God Thinking of You
God thinking of you constantly is another heartwarming topic during this month of the Sacred Heart.
A Loved One Fills the Mind
A lover can identify with the line of a love song: “You were always on my mind.” The beloved becomes an obsession. Day and night the lover’s mind is flooded with thoughts of the object of affection. Sometimes these are deliberate; other times they are spontaneous. The loved one is the first thought on awaking and the last thought before succumbing to sleep.
Certain sights trigger thoughts of the one loved, for example, a person with a similar hairdo, a car that resembles their, or a cherished gift from the beloved.
The lover indulges in daydreams about their one and only. They recall with joy all their encounters, which are seared into their memory. Like binge-watching television shows, they replay these meetings and weigh each word.
You Are Never Out of God’s Mind
A stained-glass window in one church depicted the eye of God in a triangle. A little boy told his teacher that he didn’t like this picture. It scared him. She wisely explained, “That eye doesn’t mean that God is watching to catch you doing something wrong. No. It means that God loves you so much that he can’t take his eyes off you.”
God’s intellect is powerful beyond anything you can imagine. Whereas humans are capable of holding only one thought at a time, God is able to entertain innumerable thoughts simultaneously. God’s love is also unfathomable, without measure. These two truths imply that the Almighty One constantly thinks about you, his beloved. You are always the object of God’s loving concern.
Jesus’s Teaching on This
Jesus taught that God the Father watches over the flowers and the sparrows. He knows whenever a sparrow falls from the sky. God even knows how many hairs are on your head. For sure, then, he is thinking about you, his special creation.
At this very moment God is well aware of you. If he weren’t, you would vanish into oblivion. In fact, you were on God’s mind from all eternity. In Scripture, our Lord says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). The holy One engineered the vast, magnificent universe, which some astronomers claim comprises at least two trillion galaxies! But God also conceived of you, a one-of-a-kind human being, and decided to create you.
God Was Thinking of You Before You Existed
God chose the years your life would span, the places you would call home, your family members, the shape and features of your body, and your talents and skills. Your Creator has thoughtfully arranged your days: “Surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). Moreover, God had a dream for you: the ideal person he created you to be.
Your whole life—from the first second of your existence to your final breath—is in God’s mind like a flash. Each aspect of your life and all your circumstances are in his purview. That is why when the psalmist was distressed, he could pray, “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your record?” (Psalm 56:8). Thoughts about you are set in God’s mind indelibly.
God Is Thinking of You at All Times
Your divine Lover is thinking about you when you delight in marvels of earth and sky, when you are sick and suffering, when you grieve for a loved one, when you attain a goal, when you struggle with temptations, and when you wrestle with a problem. God is thinking about you when you are happy and laughing, when you are filled with fear and anxiety, when you are praised, and when you are criticized. He is fully aware of you when you perform an act of charity . . . and when you fail to love.
God professes in lyrical poetry that he will be mindful of you forever:
Can a woman forget her nursing child,
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you. (Isaiah 49:15)
No matter how far you may stray from God, this faithful Lover will never blot you from his mind. At times you need help most, you can be certain that God is aware of it. As the psalmist said, “I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me” (Psalm 40:17).
In Scripture God tells you, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Psalm 55:9). How consoling to know that some of those divine high thoughts are of you!
A Love Song
“More” was sung at my sister’s wedding. Some of the lines could well be God’s words to you.
• How does it make you feel to know that God thinks of you without ceasing?
• At what times in your life are you pleased that God is aware of you?
• How can you stay mindful of God?
God’s Love for You
God’s love for you is the focus of June, the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart, symbol of God’s love. I’ll be posting excerpts from my book A Love Affair with God. Here is the first one from the chapter on presence:
Loving a Human Being
When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is presence. How can you love if you are not there? ~Thick Nhat Hanh
Being alone with the beloved, gazing into their eyes, is intoxicating. It doesn’t matter if no words are exchanged. Silently basking in the other’s presence is enough. Doing things together is sheer joy. At the sight of the loved one, the heart leaps. In a crowded room, the one in love is instantly aware of the special someone and remains conscious of their presence.
