She’s Waiting for You too

In addition to the entire month of May, the Catholic calendar contains nineteen universal days set aside to especially honor the Mother of God. September 12^th was the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary.

I always particularly love the Marian days but last month was also a sort of anniversary for me. I think it happened on the day before the Feast of the Assumption in 2003. I’m not sure, it didn’t occur to me at the time to mark the date. But that was the day that Mary introduced herself to me. My own Marian feast day of sorts.

I went to bed the night before, feeling bad about myself. In my pride, I had slighted someone undeserving of it. It wasn’t that great of an incident. Just a casual remark, like many I’d made countless times in the past. Such a small, small thing. Something I would say and think nothing of ever again. Yet on this night, I tossed and turned, unable to let the moment go. I realized for the first time that I had actually damaged another person with my words. It hurt.

The meditation with which I had experimented for years wasn’t easing my mind. I tossed and turned. I prayed the Our Father. That was a prayer I would occasionally still recite despite my disbelief in any Christian theory. It was easy and I could mold it to fit whatever I wanted. In a fit of despair, I did something I hadn’t done in probably 20 years. I don’t know why I did it. I was very much against it. I prayed the Hail Mary.

Up until that time, I had lived a life not too much different than most people my age. Maybe I had traveled a bit more. Read a bit more. I was conservative by the standard of the day. Still worldly, rather-selfish. I had dumped the lifeless Catholic Faith I was confirmed in and replaced it with a pursuit of happiness through material things and intellectual stimulation. I wanted to be my own man. I wanted to be free from any constraints – earthly or divine. A structured, rigid, dominating, archaic religion of superstition was the last thing I would brook. I believed in God. “A” god. Impersonal and vague, mostly hands-off. But only I knew what was best. On my checks was printed “I have no master and will never have any.”

Although I didn’t realize it, as I prayed the Hail Mary on that hot August night, I was admitting that I didn’t know what was best anymore. That I needed help. And someone must have fed me the words because I surely had forgotten them.

I don’t remember falling asleep that night but I remember waking up. Sobbing. The sun was up. I remember my heart pounding in my chest and my hands shaking. My first thought wasn’t “what is happening?” but rather “what do I do now?” because the act had already been accomplished. I remember the exhilarating feeling that from now on, nothing would ever again be the same. I remember profound sorrow mixed with profound joy. And I remember – distinctly – the presence of the Holy Virgin.

That presence followed me for weeks. Through my hasty scramble to a church (of course the one I found was the Cathedral of Saint Mary), with me into the confessional, and by my side at my first Mass and Communion since I was a teenager. I never doubted it. It was real and it was normal. She was there, always, pointing me towards her Son. Through her, I came to truly know Jesus. And through Him, the Father.

At first, I thought that what had happened to me was unique. But as I grew in knowledge of my re-found Faith, I realized that my experience was … common. I was amazed to learn of the similarities of my own re-conversion with that of others over the centuries. Instead of lessening the impact of my turnabout, it strengthened it. Mary had made me an active partner, although far too often a silent one, in the history of man’s relation with God. She was just waiting for me to ask.

Mary is known by an almost endless stream of titles: Queen of Heaven, Help of Christians, Comforter of the Afflicted, Mother of Mercy, Our Lady of Good Success, Star of the Stormy Sea, ad infinitum … some great saints have even held her to be the Mediatrix of All Graces. All of her names are given because of her direct intercession, one way or another, into the lives of us all. That’s what she does. Sometimes she’s subtle, like at the Wedding Feast of Cana. And at other times she’s striking, like at Fatima. She was assumed into heaven almost two millennia ago but her tender love for us continues to open our hearts and minds to God’s grace. She is the Mother of God. She is Mary.

May the Most Holy Name of Mary, under whatever title precedes it, be always honored for the faith and hope and love it conveys. Take a small break from your days this week and thank Mary and ask for her intercession.

She’s waiting for you too.