Spiritual Reflection for May, 2006
It Never Hurts to Ask Your Mother
It is a fact of life that when we want something from our father, we often believe our best chance to get it is to ask our mother. Even if we know that dad has to give the “OK,” we still ask mom first and ask her to ask dad. While God is not capricious, He understands our comfort with approaching Him through Mary. We are not praying to Mary; she is not God. We are merely asking Mary to intercede for us.
What a great intercessor Mary is! When we have Mary asking God for something along with us, it is not just we that are asking. It is not just one of the many saints in heaven asking for it. It is Jesus’ mother joining in our request.
From our own experience, we know that it is very hard to say “No” to our mother. Jesus, as the perfect son, was obedient to his mother (Lk 2:51). As the perfect son, Jesus honors His mother perfectly; He keeps the third commandment perfectly.
From our own experience we know that not only is it hard to say “No” to our mother; we want to say “yes.” The more we love our mother, the more we want to give to her. As the perfect loving son, Jesus wants Mary to ask things of Him. He wants to grant the requests of His mother. He wishes to show His love for His mother.
Remember the first public miracle of Jesus – the wedding at Cana (Jn 2:1-12). At the wedding feast at Cana, Mary apparently wished to save her friends from the terrible embarrassment of running out of wine. She brought the predicament to the attention of Jesus. She did not insist that her Son do anything. She did not nag Him. She merely placed the problem in His hands. As God, Jesus was aware of the problem before Mary brought it to His attention. Regardless, He waited to do anything until she asked.
Today we may not fully understand how terrible a social faux pas it was, in the time of Jesus, to run out of wine at a wedding. Perhaps the miracle appears trivial (although many scripture scholars suggest that the symbolism of this miracle is rather powerful). Regardless, there is a very obvious message to us: Jesus assented to the request of His mother.
At Cana, Jesus could have performed a very simple, subtle miracle. He could have had made some more wine materialize in a corner and have it appear that the servants merely forgot about it. He could have caused a wonderful coincidence that a wine merchant just happened to show up at that moment with some discount wine. Jesus might have miraculously prompted Uncle Abednego to show up late for the feast with his own large private stash of 'Bin 317 Concorde Grape'. He didn’t. Rather, Jesus made the washing water become wine. And, it did not just become wine, but the best wine served all night.
Mary, herself, continues to tell us to come to her for assistance. The Church officially recognizes her apparitions at, among others, Fatima, Lourdes, Guadelupe, LaSalette, Knock, Beauring, and Banneaux. Mary has appeared, personally, to so many canonized saints (Dominick, Catherine of Sienna, Simon Stock, Catherine Laboure, Padre Pio, to name just a few). She tells us to be faithful to her Son. She also tells us to ask her to intercede for us.
-JITIY-
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