Une Minute avec Marie
Faire connaître et aimer Marie
“She pondered all of these things in her heart…”
I’d hear this beautiful description of Mary’s love and instantly grow sad. It wasn’t that I didn’t ache for the ability to carry hidden truths, even difficult ones, in my own heart – with love, it was that I didn’t know how to. My own brokenness kept my heart in a state of fragility and defensiveness.
Growing up in a devout Catholic family, one would believe that I knew what it meant to embrace Mary’s love. I didn’t. We faithfully attended Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation, prayed before meals, and my parents would bless my younger brother and me every night before bed. I owned a rosary but seldom prayed it.
Mary was a distant heroine to me, a woman whose mystery baffled me. How could a woman quietly keep so much in her heart? And why? I couldn’t relate to that with my own exuberant, passionate temperament, especially with frequent outbursts of opinion and frustration that often left my parents holding their heads in their hands.
Still, I’d cradle the shiny, laminated holy card with the image of the Immaculate Conception and beg her, “Mary, please help me be more like you.” A relationship with her seemed impossible, because she was perfect, and I knew I was not.
After I became a mom in my early thirties, I revisited my concept of dialoguing with Mary. That first Advent, I never followed a daily devotional or lit a candle on the wreath. It seemed like utter failure to neglect such rituals. But my mom said to me something I would never forget: “Through your motherhood, you are living your Advent.”
I internalized this message every liturgical season thereafter: Christmas, Lent, Easter. Gradually, I’d turn to Mary and ask her to teach me what it meant to be a mom, because everything about motherhood intimidated me. I realized I knew very little about nurturing tiny infants, and it frightened me.
The prayer of St. Teresa of Calcutta often carried me through the chronic sleep deprivation and dark moments of doubt: “Mary, please be a mother to me now.”
Over the years, I learned what it meant to “ponder all these things.” It meant to hold space for the Holy Spirit at all times, to be tuned in to His quiet whispers and movements, to be aware of when He was speaking to me or resting with me or asking me to wait on His timing.
As I pondered, I felt Mary’s presence more strongly, as if she were guiding me to a deeper love for God. Then it occurred to me: hers was both a receptive action and an active receptivity. Because Mary embodied the fullness of every virtue, pondering was both a vigilant activity, as well as a passive receiving. Both are necessary in relationship with God.