 |
| | Greg Kandra (Photo courtesy CBS) | |
Back in the 1950s, a woman I know found herself facing a serious medical crisis. She and her husband had been married for 10 years and had one child, but had then experienced a number of problem pregnancies. The woman had suffered two miscarriages, including a set of twins. She was convinced she’d never carry another baby to term. In quiet desperation, she and her husband did the only thing they could: They turned to the Blessed Mother.
For nine consecutive Mondays, the couple prayed the Miraculous Medal novena for their unborn baby: “Oh, Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee…” And their prayer had a powerful effect. Defying the odds, the woman not only carried the child to term, but she delivered a happy and healthy baby boy in June of 1959. That baby was me.
It has always amazed me that my mother — a New Jersey Methodist who converted to Catholicism when she married my father — embraced devotion to the Blessed Mother so fervently and completely. But maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. A God who whispers on the wind and calls out from a burning bush is capable of anything. Or, as the angel so succinctly put it to Mary: “Nothing is impossible with God.”
I’ve always felt that Mary has been quietly repeating that message in my own life. When I think back on my relationship with the Blessed Mother — one that’s lasted nearly 50 years — I’m in awe. She hasn’t appeared to me in visions or whispered messages to me on a mountaintop. She hasn’t asked me to strike a medal in her honor or dig for healing water in my backyard. No, our relationship has been much more mundane. That, I think, is what has made it so remarkable. Like countless other Catholics, I have experienced Mary in ordinary ways that have helped me to more deeply appreciate this woman “full of grace.”
When I was growing up, she was always, somehow, a presence in our home — in a statue on the bureau or on a medal around my neck or a holy card tucked into the mirror over the dresser. At school, the Sisters of St. Joseph taught us how to pray the Rosary with the enormous black beads that dangled from their waists. Every spring, during the May procession, hundreds of schoolchildren processed around our church, sometimes in sweltering heat, praying and singing and watching as a little girl in white, one of our schoolmates, placed a crown of fresh flowers atop a porcelain statue.
But in the 1970s, somehow, Mary fell out of fashion. Devotions were discouraged. The processions vanished. Yet, for reasons I can’t quite explain, I never lost the personal connection I felt to our Blessed Mother. For years, I continued to wear a Miraculous Medal — even when my faith flagged during college, and I found myself spending Sunday mornings in places other than church.
As I grew older, and felt myself pulled back to the faith that had shaped me — and had even, perhaps, nourished me in the womb — I visited more and more Marian places of worship. I went on retreats to monasteries dedicated to her, and developed a deep affection for Cistercian spirituality. The Cistercians (or Trappists) have a great love of Mary, and many of the monks, when they make their profession, take her name. On monastic retreats, I am always profoundly moved during Compline, which concludes with a candlelit singing of “Salve Regina.” It is the monks' love song to their mother — and, I came to realize, it was my own, as well:
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of
Mercy!
Our life, our sweetness, and our
hope!
