Mary is not only the Mother of Christ, but she is also really and actively Mother to each of us who believes in Him. She was instrumental in uniting the human nature of Christ to the Word; she is also instrumental in uniting each of us to Christ-for we are his Body. Mary is continually cooperating in the formation of Christ in us so much so that we could say that He is continually being born in us of her.

Every time we submit any part of our life to God by doing His will in the way in which He wills, she brings forth in our soul a new measure of the fullness of Christ, and we cooperate in her maternity. Thus the spiritual life is not only lived in union with the Blessed Trinity, but it is also an active union with Mary….

Nor need it be thought that to seek God by recourse to Mary is to lose time by following a roundabout path. Not only is there no time lost, but it would seem that to go to him through Mary is not only the shorter but also the surer way. She is the way chosen by God to come to us; by her intercession she can do all that God can do by His power; she is only too glad to use every opportunity of doing something more for her child Jesus, and she knows better than anyone else how true it is, that all that is done to the least of us is done to Him.

These considerations may encourage those souls who find themselves more at ease in talking to Mary than in any other way of praying. They may rest assured that she will leave nothing undone to unite them to Jesus, nor will the attention they pay to her derogate in the slightest from that due to her Son.

+Dom M. Eugene Boylan, O.C.R.

The post The Marian Pathway first appeared on AirMaria.com.

We must make our life “Christ-centered” instead of self-centered. Then we shall be satisfied by the hope that the dreary minutes we spend in prayer will lighten His cross. Very often, if we would but make up our mind to share His cross, we should rediscover our divine Lover, who seems to have abandoned us. However that is not always the case. He may still remain far away, despite our generosity in sacrifice, and we shall have to be content to serve Him at our own expense until He sees fit to come again to set our hearts on fire.

That He will come again if we persevere in prayer is certain, for this arid stage is but the desert that guards the approach to the promised land of contemplation. There is indeed a very close parallel between the progress of the soul when this paralysis in prayer has become a permanent condition and the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert.

Despite everything, there is, deep down in the soul, a vague habitual hunger for something that it may or may not recognize to be God. Nothing in creation can give it solid satisfaction; and even though it may sigh for the joys it previously knew in the spiritual life, it knows in the depths of its heart that these can no longer satisfy its needs. It has left “Egypt and its fleshpots”; it has not yet reached the Promised Land; meanwhile it must learn to content itself with the daily manna God gives it. Nor will it receive more than a day’s supply, for God gives the soul only enough grace to meet the needs of the moment, so that it may learn that of itself it can do nothing, but that His grace is always sufficient for it.

When a soul in this condition feels itself moved to kneel before God, doing nothing except, in a general way, waiting for Him, there need be no doubt that it is really praying and, in fact, that God is preparing it for further graces of prayer.

+Dom M. Eugene Boylan, O.C.R.

The post About that Dryness in Prayer… first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Ave Maria MeditationsThe Hope of the Vigilant Servants:

There is nothing vain or uncertain about hope in God, because our hope like our faith is based on God’s goodness and God’s omnipotence. In referring to the testimony that the Holy Spirit gives of our sonship resulting from our incorporation in Christ and our consequent right of inheritance, Saint Paul tells us: “We are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope.” It is true that we do not yet possess or even see the joy and glory that await us in heaven.

But we have a right to them, and no one can disinherit us without our consent. The point is so important that it is worth examining the theology of hope. Hope is a theological virtue; its object is God. We hope for God, for possession of Him, and for the means to obtain it. We also hope in God, because it is upon His infinite power that we rely to bring us to Himself and because it is upon His goodness and mercy that we count to move Him to do so, and not upon our own merits…

Saint Thomas sums up the theology of Christian hope in his usual laconic style. “Hope” he says, “reaches out to God, relying upon His help to acquire the good hoped for.”

+ Dom M. Eugene Boylan O.C.S.O.

The post On Hope first appeared on AirMaria.com.