During Mass in my parish church, when the priest leads us in the Hail Mary, I always turn to look at the beautiful statue of Our Lady as I am praying along with the congregation.  How many churches in the world have either a statue or a picture of Our Lady.  We kneel before these images of Our Lady….we light candles, we say countless Hail Mary’s, we pour our heart out in times of trouble, we rejoice in times of celebration.

I have spent so much time praying before the statue of Our Lady.......but I have to remember; Mary is not a statue.

Mary is a real live woman. I love to wonder what her everyday life was like when Jesus was a baby.  I love to think of her doing all the things a mother does for her child.  Imagine what it was like when she brought Jesus home and all her friends called around to see Him for the first time, imagine Mary as she gently pulled back the blanket to show them the beautiful baby boy, and perhaps she allowed them to hold Him; everyone loves to hold a newborn baby.  I think of all the normal everyday things Mary must have done for Jesus; feeding Him, bathing Him, playing with Him, singing to Him, worrying about Him, comforting Him, and I especially love to think about Mary knowing “the knack” to get baby Jesus to go to sleep each evening.  Mary had the most important mission of bringing our Saviour into the world. Her mission continues today, she wants us to understand the individual love her Son has for each and every one of us.

I googled “Our Lady” and it gave me almost 92 million results, she is a popular womanJ There is nothing I can possibly add to what is already on the internet, so I have decided to write about how Mary has worked in my life so far....

I feel blessed to have always known Our Lady, she is and always will be a huge part of my life.  When I left school, I worked in Dublin city centre, across the road from the Pro Cathedral.  I would go in there every day to light candles and have a little chat with “My Lady”.  One day, I noticed people coming and going from a corridor at the side of the Cathedral, so I had to investigate.  I found a beautiful Chapel, with a lot of older people praying silently.  I stayed there for a short time and for some reason, I preferred the feeling I got in this little Chapel, to the main Cathedral.  So every day, I spent time in that little Chapel.  Every day, there were ten candles lighting on the altar, with this round golden thing in the middle.  So I would say five Hail Mary’s, one for each candle, skip the strange thing in the middle and then say the other five Hail Mary’s at the other side of it.  I would go back and forth praying for all my intentions with Hail Mary’s.  I really loved going to that Chapel. I felt so close to Mary when I was in there.  I didn’t realise until ten years later that I was in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament every day, but I was completely oblivious because nobody ever taught me about Eucharistic Adoration when I was younger, I thought the Monstrance was just some fancy Altar decoration.  I believe Mary herself was leading me directly to her son in a silent way.  I look back with a heart filled with joy and thanksgiving for all that time I spent with Jesus.

All the way up to my mid twenties, when it came to religion, Our Lady and God the Father were the beginning and the end for me.  I went to Lourdes on pilgrimage. I was praying at the grotto and a group arrived, singing hymns about Jesus at the top of their voices.  I can honestly say they drove me mad!!  Their singing went on for ages.  I said to Our Lady, “why are they singing about Jesus? They should be singing about you!” I didn’t understand why they were singing to Jesus when they could have gone directly to Our Lady or to God the Father with their prayers? I knew I was missing out on something here, so I asked Our Lady to teach me about Jesus, I wanted what they had.  She certainly wastes no time.  Within a few months, I was drawn to a weekly prayer meeting, which included praying the rosary, reading and meditating on the Gospel and spending time in Adoration, (this was when I discovered what Adoration was all about).  I was also attending Daily Mass, and really taking the sacrament of Confession seriously.  One year later, I returned to Lourdes, full of thanksgiving for this new relationship I had with “My Jesus”.

Nowadays, I have the honour of preparing children for the Sacraments of Confession, Communion and Confirmation.  I meet the children for one class each week.  Each year, the first and last classes are dedicated entirely to Our Lady. I tell them all about Our Lady and I plead with them to always include her in their everyday life, to never forget about her and to know that she loves them and is always there for them, no matter what.  I leave them in the safe and loving hands of Mary and I know she will do the rest of the work in every one of them.

St. Vincent Pallotti writes about Mary:

“In his infinite love God places Mary, the Blessed Virgin, the mother of his only-begotten Son, before our eyes as our model.  She followed our Lord Jesus Christ on the road to redemption so closely that she surpasses all angels and saints in holiness, in grace and in justice.  At the same time, through his only-begotten Son, God gives her to us as our mother.” (Epistolate Latinae 26f)

We are all children of God.  We are also children of Mary.

“Behold, your mother!”  (Jn: 19:27)

I pray that Mary, our mother, will pull back the blanket and reveal Jesus to all of us more and more each day.  And I pray that she will give Jesus to us, to hold in our heart.  Mary is a loving mother who wants to share her Son with everyone.  She knows the joy He can bring into our lives.  All we have to do is ask her to hand Him to us.  Ask Mary to fill us with the same love she has for Jesus.   Nobody knows Jesus like Mary, she is the best teacher we could ever ask for.