Entrustment to Mary = Accepting God's Undeserved Bestowals

I have mentioned before how I have spent most of my life believing I had to earn God's love. This spirituality has helped me realize that God loves me always and completely, even when I sin and turn away from Him. It is still hard though for me to believe I do not earn God's gifts. For example, last week when taking a trip, the flight my husband and I were on was overbooked and the airline asked for volunteers to give up their seats, offering a travel voucher plus a direct flight to a city which just happened to be our final destination. Instead of flying on a 5 hour flight then having to get on another plane for 2.5 more hours, we flew 4 hours on a direct route. Plus, the flight we were supposed to be on ended up delayed getting in 5 hours past the original arrival time. PLUS, my suitcase made the exchange of airlines, which the attendant did not think would happen. Very special graces indeed! Yet, I still tried to put myself on a "deserving" pedestal for these bestowals. On our trip back home, we were again bumped from a full flight, as our assigned seats were claimed "broken" [we were never given an explanation of what that meant] and again received travel vouchers. We now have credits for future flights, which we can use for the future trips we have planned. God freely gave us special graces, which were certainly undeserved by us, His unworthy children.

It was by no mere coincidence that God had my prayer group reading the following section in the book The Gift of Faith this week:

"It sometimes seems to us that we should win God over, that we should merit His love. But He loves you because you are His child, not because you are worthy. Agape is love that creates, that loves you not because you are worthy of being loved, but to make you worthy of it. Agape desires to create an ever increasing good in you. Someone who has received special graces from God is surprised that these graces have been bestowed on him. But agape love descends on the unworthy - descends on us all - because we are all unworthy and we all need this creative love that creates good. The anguish for God, who is love, is that He cannot pour out His love fully, that he cannot boundlessly flood the human souls with this love. God is continuously seeking open hearts on which He may pour out His infinite love without limits." [1]

 

God has once again shown me how much He loves me and desires to bestow graces upon me - gifts I will never - nor can ever - earn. Slowly, my skewed thinking is changing. Makes me wonder how many other special gifts I have missed out on due to my closed heart. But also, makes me hopeful, that with my Blessed Mother WE can learn from these lessons, so WE can open my heart more fully to receive God's infinite love without limits!

 

[1] Tadeusz Dajczer, The Gift of Faith, 3rd. ed. (Ft. Collins, CO: IAMF, 2012), 245.

 

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.