Saturday is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Today let us meditate on her solitude during those three years of her Divine Son’s public life.
The role of the Blessed Virgin during the public life of her Son was totally hidden: a life of loving contemplation, prayer and sacrifice. An essential part of this sacrifice was her solitude.
But what loneliness! Let us think of a poor widow when her only son is at war: what anguish! She is told that he will have to take part in a very dangerous battle, what agony! And at last she is told that death is inevitable, what an ordeal! What bitter loneliness for such a mother,whose life can be compared to a deserted road that ends in the desert.
But what are these examples of human loneliness compared to the life of Our Lady? For her, her Child Jesus and her Bridegroom, St. Joseph, were everything! St. Joseph had died and her only Son had left her in order to carry out His work of redemption. Yet she knew full well that this was a tremendous struggle which would obviously end in the most horrible death.
When she lost Jesus at the age of twelve, St Joseph was there to stand by her and comfort her, now she had no one. Back then the pain lasted three days, now it went on for years. At that time her heart may have been tormented by the immense mystery and fear of disaster, but now it was tormented by the certainty that heart breaking death would soon come.
The more deeply one contemplates this solitary life of Mary, the more one is astonished and shocked at the inexhaustible pain and the very many tears which our heavenly Mother united for our salvation with the sweat, toil and pain of Jesus in His public life.
At the death or absence of a loved one, the longer the cohabitation, the greater the intimacy, the harmony, the mutual understanding, and the more severe the trials endured together, the greater the suffering.
Separation, then, brings about the dissolution of a very dense fabric of habits, understandings and affections that were firmly established by countless familiar memories. As a result, the whole of life seems to lose its natural hold and to dissolve.
Let us think here of Mary’s intimate intimacy in the long years of Nazareth with her beloved spouse and the divine Son, who was “subject” to her until the age of thirty. One must bear in mind that otherwise children leave their father’s house much earlier.
For ordinary people, memories of the past fade with time, and this eases the pain. But how can one imagine this with such a profound soul as Mary’s?
People can turn their minds to other things and be absorbed by new impressions that facilitate this forgetting. But what on earth could attract Mary’s attention more than Jesus alone?
Usually the lonely have other people (children, relatives and friends) to comfort them. For Mary there was only Jesus, who was her everything. As for the relatives and friends, we learn from the Scriptures that they caused much suffering to Our Lady because of their unbelief.
Through her solitude during Jesus’ public life, the Blessed Virgin earned countless graces for us. She stands before us as Coredemptrix, deeply united in her sacrifices with the sacrifice of her Son’s life for our eternal salvation.
Father Lawrence Lew
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
Reblogged this on Nelson MCBS.
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“Thanks and Reverence to the Blessed Mother Mary”
Catholics believe that worship is due to God alone. Catholics do, however, venerate Mary. In other words, we honor our Blessed Mother with great reverence and devotion because she is the Mother of God. Mary is the model of perfect love and obedience to Christ. God preserved Mary from sin, and she conceived our Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit, bringing Christ into our world. Catholics can’t help but honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is full of grace, the Mother of God and our Mother, for her “yes” to God that made the Incarnation possible. And without the Incarnation, we would not have salvation. Mary is the most beautiful model of total submission to the will of God. Catholics do not view Mary as equal to Christ, but rather venerate Mary because of her relationship to Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “Mary’s role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it” (CCC 964).
As Catholics, we pray that we can respond to God’s call to holiness for our lives in the way that Mary did. Mother Theresa prayed to emulate Mary’s devotion to Christ:
“Mary, Mother of Jesus, give me your heart so beautiful, so pure, so immaculate, so full of love and humility that I may be able to receive Jesus in the Bread of Life, love Him as You loved Him, and serve Him as You served Him….”
God chose Mary to be the “Blessed Virgin” in order to manifest “His Plan and Family” as well as the Church He created; but Mary facilitated this will of God’s by being the only human fully obedient flesh; that contained Holiness! Jesus Christ could only come here to save us by this one human being Mary; the Mother of Jesus Christ who is our Savior, that part of the Blessed Holy Trinity that comprises our Creator; our Father who is in heaven!
I think of Mother Mary’s trial on this fallen earth or world as a struggle with that very thing the Holy Scriptures tell us about the ways of the world and the corrupted nature how it seeks to ruin and tear apart the good that does exist among the vile and uncharitable viciousness that stalks or shadows our lives while we are here.
To relinquish the things of this world or offer up our own lives as a sacrifice is so difficult a thing to do for anyone, but Mary did just that and in spades. Her short lived joys of having a wonderful good and noble hard working man as her husband; then together they shared in the monumental joy and honor to parent the “Son of God Almighty” actually being those most special parents on earth that nurtured and watched over as those earthly parents, the Savior and Redeemer of all mankind, as He grew up to fulfill God’s prophecy becoming the Lamb of God; in the flesh the Man Jesus who at the same time was the Christ, who would carry not only His most special cross, the cross of Salvation, but all crosses for human sins that all of us commit being fallen from God’s grace and absolute Holy perfection.
Mary’s longing and pain is beyond my personal perception not only because I’m a man not a mother but also because she is the Blessed Mother chosen by God to be the vessel of the immaculate conception being so closely connected to God the Father and the Son, her Son also by physical fact but also by spiritual Divine Intention of God the Creator making in her a bond of unimaginable power and Holiness that she would have to endure on her own accompanied by the Holy Spirit to the finish; and then thereafter until her own death, all the while feeling the majesty of the King having been part of her, but, then yanked away by this corrupted world and all of its sin and death to fulfill “the greatest of all missions” ever conducted on earth! But, she had been so blessed with the greatest humility and completely unselfish humanness, setting an example for all mothers and indeed parents to model themselves after.
The sorrow she endured knowing and seeing the most high, God incarnate and only perfect human, taking on the suffering due to all human sin and from all humans who deserve it; is unimaginable to me, but I can see how her sorrow was a sorrow of “all sorrows” that only a mother can come close to appreciating the crushing loss she felt; as she was really only a human being and woman, though specially blessed; at that point doing God’s will on earth and faithfully following His requirements each day to the end of her own road here, that she had to bear witness to this unimaginable magnitude of suffering that came upon Jesus who was flesh of her flesh, and whose heart was entwined completely with hers, in this most unique bond of love and enduring commitment to God the Father and His Son; what a Mother! I tear now, thinking of her and Jesus; how she is the only soul and human ever; to have this miraculous bond with the Creator. This is why I know she was given the honor and reference that she alone deserves and it does make sense that the all-knowing and loving merciful God would do this; for her sacrifice and faithful devotion to her Son and the Father who are both in heaven in their glory; giving Mary the honor, great respect and appreciation she earned, being so humble and thankful for her mission and suffering!
Now she is given the special place of being our Holy Mother of the Church of Christ’s family, whose devotion to that living Church and we its members deserve as children of God! And Mary knows like no other what her need was like as she had and lived through it from the time of the immaculate conception and forward only fulfilling God’s will; now doing the Father’s will as always we have Mother Mary’s intercession in behalf of her Son Jesus, pleading our cases as the greatest advocate anyone could have who can help the original mission of the New and Everlasting Covenant, to save souls that the Father and Son by their love and reverence for her, allow her to come to our aid to encourage us on our personal journeys; so as not to be alone suffering as she had to, but, to always have that motherly Church presence connected to the heavenly kingdom in that most special way that only she can, and is always being in the ready to act in our best interests as an intercessor, having only our best interest in heart; between we who are fallen from grace and that most Holy Heavenly Family of the Christ Church, that Blessed Trinity; by the will of the Father and through the Son Jesus Christ our Lord, Savior and Redeemer. Mary pleads for our safe passage from this world to heaven.
First John 2:15-16 says, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.”
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23,
Apostle Paul reminded us, “whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.” Philippians 3:7-8
“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6
Galatians 1:10 says, “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
Clearly from this verse, we cannot consistently please both God and the world. The desire for popularity and even fame or fortune is rooted in our old sinful nature.
When we give in to it, we are living “according to the flesh” (Romans 8:5, 12). Blessed Mother Mary did not do this at all. She denied self!
We are to “seek first” God’s kingdom and righteousness (Matthew 6:33).
(Matthew 6:24) “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Or material Life!
Again; God chose Mary to be the “Blessed Virgin” in order to manifest “His Plan and Family” as well as the Church He created; but Mary facilitated this will of God’s by being the “only human fully obedient flesh; that contained Holiness!” Jesus Christ could only come here to save us by this one human being Mary; the Mother of Jesus Christ, that part of the Blessed Holy Trinity that comprises our Creator!
God bless.
Brother in Christ Jesus,
Lawrence Morra III
Reblogged @ lawrencemorra.com Zero Lift-Off
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