I started these Mary Moment Monday posts in part because I’m that much of a Mary geek. I also started them to give myself the ongoing exercise of writing about Mary.
I find that writing is the sort of thing that I do better when I’m in practice. Somehow, the ideas seem to flow more smoothly when I have myself in shape.
The podcast segments I do–Mary Moments, Mary in the Kitchen, Mary Minute with Chesterton–all help with this, but they’re not the same. For one thing, though I do start with a script for those, I know I’m speaking. They’re informal. They’re…different.
What surprises me–and shouldn’t, really–is that I have not run out of material yet. I’m not a theologian, just an avid reader. I’m not an expert on Mary, just a really big fangirl. I’m no one special, just a hack in Ohio with a blog.
There is no shortage of material for my many Mary endeavors. There’s just not. In fact, as near as I can tell, she’s EVERYWHERE! I find myself reflecting back to her in the most unlikely instances and in all sorts of moments of my life, and it makes me feel so much closer to Mary as my mother.
Doesn’t that make you smile? To know that even someone who’s trying to test the limits of Marian material can’t come to the end of it?
Chesterton wrote this in his autobiography:
I do not want to be in a religion in which I am allowed to have a crucifix. I feel the same about the much more controversial question of the honor paid to the blessed Virgin. If people do not like that cult, they are quite right not to be Catholics. But in people who are Catholics, or call themselves Catholics, I want the idea not only liked but loved and loved ardently, and above all proudly proclaimed.
I know just how he feels, and I’m doing my best to love her and share her with everyone I can.
Because, well, I just can’t seem to help it.
A walk down memory lane: the first Mary Moment Monday post was published last November and explored letting God carry my burdens and included a link to a Marian column I wrote that discussed my struggle with depression.
