Our Lady of Guadalupe, My Queen

When I get overwhelmed, or start to experience feelings of stress, even when there is nothing to worry about, I remember the words of Our Lady to St. Juan Diego back in the year 1531...words that I am sure she wants each of us to hear and know she is saying them all of us:

"Listen. Put it into your heart, my smallest child, that the thing that frightened you, the thing that afflicted you is nothing:

Do not let it disturb you...

Am I not here, I who am your mother?

Are you not under my shadow and protection?

Am I not the source of your joy?

Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms?

Do you need something more?"

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12, 2015.  I desire for all my dear ones to come to know this Amazing Queen who holds them in her Immaculate Heart. I want to shout to all the world: "Let her love you!"

Knowing her love is the perfect way to begin the Jubilee of Mercy ~ for it was Jesus' dying wish for me to "Behold, your mother" (Jn 19:27) as He beheld her when He was placed in her womb, and born into her arms that first Christmas.

Happy Advent, everyone!

Entrustment to Mary = More than Baking Cookies!

The priest commented, “Wow, these Christmas cookies you made look amazing! I bet you put in a lot of time and effort to make them.”

“Yes!” I responded. “They have only the finest ingredients, and I used recipes that have been passed down for generations!”

“That sounds wonderful. So, did the process of preparing them draw you into a deeper relationship with Blessed Mother? Did you become more aware of Christ’s presence in your life while you baked them?”

“Hmm, to tell you the truth, I didn’t think much about that. I guess I didn’t think much about Christ while I baked them at all.”

The priest took the whole plate of cookies I had prepared him and tossed them into the trash can saying, “Then they are worth garbage!”

Harsh, you say? Well, this event didn’t actually happen to me, but something similar did to someone else and now I am the benefactor of her shock and amazement – as I have recently been shown through the example just how useless my actions can become when I am following my own will or acting as if God does not exist.

Each and every aspect of my day can either be full of me or full of GOD. I get to choose.

“The entire world is not worthy of a man’s thought, for this belongs to God alone; any thought, therefore, not centered on God is stolen from Him.” ~ St. John of the Cross, Maxims and Counsels

I have read this line from St. John of the Cross many times, but somehow the example of the cookies that are only worth garbage has drawn out the reality of what he was trying to say. All my actions are garbage if done without being focused on the One who created me, the One who saved me, the One who desires to fill me with His power and love.

Faced with this truth, what can I do? I am so immersed in my will that it seems impossible to believe I could ever fulfill the great command to love God with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my mind (cf. Mt 22:37). But, then I remember I am entrusted to Mother Mary. Jesus says to me again, “Behold, your mother” (Jn19:27).

Fr. Tadeusz Dajczer reminds us in his introduction to S. C. Biela's book God Alone Suffices that when faced with difficult situations, or what we perceive as impossible to change: “we can choose the way of faith, trusting that the endangerment is the opportunity leading us to Jesus, who controls the situation, or, on the Marian way, to Christ through Mary. If it is she who is in control, then we only need to find shelter under her mantle and already we become calm and safe.” (God Alone Suffices, p. xviii. Bold emphasis added.)

Our Lady of Guadalupe's words to St. Juan Diego can become the words she says to me:

Listen, put it into your heart,

my youngest and dearest [child],

the thing that afflicts you, is nothing.

Do not let your countenance,

your heart be disturbed. . . .

Am I not here, I, who am your Mother?

Are you not under my shadow and protection?

Am I not the source of your joy?

Are you not in the hollow of my mantle,

in the crossing of my arms?

Do you need anything more?

(Antonio Valeriano, “Nican Mopohua: Original account of Guadalupe,” in A Handbook on Guadalupe, ed. francis Mary Kalvelage, trans. Mario Rojas Sánchez and Janet Barber (New Bedford, MA: Academy of the Immaculate, 2001), 200. Italic and hard return emphasis added.)

Now, the Christ-mas cookies have value – more value in the garbage than on the plate. This Advent, instead of thinking of and hungering for cookies, I am asking my MOM to hunger in me and for me for what truly matters...Her Son. My Savior.

“Thank you God, for allowing me to see the truth about my weakness, and how that calls upon the abyss of your merciful love!”

Entrustment to Mary = Be Not Afraid

I have been full of fears my whole life. As a youngster I was afraid of the dark and when going to bed I  would ask my sister if I could put my hand on her bed, or if she would turn and look my way so I could fall asleep. I carried on this way until in Jr. High, when God gave me the grace to recognize that He would take care of me and I need not be afraid but only to entrust my fear of the dark to Him. 

 

As I grew older my fear switched to people. I fear offending others – like not telling my relatives and friends that their lives would be so much easier if they returned to practicing their Catholic faith. I fear conflict with others – like not suggesting to the coaches through the years that Sundays should be a day of rest for our daughter athletes. I fear opposition with others – so I refrain from speaking up for the unborn against abortion. The worse products of these fears are that they lead me to silently deny my God, my Savior and my faith. 

The following quote is from the book, God Alone Suffices, which speaks to this subject, and tells how in reality the only fear I should have is the fear of God. For me it answered my anxieties with common sense truths:

After all, everything depends on our God. Our respect and praise belong only to Him – this is what we call a fear of God. When this fear of God is missing in us, we give an exaggerated value and our praise and respect to less important things – the situations and circumstances that should always be secondary when confronted with the action of God. We are afraid of people and their rules, which in our thinking govern the world, instead of fearing only God, whose will is necessary for all things to happen.

Because of human regard, we become stagnant and discouraged when we are faced with difficulties, circumstances that we consider as unfriendly winds preventing us from achieving our goal. We forget that there are only two scenarios: either God wants these difficulties, for reasons that we do not have to know, or at least He allows them to happen.

Perhaps He allows these difficulties to show us how much we lack faith? Our connections toward people and the different ‘rules of the game’ invented by them is a form of idolatry because we are either too afraid of them, or we adore them without any reservations. In this way we disregard our Almighty God. If our hearts properly feared God, if we sought reliance on our Lord and Creator in every situation, then a certain distance would be generated in us toward the illusory calculations of our minds, which are not enlightened by faith.

S. C. Biela, God Alone Suffices, 3^rd ed. (Ft. Collins, CO: IAMF, 2011), 132. Used with permission.

I seek rescue from my fears through God’s grace and entrustment to the Blessed Mother. When feeling intimidated I remember She holds me in Her arms - and remind myself what She once asked St. Juan Diego:

(c) In the Arms of Mary Foundation 

I believe I will always have a fear of people, for this weakness helps me entrust myself to the Blessed Mother – reminding me that ONLY with Her will I have the proper fear of God; and ONLY with Her can I be a confident believer - who gives less attention to human regard – for She knows that God is in charge and that He is the only One who first and foremost deserves my interest, praise, and respect.