Ave Maria Meditations
Who would dare to suppose that You, O God Unending, Eternal One, loved me from all time, and even more than all time, since it is from the very moment that You are God-hence You loved me and love me always?…
Even though I did not yet exist, You already loved me, and precisely because You loved me, O Loving God, You brought me forth from nothingness into being! For me You created the heavens strewn with stars, for me the earth, seas, mountains, rivers and so many, many beautiful things on the face of this earth…
But this was not enough: in order to show me close-up, how tenderly You love me, You came down from heaven with the purest of delight to this sullied and tear-stained earth, lived Your life amidst poverty, pain and sorrow; until at last, despised and derided, You willed to be painfully strung up on the shamed gallows between two thieves…
It is through such a terrible and highly sacrificial means that You redeemed me, O God of Love!
Who would dare to suppose?
You did not however stop at this, but seeing that nineteen centuries would pass by, since these proofs of Your love poured themselves forth and that only then would I appear on this earth, You even took that into account! Your Heart did not permit that I would be nourished only by the remembrance of Your great love.
So You chose to remain on this lowly earth in the Most Holy and Wonderful Sacrament of the Altar and now come to me and unite Yourself with me-fully, because under the form of food…
And now Your Blood flows in my blood, Your soul, O Incarnate God, permeates my soul, nourishes it and fortifies it…
O great wonder! Who would dare to suppose?
And what more could You have given to me, O God, in giving me Yourself to have as my very own? Your Heart burning with love for me directed You to grant me one more gift: yes, still one more gift! You told us to become your children, if we wish to enter the Kingdom of heaven [cf. Mt 18: 3]. And You know that a child needs a mother: You yourself established this rule of love.
And so Your goodness and mercy created for us a Mother – the personal embodiment of Your graciousness and Your bondless love – and from beneath the cross on Golgotha You give Her to us and us to Her. You are resolved, O God Who Loves us, that She should be for us a powerful Mediatrix of all Your graces and our Advocate – You will deny Her nothing, just as She is incapable of denying anything to anyone.
St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe
