With Empty Hands and Trusting Hearts

Yesterday, I mentioned that Lent, Marian Consecration, and the Sacrament of Baptism (all under the direction of God, the Holy Spirit) have as their aim: the formation of the Christian into an image of Christ to the world. As I reflected more deeply today on St. Louis de Montfort's invitation to give EVERYTHING TO MARY so that "we'll have to appear before God with empty hands" (Gaitley, pg. 39), I realized that Marian consecration is intimately connected to the Beatitudes. Beatitude means "blessing" and she is, after all, most blessed among women.

The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) are the crown of the Sermon on the Mount and the pathways to the Kingdom of Christ. They are a series of eight snapshots of Christ, and because we are called to "put on Christ" (Rom. 13:14; Gal. 3:27), they become the goal of every Christian. The Beatitudes have an inner logic and connectedness that we can't explore in detail here, but the first, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Mt. 5:3) is the foundation of the seven that follow. Being "poor in spirit" doesn't mean "down in the mouth," humiliated or groveling through life. It is synonymous with the humble-hearted (Prov. 29:23). Mary possessed this characteristic of Christ as proclaimed in her Magnificat, "All generations will call me blessed," she says, for he has "exalted the lowly" (Luke 1:46-55).

As we begin to grow in Christ, we soon realize that we are completely bankrupt apart from God. We acknowledge that we lack both the power and resources to save ourselves, and anything we do possess was first His gift to us. That's the starting point of real and sustained spiritual growth. One of my spiritual directors, Fr. Raymond Gawronski, SJ gave me a helpful visual aid for this. He has on his prayer table a simple wooden bowl like those used by Buddhist monks in Asia. They carry it into the streets and villages each day asking for others to fill it (think "give us this day our daily bread"). He taught me that this is how we must begin our prayer, extending our begging bowl to God, admitting before Him that we are empty with nothing to give. It is only when we are empty that God can fill us, that is why we are BLESSED if we understand this fundamental reality! (see also, Phil. 2:5-8). It helps us hold loosely to the things of this world, and "makes us free, supple, and flexible beneath the action of the Holy Spirit, who is the Master of true love." (Servais Pinkaers, Living the Beatitudes, pg. 44).

The BLESSED Virgin Mary, as the Mother of the Beatitudes, understands this, and lovingly draws us into this foundational spiritual principle, so that Christ may be fully formed and matured in us. She asks us to turn over everything to her, so in turn, her Son Jesus can fill us to the brim with his Life! AND she takes what we give her and makes it better, more pure and more powerful. What an exchange! St. Paul said it so well in 1 Corinthians 3:21, "Left with nothing, we can possess everything"

Come Holy Spirit, living in Mary...Help me be generous in giving all that I have to Mary.