This morning at the chapel we celebrated yesterday's Marian feast for the Immaculate Heart of Mary. What a debt of gratitude we owe to the mother of God for her fiat. Take her hand and she will lead you straight to Jesus!
Frankly I can never understand the Protestant contempt for Mary. Do Protestants love their own mothers? How can they when they expect Jesus to see His mother as a rival? She isn't and never has been. She loves Jesus more completely than any other human who has ever lived or will live.
Does a child loving his mother mean he doesn't love his father? People who love one another are not in a contest fighting over who gets most love? The Trinity is our model. God the Father loves the Son so deeply and the Son loves the Father so deeply that their love generates the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. There is no rivalry among the Three Persons of the Trinity. How can there be rivalry between Mary, "Our tainted nature's solitary boast," and her Son Jesus?
From the very first moment of the Incarnation, Mary was leading others to her Son. When Elizabeth greets her saying, "How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Mary replies with an ode to Christ. "My soul magnifies the Lord." Her soul doesn't magnify herself. She goes on to sing His praise. All the verses in Luke chapter 1 begin "He..." All generations will call her blessed because of what "He" has done, not what she has done.
What a debt of gratitude we owe to the Blessed Mother. And Jesus loves gratitude. The gospel for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost, superseded today, tells the event of the curing of the ten lepers. Sad to say, all are cured, but only one, "a stranger" returns to give thanks. The others are so intent on showing themselves to the priests that they forget who cured them. And Jesus who asks, "Were not all ten cleansed?" clearly feels and regrets their shameless ingratitude.
Reading the meditation in the Benedictus prayer companion for today introduced another aspect about gratitude by St. Bernard, author of the Memorare, an appeal for Mary's assistance. Do we thank her when she aids us or just go on our merry way like the nine ungrateful souls cured of their leprosy? Here's what St. Bernard says:
We see many even in the present time importunately ask for what they acknowledge themselves in need of; but we find very few who give thanks for the benefits received. Although we are not to be reproached, because we ask God unceasingly for what we desire, still our prayer loses its efficacy if we prove ungrateful. You see, therefore, that it is not profitable for all to be freed from the leprosy of worldly corruption or from public sin, since ingratitude thereby obtains secret growth in the heart, which is the more dangerous the more it is concealed.
"It seems to me in the light of the Divine Goodness, although others may think differently, that ingratitude is the most abominable of sins and that it should be detested in the sight of our Creator and Lord by all of His creatures who are capable of enjoying His divine and everlasting glory. For it is a forgetting of the gracious benefits and blessings received."
Does that not give you pause? Sunday is a most appropriate day to kneel before a crucifix and thank God for all His blessings, especially the gift of life, our redemption from sin, and the blessing of being able to live in a state of friendship with God, sanctifying grace. Let us say thank you today and every day to the Lord. And what a blessing if we think about and express our gratitude toward all those who have done so much to lead us to Christ. How about writing a thank you note every Sunday to someone who has blessed you. I'm thinking about who I want to write today. It doesn't have to be someone living. Perhaps I'll write a letter in my journal to my parents who nurtured my faith from the cradle. Thank you, Mom and Dad.
Lord Jesus, give me a grateful heart,.
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