Mother Mary, oh, how I felt your “Fiat” in an understanding I feel ashamed not to have had before. You knowingly gave of yourself, trusting in God’s will for you and the Child in your womb. You trusted without questioning your betrothal, the disapproval, doubt, and question of your reputation by those you loved and your peers as well as strangers; your safety and security, your motherhood, your entire future (and that of your Child), and then gave freely of your own will. All this during a time in history when the consequences you were to face, I can scarcely imagine. I weep to think of such a selfless gift. I am grateful for it and humbled by the enormity of it, and by my gross lack of acceptance and appreciation of it as a true gift to be treasured. I thank you, Blessed Mother and our loving Father, from the deepest recesses of my soul.
You know my pain in a way I can barely begin to understand. You bore your holy Child, your only Son, only to have Him carry the weight of my sins, suffer and die a brutal death. My own child (my only daughter) was sacrificed to my own sins and the sins of others, through the brutal death of abortion. My only chance to be saved from the death of my own sins came through you — in your “Fiat.” My own child’s life sacrificed by my sins seems to bring an understanding of your sacrificing your Child’s life for my sins. We share in the loss of a child to sin, and in this we are bonded. It is a bond that I shamefully claim to your Immaculate Heart.
You know the gift God gave me in my children, (you know the gift of being a mother to all mankind), and you know my heart was wounded by my sins and the sins of others. O Mary, how can I begin to understand without understanding you? I ask you to please find room for me in your Immaculate Heart as you have loved your Son and suffered His sufferings for me. It is only through His suffering that I have been saved and brought from a shameful to a loving bond with you.
Dear Mother, I ask that we who shamefully claim a bond to you through a child lost to sins, be drawn ever closer to you and your Immaculate Heart in order to see more clearly the fullness of God’s love for us all.
Holy God, Mighty God, I thank You from the depth of my heart and soul! That You could turn my heart back to You and then bring me to such unknown corners of my very likeness to You show me how small I am and how great You are!
Thank you for Rachel’s Vineyard. Continue to bless all of your laborers as they toil to shake the death from the branches and begin the growth of new fruits that You make so sweet! You prune the death from our souls, which has made us ugly and shameful to behold to the outside world and ourselves, only to let us shine in the true beauty that is You and Your light within us.
The bonds of holy matrimony are also being renewed and strengthened in Your vineyard. Help us as families on earth to know the love of Your eternal family of which You so graciously have made us such welcome members. You are so great, and great are all Your deeds, that You would serve me — one very lost sheep from Your flock. You led me to drink from Your everlasting water and You give life beyond knowing. Help all of us to drink from Your everlasting waters.
What do I have to fear? I now know Your faithfulness. Please grant my prayers that I may serve You better and for the sake of Your beloved Son’s sacrifice. I ask this for myself, and for my brothers and sisters in Christ, with humble and contrite hearts, in the precious name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
(This article courtesy of Rachel’s Vineyard.)
