In the late Summer of 2011, just over 2 years after coming into the Catholic Church, God asked me to meet His Mother…well not really asked me, it was more of a standoff.  You see, I was like many new converts in the sense that I really wasn’t that attracted to Mary.  My feeling was why go to Mary when I can go to Jesus and I often repeated that in my head anytime I felt any interest in learning more about Her. I prayed the Rosary only when we would have a visit from The Pilgrim Queen, which is a traveling Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe that visits different homes in a parish and you gather as a family to pray the Rosary and other prayers. But beyond that twice per month visit, I had no desire to recite the rosary and to be truthful, really didn’t look forward to the arrival of the Pilgrim Queen Shrine either.

Catholics that I knew who had a strong devotion to Mary were really the most faithful Catholics, but I didn’t recognize that Mary was the connection to their strong Faith. As a matter of fact, I thought just the opposite was true, “how sad they don’t feel they cant go directly to Jesus”. Im talking about the people who were praying the Rosary daily and a few of these faithful were doing all the decades! Don’t these people have something better to do with their time? They must have no life! Why go through a middle man when you can go straight to the boss?! I just couldn’t wrap my head around Mary, even though I could see the devotion in my most devout friends and I had many poor souls try and explain their love of Mary.

So basically, I was yet again a heathen. That rebel soul that didn’t need Mary. That was until I did need Her because She was to be my only connection to Jesus.

It was summer and I was really starting to feel a spiritual dryness for the first time after coming into The Church. I had been on this amazing journey of consolation and healing for 2 years . For such a long time after receiving Communion I would weep, and im not talking about the soft and gentle tears…Im talking full out sobbing with snot and snorts, it was the ugly cry. I decided at the time that God was trying to humble me through this, embracing Grace that He was giving me because I was always so embarrassed. Yet I knew it to be a grace so I dare not bring a tissue because that would mean I would expect the grace to come.  So I would just slobber and wipe everything on my sleeve. I later realized that the bringing of a tissue would have been prudence and I was blessed to have a husband that is good at spotting trends so he later would quietly reach into his pocket and secretly hand me a tissue. I also just recently realized, after telling that story, that He was not trying to humble me, God was healing me. “ Why do you always tell that story as if your were bad and needed to be humbled. Dear child, I was healing you through all those tears for I love you so much.” Yep. Another perfect example of the mercy and love that God has for us. And another perfect example of how undeserving of His love I always felt.

But back to my spiritual high that crashed and burned into a spiritual nothing. All the graces were gone and I was too immature in my Faith to understand that everything is Grace. All I knew is I couldn’t see Him, hear Him, touch Him or feel Him. After communion, nothing. Sitting in adoration, nothing. Prayer time, nothing. So naturally I assumed I was bad so what did I do? More! I prayed more, served more and went to confession more. Still nothing, no consolation. Then what does one do when more doesn’t work? We do it more and we do it perfectly. I became very concerned with not only the amount of prayer but how perfectly I was to pray. Jesus must be angry with me so I would be more perfect. Needless to say that sent me in a tailspin of insecurity and doubt. I had decided that I wasn’t loving people well or enough and maybe I was right. I still fall often in trying to see others the way God sees them. But I had fixed my prayers on this “ Jesus show me how to love” meditation  for about a week when one day in adoration Jesus finally spoke and He said 4 words, “Go ask My Mother”. WHAT!? “But Im asking You.” I said. But that was all.

“Jesus show me how to love” continued to be my prayer and Jesus continued to respond to me the same way, “Go ask My Mother.” You can understand how this just totally blew my go directly to Jesus theory. When Jesus says the only way your getting to me is through my mom, it kinda screws with your head. But through Gods patience with me, He redirected me to Jn 14:16  “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” And I started to reflect on this and ask if this was true with our relationship with Jesus. Could it really be possible that to truly know and love Jesus, we also needed to know and love His Mother? Through His Grace, I started to embrace this person of Mary and of Her being the Mother of Jesus. I had access to Jesus but He wanted more…He wanted me to meet His Mother. He wanted me to understand how to love Him more, through Mary. All along I had been praying for the ability to love others more, when really all Jesus wanted was for me to love Him more. That’s how we love others, by loving Him so that our actions become the consequence of our love of Jesus.

So, again in adoration, I agreed to open my heart up to The Blessed Mother. I said a Hail Mary prayer and I left adoration to go an meet a friend for coffee. On the way out to my car a text pops up from a friend, actually she is every bit a mentor as she is friend and happens to be one of those people who pray the rosary on a daily basis. The text reads “I cant wait to talk to you about this new book study im doing with my Church called 33 Days to Morning Glory! Its amazing!” um, ok…I have no idea what she is talking about but I trust in her discernment so if she says it’s amazing, I know it is! Im happy for her and let her know I can’t wait to hear more. I show up to meet my friend who is actually discerning entering the Covent to become a nun. She is a young women of faith who has challenges like we all do, but really does the best she can to stay faithful. We chat about our relationship with Jesus and life in general. I share with her how God has been calling me to this relationship with Mary and quickly relay to her the accounts that have taken place the last few weeks. “Oh, well you must read 33 Days to Morning Glory!” What, wait…what? “Yes, it’s a new book on Marian Consecration and  I think you would really like it.” So, in less than an hour after promising I would open my heart to this relationship that Jesus wants me to have with Mary, two people who I trust and respect tell me to read the same book! YES Lord! I hear You!

Next time, I will share more here about the when, why, how of Marian consecration, which by the way in not just for Catholics! Neither is the rosary just for Catholics, or making the sign of the cross, or Holy water, or the saints… ok. I’ll stop. Mary is the patron of all humanity… every soul on this planet, and She loves you. I hope my story with Mary will help you understand Her love for YOU! I pray that you will grow closer to loving Her back.

I’m dedicating the whole month of May with a series of posts to honoring Our Beautiful Mother. I hope you’ll join me!

Here’s a quick intro to Mary for all believers!