“I don’t know where to put Mary!”

Sometimes we might be afraid to welcome the Virgin Mary into our lives. The root of this fear is the place that the Virgin Mary could occupy in our spiritual life. As one participant in a retreat unceremoniously told me: “I don’t know where to put Mary!”

In his youth, Saint John Paul II had his doubts too:

“At one point I began to question my devotion to Mary, believing that, if it became too great, it might end up compromising the supremacy of the worship owed to Christ. At that time, I was greatly helped by a book by Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin …

There I found the answers to my questions, Yes, Mary does bring us closer to Christ; she does lead us to him, provided that we live her mystery in Christ … The author was an outstanding theologian. His Mariological thought is rooted in the mystery of the Trinity and in the truth of the Incarnation of the Word of God.

My way of understanding the worship of the Virgin evolved. I was already convinced that Mary leads us to Christ, but then I also began to understand that Christ leads us to his Mother.”

Sister Emmanuelle Fournier (Verbe de Vie Community)

Excerpt from her book Un rendez-vous avec Elle (A Date with Her), Editions des Béatitudes, page 26