How do I develop a vibrant devotion to the Holy Mother?
We rightly honore Our Lady under the title Help of the Christians. Our Lady helps Christians in so many ways that we could make an encyclopedia on this subject. One aspect of this help stems from having a vibrant devotion to Our Lady. A lively devotion to Our Lady generally begins with some help from her that arouses a beginning of trust in the soul. True devotion to Our Lady usually begins with the good gifts she gives to a person.
How a vibrant dedication develops
Someone gets into trouble. It can be a spiritual crisis, money problems or whatever. He asks Our Lady to save him. While he is saved from those difficulties, Our Lady also works in his soul through unimaginable graces, giving him a taste of her maternal, smiling, amiable and kind goodness. With this example of her kindness, he gets a vivid hope that she will give him attention again in other difficult circumstances.
Maria’s help becomes more careful
This experience leads to his tenacious requests for all kinds of graces. Above all, he should ask her for love for God. This habit of asking leads to a crescendo of devotion to Our Lady. She is becoming more and more maternal and is inclined to favor him. Her help is more careful, which prompts the person to grow in this acquired taste for her amiable and smiling providence. Sometimes he asks Our Lady for real trifles. She gives these little insignificant things, like a mother who wants to give her child big and small things. Indeed, she smiles with special affection when asked for small things.
An aurora of trust
When this bond occurs, the person experiences a kind of aurora of confidence. It is a beginning of true understanding that determines his relationship with Our Lady. Even when the soul goes through very long and hard trials and periods of drought and difficulties, something of this vivid trust remains. It is a light that accompanies man throughout his life, even in the most bitter trials of death.
Sometimes Our Lady gives more than we ask
It is highly recommended to ask Our Lady to place the grace to us on this special, tender, loving path of doing these little requests, as asking for these little favors constitutes an intimacy with her. Sometimes she even goes beyond the favor we ask her. This happens when we ask her for something that is not included in her plan. She wants us to endure an ordeal to help our spiritual life. Thus, Our Lady does not give us what we ask, but gives us the strength to endure what is to come, which turns out to be a much greater favor. In the end, she gives something better than the original favor.
Medieval legends
Medieval devotional books and legends about devotion to Our Lady tell real and imaginary stories that show the grace and kindness of Mary the Blessed In dealings with the souls. They tell their stories in a beautiful and interesting way. Whether the story is true is not important, especially with regard to the actions of the human characters. However, the stories are all really characteristic of the way of acting of Our Lady. She really acts this way portrayed in these stories. Although these are legends, they are theologically correct Marian legends that give us an accurate picture and feeling of what Our Lady is like.
Saint Alfonso Liguori
Above all, we must ask the Blessed Mother for love for God. An example of this is a passage from the writings of Saint Alfonso Liguori in his book The Glory of Mary, which we reproduce here: Father Silvanus Razzi tells that a pious believer who had a tender love for our Queen Mary heard her beauty being so praised that he ardently longed to see that Lady, and with humble prayers asked for this favor. The kind mother sent an angel to tell him that she would allow him to see her, but on this condition, namely that he would go blind after seeing her. He accepted the condition.
In love with the beauty of Mary
One day the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and so that he would not become completely blind, he first wished to look at her with one eye, but then he fell in love with the great beauty of Mary, he wished to see her with both and then the mother of God disappeared. Deeply saddened by the fact that he had lost the presence of his queen, he could not stop crying, not for his lost eye, but that he had not seen her with both. Then he began begging her again, that she would appear to him again and that he would be willing to lose the other eye and become completely blind. Happy and contented, O my Lady,’ he said, ‘I will remain when I become completely blind to such a good cause, that I will be even more entasured by you and your beauty.’ Again Mary was willing to grant his request and again she comforted him with her presence; but because this
loving queen can never hurt anyone, when she appeared to him for the second time, she not only did not take the other eye away from him, but even restored the eye he had lost.
Juggling
Whether this episode really happened is not important, because we know that’s the situation with Our Lady! She can let us go through a difficult time to prove our love, take away one of our eyes or let us go through a period of fear. But in the end she rewards us with a smile. Although we have to endure the necessary trials, everything ends with her smile. Another more famous legend is the famous juggler of Our Lady. He tells the story of a monk who could not sing or pray well, but knew the art of juggling, which he learned before entering the monastery. To please Our Lady, he went to a church late at night when no one was there and proposed his juggling act to her. Our Lady appeared to him and smiled to show how happy she was with his little gift.
Childlike trust in Our Lady
We should act in the same way. When we offer our sacrifices to Our Lady, no matter how small they are, we must be completely sure that she will be satisfied. Our dedication to her will never be entirely true if we don’t act this way. We must have an attitude of indisputable ease and intimacy towards Our Lady. We must be like a son who, even when he makes Our Lady sad, presents himself to her with the fullest confidence in obtaining her help and smile.
Teaching and devotion are one
This attitude is the unspeakably soft starting point of a lively devotion to Our Lady. That is not to say that this attitude is sufficient. As far as our intellectual development allows, we must study the foundations of devotion to Our Lady. We must have reasoned everything well so that we can form deep beliefs based on dogmas. However, intellectual education is one thing, and the life of devotion is another. The one compliments the other. This beautiful union of teaching and devotion explains exactly why such a great church teacher as Saint Alfonso Liguori wrote his book The Glory of Mary, which illustrates the tescrible theses with concrete devotional facts and stories. So we must pray to Our Lady, help from Christians, to ask for the grace of a special sweetness in our devotion.
The previous article is taken from an informal lecture given by Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira on May 18, 1964. It has been translated and adapted for publication without its revision. – Red.
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