A reflection – In Praise of Mary.
Mary, our Mother, you are our beacon light in a dark world;
A globe, resting securely in your caring hands
as you offer it with confidence to a loving Father;
A world enfolded in the robe of your maternal compassion;
A serpent, crushed beneath your feet,
triumphantly proclaiming victory over evil,
evil of sin, of selfishness, of injustice, of oppression.
A globe bedecked with jewels –
gifted and graced by your visitations;
love letters of a caring Father to his wayward children;
heaven touching earth;
Rue du Bac, Lourdes, Knock, Chestochowa, Fatima etc,
forever hallowed and immortalised – power-houses of prayer;
magnets, drawing a searching, starving humanity to its knees,
a humanity hungering for God.
Mary, lily among thorns,
Woman, silent and strong, standing at the foot of the cross;
you experienced the sadness of losing Jesus and the joy of finding Him;
you know that true greatness is born of pain and struggle.
Mary, mystical rose,
You opened and unfolded to God’s designs for you freely and without resistance.
With a faith not seeking rational explanations,
you uttered your Fiat – a fiat which changed the face of the earth,
providing an earthly dwelling-place for our God.
Mary, arc of the Covenant,
“our tainted nature’s solitary boast”,
You nurtured the Holy One in your womb
while you awaited with eager expectation the astounding moment of his birth.
Help us to savour something of your pain, your hope, your joy,
as we struggle to give birth to Jesus in the womb of our lives.
Mary, seat of wisdom,
You knew the wisdom of accepting the folly of the cross;
Give us something of your enlightenment, discernment and faith.
Mary, a mediatrix of graces,
The first of a redeemed pilgrim people to arrive home,
Be ever close to us, wayfarers, journeying to our heavenly homeland.
Mary, woman of Genesis,
You heralded redemption to a lost humanity from the beginning of time.
Mary, woman of the Apocalypse,
Adorned with the sun, the moon beneath your feet.
Mary, gate of heaven,
You beckon us to horizons of hope and joy,
The hope and joy of a loving embrace from a Trinitarian God.
Mary, queen of heaven, queen of the universe, queen of peace,
you are constantly interceding for us through Jesus, in the Spirit, to the Father.
Your message of prayer, penance, fasting and conversion too often falls on deaf ears.
Attune us, sensitize us to its urgency in our strife-torn world.
The Community, how you love it!
Established guardian, you graced it with your medal and scapulars,
God’s gifts, visibly, tangibly, touching countless lives, miraculously, dramatically.
Grace us with the gift of prayer,
The prayer of contemplatives in action’
‘Ave Maria, gratia plena’ be the refrain in the melody of our lives.
Sr Christine O’Mahony DC