondarily, by merit of fittingness. Our Lady, therefore, is truly our Mother: together with Jesus she generated us to the life of grace, and with all truth we can greet her: “Hail, Queen, Mother of mercy; our life, sweetness, and hope, hail!”

2 — From the moment she became Mother of the Savior, Mary Most Holy loved us so much - says St. Bernardine of Siena - and dedicated herself so much to procuring our salvation that “from then on she carried us in her womb as a most loving Mother.” But as Jesus’ redemptive work, begun in the Incarnation, culminated on Calvary where by his death He merited grace for us, so Mary’s motherhood with regard to us had to find its fulfillment at the foot of the Cross. While Jesus was dying amid the most atrocious torments, his most loving Heart was preparing for us a gift truly exquisite above all others. Here on earth He possessed nothing dearer than his Mother, and this Mother He wished to leave to us as most precious inheritance: “Behold your Mother” (Jn. 19, 27), He said to John; and in giving her to him, who in that moment represented all humanity, Jesus’ words were expression of the great reality that had had its beginning at the first instant of his Incarnation in the Virgin’s womb and that was now being accomplished there, beneath the Cross: Mary’s spiritual motherhood with regard to us. In fact, precisely then Our Lady, together with Jesus, was saving our souls by offering for them the divine Victim, who was hers because He was her Son. By this offering Mary procured for us the life of grace; she is therefore truly the woman who, in the supernatural order, gives us life: she is our Mother.

“God so loved the world that He gave his only-begotten Son for its salvation,” says the Evangelist (cf. Jn. 3, 16), and likewise - declares St. Bonaventure - it can be said that Mary so loved the world as to give her Only-begotten, so that through Him all might have eternal life. Behold at what price Our Lady became our Mother and we became her children. And she, who generated us at so dear a price, rightly desires that we live as her true children, worthy of the life of grace that flowed from the pierced breast of her Jesus and from her maternal heart transfixed by the sword of sorrow.

Colloquy

“O blessed confidence, O sure refuge: You, Mother of God, are my mother! How then should I not hope, when my salvation and my holiness are in the hands of Jesus, my brother, and of Mary, my mother?” (cf. St. Anselm).

“O Mary, Mary, bearer of fire; Mary bearer of mercy! Mary redeemer of the human race, because by sustaining your flesh in the Word, the world was redeemed. Christ redeemed it by his Passion, and you by your pain of body and mind” (St. Catherine of Siena).

“O Mary, You are that enclosed garden in which the Giver of being is enclosed; in You is enclosed God himself, all heaven and all creatures. Through the blood drawn from you the whole world is saved. And if You were not there, O Mary, for me there would be no paradise; if You were not there, for me there would be no God...

“O Mary, how many gifts and graces You want to give creatures! And who would not want to have such gifts? But perseverance in willing them is lacking, and You, loving Mother, do not grant gifts to your children when You see they will esteem them little and throw them away, because You know You would then have to give them due punishment. O Mary, You want to give me your gifts, but I deprive myself of them because I want to make a mixture of my gifts and yours. I would like your graces, but at the same time I want my own will, and in this way I cannot have them. I would like your benevolence, but together with it I want the love and particular benevolence of creatures, and this cannot be. I would like your love together with mine, but thus I cannot have it. I would like to dwell under your mantle, and also under the mantle of my comforts. But, as your Son said, it is not right that under a head crowned with thorns there should be delicate members. It is not right, nor is it right that daughters should remain in their comforts under your mantle, sweetest Mother, who so greatly despised yourself.

“O Mary, what can I give and offer you that may be pleasing to you? If I offer you my will, I fear it will not please you, for it is not conformed to God’s will. If I offer you my intellect, it is not enlightened; if my affection, it is not pure. I offer You the Heart of your Only-begotten, and I cannot offer you a greater gift” (cf. St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi).