Spoiler alert! The moral of this blog is not to advise you to ask God for help before making your resolutions. That’s a no-brainer. The point is to show you, from first-hand experience, just how much better God can "do" our resolutions than we can.
Mother benign of our redeeming Lord,
Star of the sea and portal of the skies,
Unto thy fallen people help afford –
Fallen, but striving still anew to rise.
Thou who dids’t once, while wond’ring
worlds adored,
Bear thy Creator, Virgin then as now,
O by thy holy joy at Gabriel’s word,
Pity the sinners who before thee bow.
-Roman Breviary, Antiphon of the Blessed Virgin
For Reflection
Spend some quiet moments with Mary by reflecting on this antiphon. Journal your reflections.
"God could make a bigger world or a wider sky, but He could not raise a pure creature higher than Mary, for the dignity of Mother of God is the highest dignity that can be conferred on a creature.”
-St. Bonaventure
For Reflection
Pray the prayer of Consecration to Jesus Through Mary by St. Louis Grignion de Montfort. Jot down any insights, reflections, inspirations that come to you through this prayer. Adopt this prayer as your own for the next year or write your own prayer of consecration to Jesus through Mary. Add this to your list of resolutions for the coming new year.
“The first thing which kindles ardor in learning is the greatness of the teacher. What is greater than the Mother of God? What more glorious than she whom Glory Itself chose?”
-St. Ambrose of Milan
For Reflection
What has Mary taught me in the “course” of this past year? What lesson is she “kindling” in me now? What lesson would I like her to teach me in this coming year? I will formulate a request to her and add it to my list of resolutions.
“True love of God consists in adhering perfectly to His holy will, not desiring to do or to be other than what God indicates for each of us, to the point of becoming, as it were, “a living will of God.”
-Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, OCD
For Reflection
How does the Blessed Virgin Mary demonstrate true love of God according to the definition given to us in this quote? How and why is she the icon of “a living will of God?” To what extent am I the same? What one strategy in the coming new year can I employ to help me be more so? Add it to my list of resolutions.
“The Blessed Mary certainly did the Father’s will and so it was for her a greater thing to have been Christ’s disciple than to have been His mother, and she was more blessed in her discipleship than in her motherhood.”
-St. Augustine
For Reflection
Consider this quote in light of Luke 11: 27-28. Write your thoughts and reflections. How did Mary’s discipleship begin at the moment of the Annunciation and continue throughout her life? To what extent does your discipleship mirror hers? Formulate a new year’s resolution to help you grow in this way in the coming year.
ST asks: "A few of my friends have been singing the praises of hot stone massage which they have been receiving at a local spa. From the little I read about it, it sounded awfully New Age. What do you know about it?"
And, if our faith had given us nothing more
Than this Example, of all Womanhood,
So mild, so merciful, so strong, so good,
So patient, so peaceful, loyal, loving pure –
This were enough to prove it higher and truer
Than all the creeds the world had known before.
Virgin, who lovest the poor and lonely,
If the loud cry of a mother’s heart
Can ever ascend to where thou art,
Into thy blessed hands and holy
Receive my prayer of praise and thanksgiving.
Let the hands that bore our Savior bear it
Into the awful presence of God;
For thy feet with holiness are shod,
And, if thou bearest it, he will hear it.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
For Reflection
What qualities does Longfellow cite that underscore for him why Mary is the “Example of all Womanhood?” How have we seen these virtues expressed in the excerpts from A Woman Wrapped with Silence? Which of these virtues do I most need to acquire? What does the poet admit is the benefit of offering our prayers to Jesus through Mary, His Mother?
The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience. — Eleanor Roosevelt
Spoiler alert! The moral of this blog is not to advise you to ask God for help before making your resolutions. That’s a no-brainer. The point is to show you, from first-hand experience, just how much better God can "do" our resolutions than we can.
