599. October 12, Our Lady of the Pillar

Meditations no. 526 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Devotion to Our Lady of the Pillar attests to the strength Mary gives to her Son’s apostles.

In one of his homilies, our Father said: All the feasts of our Lady are great events, because they are opportunities that the Church gives us to show with deeds that we love Mary. Thus he encouraged us to make the most out of every Marian feast, always looking for ways to love the Blessed Virgin more.

Today’s feast, Our Lady of the Pillar, commemorates one of holy Mary’s many interventions on behalf of her children. According to an ancient tradition that has been orally handed down to us, St James the Greater was the first of our Lord’s apostles to preach the Gospel on the Iberian peninsula, which was then known as the finis terrae, the western edge of the world. But his apostolic ministry at first bore very little fruit. When discouragement led him to consider abandoning his efforts, our Lord sent his Blessed Mother, still alive on earth at the time, to appear to him on the banks of the Ebro river. Our Lady encouraged her Son’s apostle, assuring him that his efforts would not be in vain. And there, in Aragon, she left as a reminder the pillar on which she had appeared, which is still preserved today in the Basilica of Pilar in Saragossa.

This wonderful Marian devotion is closely tied to the beginnings of the spread of the Gospel in Spain. In it we can see a reflection of the Church’s universal belief that our Lady bestowed her effective help on her Son’s apostles. An early document, attributed to one of the Fathers of the Church, gives us the following brief summary of our Lady’s life after Christ’s ascension: She was the hope of Christians then and always. Mary will be the Mediatrix and strength of believers until the end of the world. But at that time her concern and effort to correct and consolidate the New Law of Christianity was more intense, so that the name of Christ would be glorified. The holy Apostles had taken her for their teacher and guide. They spoke to her about their problems, and she gave them her advice and suggestions. Whenever they found themselves near Jerusalem, they would make sure to visit her.

This is how our Lady treats those who dedicate their entire lives to the extension of the Kingdom of Heaven. Mary consoles them in their difficulties, encourages them in their apostolate, and fills their hearts with joy at the apostolic fruit her powerful intercession wins for them. On our part, we have to bring our Lady into each of our apostolic endeavours, because, as our Father told us, many conversions, many decisions to give oneself to the service of God, have been preceded by an encounter with Mary. Our Lady has encouraged us to look for God, to desire to change, to lead a new life.

All powerful and eternal God, grant that through the intercession of the glorious Mother of your Son we may obtain a strong faith, a firm hope and a constant charity.

Praying the aspirations our Father taught us: Domine, ut videam!, Domina, ut sit!

The feast of Our Lady of the Pillar has special importance for God’s children in Opus Dei, since our Founder prayed so many times before this image in Saragossa.

My devotion to the Our Lady of Pilar began with my parents, who imbued their children’s hearts with their Aragonese piety. Later on, when I was studying for the priesthood and when studying law at the University of Saragossa, I would visit our Lady of Pilar every day. In March 1925, I celebrated my first Mass in the Holy Chapel. … And since then the Mother of God has given me very many unmistakable signs of her help. I say this openly, just as a notary attests to a deed, so that there be a public record of my gratitude for events that would not have happened if not for our Lord’s grace, which always reaches us through the intercession of his Mother.

There are many aspects of this feast directly related to the history of the Work. Especially important is the fact that, for many years, our Father went every day to the Basilica to seek our Lady’s intercession as he strove to know God’s Will. On one occasion he told us, Ever since I first began experiencing those intimations of divine love, I tried, in spite of all my limitations, to carry out what He was expecting of this poor instrument. Those intimations of God’s love led me to the priesthood. And amid that yearning to know the divine will, I prayed constantly, repeating: Domine, ut sit!, Domine, ut videam!, like the poor beggar in the Gospels who cried out because he knew that God can do everything. Lord, that I may see! Lord that it may come about! And I also repeated, in Latin that was not very scholarly, but filled with confidence in my heavenly Mother: Domina, ut sit!, Domina, ut videam! Our Lady has always helped me to discover her Son’s will.

We too want to know what God is expecting of each of us, so that we can carry it out as soon as possible. If ever we seem to find ourselves in the dark, lacking the light needed to discern God’s specific plans for us, the surest course of action is to go to the Blessed Virgin and pray those aspirations that our Father prayed with such confidence until the very end of his life: Domine, ut videam!, Domina, ut sit!

We ask our Lord and his Blessed Mother to help us see the things of the world with clarity, with supernatural outlook: those that seem big to us and those that seem small, because everything becomes great when there is love and supernatural outlook. Help us to see things with the light of our reason, with clear ideas.

Our Lady’s help in the re-evangelization of society.

To Jesus we always go, and to him we always return, through Mary, wrote our Father many years ago. We can apply this truth to both individuals and societies. Therefore now, just as centuries ago, we need holy Mary’s motherly assistance to bring about the re-evangelization of society. Thus one of the most urgent apostolic tasks facing us is that of instilling devotion to our Lady in the people with whom we deal.

As our Founder advised us in an article he published about our Lady of the Pillar: We can’t abandon the many Marian devotions that are proofs of our love for our Lady. Otherwise how are we men, who need to show our love with specific words and gestures, going to express our affection, our gratitude, our veneration for the Lady who, by her fiat-be it done unto me according to your word-made us brothers of God and heirs of his glory?

If devotion to Mary weakens in the soul of a Christian, he immediately begins to stray off the right road and could easily end up losing the love of God. The Holy Trinity chose to have the Word come down to earth to redeem us from sin and to restore us to our supernatural condition as children of God. And also so that we would be able to see our God clothed in flesh like ours, so that we could contemplate the palpable and tangible reality that we have been called to become partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet 1: 4). And this “divinization,” which comes to us through grace, is a direct consequence of the Word having taken human nature upon himself in the most pure womb of holy Mary.

Our Lady, therefore, can never disappear from the Christian’s daily horizon. It is not a matter of indifference to stop frequenting those shrines her children have built for her out of love; it is not a matter of indifference to pass by her image without an affectionate greeting; it is not a matter of indifference to let time go by without singing that loving serenade to her, the holy Rosary, a song of faith, the nuptial song of the soul that has found Jesus through Mary.

Now we can understand the true meaning of Pilar. It is not, nor has it ever been, the cause of any sort of sterile sentimentalism. Rather, it is the firm base for a custom of true and solid Christian conduct. At Pilar, as at Fatima and Lourdes, at Einsiedeln and Loreto, and at Guadalupe and so many other sites that Christian piety has built and continues to build for Mary, God’s sons and daughters are educated in the faith.

The story of Pilar takes us back to the days of the apostles, to the very beginning of evangelization, the proclamation of the Good News. We find ourselves in the same situation today. Two thousand years count for nothing in the face of our Lord’s eternal grandeur. James, Paul, John, Andrew and the other apostles are walking alongside us. Peter resides in Rome, with the unceasing responsibility to confirm us all in obedience to the faith. If we close our eyes and let our imagination act, we can relive the scene that St Luke relates, as if in a recent letter. All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren (Acts 1: 14).

Our Lady of the Pillar speaks to us of strength in our faith, our hope, and our love. With Mary, in the Cenacle, we receive the Holy Spirit And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting (Acts 2: 2). The Paraclete will not abandon his Church. Our Lady will multiply the number of Christians on earth who are convinced that it is worthwhile to give their lives for the Love of God.