In a time of increasing isolation, conflicts and fragmentation – within society, and within the heart of man – what does the world need most if not hope? But as faiths become more disparate, and conflict continues to intensify between different beliefs and ways of living, where is our resolution? Where is our aide to mercy? Where is the turning point in the path which will prepare the way for the return of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ?
Surely it takes something, or someone supremely elevated, to transcend above the poverty and despair of our competitive self-aggrandising world to bring us this hope? And the answer, as presented here, exists within the Immaculate Heart, the pure heart of Mary, Mother of God.
For in where and what about her does God teach us most? According to Father Peter Littleton, priest and healthcare Chaplain at the UK’s largest hospital, St George’s, South West London it is in Mary’s “humble obedience” through which she “joins herself in love to God” and “demonstrates pre-eminently trust”, that we have our hope.
Her courage, her discerning faith (for there was a question before her yes to God, her simple question, “how can this be since I have no husband?” Luke 1:34) she at once articulated and sought loving truth before her affirmation of her humble response to God’s plan as being “handmaid of the Lord, let it be done unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
In this “how can this be?” God, through the angel, is able to annunciate the fullness of His plan, a beautiful coming together between Mary’s simple purity and virginity, and the mightiness of divine miracle wed within her in the newness of Christ.
Every vocation is a calling to “humble obedience”. Every vocation, is a calling to pure heartedness, which Dominican Sister Rose Rolling of St Catherine’s Convent, Cambridge, describes as a pure willing the good of the other. A pure-hearted step in the direction of God’s glory through kingdom building.
Sr Rolling believes “the singular grace of Our Lady is that she is fully human and only human (in contrast with Jesus who was both fully human and fully Divine), and also a perfect human being. The example of Our Lady teaches us how to be both fully human and holy. Mary’s purity was in her “singleness” of being – heart, mind and body – for the glory of God.
This willing of the glory of God, the moment of pure heart that needs to be free of self-interest but place another above itself, is the moment of truth in God’s plan. It is at once a putting God and our neighbour ahead of ourselves, a moment of stepping back in order for God to be glorified, and in order then to proceed though His grace in serving others while glorifying God.
We can wrestle with doublemindedness, we can cry out for help in paradoxical dilemmas, but as many people know through their own “yes” to God, the true joy comes when the “yes” is louder and clearer than the clinging to our safe selves.
Simoney Kyriakou is an Evangelical Christian and mother, whose “yes” to God led her and her husband to make the decision not to terminate pregnancy even when life was at risk.
One of her twins was diagnosed with hydrops (severe edema) at 12 weeks and Mrs Kyriakou recounts : ”the radiologist told me that it wasn’t looking good… As the babies, grew the risks of early birth (late miscarriage/stillbirth) increased”. Simoney was also at risk of severe hypertension, or mirror syndrome.
“The specialist team on three separate occasions recommended that we terminate to help give Twin A the best possible chance. Obviously as Christians this was never going to be an option and we told them so.”
In the courage of saying “yes” to life despite the risks, there was peace. “It felt like the real and right decision so we had pretty much peace about it. If you know God wants you to do something and you do it, there’s pretty much nothing to give you second thoughts. Psalm 46 vs 10 ‘ be still and know that I am God’ was the verse that resonated throughout and I prayed to God every day that I would centre myself in His will and make His will at the centre of mine. That He would still my soul,” she says.
One of the twins did survive, and the Kyriakou family now have a happy and energetic four-year-old boy.
Fr Littleton, a former Evangelical convert to Catholicism, describes how the Holy Spirit came in and “shifted around the furniture” of his life so that he very quickly renounced his own plans, and allowed that waltz for God to lead him first into the Catholic faith, and then into priesthood.
In his current experience as hospital chaplain, he finds himself pondering the presence of Christ in the sick. His “yes” led him to appreciate God’s presence in the Sacraments, in Scripture, and in the Body Corporate of the Church, and now for him, it is Matthew 25 that is most alive in his everyday life, visiting Christ in the poor and the sick. “There is an immense amount of faith in hospitals,” he says. “In the sick God is doing something holy, entirely independent of us.”
If Christ is present in the vulnerable and the sick, he is also present in acts of mercy towards them. The mercy of God was lived out through Mary’s humble obedience, in giving birth to the Saviour, and in standing by Him as He was dying.
In such a way she ministered to Him through her presence, as did Saint Joseph at the birth, and St John the Apostle at His death.
According to Father Jim Duffy, Dean of Ealing, and parish priest of Ss Peter and Paul, Northfields, in becoming Christ’s mother Mary brings great hope. Through her “yes” He was given His human nature so that He could redeem the world.
“She ensured the salvation of the World by cooperating with God. Mary said ‘yes’ to God and enabled the Saviour who would become one with the human race to take flesh and blood like ours and therefore brought great hope into the world,“ says Fr Duffy.
Fr Duffy reminds us: Mary is fully human but is described by her cousin Elizabeth as being “full of grace” and that is because of the Immaculate Conception which prepared her for the immense task God had chosen her for.
In Mary’s pure and immaculate heart, Sr Rolling describes Mary’s perfect example of the three main applications of purity of heart: charity, chastity and truth.
· Charity: purity enables us to love others as our neighbours, and not for what we can get from them, or because of our natural chemistry, or because of their human “loveliness”.
· Chastity: purity lets us perceive the human body – ours and our neighbour’s – as a temple of the Holy Spirit, a treasure to be honoured and not used. It means observing the norms of sexuality set out by Christ and the Church.
· Truth: purity enables to see according to God and His vision, and not according to our human preferences and limited understanding.
Perhaps the vision then is to learn to renounce control over our own lives, to take a leap of faith and place God’s will, in charity and chastity, ahead of ourselves.
Purity of heart is not self-serving or profit seeking. It brings clarity, is honest, morally good. It is imperative in modern society because it is so counter-cultural and is the seat of truth, justice and mercy. Purity of heart as lived out in Mary is the opposite of the search for revenge.
Purity of heart will demand that the Christian proclaims the Good News of the Kingdom, in speech and action, which must challenge and attempt to change the values of the world around. It is totally generous, totally focused on the other. Mary was the ideal human agent in that work. This is what she expressed throughout her life. ‘Let it be done unto me according to your word (Luke 1:38).’
For Fr Littleton it is not so much that we imitate her, but that in Mary, Blessed Mother we are transformed. Let us pray then, for Our Lady’s intercession, to transform our hearts into harbours of faith and trust in charity, chastity and truth, to lead us to God’s Beatific Kingdom.
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