Consecration Aids: 14: Lose Yourself in the Sublimity of Blessed Mary’s Intentions at Mass!
What Does Holy Mother the Church Say?
This article was originally entitled: “In the First Place”
Fr. Christopher Lee, SMM
E very child of Mary knows that one of the great advantages of living his total consecration to Mary is that it makes you “abandon your intentions and operations, and to lose yourself, so to speak, in the intentions of the, Blessed Virgin, although they are unknown.” (T.D. No. 222. ) And every slave of Mary knows that there is no more opportune time to “lose” yourself in the sublimity of Mary’s intentions, than when assisting at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Yet, strange to say, you sometimes come across individuals who think that Our Lady’s clients go too far in their devotion to her, particularly with regard to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. I, for one, have not always been blame-less in this respect. For instance, I still remember how I used to get fidgety and restless whenever I saw some pious old woman reciting her Rosary during Mass. If I had my say, I would have told her: “After all, Lady, there is a place for everything: and the Mass is for Christ, not for Mary!”
Of course – you may have guessed it – that was before I “discovered” that the Mass is Calvary renewed on our altars and that you cannot have Calvary without Mary standing by The Cross of her divine Son. That was before I really took time out to study the prayers of the Mass and to find out the mind of the Church in this matter.
You won’t believe it – and I am sorely loathe to admit it – yet, although I had been saying Mass for many years, it was not until quite recently that I began to realize that Holy Mother the Church herself invites me at least four times, in each Mass, to turn to Mary and to “lose” myself in the sublimity of her intentions! If you have a few moments to spare, I should like to share the priceless “discovery” with you. It may help you, also, to assist at Mass in the spirit of the Church and of your total consecration.
My “discovery” came about this way. I was saying Mass, one morning when my altar boy – a seminarian with a beautiful Latin pronunciation – seemed to lay particular stress on the words: ”Confiteor … Beatae Mariae semper Virgini. . . .” “I confess .. .to the Blessed Mary ever Virgin …”
Now, like every good Catholic, I had been reciting the Confiteor for years, yet it had never struck me so forcefully before that, after God, the Church was asking me to confess my sinfulness to the Virgin Mary and then to all the Saints. In other words, before allowing me to mount the altar steps, the Church was making me pray to Our Lady that she might, in turn, pray to the Lord our God for me.
It there is a moment when I should remember my sinfulness, my unworthiness, I thought, it is certainly at the beginning of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; if there is a person to whom I should confess my unworthiness, after God, it is surely the Immaculate Virgin Mary; if there is a person who can supply my deficiencies, who can be my perfect “supplement” it is certainly Our Lady. What a privilege, indeed, I realized, to confess my weaknesses to such a Mother!
Author: Fr. Christopher Lee, SMM
This is the fourteenth in a series of articles covering Consecration Aids.
Holy Mother the Church herself invites me at least four times, in each Mass, to turn to Mary and to “lose” myself in the sublimity of her intentions!
Then I came upon the beautiful prayer to the Holy Trinity which the priest recites towards the end of the Offertory: “Receive, O Holy Trinity, this Oblation which we make to Thee in remembrance of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and in honor of the blessed Mary, ever Virgin . . . and of all the Saints; that it may avail to their honor and our salvation; and that they may vouchsafe to intercede for us in heaven, whose memory we now keep on earth.”
What a joy, for a Slave of Mary, to know that each Mass (and there are approximately 350,000 said daily) is being offered to the Blessed Trinity not only in remembrance of the Passion but also for Mary’s honor and glory!
Surely, I thought, no greater homage could be paid to Mary than that which the Church gives her in every Mass.
Following closely upon the triple Sanctus there comes that part of the Mass known as the Canon of the Mass. These prayers date back to the very first centuries of the Church and consequently well express the mind of the Church with respect to Our Lady’s place in the Mass; and I was soon to find out for myself that that “place” is the first after Christ. Here is one of the prayers which precedes the Consecration: “In communion with, and venerating the memory in the first place of the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of Our God and Lord, Jesus Christ . . . and of all the Saints . . . by whose merits and prayers grant that we may be defended in all things by the help of Thy protection.”
For the first time it struck me that Mary is commemorated here explicitly as Mother of God and Mother of our Savior. The Church, it now dawned on me, wishes me to recall her role as Co-Redemptrix “by whose merits and prayers” I shall be strengthened with God’s help and protection. What better preparatory for this most solemn moment of the Mass: the Consecration! What better dispositions could I hope for then those that animated Mary at the foot of the Cross!
Finally, I discovered that there was a fourth time when Holy Mother the Church invites me to seek Mary’s intercession, to call upon her name. It is that prayer which has been called a paraphrase of the last words of the Pater Noster: ”But deliver us from evil.” The prayer runs thus: “Deliver us, we beseech thee, O Lord , from all evils, past, present and to come, and by the intercession of the blessed and glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God … and all the Saints, mercifully grant peace in our days etc , . .”
What a fool I have been all these years, I thought to myself, not to have understood the mind of the Church in this respect! What a fool, to have relegated Mary to the background when Holy Mother the Church commemorates her “in the first place,” second only to the Trinity and to her divine Son!
But what’s the use of crying over spilt milk? Wouldn’t I be a much better slave of Jesus and Mary if I simply “confessed” my own tardiness in understanding and, in the future, endeavor to “lose” myself more and more in the sublimity of Mary’s intentions at every Mass?