Time with the loved one passes all too swiftly, as though life were on fast forward. The lover wishes the time together would never end.
When the two are apart, a person in love keenly misses the significant other. He or she is restless, appears preoccupied, and feels as incomplete as the lion, scarecrow, and tinman of Oz. Even surrounded by other people, the lover is lonely. Time drags while anticipating meeting the beloved again.
The devoted one strives to see the loved one as many times and for as long as possible. He or she is creative in devising plans to meet. An encounter may require going out of the way a few steps or a thousand miles. It may entail adjusting a schedule or sacrificing a favorite activity. Being with the loved one supersedes everything and everyone else. If plans for meeting fall through, the heart is crushed.
God’s Love for You
The mystic Meister Eckhart, OP, asserted, “No human being has ever desired anything as much as God desires to be with him or her.”
You can believe with confidence that God mightily desires your company. At the Last Supper Jesus said, “I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3). God also promised, “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me” (Revelation 3:20).
Dining with God is an image of the intimacy you are privileged to experience with your divine Lover. Such intimacy, however, depends on being attuned to God’s voice and opening the door of your heart. William Holman Hunt illustrated this in his painting The Light of the World. Jesus, wearing a crown of thorns and holding a lantern, knocks at a door. But that door lacks a doorknob and so can only be opened from inside.
Nicholas of Cusa expressed God’s omnipresence geometrically: “God is he whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to our holy God as Most High (transcendent), yes, but also Most Near (immanent). (#2581) St. Paul preached, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God totally engulfs you. This means God is available and there for you 24/7. A very short story serves as a metaphor for God’s ubiquity:
Little fish asks old fish, “Where is the thing called ocean?” Old fish replies, “It is the thing you are in right now.” “But this is just water,” protests the little fish, disappointed; and he swims away to continue his futile search.
Psalm 139
Sacred Scripture limns God’s all-encompassing presence in beautiful poetry:
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, [land of the dead]
you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
(Psalm 139:7–10)
You could expand this psalm with personal verses: “If I have to work with so-and-so who drives me crazy, you are there.” “If I am being interviewed for a new position, you are there.” “If I am diagnosed with a chronic disease, you are there.” “If my mother dies, you are there.”
God in Creation
God surrounds you above, below, and on every side. “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” (Jeremiah 23:24) the Almighty questions. God has always been present, animating everything from an infinitesimal microbe to a fifteen-ton Tyrannosaurus rex. In the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, Jesus declared, “Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si’ (Praise Be to You) affirmed God’s presence within every created thing:
“The creatures of this world no longer appear to us under merely natural guise because the risen One is mysteriously holding them to himself and directing them towards fullness as their end. The very flowers of the field and the birds which his human eyes contemplated and admired are now imbued with his radiant presence.” (100)
One sublime poem of Gerald Manley Hopkins, SJ, begins, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” In a letter he elaborated: “All things therefore are charged with love, are charged with God and, if we knew how to touch them, give off sparks and take fire, yield drops and flow, ring and tell of him.”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, made the same point: “By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagine it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers.”
St. Catherine of Siena wrote, “What then is not a sanctuary? Where then can I not kneel and pray at a shrine made holy by God’s presence?” St. Angela of Foligno once cried out, “The world is pregnant with God!”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning conveys the same idea in her epic novel/poem “Aurora Leigh”:
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
Scripture Testifying to God’s Presence
It follows that God is unshakeable as your shadow. He promises, “I will never leave you or forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). As Pharaoh’s army was in hot pursuit of the Hebrews, they called out to Moses in fright. He replied, “The Lord himself will fight for you; you have only to keep still” (Exodus 14:14). And the army drowned. Then while the chosen people trekked through the desert, God led them as a pillar of cloud by day and at night as a pillar of fire.
The words God spoke to Joshua he also speaks to you: “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9). There is not one second when God is not close at hand, delighting in you and loving you. As a matter of fact, God dwells in the depths of your being.
God Alive in You
A Sunday school teacher asked his little students: “Does God ever take a vacation?” Hilary answered, “Of course. God went with me on my vacation.” God is not only all around you; he is within you. As a Carmelite website states: “A God is the Divine Guest of my soul, dwelling there day and night, desirous of receiving the unceasing homage of my intimate friendship and of my love!”
