August - Month Of Our Lady
by Sister Vincent McCarthy, O.S.U.
Mary. This very human Jewish woman stood before us in the flesh, she gave her son, stands before us now not as a lifeless statue, but as a living example. Mary - God's finest example of what it means to be a disciple, how we should live here and now if we want to follow Christ. In a word, Our Lady, mother of the Church, stands before each and all of us who claim to be Christian, ceaselessly urging on us what she said to the servant's at Cana's wedding feast: "Do whatever he tells you."
Reflecting on the prayer of St. Francis "Make me and instrument of your peace" we can certainly say Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is the instrument of peace for the Church. She can bring into your life light where where there is darkness. She can bring love and dissapate hate. She was the one who consoled the apostels in their loss of Jesus - she gave them hope and carried to the fullest the work of God on earth.
Mary speaks to us not from book learning, but from human experience, from first order language. In the story of humankind, no human being has listened to the word of God more intently. Precisely for that reason the fathers at the Second Vatican Council enclosed Our Lady within a document on the Church. They wrote: "... the Mother of God is a model of the Church in the area of faith, of love, and of perfect union with Christ." Mary does not sit on a golden throne in splendid isolation. What we ought to recapture during this month of October is a warm relationship with her through prayer, through devotions, through contemplation. Let the mysteries of Our Lady inhabit the screen of your imagination.