Reflections on True Devotion to Mary: Part II
Fr. Donald Macdonald, SMM
REFLECTIONS ON TRUE DEVOTION
O ne way of doing this could be to “recall, among the many witnesses and teachers . . . the figure of St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, who proposes consecration to Christ through the hands of Mary, as an effective means for Christians to live faithfully their baptismal commitments” (Redemptoris Mater 48).
Montfort knew that “in your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus” (Phils. 2:5). If only that could be – to share mind of Christ! What was it basically?” Jesus emptied Himself taking the form of a slave . . . humbled Himself and became obedient unto death .. . death on a cross” (Phils. 2:6-8). His Father’s will was everything to him, following wherever it led, seemingly losing even his identity, as he died the death of a nobody on a cross. To attempt to live like that for God alone, I must take seriously my baptism into Christ. I need insight, courage and practical help.
Keen desire, prayer and worth-while penance, St. Louis-Marie of course sees as ways to encourage me to lose myself in Christ in God, “running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ Jesus captured me” (Phils. 3:12). But the ideal help in grasping that reality, he believes, is to open myself completely to Our Lady.
I AM THE LORD’S SLAVE
She was and is at one with the pattern of obedience guiding her Son’s life; “I am the Lord’s slave” (Lk. 1:38) – the same self-description as St. Paul used of her Son – in her case too, not excluding death on a cross. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gals. 2:20). If this is true of St. Paul and myself to a degree, what does it say of Mary? She lived in and for her Son who loved her and gave himself for her (cf. Gals. 2:20).
Now in glory with her Son who has “the name which is above every name . .. Jesus Christ . . . Lord” (Phils. 2:9-11), she reflects that same light. It is self-evident to St. Louis-Marie that in the attempt to live my-baptism as “slave of Christ Jesus” (Roms. 1:1, Phils. 1:1), meaning total self-giving, it is so helpful to place myself unreservedly in Our Lady’s hands. The mother of Jesus, at a far deeper level than St. Paul and the best of Christians, expresses herself now in the providence of God in “Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4:5).
Contemporary culture will dislike the vocabulary of ‘slavery,’ but often allow the advertiser, media opinion and current academic fashion to grip like a vice. Would it matter how I described my devotion if I was possessed by the reality in Christ? – “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things . . . in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (Phils. 3:8-9). To be serious about that is to will the means. The spur of zealous imitation of Mary will lead to baptismal regeneration.
Having been introduced to it [Devotion to Mary} and perhaps attempted to live it, should I later choose to reject it, at least after that first-hand experience, I should understand the implications of what I am doing. Should it deepen and develop, on the other hand, I am being taken into a world of profound wonder, as what holds Our Lady attracts me.
If therefore I see the glory of God in the face of Christ like that, I can hope to become like what I see. How could it be otherwise since, “Mary is entirely relative to God. Indeed I would say that she was relative only to God, because she exists uniquely in reference to him. She is an echo of God . . . If you say ‘Mary’ she says ‘God.’ ”
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PROFOUND WONDER
What do you give to the man who has everything? The absence of a sense of wonder can inhibit my seeing so much of what is there in everyday life. Mary’s presence in Elizabeth’s house – “why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk. 1:43) – is clearly wonderful. Elizabeth, enlightened by the Holy Spirit to sense the wonder of what is happening, is brought closer to God in Mary as she herself becomes part of that Spirit-graced reality.
The same creative Spirit we may believe, inspired a medieval poet to produce one of the finest English poems ever, while contemplating the coming of God to Mary at the incarnation. Without ever using a word of more than two syllables his poem is charged with wonder, as he hints at the lovely reality.
- I sing of a maiden
- Who is matchless
- King of all kings
- For her Son she chose.
- He came as still
- Where his mother was
- As dew in April . . .
- Well may such a lady
- God’s mother be.
WHAT YOU LOOK HARD AT LOOKS HARD AT YOU
Even in those few lines stillness is almost tangible and wonder is a real dimension of experience, underwritten as it is by God’s presence. Through it all, Our Lady is a definable woman, far from passive – ‘she chose’ – as God, as it were, graciously courts her. If the poet’s insight in any way parallels his expression, and one assumes it is deeper, he has been graced as Elizabeth was. Contemporary noisy, egalitarian culture may not be best equipped to hear that note of wonder.
The poet who believed that “what you look hard at looks hard at you,” seemed to be rewarded for such attentiveness by a wonderfully rich experience of Our Lady.
- Wild air, world-mothering air,
- Nestling me everywhere, That each eyelash or hair Girdles; . .
- In every least thing’s life; . . Mary Immaculate,
- Merely a woman, . . .
- This one work has to do-
- Let all God’s glory through, . . .
- As if with air: the same
- Is Mary,
- Mantles the guilty globe, . . .
- And men are meant to share
- Her life as life does air.
(G.M. Hopkins, the Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe). Hopkins is not speaking of some psychological archetype or esoteric gnostic figure. Our Lady is as real to him as the air of the English countryside . . ‘nestling me everywhere . . . each eyelash or hair . . .’ If what the Jesuit poet saw and experienced is open to all given the insight of faith, may not recent decades be disadvantaged who know no such vision? No one need respond as he did, but to pray as he did in profound wonder must surely re-generate faith.
- Stir in my ears, speak there
- Of God’s love, O live air,
- Of patience, penance, prayer: . . .
- Fold home, fast fold thy child.
ATTENTIVE STUDY
John H. Newman in his great ‘Second Spring’ sermon of 1852, called on Our Lady using the Song of Songs he had chosen as his text; “Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come. For the winter is now past . . . the flowers have appeared . . . Arise, Mother of God, and with thy thrilling voice, speak to those who labor with child and are in pain, till the babe of grace leaps within them! Shine on us dear Lady . . . till our year is one perpetual May. From thy sweet eyes, . . from thy pure smile, from thy majestic brow, let ten thousand influences rain down, not to confound or over-whelm, but to persuade, to win over thine enemies. O Mary my hope . . . fulfil to us the promise of this Spring . . .
What would time there in Newman’s company teach me about Our Lady? Clearly, he is appealing to someone he knows well. He is not talking ABOUT anyone. The underlying imagery is biblical, which his delight in Mary calls on – ‘with thy thrilling voice, speak . . .’ he believes she is part of that gathering, so much part of their concern. Newman himself speaks as a scholarly, pastoral priest with his eyes wide open, responding to a tough pastoral situation. He invites her as Mother of God to do for his congregation and country what is her definable maternal role – “speak . . . till the babe of grace leaps within them!”
A GLIMPSE
If what Newman glimpsed is there to be seen in faith, would not every individual in his congregation have been the richer for experiencing it too? (As it happens, many of them were in tears as he spoke). His own parish church, a converted gin distillery in an industrial town, regularly was so packed by the really poor, that some would not, could not assist at Mass there because of the smell. Hearing confessions too at times was not without a risk to health! His parish congregation may have lacked so much, but in comparison with many Catholic parishes in recent decades, what they would have heard from him of Our Lady could only help “our year (to be) one perpetual May.”
It is a truism of schooling and academic life that, with rare exceptions, the path to success lies in finding out what the teacher expects and try to supply it, what is current academic fashion and try to reinforce it. Inevitably, current teaching on Our Lady follows that same pattern. Some preachers or teachers, for example, who bridle at anyone coming between them and their faith in God, so often expect their own opinions to be taken seriously by others in that same context! Some commonly elbow their way in between Our Lord and the Christian, saying that there is no need of Our Lady as a mediator with THE Mediator Jesus.
MARY POINTS THE WAY
Of course, this is absolutely true. There is no absolute need, but as others in these reflections and the experience of centuries have shown, Mary in letting “ten thousand influences rain down . . . to persuade, to win over . . .” identifies with us living in faith, while she reflects the glory of God in the face of Christ. She is not in the way. She points the way or perhaps draws to the way, as the expressed devotion of some of the most graced people in Christendom, hinted at in this article, have shown.
Some gifted people have within them the ability to move the preacher into the teacher, and then into one who can introduce the student into genuine understanding and experience. This is not every teacher’s gift, but incontrovertibly it is true of Mary the Mother of Jesus. “Mary is thus present in the mystery of the Church as a model. But the Church’s mystery also consists in generating people to a new and immortal life: this is her motherhood in the Holy Spirit.
And here Mary is not only model and figure of the Church; she is much more” (Redemptoris Mater 44). That is the point. And centuries of devotion to Our Lady in the Church have recognized this. Our Lady and ourselves alike, each in our individual ways, are at one in the wonder of Christ, graced by the one basic rubric. “The Spirit reaches the depths of everything, even the depths of God . . . we have received the Spirit that comes from God, to teach us to understand the gifts that he has given us” (1 Cor. 2:10, 12). A course on comparative religion or myth could never really teach that.
DEVOTION TO OUR LADY
No one surely could understand genuine devotion to Our Lady unless introduced to it or experiencing it in its own terms. Ideally, this is done by committed people who have experience of it themselves, and so talk of what they know, live by what they see, like the people in these pages. Having been introduced to it and perhaps attempted to live it, should I later choose to reject it, at least after that first-hand experience, I should understand the implications of what I am doing.
Should it deepen and develop, on the other hand, I am being taken into a world of profound wonder, as what holds Our Lady attracts me. If therefore I see the glory of God in the face of Christ like that, I can hope to become like what I see. How could it be otherwise since, “Mary is entirely relative to God. Indeed I would say that she was relative only to God, because she exists uniquely in reference to him. She is an echo of God . . . If you say ‘Mary’ she says ‘God.’ ” (7)
FOOTNOTE
7. St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, No. 225, in GOD ALONE, The Collected N.Y. 1987.
