Run to Mama

In accord with the traditional devotional practice of the Church, I always try to set aside the month of May to deepen my relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary. My other spiritual reading gets shelved until June, and I spend this month snuggled up in Mary’s arms and reading about the many, many gifts that God has chosen to bestow on her, our Mother in the order of grace. Today is also Mother’s Day, a day on which day even the secular calendar encourages us to remember and thank our mothers in the order of nature for the priceless gift of our lives, a gift for which we owe them a debt that we can never repay.

So, to mark this Mother’s Day not only in honor of my beloved biological mother, but also in honor of my beloved spiritual mother, I thought I would share this, a favorite passage of mine from a short and lesser-known work of Marian devotion entitled My Ideal: Jesus, Son of Mary by Fr. Emile Neubert, SM. (Fun fact: Fr. Neubert was the favorite Mariologist of the 20th century’s greatest Mariologist, St. Maximilian Kolbe!). The booklet is divided into 31 brief meditations, one for each day of the traditionally Marian months of May and October. The end of today’s reflection (Day 12; Part II Section 7; p. 28-29) concerns how to pray, especially how to make petitionary prayer. In it, Fr. Neubert puts the following words of counsel in the voice of Our Blessed Lord: that when we are unsure of what to ask God for, or unsure whether what we are asking Him for is in accord with His will, we can always ask instead that the Blessed Virgin’s intentions in this regard be brought about. What a beautiful prayer! The excerpt ends, as each of the meditations does, with a short aspirational prayer from “the faithful soul.” Fr. Neubert writes:

But you do not know whether your request is conformable to God’s designs upon you, and so you hesitate. Listen, I am going to teach you a way of praying which is always in accord with His designs, and which you can always use with unshaken confidence. First of all, understand this very clearly:
a) Your Mother has loving intentions regarding all your needs.
b) Her intentions are always in conformity with the designs of God and they are always capable of realization.
c) They are always worth more than your own intentions, for Mary knows better than you just what you need, and she has greater ambitions for you than you have for yourself.
Every time you desire something, therefore, ask your Mother to make her intentions in the matter come true, and rest assured, infallibly so, that you will get either what you desire or something better; and that you will get it not according to your own narrow views, but according to those of her immense love.
The Faithful Soul: But then, Jesus, it will be wonderful! Henceforth, in order to have a faith that can move mountains and to be heard even beyond my fondest hopes, it will be sufficient, in every need, to ask my Mother to make her intentions in my regard come true.

My Ideal: Jesus Son of Mary is available from the Academy of the Immaculate press for only $3/copy (or even less when purchased in bulk!).