503. February 11, Our Lady of Lourdes

Meditations no. 433 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The Blessed Virgin Mary is truly our Mother.

Today we commemorate the apparition of our Lady at Lourdes. Four years had passed since the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, when our Lady appeared to a pious young girl named Bernadette, who was gathering wood by the shores of the Gave River.

The Immaculate Virgin wanted to shine forth, on an ordinary day, in that place to show once again her motherly love. In our prayer today, we ask ourselves as did the inspired author, Who is this that comes like the breaking of the dawn, beautiful like the moon, splendid like the sun, formidable as an army in array? Our hearts, full of faith, convince us that this Lady is our Mother; such a tremendous gift to us in God’s mercy. This is what the Church tells us using the words of Sacred Scripture in today’s Mass: As a mother comforts a child, so I shall comfort you… At the sight your heart will rejoice, and your limbs regain vigour like the grass. To his servants Yahweh will reveal his hand.

Devotion to our Lady has grown among faithful Christians for ages and has taken the form of many old and new customs practised with great love.

It makes me very happy to see that this devotion is always alive, awakening in Christians a supernatural desire to act as ‘domestici Dei’ (Eph 2: 19), as members of God’s household.

We are God’s family because Christ won our filiation to the Father, and because, while hanging on the Cross, he willed to make us children of his mother as well. Woman, behold, your son. Since then, faithful to the divine purpose for which she was born, Mary continues to spend herself in the service of men, who are all called to be brothers of her son Jesus. The Mother of God is also truly the mother of men.

The Virgin Mary’s motherhood is the basis for our love and our filial devotion. By appearing at Lourdes, our Lady wanted to show how much she loves us. She reminds us that she lives close to each of us, and that we have a wonderful mother in heaven who is aware of the slightest gesture and the smallest need or request of her children.

Nothing moves us to love as much as the awareness of being loved. Today, in a very special way, we experience the meaning of this. If we look at our own life and see how God’s mercy has shown itself, we can each find many reasons for feeling that Mary is our mother in a very special way. Considering the great love that the Virgin Mary has shown in blessing the Work, and each one of us, we want to ask the Lord to teach us to deal with Mary as he himself did, with the same affection and with the same attention, with a filial piety that increases day by day.

Our Marian devotions are an expression of our filial love for the Virgin Mary.

Mary wants us to talk to her, to come to her, to let ourselves be consoled and cared for. She wants us to ask her for a thousand things each day, just as small children do. She told the shepherd girl at Lourdes to say the rosary for several weeks, and all the people who came to the grotto were to pray it with her. Our Lady expects this sign of affection. It is the conversation of small children who repeat the same words tirelessly to their mother, because they love her.

The Father teaches us, In a very natural way we start wanting to speak to the Mother of God, who is also our mother. We want to treat her as someone who is alive. For death has not triumphed over her. She is in body and in soul in the presence of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit… Mary certainly wants us to invoke her, to approach her confidently and to appeal to her as our mother, asking her to ‘show that you are a mother’: Monstra te esse matrem.

In this way, Mary tells us about warmth and security. That is why her name goes straight to our heart. Our relationship with our own mother may show us how to deal with Mary, the lady of the sweet name. We have to love God with the same heart with which we love our parents, our brothers and sisters, the others members of our family and our friends. And we must also love Mary with that same heart.

Now, in our personal prayer, we want to meditate on the particular ways in which we can show our love for Mary. It will suffice to ask ourselves, as the Father has taught us to do, How does a normal son or daughter treat his mother? In different ways, of course, but always affectionately and confidently, never coldly. In an intimate way, through small, commonplace customs. And a mother feels hurt if we omit them. A kiss or an embrace when leaving or coming home, a little extra attention, a few warm words.

The variety of Marian norms in the spirit of Opus Dei is a sign of our need to show affection for Mary in countless ways. We have so many devotions to the Virgin Mary throughout the day, from morning till night. In our relationship with our mother in heaven, we should act in very much the same way. Many Christians have the custom of wearing the scapular. Or else they have acquired the habit of greeting her pictures (a glance is enough) which are found in every Christian home and in many public places. Or else they recall the central events in Christ’s life by saying the rosary, without ever getting tired of repeating its words as people in love do. Or else they mark out a day of the week for her, doing some special little thing for her and thinking particularly about her motherhood. It is God who has given us Mary, and we have no right to reject her. We should go to her with a son’s love and joy.

In all our needs, we go to the Blessed Virgin with the piety of small children.

We strive to honour Mary with the honour that is her due, in accord with the excellence of her being and her mission. It is a singular, exceptional honour, an honour that regrets never being able to equal the honour God rendered her and which she deserves in accord with the divine plan that rests upon her.

All our Marian norms respond to these words. But besides, since we are small children, we need to abandon ourselves into the protective arms of our Mother. Mother, we fly to your protection: sub tuum praesidium. Under that mantle - your mantle - we have grown, as little children grow in the arms of their mother.

Today we want to confirm our determination to go to our Lady always… on good days when the joy of our dedication brings a hymn of thanksgiving to our lips, and on difficult days when tiredness or our faint-heartedness may make the obstacles that we find on our path seem insurmountable. Then we will be convinced that she is security. She is hope. She is the Mother of Fair Love.

Our Lady is always by our side, like a good mother who watches over her children night and day. But we have to stay close to her with affection. And that means we ought to renounce our pride and self-sufficiency, recognising that we can do nothing by ourselves. We must realise that we need grace, and the help of God our Father to find our way and keep to it. To be little, you have to abandon yourself as children do, believe as children believe, beg as children beg.

And we learn all this though contact with Mary. Devotion to our Lady is not something soft and sentimental: It fills the soul with consolation and joy to precisely the extent that it means a deep act of faith making us go outside ourselves and putting our hope in the Lord…

Because Mary is our mother, devotion to her teaches us to be authentic sons: to love truly, without limit; to be simple, without the complications which come from selfishly thinking only about ourselves; to be happy, knowing that nothing can destroy our hope. The beginning of the way, at the end of which you will find yourself completely carried away by love for Jesus, is a trusting love for Mary.

Let us go to our Lady, today, fully convinced that she is also our Mother; appreciating the tremendous graces she wins for mankind, knowing that she will cure us of all our defects and weaknesses. As our Father told us, If I were a leper, my mother would still embrace me. Without any fear, she would kiss my wounds. And the Blessed Virgin? As long as we are on earth, everything can be resolved. And when we feel that we have leprosy, that we are wounded, we should cry out, Mother! And the protection of our mother is like a kiss on our wounds!