Blessed John of Ruysbroeck noted, “God is the one who approaches us from the inside out.”
After temptations plagued St. Catherine of Siena, somewhat miffed with Jesus, she demanded, “Where were you when I was in such a frightful situation?” He assured her, “Daughter, I was in your heart, fortifying you with grace.”
Jesus promised, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:23). He also proposed an image for your vital union with him: a vine and branches. As long as you are attached to Jesus, divine life courses through you, invigorating you. St. Paul wrote, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). By virtue of your baptism, Christ likewise lives in you. You are a walking tabernacle!
In the ongoing inner life of the Trinity, when the Father thinks about himself, the Son, the Word, comes into being. The Father and Son behold each other and respond with a love so powerful that it becomes another Person, namely the Holy Spirit. This Spirit, the bond that unites the Trinity, is love personified. Jesus sent this Holy Spirit, Love, to you. As St. Paul claimed, “The Spirit of God dwells in you” (Romans 8:9). Love inhabits your very being!
Realizing God’s Presence
You could be acutely aware of God’s abiding presence during exceptional moments. For example, you might realize that God is with you while you are celebrating a significant occasion like an anniversary. Or this awareness may occur when you accomplish something you thought impossible—like driving safely through a blizzard or mastering a new computer. It happened to a woman I know. Although she was a shy introvert, she agreed to deliver the eulogy at the funeral for a friend’s mother named Louise. Driving to the church, she was filled with dread . . . until she noticed the license plate on the car in front of her: 4LOUISE. She interpreted this as a message that God would empower her. Her fear shrank.
You might be overwhelmed with the knowledge of God’s presence while engaged in a mundane task like folding laundry or doing dishes. Any of these experiences might bring tears to your eyes.
Divine Constancy
God, whose love for you is immeasurable, proves it by outrageous things: acts of self-surrender. First, God became a man so he could love you with a human heart, reveal himself to you, and die to keep you near him for all eternity. Second, the God-Man surrendered to a humiliating, agonizing death. And third, to be with you during your earthly life, at every Mass God condescends to assume the forms of bread and wine—small, vulnerable, inanimate things! All over the world, God is placed on altars, locked in tabernacles, and within our very bodies. Such is the folly of God’s love. Appropriately, the Eucharist is known as the Real Presence.
God aches for you, his creature, to be with him forever. When you ignore God, forget about God, or are angry at God—even if you doubt God exists—this steadfast Lover does not jilt you. No, God patiently waits for your attention like a parent with unflagging love waits for an obstreperous teenager to grow up. God loves you unconditionally.
An Image of God’s Faithfulness
The mother in the book The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown is a beautiful image of God. When her little bunny announces that he will assume different forms in order to hide from her, she responds with endearing lines like the following:
If you become a fish in a trout stream,
I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.
If you become a crocus in a hidden garden,
I will be a gardener. And I will find you.
If you become a bird a fly away from me,
I will be a tree that you come home to.
If you become a little boy and run into a house,
I will become your [human] mother and
catch you in my arms and hug you.
During your sojourn on earth, you will never be separated from God. His perfect, unwavering love for you guarantees that. Jesus always lives up to his name Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” He confirms this by reassuring you, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Take heart: You are never alone!
Blessed Ramon Lull wrote, “What is the greatest darkness? The absence of my Beloved. And what is the greatest light? The presence of my Beloved.” Because God is omnipresent, every day of your life you walk in the light.
• When are you most aware that God is with you?
• What in nature assures you of God’s presence?
• When has God come to your rescue?
Dan Schutte set the words of Psalm 139 to music. Here is his version, “You Are Near”:
Our Father: The Lord’s Prayer
The Preeminent Prayer
The Our Father prayer is central to Christianity. During the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA), formerly called RCIA, the candidates receive the Our Father at Mass in the fifth week of Lent. It is a precious gift Christians have prayed for two thousand years. When we pray it, we are united with Christians all over the world.
