Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
A reflection on the word “HOLY”
I have a lot of friends, especially through Facebook, the Catholic Writers Guild, and other groups, who don’t hesitate to ask for prayers for themselves or for those they know. And I have just as many who are glad to say prayers for me or my family and friends times of need.
Prayer does more than send a message to God; it gives us comfort, even if it’s just the comfort of knowing someone is laying our aching hearts in God’s tender hands.
Yet there is something special about asking Mary to pray for us, and it comes down to that word: Holy.
Mary was a woman like any woman and at the same time, something more. God chose her, and in her beautiful, holy sacrifice of bearing His son, she chose Him in a way no other woman can. She shares an ineffable closeness with the Trinity: handmaid of the Father, vessel of the Spirit, mother of the Son. Her being and her actions brought her to holiness.
When Mary prays for us, she is more than offering comfort or sending a message to our Lord. She is also holding our hearts in her hands, the same hands that caressed Jesus’ brow and comforted him as a baby. She is pressing them upon Him as a parent might give a child something precious and alive to hold. She loves with a heart big enough to embrace the world because becoming the Mother of God gave her that ability.
Mary is not god or a goddess, as some people claim we Catholics think. But she is something more than woman, more than a saint.
She is holy.
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Karina Fabian is an acclaimed author of a number of books and can be found blogging at “Rocket Science for the Rest of Us” and at “Fabianspace.” She’s a founding member of the Catholic Writers Guild and to call me a fangirl is not an exaggeration. Karina is truly as awesome in person as the characters she crafts.
image credit: MorgueFile
When I became a Catholic, I didn’t have any particular problems with the Mary issue. She had to have been special to have been chosen to be the mother of the Savior, the Tabernacle where God Himself would dwell for nine months.