The Holiness of Mary

She conceived the Word, the promise to humanity of God’s love. The Word that was revealed in so many ways through the prophets, from generation to generation, was the Word to whom Mary attentively listened and that she carefully kept. It was the Word to which she was undividedly dedicated and that was enfleshed in Her Womb.

There is so much to contemplate in the Virgin Mary’s Heart. She “carefully kept all these things,” reveals to us the Virgin Mother’s contemplative and prayerful dimension. To keep and to guard is to take care of something treasured; it is to preserve, to gather what is valued, and to set it in a secure place: the heart. To keep, like the soil keeps the seed, is an attitude of the heart that is born and blossoms in prayer, in internal recollection, and in mature reflection of the Word. It requires an openness to purification so the Word is not diluted or accommodated to our wills.

In order to “keep” the Word one must first hear it; to hear it one must be recollected; and to be recollected one must first have a prayerful heart, a heart with interiority, a heart that is profound and not superficial, a heart that is responsible not careless, a heart that is serene not impulsive, a heart that is mature and not led by any wind, a heart that does not allow itself to be shaken by anything. Loving prayer was the Virgin Mary’s fountain of life, the strength of her heart. In prayer, she learned how to be in total communion with God, how to belong totally to Him, and how to be generously disposed to His designs.

Our Lady prayed and kept all things in her heart. In prayer, she kept her heart in a constant and loving dialogue with God’s Heart. In prayer, she kept “all things.” This includes even more so what she did not comprehend, what She could not see, what seemed beyond her capacity or strength, what was beyond her understanding. All of these things she kept in her heart to immerse them in God’s love and light, through the prayer of a Virgin’s heart. Her prayer was the prayer of a pure heart with her human love in perfect harmony with Divine Love. Her prayer was the one God needed to find in a human heart in order to bring about His plan of salvation. In her Heart, the Lord’s desires were heard, perceived, and received with perfect docility, with full openness, and with perfect obedience. In her, the Lord’s plan could be fulfilled because her heart, matured in prayer, had day after day carefully kept all the promises, words, gestures and deeds of God.

To pray like the Blessed Mother must be our life. We are to be receivers of the Word; we are to be men and women of prayer, rich and fertile soil for the seed. It is in the imitation of the Virgin’s attitude of interior recollection that our identification with Mary begins. She learned to be a daughter of the Father in prayer; she preserved the fullness of her grace in prayer; she grew in her spousal dimension through prayer; she prepared the Temple of Her heart and Womb in prayer; She lived her docility to the movements of the Spirit in prayer; and in prayer, her heart was formed into a servant’s heart, totally disposed to letting the Will of God be done in her.

Like our Blessed Mother, we must learn to keep all things with care and to protect our hearts, the soil where the Word must be enfleshed. We must take care of the soil through internal recollection and mature discernment. There is too much noise inside and outside of us. Too many words and too many voices speak to our hearts and suffocate the fruitfulness of the Word of God in us. Being careful is to be responsible, recognizing that the treasure is too valuable to leave it exposed for thieves. Being careful is to be wise enough to recognize that the treasure placed in our hearts is a precious pearl that cannot be exchanged for just any rock, for any thing that glitters, for any word, or for any teaching that is spoken to us. For there exist many lights, particularly in our time, that appear to be very bright; yet, they are false or temporary imitations of the only true treasure: the Word of God, revealed to us and united with a Marian heart.