The Divine Origin
The Church of the Pater Noster (Latin for “Our Father) in Jerusalem traditionally stands on the site where Jesus gave us this prayer. On the church’s outside walls and along a cloister walk are 140 ceramic plaques each with the Our Father in a different language.
The Lord’s Prayer the way we pray it is found in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 6:9–13). Jesus says, “Pray this way.” The Gospel of Luke has a shorter version of the prayer (Luke 11:1–4). In Luke, the prayer is Jesus’s response when the disciples asked him to teach them how to pray like John the Baptist taught his disciples. I wonder what form of prayer John taught.
Our Father: The Composition
The prayer comprises seven petitions. The first three focus on glorifying God and the rest are pleas for help. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that these petitions not only express everything we could ever desire, but they are in the sequence in which they should be desired.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls the Our Father the summary of the whole Gospel. (#2161) In the last section of this book the words of the prayer are explained in detail.
Do you remember praying this prayer in Latin? Singing it?
Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum
adveniat regnum tuum fiat voluntas tua
sicut in caelo et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie
et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris
et ne nos inducas in tentationem sed libera nos a malo. Amen.
At the end of the prayer, Protestants add: “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for and ever.” At a Catholic Mass, these words are said after the Our Father is prayed immediately after another short prayer.
Addressing the Father
It makes sense that Jesus’s prayer addresses the Father. He called God his Father 177 times in the Gospels. Since his Father is also our heavenly Father, we direct the Our Father prayer to him.
Saint André Bessette claimed that all earth is a thin space! God is incredibly always close to us no matter where we are. As this saint put it, “When you say the Our Father, God’s ear is next to your lips.” It’s thought-provoking that we don’t address God as almighty One or eternal God, but in the intimate term Father. Also, look at the pronoun: our. We acknowledge that all humankind is united as brothers and sisters.
When the Our Father Is Prayed
The Didache, the first Christian book of instruction from 80–90 A.D., says that the Our Father should be prayed three times a day. It adds to the prayer the words “for yours are the power and the glory forever.” Protestants and Eastern Orthodox conclude with similar doxologies.
You pray the Our Father at Mass when it marks the beginning of the Communion Rite. The rubrics call for the priest or bishop alone to raise his hands during the prayer. People have gotten into the habit of raising their hands too—an early Christian prayer position called orans. Some people hold hands, which is also meaningful. Liturgists frown on these innovations.
You also pray the Our Father six times when you pray the Rosary and once in the Divine Mercy chaplet. You might pray it throughout the day in the Divine Office (Liturgy of the Hours), which is the official prayer of the Church. You might also pray during your personal prayer in the morning and/or evening.
Praying the Our Father Profitably
St. Edmund said, “It is better to say one Our Father fervently and devoutly than a thousand with no devotion and full of distraction.” Since the Our Father is a rote prayer, it is easy to say it on autopilot. To deepen your spirituality, pray it slowly and reflectively. You might ponder each word before moving on. It’s said that a novice asked Saint Teresa of Avila “Mother, what shall I do to become a contemplative?” St. Teresa replied, “Say the Our Father, but take an hour to say it.”
By the way, St. Teresa discusses this prayer at length in her book The Way of Perfection.”
For centuries, as early as Gregorian chant, composers have set the Lord’s Prayer to music. Modern singers have sung the Lord’s Prayer, including Susan Boyle.
• How did you first learn the Our Father?
• Which petition is most meaningful to you?
• How do you fight distractions when you pray?
Here is the Our Father in Aramaic, the language in which Jesus taught it:
Here is a sung version of the Aramaic Our Father:
Divine Mercy and Saint Faustina
Divine Mercy is a comparatively new devotion that Jesus himself introduced to the world through a young Sister of Mercy. The title itself is beautiful. Divine because it centers on the mercy of God. But we use the word “divine” to mean spectacular, as in “that dress is divine.” And the mercy of God truly is wonderful.
When the original sin of Adam and Eve lost eternal happiness for all humankind, God had compassion on us. The devils did not have a second chance to live with him, but we do. God sent his Son to re-establish our relationship with him. Because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we can hope to live with God forever.
