Mary, "a kind of sacrament"

Mary is the woman who does not see herself, unless it be in Christ and, through Him, in humanity; by giving birth to Jesus, who is the Son of God and the Son of Man, she gave birth to humanity. In the fiat of the Annunciation is the adherence of every one of us.

That is why no being is as permeable to the love of Christ as is the Blessed Virgin. That is why, as Dante says, she is the daughter of her Son. She is born of her Son, according to divine life, and that is why she was born of Him as He could be born of her.

This is precisely the reason why the Most Blessed Virgin remains a way of light to Jesus for us. It is a fact that it is impossible not to love the Blessed Virgin when we love Christ...

The Most Blessed Virgin is a kind of sacrament, the sacrament of God's tender love for us, for God is as much a father as a mother; and besides, she is especially the Mother of Christ in us.

For Mary's motherhood is not a motherhood in time, it is a motherhood in eternity because she conceived in a total and absolute gift of herself, because she adopted us all in this acceptance of Jesus within her entire being. There is no end to her motherhood. She is the one who is the Mother of Christ in our lives; that is her role throughout eternity.

Hence, it is absolutely natural for us to expose ourselves to the radiant influence of the Blessed Virgin in order to receive from her this Christ she is eternally responsible for bring to life in us. This is a wonderful and infallible gesture. It is impossible to turn ourselves to the Blessed Virgin without reaching Christ through her for, since she has nothing, she can only lead us to Him.

To follow that road is to follow the very order of the Incarnation since it is through Mary that Jesus entered the world. It is always through Mary that Christ will enter into our souls; and the most amazing part of our trust in this inexhaustible motherhood of the Blessed Virgin is that we can at every moment avail ourselves of the love of the Blessed Virgin and offer it to our Lord.

~Father Maurice Zundel in With God in Our Daily Life

Dear Mary, Virgin of Advent, I follow you because I know you will lead me to your beloved  Son, Jesus, whom you carried in your womb with love beyond all telling.  Amen.

Silence

But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. ~Luke 2:19

Do we understand at last that action must be born of silence, and abide in silence, and issue in silence, and that its power must be the emanation and the radiation of silence, since its sole aim is to make men capable of hearing the Word that silently reverberates in their souls?

Education, government, instruction, and spiritual direction, how much all these would be changed, how efficacious and liberating they would all become if parents, politicians, teachers and priests brought to their task the mysterious effacement of the Host, if their words became silent, and the exercise of their authority had no other purpose than to open the soul to the silence of God.

All speech and reasoning, all eloquence and science, all methods and psychologies, all slogans and suggestions, are not worth a minute's silence, in which the soul, completely open, yields itself to the embrace of the Spirit.

This is the adorable secret of a visit to the Blessed Sacrament or a visit, possible even more frequently, to the Trinity present in our soul and the souls of our brethren.

Is this not the first Church to build: the invisible cathedral erected in our hearts to the silent Word?

~from The Splendour of the Liturgy by Maurice Zundel

Dear Mary, woman wrapped in silence, help us to build an invisible cathedral in our hearts to your Beloved Son, the silent Word. There let us adore Him as you did -- in spirit and in truth, "lost in wonder, love and praise."

Mary and God's Maternal Love

...God remains the boundless ocean of Being. But He is equally the boundless ocean of Love. And in His abysses of light a heart beats everlastingly, and it is a Mother's heart.

All the love in the hearts of mothers is derived from this Divine Source. How loving then must that Source be!

God is more mother than all mothers, infinitely more: as also He is Father, infinitely.

And this perhaps is the deepest intention of the homage paid to the Blessed Virgin by the Church of her Son; not so much to honor the Mother of our Savior for the pre-eminent holiness with which she is endowed and the maternal share which is hers in the scheme of redemption -- though her person is so intimately dear to us and her tender compassion is so ready to aid, but even more, since everything created, even the highest, is directed towards God as its end, to reveal in her, as in a living sacrament, God's maternal love.

~Maurice Zundel in The Splendour of the Liturgy

Dear Mary, Mother most wonderful, thank you for revealing to us God's maternal love. Amen.

Today, not tomorrow...

A woman who really loves does not say to herself: "Tomorrow, I will love my husband, tomorrow, I will love my children, tomorrow, I will have time to think of them." But it is now that she loves them, because each task is performed for them in anticipation of their return. Now is the time that she loves them and she totally commits herself in everything she does.

That is exactly what we must do. There is no question for us of waiting until afternoon. It is now, here, it is later in the refectory, at your desk or with your machines. That is where God is waiting for you. There lies your eternity, your infinite communion, because each human act, if it is a gift of ourselves, is an act creating eternity …

~from With God in Our Daily Life by Fr. Maurice Zundel

You know, O my God, that to love You here on earth I have only today. ~St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Today, dear Lord, only today! Today -- where life is born, where hope arises, where eternity begins and all is made new. Today is where You abide, "the room where exiled love lays down its victory." My God, today You are waiting for me! Let me hurry to You, let me come to Love! Amen.