December 23, 2011

The Tennessee Register is publishing Faith Sharing, a series of articles exploring various elements of our faith. The article, many of them written by faculty and staff at Aquinas College, will follow the general curriculum of the Why Catholic? small faith community and adult formation program. This year, the second of the Why Catholic? program, the articles will examine the Sacraments.

From earliest days, Church has held up Mary as model of prayer

Aaron Urbanczyk

It might be helpful to consider the Sacred Scriptures as a lengthy and protracted dialogue. We find many types of narratives in the Bible, but often the most compelling appear as conversations: God speaks to His people, and His people in turn speak to him. We could even take “conversing with God” as a useful short definition of prayer.

But what does this form of conversing entail? What should we say? When should we speak, and when should we be silent? What posture should we assume? In what environment should our prayer take place? Whom, from among the frail members of our race, should we emulate in conversing with the Almighty?

To this last question, we could give no better answer than the great and holy Mother of God. Saints too numerous to count throughout history consistently exhort the faithful to take Mary as the model of prayer. Great libraries could be filled with theological tomes and spiritual meditations attesting to Mary’s singular power in guiding the soul to union with God. Further, the liturgical prayers of the Church consistently list Mary as the first and greatest of intercessors.

Scripture clearly reveals Mary as a perfect model of prayer. She is mentioned relatively few times in the New Testament, but she is often literally portrayed in prayer. We can learn much about the art of effective prayer through Mary’s Biblical representation.

The Annunciation is recorded in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel. The angel Gabriel appears to the Virgin Mary and announces news that is both joyful and disruptive. She has been chosen to be the vessel through which God Himself will come to earth to redeem mankind. Her plans are radically changed; in fact, the very meaning of her life is altered.

This passage teaches many lessons. Hearing God’s word is often disruptive, and what He asks of us, if we are attentive, may have little to do with our own personal ambitions and projects (even if they are good and admirable). Yet we also learn that God proposes, but never forces His will upon us. 

Mary’s response to Gabriel is instructive. She is clearly anxious and disturbed, yet trusts in the goodness of the One who has drawn her into conversation with Himself. Mary’s fiat (“be it done”) is the first principle of Christian prayer. Prayer consists of discerning what the Lord is asking of us, and with God’s grace, answering as Mary did: fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum (be it done unto me according to your word).

Mary provides us with a second lesson in prayer, again in Luke, chapter 1. After the Annunciation, Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, who also is miraculously with child (St. John the Baptist). When Mary arrives at Elizabeth’s home, neither has yet given birth to her baby. Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, greets Mary, calling her “blessed among women” and “the mother of my Lord.” Mary responds with the famous “magnificat” prayer, spontaneously proclaiming “my soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

This passage is rich in theological meaning, but I point out the elements of spontaneous praise and gratitude. Both Elizabeth and Mary experience an aspect of prayer to which no Christian should be a stranger – the spontaneous prompting of the Holy Spirit to joyfully praise and thank God for His wondrous deeds. Mary’s condition had not altered significantly; we have no reason to believe she was less anxious about her condition while she was pregnant than she was at the moment of the Annunciation. Yet she allows the Spirit of God within her to render praise and thanks to God for the good He has done, and the good she believes He will do. 

The Spirit of God desires to teach us to pray, and prayer largely consists in expressing gratitude to God and the praise that is His due (rather than in complaining and making tedious demands). As Mary teaches us, giving spontaneous and genuine thanks to God is a normal and proper part of the Christian life; doing so reminds us who we are and how God longs to call us back to Himself. It is a great poverty to miss those unlooked for and spontaneous moments of prayer, when the Spirit urges us to “magnify the Lord” as Mary did.

A third image of our Lady as model of prayer appears in the Wedding Feast at Cana (John’s Gospel, chapter 2). The wedding party, at which Jesus, Mary and the disciples were guests, ran out of wine (a most unfortunate incident for a party!). When she learns of this dilemma, Mary informs her son, who at first seems rather indifferent. After informing Jesus that there is no more wine, Mary simply tells those serving the beverages “do whatever (Jesus) tells you.”

This story contains a simple but profound lesson. When faced with a problem, one we can’t control, we can turn to the Lord as Mary does. She offers no solution; she doesn’t bargain with her Son; she offers no rationale at all why Jesus should take action. With perfect faith, she entrusts the crisis to the One who does all things perfectly, and she waits. This story teaches us that we cannot go amiss by entrusting the crises of our lives to God, as Mary does. He will intercede in His time and in His way. We can believe, as Mary did, that our crises, like that of the wedding party at Cana, will ultimately have a happy ending.

Recalling Pentecost is a proper ending to our refection on Mary as model of prayer. The Acts of the Apostles, chapter 1, deliberately mentions Mary’s presence with the apostles in the upper room. On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, the “power from on high,” descended upon the disciples.  Who was in their very midst, teaching them how to wait and pray in perfect trust, but the first and best of Christians, the Mother of God?

The Scriptures point to Mary as the model of prayer, and from its earliest days the Church has always upheld her as the model of help for the Christian soul. To listen, wait, trust and receive what the Lord will give in His time – these are the lessons of prayer Mary our mother teaches us.

Aaron Urbanczyk is Director of the Write Reason Program and a member of the Liberal Arts faculty at Aquinas College.