Ave Maria Meditations
My most pure Mother, my soul so poor, all stained with wretchedness and sin cries out to your maternal heart. In your goodness deign, I beseech you, to pour out on me at least a little of the grace that flowed into you with such infinite profusion from the Heart of God. Strengthened and supported by this grace, may I succeed in better loving and serving Almighty God who filled your heart completely, and who created the temple of your body from the moment of your Immaculate Conception.
The Eternal Father created her pure and immaculate and is well pleased in her for she is the worthy dwelling of His only Son… The Son who chose her for His Mother poured His wisdom into her that from the very beginning with infused knowledge, she knew her God. She loved and served Him in the most perfect manner as He never until then had been loved and served on this earth… The Holy Ghost poured His love into her; she was the only creature worthy or capable of receiving this love in unlimited measure because no other had sufficient purity to come so near to God…
Have pity on me! May one compassionate look of yours revive me, purify me and lift me up to God; raising me from the fifth of this world that I may go to Him who created me… dear Mother, make me love Him!
From a Meditation Prayer on Mary Immaculate by Saint Padre Pio (feast day Sept. 23rd)
