In the Footsteps of St. Louis Marie de Montfort
"Footsteps Online"
Spring 2004 (Volume 9, Issue 1)
The Woman at the Cross
Fr. Ronnie Mitchell, S.M.M. was inspired by the Pope's letter to write this reflection, which is also appropriate to this season of Lent.
A little boy was lost in the great city of London. He had strayed away from his parents. All he knew was that he lived near Charing Cross. A policeman found him and asked him, "Where is your home"? The lad thought for a few moments and then with wisdom beyond his years, replied, "Take me to the Cross and I'll find my way home"!
The Cross is the magnet, the compass, and the direction finder that brings us home to God's eternal embrace. It is not the Cross in itself that is the object of worship but rather it is the way or means by which we come to know God's redemptive love for suffering humanity. This is the Secret of Mary as taught by the great Marian teacher and preacher, St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort (1673-1716). Mary teaches us how to relate to suffering and to turn blows into blessings. She shows us how to walk the path of divine wisdom.
If you are standing at the foot of some cross just now then Mary's Secret is for you. Perhaps you are reading "Footsteps" from a hospital bed or prison cell. You may be at home coping with the fact that your sales job has just packed up or you may have just listened to a distraught daughter who has tearfully informed you that her marriage is "on the rocks". You could have just finished a Rosary for your soldier son who is at this moment peacekeeping on the streets of Basra or Baghdad.
No life is exempt from the shadow of the Cross in some shape or form and to a greater or lesser degree. So Mary is God's chosen one to bring us home to the loving embrace of Jesus who alone is "the Way, the Truth and the Life" for humankind's entire journey to the Heavenly Kingdom. God choose Mary to stand at the foot of the Cross to show us the meaning of patience, perseverance and above all, LOVING OBEDIENCE TO THE FATHER'S WILL.
If Mary can choose to do this then so can you or I. The graces available to Mary are also available to us through her intercession. We may not be called to the same level of commitment as she was, but whatever God is asking of us we can do it by grace freely won for us by Christ's death on the Cross. To turn away, to run away, is to lose unfathomable joy.
In his recent letter to the Religious of the Montfortian Congregations, Pope John Paul II says that through history, and especially in the most difficult times, the Church has contemplated with particular intensity this significant event of the Passion: Mary's stance at the foot of the Cross.
Mary's presence there highlights for us the truth that His "hour has come." At Cana the Hour had not fully come (John 2:4). The transformation of the water into wine and the subsequent pouring out of the wine for the celebration was a shadow or type of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on that Good Friday. The Holy Father teaches how Mary is again intimately involved in the work of our redemption.
"It is finished," cries out Jesus as he pours out His spirit (John 19:30). Here at Calvary it is not water that is changed into wine. Rather through the blood shed in loving sacrifice and the Spirit poured out, is it made possible for our humanity to be changed into His divinity.
Now Mary is present on the Hill of Redemption to "Mother" the "New Birth" experience spoken about by Jesus in Jn 3:7 to us. No one is born without a mother on the natural plane. And as grace builds on nature so in the realm of the spiritual are we born again by grace and through the active participation of Mary.
The Blessed Virgin is truly Our Mother. She accompanies us on our pilgrimage of faith, hope and love towards an ever more intense union with Christ. No mother leaves a baby at birth but from infancy assists that child to grow to the fullness of his or her potential. So too Our Blessed Mother does not leave us to ourselves but watches over us, guides and directs our gaze towards JESUS over the course of our earthly lifetime.
It is through obedience that the Son of God is born into the world. The dying on the Cross to redeem humanity from the power of sin is an extension of this obedience to the Father. Jesus takes the very nature of a servant... "He humbled Himself and became obedient to death - even death on a Cross". (Philippians 2:8).
At the foot of the Cross Mary unites herself with this obedience of Jesus. Montfort writes that of all creatures Mary is most totally devoted to the will of Jesus. It follows therefore that "the more one is consecrated to Mary, the more one is consecrated to Jesus". This great Marian Saint believes that in fact Jesus lives and reigns in Mary. It was necessary for the humanity of Jesus to be born in the natural order of Mary.
Jesus then "living in Mary" sanctifies our humanity and makes it possible for us "to be born again" through our acceptance of Mary as our Mother. As the Holy Father writes in this edifying Letter to the Montfortian Family, "In the virginal birth of Jesus, it is, in some sense, the whole of humanity which is reborn".
