We Would Love
to Keep in Touch!
Pope Francis knows well that Mary profoundly cares for us. In his encyclical, Laudato si (#241), he reminds us:
“Mary, the mother who cared for Jesus, now cares with maternal affection and sorrow for this wounded world. Just as she mourned the death of Jesus with a pierced heart, she now has compassion on the suffering of the poor crucified and of the creatures of this world exterminated by human power. She lives with Jesus, completely transfigured, and all creatures sing of her beauty. She is the Woman ‘clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head’” (Revelation 12:1).
La Salette Laity gather at the La Salette Crucifix on the top of Mount Planeau for Morning Prayer, September of 2011Assumed into heaven, she is Mother and Queen of all creation. In her glorified body, together with the risen Christ, part of creation, she has reached the fullness of her beauty. She not only keeps in her heart the whole life of Jesus, which she “guarded” with care (cf. Luke 2:19,51) but now she also understands the meaning of all things. Therefore, we can ask her to help us look at this world with wiser eyes.
Mary asked some questions . . .
The Beautiful Lady on Mount La Salette expresses precisely that care when she tearfully asks questions, some of which are rhetorical: “How I have suffered for you!”; “Do you not understand French?”; others are directed to the children: “Do you say your prayers well, my children?”; and finally, a question directed to Maximin: “. . . surely you must have seen. . . spoiled wheat.”
She asks all these questions – she who knows perfectly the destiny of humanity on earth. She knows how difficult it is to be reconciled with the world stricken by humanity’s sin. We do not understand how this happens, but Mary takes care of us in heaven after the example of the Eternal Father – holy and most perfect. One can be in heaven and be personally happy, but it is impossible not to care at all about the fate of those still on earth. The Incarnated God, his Mother, and all the Saints know the experience of life on earth and see that one must constantly strive to live like Christ himself did.
She intercedes for us . . .
We can also be assured that Our Lady unceasingly intercedes for us before God. She unceasingly asks her Son to generously measure out grace so that we do not become discouraged. She asks him to behave affectionately with us, who are so reluctant to convert because we are unaware of those goods that Jesus promised.
She deeply loves us, her children . . .
Mary’s appearances on earth are an example of the Mother’s great care for all her children – brothers and sisters of her Son Jesus. She comes – probably after ardent prayers addressed to God – to make us adhere to him. We can summarize God’s attitude in a sentence taken from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, not even if one were raised from the dead will they be persuaded” (Luke 16:31). But Mary makes an exception: she is not dead; she has been assumed into heaven!
Perhaps this is why she has the right and permission from God to come to us at La Salette and invite us to follow the ways and message of her Son, and persevere in living the Kingdom of God already “on earth as it is in heaven” (see Matthew 6:10b).