We are now halfway through the month of May - a month of praying the Rosary with Mary and I hope our Parish Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs) have faithfully carried out the Rosary.During this month, our Catholic Church invites us to stay focused on Mother Mary, as her heart points us always to the heart of her Son, Jesus Christ.
As BEC members, we should unite with Mary, Joseph and Jesus and sincerely pray that our hearts might be open to share the love of Christ with the other members of our BEC and as well as our parish community. It is hard to love one another when we are exhausted and drained out due to our daily struggles and workload. Every time we pray the Rosary in our homes or in our BECs, we are opening ourselves to the love of Christ, and His love gives us new life.
At every novena to Our Lady of Mother of Perpetual (OLMP) and evening prayer (Vespers) from the Liturgy of the Hours (the Church prayer), we pray the most fascinating prayer – the Magnificat. We find the Magnificat, in which Mother Mary begins with, “My soul proclaims the glory of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour…,” (Luke 1: 46-56). Every verse offers praise and thanksgiving to God for His goodness, faithfulness and promises.We should make the Magnificat our personal prayer. It is a way of increasing our gratitude to God, who has done marvelous things (cf. Psalm 98) in our lives and a refreshing way to renew the spirit of thankfulness in our hearts.
We tend to overlook our gratitude of God’s favours because of our busy and distracted lives. We are constantly bombarded with worries about finance, status and responsibility which in turn causes anxiety, displeasure and unhappiness. In the life of Our Lady, she didn’t always feel happy, and she considered her heart pierced (Lk 2: 35) from the moment she heard Simeon’s prophecy until her own Assumption into Heaven. Praying the Magnificatdaily can help us experience the joy and happiness we long for, in our hearts and in our homes.
St. Louis de Montfort said Mary is intimately united to the Trinity and she can unite us with God as well. He added, “Mary is the quickest, shortest, and easiest path to Jesus.”This month of May, we should get to know Mary, then love her and imitate her. Once we deepen our intimate relationship with her, then we should have a desire to make her known to others.
As we pray the Rosary, let us pray for the grace to imitate Mary in her most inspiring virtues and put them into practice, so that it may lead us to heaven. The first virtue is her unwavering faith in midst of all the trials of her life. Because of her great faith, she was known as “the first disciple of Jesus and the most faithful disciple,” (Lumen Gentium– The Church in the Modern World, Vatican II).
The second virtue we need to learn from Mary is patience. We should have the desire to teach ourselves to grow in patience and to grow gracefully in age too. Our Lady patiently accepted all the contradictions and sufferings when she conceived Jesus and she patiently accompanied Jesus and stood under the cross with Him, for the salvation of the world.
The third virtue is to be in constant prayer. Mary had a constant spirit of perseverance in prayer, which led her to a profound union with God. We all need to pray constantly, asking her to teach us to pray as she unceasingly intercedes for us.
As we come to the end of the month of Rosary, and as we approach Pentecost, we ask the intercession of Mother Mary and the Holy Spirit to make us courageous and grow in our virtues, so that we will be united with her forever.
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