Among Us Women

Recently, my mother-in-law, Irene, a devout Roman Catholic, passed away. At her viewing, I participated in my first Rosary service. The word rosary comes from the Latin “rosarium,” rose garden, and truly one is led from one fragrant moment to the next during this devotion.

The Rosary is made up of several sections, including the Lord’s Prayer, the Gloria Patri, and meditations on Scripture from Christ’s life (the Mysteries). Honor and appeal to the Holy Virgin Mary winds throughout:

“Hail Mary, 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.”

As I sat before Irene’s casket in its rose garden of bouquets, two phrases of the devotion wafted fresh meaning to me.

St. Luke records that Elizabeth was the first person to say, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” After Mary accepted the call to bear the Son of God, she hurried to the best source of support and celebration she knew, her also-pregnant cousin. Elizabeth’s first glimpse of this young lady enveloped her with joy. So much did the Holy Spirit of God fill her that her own baby leaped inside her. She knew instantly that Mary was carrying the Messiah and burst out with praise for her and the new little life growing within.

Elizabeth’s praise declared for all generations the position Mary holds among humanity.

Above every one, God chose this woman in which to dwell in the fullness of his incarnation. She was ordinary in many ways. But unlike most of us, Mary was willing to receive devastatingly Holy Mystery unto herself although only God knew what would become of her in the process.

Elizabeth’s praise declared for all generations the position Mary holds among women.

I saw in my mind’s eye the Blessed Virgin standing vanguard at the front of ranks of women stretching for eons into God’s presence. Women two thousand years old walked with my grandmothers, mother, and now my mother-in-law. Behind these emerged millions more from all places and conditions, my living female relatives, friends, and yes, even myself.

Mary then moved among us, hugging this one, smiling at another, talking some sense into that one. She did not demand attention; she always pointed us to Jesus. Yet in doing so, she assumed a major role to bear us up, to strengthen our resolve to live, and die, in as full of the Holy Spirit’s grace as we could hold.

And we will die. There’s nothing like the funeral of a loved one to illuminate the fading blooms that we are. Death cannot hide itself behind flowers, satin, and lace.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.”

Now is to celebrate Irene’s blessed life, however imperfect. Now is to grieve her earthly loss. Now is to glimpse our own imperfect but blessed lives. Now is to face our mortality.

At the hour of our death, there is no doing it over. We sinners being made into saints need all the appeals such a vanguard can bring to the Throne to help us be faithful to the end.

Mary is a woman like me, but a far stronger, wiser one, and sometimes I find myself shy to request her prayers. I am right there with Elizabeth when she followed up her ecstatic greeting with, “But why am I so favored, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?”

Yet apparently this great Lady, the God-bearer, wants to come among us women. As our principal spiritual mother, she enfolds us in the wide reach of her supplications. Above all, she wishes us to be receptive to her example and make it our business to say to her Son, 

“O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray. Cast out our sin, and enter in. Be born in us today.”

BACK ON THE WAGON

Recently I fell off the wagon; or rather, my wagon hit several big potholes and bounced me out onto the trail. Talk about ruts. They remind me of a long-ago trip to Guernsey, Wyoming, to see a ridge on the North Platte River named The Wagon Ruts. So many pioneers traveling the Oregon Trail with their wagons and draft animals used the same sandstone track, they wore it down as much as five feet. (See video of ruts.)

If the trail deteriorated so badly, why did people keep using it? Because steep cliffs surround the river everywhere else. “The geography of the area dictated that practically every wagon that went west crossed the ridge in exactly the same place, with impressive results.” 

Over the years, in reaction to this and that event, my brain formed a geography that has seemed to dictate the direction of some of my thoughts. Often when I face a particularly challenging problem, or simply a perceived problem, down into anxiety’s grooves I fall. Cutting a new trail, a new attitude, on which to travel seems as unrealistic as hoisting a wagon and its ox team up a Platte River cliff.

I have been told it can be done, however. Enough desperation to want out of the mind’s potholes, good tools, and straightforward prayer can help pull the brain up to higher ground.

Long before self-help gurus touted positive thinking techniques, Desert Fathers worked on the thought life and passed along their tools. One such tool comes from St. Climacus. “Stand up against bad thoughts. [This situation] is exemplified by the one who said, “I will speak a word of contradiction to those who reproach me.” (The Ladder of Divine Ascent) Today we would call Climacus’ device to resist the gravity of self-defeating thoughts, “affirmations.”

After I fell off the wagon, I complained to my counselor, “I pray a lot during my times of stress, but I’m just as anxious as ever.” “Ah, but what kind of praying is it?” she asked with a sly grin. Red-faced, I realized what I was calling prayer was merely worrying out loud. The Saints have a way out of this rut, too.

They asked Abba Macarius (a Desert Father): How should we pray? The old man answered: A long speech is not necessary, but instead stretch out your hands and say, Lord, as you wish and as you know, have mercy. Yet if you feel a conflict is breaking out, you have to say, Lord, help! He knows what is good for us and treats us mercifully. (Desert Wisdom: Sayings from the Desert Fathers)

I have collected some affirmations and prayers from a few of these spiritual pioneers. Every couple of days, I write an affirmation and a prayer on a sticky note and repeat them to cut new trails of trust and peace. When I slip back into the old ruts, they are there to help lift me. Higher ground. New trail. Back on the wagon.

