Preparation for Total Consecration

WEEK 3:
KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LADY

Our Lady is a superb person to help us come alive to what it means to be baptised. Graced as she is by the Holy Spirit, always reflecting the glory of God on the face of Christ, her authentic living of the Gospel can only help us too if we open ourselves to what she now sees.

Second Day: Mk. 4: 26-29

BIDING OUR TIME

Parable.The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how. The earth produces of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the full grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.

Reflection.In the Gospels nothing seems to be happening once the seed is sown. After the wonder of the opening chapters, announcing and telling of Jesus' birth, infancy and childhood, all goes quiet. The hidden years are really that. And they are long. All that time Mary grew in faith and insight as heart spoke to heart in her home.

Even her Son's brief public life proclaiming the Good News, ending in his crucifixion as she stood beside him with some faithful women, when most of his followers had left him alone, appears to be a failed revolution. Yet appearances are deceptive.

The seed is growing secretly. Jesus rose from the grave. His risen presence through the Spirit was there working through the weakness of the people who made up the early Church.

Now, almost two thousand years later, we know that the Gospel did flourish, not least through the person of the Mother of Jesus. Her influence for good is world-wide. She who first brought Jesus into the world has brought so many to him from every nation under heaven. Her presence is so real to so many. She speaks every language as she is loved and honoured wherever her Son is known. Here is one of the results of the seed growing secretly.

She was blessed because she believed the promises of God in faith, a day at a time. None of this was her doing other than her wholehearted welcome to the word of God. There will also be a harvest in my life as God gives the increase to whatever I offer him. We should long to receive the seed of the Word too, with something of our Lady's fidelity.

Prayer.Lord Jesus, because we do not yet see the harvest, it does not mean that the seed has not been sown. We want results. We would rather not wait. Give us patience and trust.

May your Mother, who has been blessed by every generation, help us recall that her own life, open to the will of God, mirrors all that is shown in the parable.

Montfort.'Mary is the wonderful echo of God. The more a person joins himself to her, the more effectively she unites him to God. When we say "Mary", she re-echoes "God"' (SM 21).