Mary Undoer of Knots

Christ came to bring JOY;

Joy to children, joy to parents,

Joy to families and friends,

Joy to the sick and elderly,

Joy to all humanity.

In a true sense, JOY is the keynote message of Christianity,

And the recurring motif of the Gospels.

Go, therefore, and become Messengers of Joy!

~ Pope John Paul II

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Blessed Mother: Pure Love, Pure Mercy

I experienced a great grace this weekend, being able to attend a powerful retreat on Forgiveness with Rwandan holocaust survivor, Immulee Ilibagiza and Monsignor John Esseff.  Thankfully, and by the grace of God, forgiveness has not been a big issue for me, but I was so moved by Immaculee's story of survival and forgiveness, living 91 days in a 3' X 4' bathroom with 7 other women, only to emerge to find her family had been murdered, that I could not pass up this opportunity to hear her great witness to forgiveness and the love our Beloved Savior has for all of us.

 
I also longed to know more about Our Lady of Kibeho, (church approved apparitions which occurred prior to the Rwandan holocaust), and was happy to learn much from Immaculee about her own experiences with the visionaries and what the messages meant to her, to Rwanda and to the entire world.  My love for our Blessed Mother has grown ever stronger after understanding more and more the great gift we have been given by Mary's unfathomably merciful, Divine Son.

I am only now starting to process some of the fruits of this wonderful retreat experience, but clearly for me, one of the greatest gifts of this retreat came from Monsignor Esseff, when he told us that God, in His mercy, gave us Mary -- pure love, and pure mercy -- as our Mother.  Jesus, on the other hand, is also pure love and pure mercy, but additionally He is pure justice.  Mary sees us, her children, with the eyes of love and mercy, no judgment.  Justice is not her domain.  Jesus, as the just judge, can deny his Mother nothing, as she is perfect and immaculate in every way.  He is powerless against her intercession.  (See The Wedding at Cana).  Of course her intercession is pure and always for our own good as a perfect Mother, and her will is perfectly aligned to that of the Divine, but it is becoming clearer and clearer to me, how going through Mary to Jesus is a far quicker and efficient way to getting to the center of His Sacred Heart than to go directly to Him.  She makes a clear, straight, easy path for us without judgment and opens the way to Him, just as she did when she cleared a path to Him from heaven to earth when He was born.  She cleans us up and presents us to Him in a way that we are unable to present ourselves.  Her only desire is to bring us close to Jesus so that we too may have complete union with Him for eternity.  In her love, she wants us to know Him as she knows Him, and from her perspective, she can obtain that for us far better than we can obtain it for ourselves. 


Pure love.
Pure mercy.
Would that every mother on earth could be called the same!

fiat.

No comments: