I was never a "Mary guy." Like many converts, I struggled for most of my early years as a Catholic of 'what to do' with Mary. I prayed the rosary, but truth be told it wasn't my favorite of prayers, and I struggled with distraction.
But the last year has been different. Mary, the Mother of God, has been working in our lives in very clandestine and remarkable ways, and it all started when when found a Miraculous Medal and started wearing it. It unlocked the storeroom of grace, and they have been flowing every since. Deb's mom died less than a week after discovering the medal, and the story of St. Catherine Laboure (who commissioned the Medal at Mary's request) spoke to my wife's heart, since St. Catherine had also lost her mother and said to the Blessed Virgin "Now, you will be my mother." We (I) were also not previously not open to life, and my heart began to soften when it came to welcoming children. We got pregnant unexpectedly after we made the decision to trust God and try to honor him with our fertility, though we lost the child at around 7 weeks. Deb described being downstairs one day not long after and seeing a child running across the hallway out of the corner of her eye, thinking it was our 4 year old daughter, but when she went upstairs she was in her room. To this day she can't explain it, but she's convinced it was our little Catherine Rose, whom we had lost before she was born.
Other things have been happening too. At a talk on the stages of the spiritual life, I realized I have no hope of ascending in it unless I get some serious help. The spirituality of the Little Flower came to mind, who desired to enter Heaven with "empty hands" in a spirit of total dependance, like a little child. St. Therese was intimidated by the heroic characters of the great saints and in recognizing her littleness and weakness, sought a more simple and direct way, like an elevator that ascends directly and swiftly. Who could help me more than the very Mother of God herself, who desires to show us the way to Heaven as a model of perfect discipleship to her Son, and who has made it known with urgency in the past two centuries through the messages she seeks to impart.
The priest at Mass on Friday described in his homily one of the lesser known Apparitions that took place when the Virgin Mary appeared to a young Belgian immigrant woman, Adele Brise, on three occasions in October of 1859 in a small town in Wisconsin. She was instructed by the Virgin to “Gather the children in this wild country, and teach them what they should know for salvation … Go and fear nothing. I will help you.” I had no idea the Virgin Mary had ever appeared in our own country, but she had, and is described as Our Lady of Good Help.
Of course this was only one of many appearances of the Virgin Mary throughout the world for the purposes of giving us a message. But just who did she rely on to deliver those messages?
Take a look at these approved appearances of the Virgin Mary and see if you can see the common thread:
The Apparitions at Fatima - the three children to whom she appeared were Lucia dos Santos, aged ten, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, brother and sister, aged eight and seven respectively.
The La Salette Apparition - September 1846 Maximin Giraud was eleven years old at the time and Mélanie Calvat fourteen.
The Apparitions at Lourdes - On Thursday 11 February 1858, fourteen year old Bernadette Soubirous saw a beautiful young girl in a niche at a rocky outcrop called Massabielle, about a half mile outside the town.
The Apparition at Pontmain - appeared to Joseph and Eùgene Barbadette, aged ten and twelve, sons of simple and hardworking country folk.
The Apparitions at Beauraing, 1932-33 - On the evening of 29 November 1932, she appeared to Fernande Voisin, a fifteen year old girl, Andree Degeimbre, aged fourteen, and her sister Gilberte, aged nine
The Apparitions at Banneux in 1933 - Mary appeared eight times to Mariette Beco, aged 11, outside the family home at Banneux, a small village, in Belgium. She described herself as the "Virgin of the Poor," and promised to intercede for the poor, the sick and the suffering.
The Virgin did not appear to a group of moral theologians, or important dignitaries. She appeared to simple, common folk, the majority of them being...children. She is sending us a message amongst those who are most disposed to receive it.
Are we surprised? We know when the Lord chose the Twelve they were simple men, fisherman and the like, to follow Him. Jesus prayed, "I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants" (Mt 11:25) and admonished us that "unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." (Mt 18:3)
Children know they are helpless apart from the one who cares for them. They recognized their "littleness" and dependence. They are receptive because their hearts are still open to belief, with less to overcome, less to peel back--that is, the layers of cynicism and pride that build up on the hearts of adults over time.
How might we, on the other hand, be described? I think of the words of Christ when He said "Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me'" (Mk 7:6). We pray without believing, and worship without honoring. We go through the motions while missing the message.
So how do we become like little children? I'm still working it out myself, but I know becoming like a child holds the key to entering the Kingdom. So, it's important.
One hard part in becoming like children means we give up a lot of control, the control we think we have over our lives, and hand it over to God, telling him, "I don't know where to go, I don't know what to do, I need help, and I need you Abba. Save me." It is very simple and very hard for us as adults. It is also very necessary, since God can't work with a heart that is hardened, a door that is closed.
The second is the risk of looking like fools. Most of us know we don't really have it together in our lives, but we act like we do, putting on the facade in good company. When we take it off, expose ourselves to being "fools for Christ," we begin to enter into that mystery of Scripture and the Rosary of the mocking of Christ, the crowning with thorns. Prayer, in the modern world and to the modern mind, is complete foolishness. It is regarded as a waste of time, a superstition and a crutch, a psychological maladaptation, and a weakness. Of course we know that is not the case and is in fact quite the opposite, since it brings us in touch with reality itself, the 'behind the curtain' world beneath the facade. Nevertheless, it is foolishness in the eyes of the world.
The third is the disposition to belief. Children believe. They believe in things they don't see and can't prove. They believe what their parents tell them about the world. If we teach them to be cynical and anxious and materialistic, they will be cynical and anxious and materialistic. If we are cynical and anxious and materialistic ourselves, that is what we pass on. But Christ calls us to Repent, and BELIEVE in the Gospel (Mk 1:15), not to be unbelieving but to BELIEVE (Jn 20:27). The smarter we think we are, the less inclined we are to believe what we do not understand. So don't think of yourself as too smart! Humility is a foundational virtue that others build on, it lays the foundation, and we can learn it from our children and the children we work with and are surrounded by.
Finally, I think the innocence of children is so important in a world in which they are so vulnerable of being robbed of it. Preserving innocence safeguards the secret chamber of the soul, in our lives and in our children's. When we defile the Temple of the Holy Spirit, His indwelling in us, through inviting in sin, we lose the signal, the radio frequency through which God tunes into our hearts to speak to us. We get disoriented because we can't hear and can't see, and wander in the wilderness without clear direction. The first thing they say when you are lost in the woods is to stop, rather than go off and keep marching when you don't know where you are going. Sin has a tendency to get away from us, for "when desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sink when it is full grown, gives birth to death" (James 1:15). Remaining in a state of grace, and not conceding ground to sin, disposes us to sanctifying and actual grace that can work and grow in us to keep that signal going, so we, in turn, know when and where to walk.
The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus and the Mother of God, was a simple girl when the Angel appeared to her, whose supreme gift to the world was her YES to God. And so, she chooses to appear also to those who will answer in kind, with a YES, risking to look foolish before the world to warn them of the coming chastisement should they continue to persist in unbelief and unrepentance. Christ takes the children to his lap and places them in the seats of honor. He throws open the doors to the banquet hall and calls us in, and his Mother encourages us to get dressed for the feast. How long will we continue to ignore her?
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