What do Mother’s Day and preparing for Pentecost have to do with one another? Making room to receive divine Love.
As we celebrate our mothers in May, we also celebrate Christ’s mother Mary. Not only does she nurture, care, guide, and protect us, but she is also the very model from which we learn what it means to be a Church, – how to be a People of God and true disciples of Christ. She who first received the Holy Spirit, from Whom she conceived and bore Christ, was there in the Upper Room praying with the apostles when they too received the Holy Spirit from which the Church was born into the world. We can learn from her how to be more receptive to the gift of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts at baptism, and for His creative grace to bear fruit in our lives.
Pope Benedict XVI offers rich insights into what the Church learns about herself in and through Mary in a work he did with theologian and priest Hans Urs von Balthasar titled Mary – The Church at the Source.
He asserts that “the Church learns concretely what she is and is meant to be by looking at Mary.” In contrast to our self-centered tendencies and our individualistic world, Mary shines as a woman completely open to the Lord, the mystery of His will, and participation in His saving work of love for mankind. He writes, “She does not wish to be just this one human being who defends and protects her own ego. She does not regard life as a stock of goods of which everyone wants to get as much as possible for himself. Her life is such that she is transparent to God, ‘habitable’ for him. Her life is such that she is a place for God.“
How can we be more “habitable”? How can we make a place for God? This was the work of the prayer and waiting that Christ commanded of the apostles between His Ascension into Heaven and Pentecost.
“And while staying with them he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, ‘you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.'” Acts 1:4-5
Relationships grow insofar as we open up to each other. It requires giving of oneself and receptivity to the other. In regard to intimate relationship with God, this requires making space for the Holy Spirit to dwell – not in isolation, but in a continual dialogue of listening prayer.
But how do we pray effectively? How can it be fruitful instead of sterile and dry? Again, Mary provides a model. First, we listen attentively, then contemplate and appropriate His word, then respond with action. Jesus had the greatest respect for His mother because of this. When Mary was praised for getting to be Jesus’ physical mother, He pointed instead to her strength of faith which made His conception possible:
As he said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!” But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” Luke 11:27-28 RSV
How can we be followers of Christ, if we never actually listen and let Him guide us? If we rarely pray, and if that prayer consists solely of requests to God, then it remains a self-directed life rather than a God-directed life. Oftentimes we try to lead Christ along our path, asking Him to bless our plans and provide earthly prosperity. Instead, we need to pause and make the time and mental space to really listen to the Lord and what He asks of us. We do this through praying with Scripture – His Word to us – or reading quality spiritual books that draw us deeper into the mysteries of our faith. We can also meditate using the rosary, since it guides us in reflection on each of the key moments of Christ’s life.
Robert Cardinal Sarah offers instructive advice about this type of prayer in his work the Catechism of the Spiritual Life
“The important thing, when we pray, is not so much what we say to God but rather the work that He accomplishes in us while we remain silent in His presence, when we agree to let ourselves be cured of our lack of love. Prayer does not consist of laying a hand on God, but of letting God lay his Hand on us. Otherwise, our prayer will be sterile. Such prayer requires silence, recollection, interior availability, humility in the presence of God’s holiness.”
The apostles, who had asked Jesus to teach them to pray, knew the great prayer of surrender – the Our Father. They also knew from His example the importance of regularly drawing away from the crowds to converse in prayer with the Father, and always before a mission. They also had Mary with them, the first and longest disciple of Christ and a woman who constantly lived in a contemplative openness to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
“Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away; and when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.” Acts 1:12-14
What peace Mary must have brought the apostles! Jesus promised He would not leave them orphans, and He never did. From the Cross, He gave them Mary as their mother, and on Pentecost the Holy Spirit – Who proceeds from love of the Father and the Son.
In closing, let’s take a lesson from Mary. Let’s make space for silence, for intentional listening to our Lord. From that listening, let us act on His calling in our hearts, in communion with the Holy Spirit.
“If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” John 14:23
Finally, a special shout out to all the mothers today! We honor you because you made space in your body and in your heart, giving life through your constant love and care!
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© 2024 Angela M Jendro
*Scriptural texts, unless otherwise noted, are taken from The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)
*Pray and Reflect with full guided prayer meditations on the Sunday Gospel reading in my book Take Time For Him and its series on Amazon and Kindle!