IX — MARY’S FAITH

Presence of God. — O my Mother, teach me to believe with full firmness, teach me to trust totally in God.

Meditation

1 — The Church, making her own St. Elizabeth’s words, addresses to Mary this beautiful praise: “Blessed are you who believed, for the things spoken to you by the Lord shall be fulfilled” (Lk. 1, 45). Great things were in fact accomplished in Mary, and she had the great merit of believing them. On God’s word, announced to her by the Angel, she believed that she would become a mother without losing her virginity; she believed, she so humble, that she would truly become Mother of God, that the fruit of her womb would really be the Son of the Most High. She adhered with full faith to what was revealed to her, without hesitating at all before a plan that came to overturn the whole natural order of things: a virgin mother, a creature mother of the Creator. She believed when the Angel spoke to her, but she continued to believe even when the Angel left her alone and she found herself in the humble condition of an ordinary woman about to become mother. “The Virgin,” says St. Bernard, “so little in her own eyes, was no less magnanimous in her faith in God’s promise; she, who esteemed herself nothing but a poor handmaid, never had the least doubt about her vocation to this incomprehensible mystery, to this marvelous exchange, to this inscrutable sacrament, and always believed that she would become the true mother of the God-Man.”

Our Lady teaches us to believe in our vocation to holiness, to divine intimacy; we believed in it when God revealed it to us in the clarity of interior light, confirmed by the word of his minister; but we must also believe in it when we find ourselves alone, in darkness, in difficulties that try to overwhelm us and discourage us. God is faithful; God does not do things by halves: God will bring his work in us to completion, provided we trust ourselves totally to Him.

2 — It would be far from the truth to think that for Our Lady the divine Mysteries were so unveiled and the divinity of her Jesus so evident that she no longer needed to believe. Except for the Annunciation and the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, we do not find in her life extraordinary manifestations of the supernatural. She lives by pure faith, just as we do, resting on God’s word. The very divine mysteries accomplished in her and around her usually remain veiled by faith, taking outwardly the ordinary course of the various circumstances of common life, indeed often hiding under very obscure and disconcerting appearances. So, for example, the extreme poverty in which Jesus was born, the need to flee into exile to save Him, King of heaven, from the rage of an earthly king, the privations to provide Him with bare necessities and at times even the lack of them. But Mary never doubted that that weak and helpless Child, in need of maternal care and defense like any other child, was the Son of God. She always believed, even when she did not understand. So it was, for example, before Jesus’ sudden disappearance when, at age twelve, He remained in the temple without their knowledge. St. Luke notes that when the Boy explained the reason in terms of the mission entrusted to Him by the heavenly Father, Mary and Joseph “did not understand what he said to them” (2, 50). If Mary knew with certainty that Jesus was the Messiah, she did not yet know in what way He would carry out his mission, so for the moment she did not grasp the relation between his staying in the temple and God’s will. Yet she did not inquire further: she knew Jesus was her God, and that was enough for her; she was sure of Him, totally sure.

The soul of faith does not linger examining God’s conduct and, even without understanding, throws itself into believing and following blindly the dispositions of the divine will. At times in our spiritual life we stop because we want to understand too much, to investigate too much God’s designs on our soul; no, the Lord does not ask us to understand, but to believe with all our strength.

Colloquy

“O Mary, cover me with your shadow and I shall remain calm and trusting under your wings. Accompany me on my way and lead me by secret shortcuts. Suffering will not spare me, but You will make me hunger for it like indispensable food. Oh, Mary, Mary! Your name is on my lips like honey and balm. Mary, Mary! Hail Mary! Who can resist you? Who then will be lost with the Hail Mary? Mary, Mary! You, Mother of the little ones, health of the weak, star of storms... O Mary! Mary! If I am without help, without courage, without consolations, I run to you and cry: Hail Mary! You are the comfort of slaves, the courage of the little ones, the power of the weak. Hail Mary! When I pronounce your name my whole heart is inflamed. Hail Mary! Joy of Angels, nourishment of souls. Hail Mary!” (cf. Fr. Edward Poppe).

Yes, O Mary, lead me by the swift shortcut of full confidence in God. O You, who are blessed for having believed, increase my faith; give me a firm, unshakeable, invincible faith. To your faith we owe the fulfillment of the Lord’s promises; grant me a share in this faith, so that I may believe in Him, in his words, in his promises, in his invitations, without doubt, without hesitation, without uncertainty. Doubt stops me, hesitation paralyzes me, uncertainty clips my wings... O Mary, grant that I may believe totally, that I may give myself totally to God, adhering to all his plans, accepting with eyes closed every arrangement of divine Providence; grant that I may believe so that I may boldly brave the storms; grant that I may believe so that I may abandon myself fully to the action of the Holy Spirit and walk with Him the way of holiness. If You are with me, O Mary, I shall fear nothing; the strength of your faith will be the support and refuge of mine, so weak and languishing.