We, though, can waste this opportunity by our personal sins. Again, our loving God extends mercy and forgives us when we are sorry and intend to improve.
The Mercy of Jesus
The gospels reveal that Jesus was always forgiving people: the woman caught in adultery, the cheating tax collector Zacchaeus, the woman whose tears fell on his feet, the paralytic lowered from the ceiling, and his unfaithful apostles who abandoned him when he needed them most.
Jesus also taught that the Father loves to forgive, like the father who welcomed the prodigal son, the shepherd who searches for the lost sheep, and the woman who combs her house for the lost coin.
Divine Mercy Devotion
In 1931 Jesus appeared to Saint Faustina and asked her to promote devotion to divine mercy. He instructed her to have a picture painted that depicted him as he appeared: wearing a white robe and with two beams of light coming from his sacred heart, one red and one white. The colors stand for the blood and water that streamed from his pierced side. The words, “Jesus, I trust in you” were to be written at the bottom of the image.
Jesus also asked that the feast of Divine Mercy be celebrated on the Sunday after Easter. Saint Pope John Paul II instituted this in 2000.
Faustina heard Jesus giving her the words of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, which can be prayed on rosary beads. Jesus told her he wanted everyone to pray it. The devotion had three purposes: to obtain mercy, to trust in Christ’s mercy, and to show mercy to others.
There is also a Litany of Divine Mercy written by Saint Faustina.
Praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy
On the Our Father beads, pray “Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.”
On the Hail Mary beads this is the prayer: “For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”
Complete directions can be found on the Internet or in booklets.
Here is a recording of the chaplet that you can pray along with:
Saint Faustina
The Early Years
Saint Teresa of Avila said, “We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials.” This was certainly true for Saint Faustina.
She was born Helena Kowalska in Poland to a poor, religious family, one of ten children. After three years of school, she wanted to enter the convent, but her parent would not permit it. So she went to work as a housekeeper.
At a dance, She had a vision of the suffering Christ who asked, “How long will you keep putting me off?” He told her to go to Warsaw. So she “eloped.” Without her parents’ permission, she took a train with only the clothes on her back.
Several convents rejected her. Then the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy agreed she could enter them, but only after she earned money. After a year when she was 20 years old, she joined the convent in 1926 and was given the name Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament. After making vows in 1928, she served in different convents as cook.
The Visions
In 1930, Saint Faustina became ill and sent to rest. Back in the convent, on the night of February 22, 1931, Jesus appeared to her and told her to paint the image of him. None of the other sisters were willing to do this for her. Three years later a man painted it. When Saint Faustina first saw the painting, she cried because it did not capture the beauty of the Jesus she saw. That same night Jesus told her to inaugurate the Feast of Divine Mercy.
The Apostle of Divine Mercy
In 1933, Saint Faustina did gardening at a convent. She confided to a priest that she had visions, but he didn’t believe her. Then Father Michael Sopocko was appointed confessor to the Sisters. After she told him about speaking with Jesus and his plan, he had her undergo a complete psychiatric evaluation, which she passed.
In 1935, Saint Faustina wrote in her diary that the Chaplet of Divine Mercy was dictated to her by Jesus. That same year she wrote rules for a new contemplate religious congregation devoted to the Divine Mercy. A month later she visited a house that she had seen in a vision as her congregations’ first convent. Because she had made vows to one congregation, they couldn’t begin another.
In 1936, Saint Faustina’s tuberculosis worsened, and she was moved to a sanatorium. The next year Jesus instructed her to write a Novena of Divine Mercy. She also wrote the Litany of Divine Mercy. She returned to the convent.
In 1938 her illness progressed and she was sent to another sanatorium. A few months later she was taken back to the convent, where she died at age 33. In Krakow. She is buried in the cities Basilica of Divine Mercy.
Another Setback
Fr. Sopocko told her to keep a diary and record her visions. This diary is published as he book “Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul.
In 1959, the Vatican forbade Saint Faustina’s Divine Mercy devotion. The was based on a faulty translation of her diary. After two decades the decision was reversed.
