Entrustment To Mary = Not Limiting God's Graces

A year ago I was a bit down in the dumps at my job and one reason was due to being the only employee. I thought how it would have been enjoyable to work in an office with others. Watching the TV sitcom The Office helped increase the desire to have co-workers. I resolved myself to believing it would never happen in my life, as I figured my current job would be my only career. Little did I realize then, that a year later I would be hired into a new position that has me in a clinic connected to a hospital with plenty of employees and patients to share my day. I am totally amazed by God’s generous love which has brought me to this change in my life, and given me this gift of something I have longed to experience.

Because all of my children had graduated from High School and we had hosted my daughter’s wedding, I figured the visits from extended family were probably coming to an end. To my delight the following year my sister and her family stopped by our home on a trip they were making to a relative's wedding. I smiled to myself that God would prove to me how limited my thinking is when it comes to His big loving graces that He desires to bestow.

Just last week my daughter shared that she and her family, who now live out of the country, are thinking about coming to our home for Christmas. Again, I had to chuckle to myself on how closed I am to God’s ways which are incredible, for I presumed we would not see them this Christmas season.

This same closed attitude of mine relates to my entrustment to the Blessed Mother. I limit the graces that flow from this union because I am always thinking in human terms, and setting up defenses against hurt feelings. I presume events won’t occur so I won’t be disappointed, when in actuality, God is ready to bestow so many more spectacular graces if I would just be open to them.

An example of such an extraordinary grace is Holy Father Francis consecrating the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary this Sunday, October 13th. For me, it is God using a world event to remind me how my entrustment to the Blessed Mother is exactly the path I need to take to make it through this world on my journey to Heaven. I look at this Consecration as affirmation of the spirituality of communion of life with Christ through Mary. And I see how I have not trusted in this gift I have been given. Jesus entrusted humanity [including me] to his mother from the Cross. Therefore, I should never doubt that Mary is my spiritual mother. I need to remember I am in her arms with her forming me as she guides me to her Son. I need to trust that she will help me to stop thinking in human ways as she leads me to being open to receiving God’s unimaginable graces. She is my rescue, just as she is the world’s rescue.

 

“When Jesus told His mother [Jn19:26]: ‘Woman, behold, your son’ it was as if He was telling her: My Mother, from this day on you will care for all people and you will ‘carry all of them in your arms’ as your children in the same way that you carried Me. And the words addressed to John: “Behold, your mother’ [Jn 19 :27] can be interpreted as: John, from today you have the special right to benefit from the privilege of being Mary’s child – this privilege consists of being ‘carried in the arms of My mother’ who is also your Mother.” S.C. Biela, In The Arms of Mary, 2nd. ed, rev. (Ft.Collins, CO: IAMF, 2005), 170.

 

“That Mary ‘carries us in her arms’ is an objective truth that does not depend on your faith. The words of Christ’s testament pronounced on the Cross are, in fact, an objective truth on the maternity of Mary in relation to all men. Her maternity does not depend on our recognition of it nor in our belief in her. Independently, whether or not you believe it, whether or not you remember it, you are ‘in the arms of Mary’. The recognition and acceptance of this truth can become an opportunity to open oneself to God and to His mercy.” Ibid 171.