Accepting What God Has Done for Mary
One
Accepting what God has done for Mary, God also wants to do for us!
In the last few meditations, we have explained what St. Louis De Montfort and Maximilian Kolbe understood, that Mary makes the Holy Spirit visible. Mary is not the Holy Spirit. But she is the created embodiment or manifestation of the Holy Spirit in being and action.
St. John Paul II said that in Mary we see the face of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the more we turn to Mary, the more powerfully the Holy Spirit works in our lives.
We may have a hard time accepting this about Mary because we have a hard time accepting God’s plan for us. This is one reason Mary is so important. Because we see in her what God wants to do in us.
God has raised Mary to such a staggering height, but many cannot accept what God has done for her because they blur the distinction between God and what He has done for Mary.
So let’s begin by setting boundaries so that we may preserve the infinite difference between God and Mary and the rest of humanity.
God is the Father Almighty, the source of all that is, of all things visible and invisible. He is eternal, infinite, unchangeable, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. Neither Mary nor we possess these divine attributes on our own.
All that being true, God raised Mary’s being and activity to participate in a created way in what belongs to God, enabling her to be the Mother of God and the human manifestation of the Spirit, associated with both the Son and the Spirit in the salvation of the world.
That is why Mary rejoices in the Magnificat proclaiming, “The Almighty has done great things for me. Holy is his name.”
Two
The great things God has done for Mary began with her Immaculate Conception.
When God created the world, he gave his Holy Spirit to Adam and Eve. They rejected that gift. And the first creation fell into sin.
God begins to heal the broken world by giving the Holy Spirit to Mary. The Angel Gabriel announced this when he came to her saying, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.”
This phrase “Full of grace” comes from the Greek word Kecharitomene which literally means that from the first moment of her existence, God perfectly filled Mary with the Holy Spirit. She was perfectly filled by the Holy Spirit so that she could live by His life.
Mary does not become God, she does not become the fourth person in God. However, by perfectly filling Mary with the Holy Spirit at her Immaculate Conception, God raised Mary to participate in the divine life, or as St. Peter writes, to become “a partaker of the divine nature.” But in a way like no other, for God makes Mary the perfect human expression of the Holy Spirit.
Three
Once Mary shares in the life of God, then she can take part in the activity of God.
To cooperate presupposes to co-exist, that is, to exist on the same level in order to work together.
To cooperate with the three divine Persons of God, Mary must share in their mode of existence, she must share in their divine life. This gift was given to her at her Immaculate Conception. It is then that her co-existence with God began, raising her up to cooperate with God at the Annunciation.
Her co-existence with God begins at her Immaculate Conception. Her cooperation with God begins at the Annunciation. At her Immaculate Conception, Mary is brought to the divine level so that she can cooperate with God.
God the Father generates the Son on the divine level, and Mary generates the Son on the human level. God the Son redeems the world and Mary cooperates with him as the Co-Redemptrix. God the Holy Spirit gives birth to Jesus, to the Church and to Christians. Mary cooperates with the Spirit as his visible sign and she becomes the Mother of the Church.
Mary participates in the life of God so that she can humanly cooperate in the divine activity.
Four
What does Mary tell us about ourselves?
God’s plan is so much greater than we could ever imagine. God is not like a king who gives a beggar a morsel from his table. In that case, the beggar is never raised beyond his limitations. God is the kind of King who raises us up to his level, to be His children, taken into his household, into the Trinitarian life.
His plan is that we become partakers of His divine nature (as St Peter tells us in 2 Peter1:4) and his co-workers (as Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 3:9).
When we were baptized, God placed His Spirit in our souls so that we could share in His being and his activity. Our being, like Mary’s, has been elevated to a supernatural level. By Baptism, we have become sons and daughters of God.
With God’s grace, with His life dwelling in our soul, we co-exist with God which means we can cooperate with God. We get to do what God does. We can know the truth at the heart of God. We can desire as God desires, love as God loves and become his co-workers in the salvation of the world.
We get to live like God does yet remain fully human. We get to help save the world through prayer, sacrifice, and love.
Five
All this happened in Mary because she said Yes to God. And it may happen in us if we learn to say “Yes” to God.
The mission of Jesus is to give his life to us. The mission of the Holy Spirit is to help us receive Jesus. The Holy Spirit does so through Mary. This is why Jesus offers his Mother to us. By consecration, we invite Mary into the home of our soul to help us receive Jesus. And once we invite her in, then we must learn to live a personal relationship with Mary, moment to moment, day after day.
How do we do this? Practice becoming more aware of the presence of Mary. Every time you see a medal, picture or statue say to Mary, “Ah, Mother, I know you are with me.” Then talk with her. Ask her what to do. Pay attention to her inspirations. Whatever you think she is prompting you to do – do it. The more she sees you trying to follow her guidance the more she will come to your aid.
I sense her presence and I experience her help constantly. I am like a poor, blind, and deaf child who knows that its mother is very close, for I sense the touch of her hand.
If you practice the presence of Mary, I promise, you too will experience her care.