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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.
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