Triumph
Fr. Sopocko helped form the Congregation of the Sisters of Mery based on Saint Faustina’s ideas. Popes supported devotion to the Divine Mercy and Sister Faustina was canonized in 2000 after two miracles resulted from her intercession.
Here is a hymn to the Sacred Heart:
• How familiar are you with the Divine Mercy devotion?
Hands of Blessed Mother Mary
Pope Leo XIV
Our God is a God of surprises. He certainly blew us away by giving us an American pope—a Christlike man. Let’s praise and thank God for this gift that renews the hope of the whole world. Did you see the two seagulls walking around the chimney awaiting the white smoke? To me they were a sign of the Holy Spirit overseeing the voting. And then a fluffy grey baby bird joined them, a symbol of new things to come.
Mary’s Youthful Hands
We are in the month of May, the month traditionally devoted to honoring Mary, the Mother of God and our mother. Here is an overview of her life, focused on her hands…
The hands of Mary were not the soft, pampered hands of a queen, but the strong, capable hands of a working woman. As a young girl, surely she helped her mother Anne around the house with daily tasks. What was Mary doing when the Angel Gabriel appeared to her? People conjecture that she was fetching water from the well or spinning wool. Maybe she had her hands folded in prayer.
When Mary went to help pregnant Elizabeth, at their meeting her hands probably embraced her relative and caressed her wrinkled face. Then for three months, Mary’s hands were kept busy serving Elizabeth and mute Zachary with love. Perhaps the two women sewed baby clothes during this time of waiting. I can picture Mary massaging Elizabeth’s back and feet.
In Bethlehem, Mary’s hands were the first ones to hold God-made-man except for the person (Joseph?) who delivered him. Scripture says that she wrapped her newborn in cloths and laid him in a manger. From that moment—and for the next thirty or so years—her hands were at work caring for her Son. She burped Jesus, tickled him, and held his hands as he took his first steps.
She washed him when he was dirty and sweaty, and when he was hurt in the carpenter shop or playing rough with the other boys, she dried his tears and soothed him.
When Jesus as a preteen was lost for three days, I envision Mary wringing her hands with worry and then on finding him, taking him by the shoulders and giving him a little shake.
In charge of Joseph’s household, Mary kneaded dough, made clothes for her men, swept the floor, and stirred countless stews. No doubt, when Joseph died, it was her hands that lovingly prepared his body for burial.
As an Older Woman
When Jesus returned to Nazareth as a successful teacher and enraged his neighbors by his words in the synagogue, Mary was a witness. As she saw her friends and relatives ready to cast Jesus off a cliff, her hands probably flew to her mouth in horror. (On a precipice in Nazareth is a chapel in ruins called Our Lady of the Fright.)
When Jesus visited Nazareth did he stay at the parental home? Did Mary prepare meals for him and his twelve apostles? Could be.
Michelangelo’s poignant “Pieta” reminds us of the dreadful day when Mary held her Son’s body for the last time, now a mutilated, bloody body. It’s been proposed that Jesus’s garment that the soldiers gambled for had been made by his mother.
Before Jesus died, he entrusted himself into the Father’s hands, but he entrusted the apostle John into Mary’s hands. Then Mary had another “son” to care for, actually many sons and daughters.
Safe in Mary’s Hands
Mary also became Mother to all of us. In the Morning Offering we pray, “O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you….” Mary is not eternally resting in Heaven. No. She is busy working for us as an intercessor. We ask our heavenly mother to “pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”
St. Catherine Labouré had a vision of Mary, which is reproduced on Miraculous Medals. In this vision rays of light streamed from gems on Our Lady’s hands. The Blessed Virgin explained: “The rays are graces which I give to those who ask for them. But there are no rays from some of the stones, for many people do not receive graces because they do not ask for them
.”
The oldest Marian prayer is: We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin. Amen.
For your listening pleasure, here is Bing Crosby singing “O Sanctissima” :
Note
My book Heart to Heart with Mary with daily reflections remains my most popular book. On each page Mary speaks to you personally as her child. It is uncanny how her message for the day is in sync with your life.
The book is $15.00 and available on Amazon.
• What is your favorite prayer to Our Lady? Which of her titles is your favorite?