AFFIRMATIONS

Today,

1. I am learning to be content. 
2. I am farming good thoughts. 
3. I walk before God in simplicity and not in speculation of the mind.
4. The Father is my hope, the Son is my refuge, the Holy Spirit is my shelter. 
5. To keep spiritual peace, I chase dejection away. 
6. I am a miracle of God’s goodness, wisdom, and omnipotence.
7. There is no moment when God’s mercy leaves me.

PRAYERS

Lord,

1. I trust you. 
2. Your will be done.
3. I am grateful. 
4. Send the vitality of your Spirit. 
5. Shine in my heart the sparkle of your gifts.
6. Expand and free my heart. 
7. Grant me unshakable peace.

CONCENTRATING THE HEART

I enjoy riding the mountain trails of Colorado although it bangs my body around and occasionally scares me. The grandeur in the high country is nothing less than a display of lavish beauty and stark ruggedness. Mt. Antero, at 14,269 feet, is one such extravagant example that my husband, Dennis, and I recently explored by his KTM motorcycle and my Polaris quad. Once we had arrived near that gusty, barren peak, we felt ourselves on another planet.

After bumping over a few miles of boulders and then a talus slope to the tree line, the way climbed over switchbacks sometimes reaching a 30-degree angle. I had to work deliberately not to panic. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught glimpses of what a riding buddy, Kent, calls a “cat walk.” This is trail slashed across the side of a mountain with a drop off for a shoulder. I did not dare look off the trail before me or I could center, that is, fixate, on the plunging edge and head straight for it.

Within a few hundred yards of the very top of Mt. Antero Dennis helped turn my quad around when it became obvious I was on the verge of overreaching my skill level. In the struggle to dodge large rocks amid slippery, chalky shale and dirt, I was making small mistakes and could not accelerate enough to keep the quad from dying or sliding backward. On an increasingly narrow, steep trail with a huge drop off…well, one cannot make too many mistakes.

Riding the Rockies by ATV has a way of clearing the head. All concerns but the immediate become peripheral. My job at hand is to keep the rubber side down. When my mind starts to wander, the trail rises to meet me in rather unpleasant ways. And I must look just far enough ahead to avoid upcoming obstacles, but not so far ahead that I lose sight of what I need to handle at the moment.

The holy Church Fathers had a theory about what clears the head, or as they put it, concentrates the heart. One of them, Isaac, a Syrian saint of the fifth century wrote,

Blessed is the person who knows his own weakness, because awareness of this becomes for him the foundation and beginning of all that is good and beautiful.

For whenever someone realizes…that he is truly…weak, then he draws in his soul from the diffuseness which dissipates knowledge, and he becomes all the more watchful of his soul…

But no one can perceive his weakness unless he has been remiss a little, has neglected some small thing, has been surrounded by trials…Only then, by comparing his own weakness, will he realize how great is the assistance that comes from God. When someone is aware that he is in need of divine help, he makes many prayers. And once he has made much supplication, his heart is humbled…

As long as the heart is not humbled, it cannot cease from wandering; for humility concentrates the heart.

Whether maneuvering high mountain trails over boulders, slippery shale and cliffs, or making a speech, interviewing for a job, encountering marriage or parenting problems, starting a new business, or admitting an addiction, all unsettling challenges have this in common. We need to concentrate our hearts in order to stay the course. And nothing clears the head like a good dose of humility.

"You hate nothing you have made"

During each Sunday of Lent, our pastor prays a specific collect* before we hear the Epistle. Along with its comforting embrace, this prayer invariably sends a convicting wallop to my heart.

“Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent, create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee—the God of all mercy—perfect remission and forgiveness, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

…God, you hate nothing that you have made…

But in commendable fervor to protect our freedom, children, and prosperity, we

• detest corporate moguls;
• despise people of other faiths;
• loathe right-wing moralists;
• damn a black, liberal president;
• curse militant extremists;
• disdain street bums and welfare moms.

…you forgive the sins of all them that are penitent…

But in honorable belief that justice should be done, we

• refuse to forgive those who offend our sensibilities;
• desire revenge on those who mistreat or slander us;
• suspect that ‘sinners’ cannot really change;
• write off certain people as unpardonable even by God;

In our denial that repentance is crucial to life, we

• resist asking God to forgive us;
• avoid making amends to people we have offended;
• put off changing harmful habits;
• refuse to forgive ourselves.

…create and make in us new and contrite hearts…

O God, soften the hearts of everyone, and replace our

• abhorrence with love;
• vengeance with pardon;
• judgmentalism with humility;
• xenophobia with hospitality;
• arrogance with wisdom;
• disquiet with reliance on You.

…that we worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness…

O God, reveal to us the depths of our diseased ways

and help us to stop refusing to face the truth.

…that we may obtain of you—the God of all mercy—…

O Lord, you promise mercy to all who are willing to turn to you;

pry open our clenched fists to receive your boundless compassion.

…perfect remission and forgiveness…

O Father, release us from the unbearable blame due us for devastating our world;

forgive us for trampling on your love, as we forgive those who trample on our rights.

…through Jesus Christ our Lord.

O Creator of us all, even as you hung on the Cross,

indeed, you hated nothing that you had made.

*A brief prayer used in Western liturgical churches.