Une Minute avec Marie
Faire connaître et aimer Marie
A star, a gentle light that comes to us from the heights of heaven, the Virgin Mary guides our journey towards God. We are living in turbulent times, when the sea seems to be raging. Our trust and faith risk wavering and capsizing the boat of our soul.
But there she is, Mary, our Star, the beacon in the night of our lives. She's not just a mother who protects us, averting all dangers and sparing those who pray to her from all effort. She is a mother who goes before her children and encourages them by the example of her virtues: faith, humility, charity, to mention only the theological virtues so well put into practice by the Magi. She is with us on this ascent, which often seems arduous, but which constitutes our Christian life.
The Magi knew how to wait, how to sacrifice, how to abandon themselves to Providence, and to leave. Like us, they received a personal call and set out on their journey. They put aside their social lives and gave priority to their souls and their sanctification, perhaps even without being aware of it. And immediately, they saw the sign God had sent them! Will we in turn be able to hear God's call, to hear our soul's need to find him within us, and seize the grace given to us?
Mary herself, with her radiant beauty, shone like a star at each of her apparitions. She often used her light to be found and recognized. She even dropped a star to mark a place where she wished to be prayed to, as in Montebourg, where she was invoked under the name of Our Lady of the Star and became the Virgin of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. At Rue du Bac in Paris, the Virgin Mary said she was saddened by the fact that some of the gems she wears on her fingers do not emit rays of light (representing the graces we don't think to ask her for).
She is the one who illuminates our lives with hope; she is our star towards God and the path to our blissful eternity. As Saint John Baptist de la Salle observed: "It is not enough to sail safely, we have to reach port. This Star of the Sea, the Blessed Virgin, will lead you there without difficulty because she knows it very well."