February dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes: day 6, Immaculate to make us perfect in love

When sin weighs on us, when feelings of guilt oppress us, when we feel the need for forgiveness, tenderness, reconciliation, we know that there is a Father who awaits us, who is ready to run towards us, to embrace us, to hug us and give us peace, serenity, life ..

Mary, the Mother, prepares us and pushes us to this encounter, gives wings to our hearts, instills in us a longing for God and a great desire for his forgiveness, so great that we can do nothing but have recourse to him, with the repentance and penance, with trust and with love.

We affirm with Saint Bernard that we need to have a mediator with the Mediator himself. Mary, this divine creature, is the most capable of carrying out this task of love. To go to Jesus, to go to the Father, we ask with confidence the help and intercession of Mary, our Mother. Maria is good and full of tenderness, there is nothing austere or unfriendly about her. In her we see our very nature: it is not like the sun which by the vividness of its rays could dazzle our weakness, Mary is beautiful and sweet like the moon (Ct 6, 10) which receives the light of the sun and tempers it for make it more suited to our weak sight.

Mary is so full of love that she does not reject anyone who asks her for help, however sinful he may be. Since the world began, it has never been heard, say the saints, that someone has turned to Mary with confidence and trust and has been abandoned. Then she is so powerful that her questions are never rejected: it is enough that she present herself to the Son to pray to him and He immediately grants! Jesus always lets himself be lovingly overcome by the prayers of his dearest Mother.

According to Saint Bernard and Saint Bonaventure there are three steps to reach God. Mary is the first, she is the closest to us and the most suitable for our weakness, Jesus is the second, the third is the Heavenly Father "(cf. Treatise VD 85 86).

When we think about all this, it is easy for us to understand that the more we are filially united to her and the more we are purified, the more our love for Jesus and our relationship with the Father are also purified. Mary leads us to be more docile to the action of the Holy Spirit and thus to experience in ourselves a new divine life which makes us witnesses of many wonders. Entrusting oneself to Mary, then, means preparing oneself for consecration to her, desiring to belong to her more so that she can dispose of us as she wishes.

Commitment: By meditating on it, we recite the Hail Mary, asking our Heavenly Mother for the grace to be purified from all that still separates us from her and from Jesus.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.