in Annecy:
We have arrived in May. On the 1st, we celebrated St Joseph, worker. The Book of Hours says: “Work is joy and pain, it is service to the community and approach to God: this is what we learn at the school of Nazareth. And in Constitution 16: “How good it is to see the servants of God earning their living, like the apostle, to the work of their hands, and to have no other tomorrow than that of his Providence”.
This introduction should ask us about the way in which we live our office, our responsibilities. We cannot have our time, our schedule, it does not belong to us. Work is a prayer. Do we do it to be free from it or to serve the Lord?
But let us return to the month of May, the month in which we will intensify our life with the Virgin Mary, model of joy in faith. “Blessed are you because you believed”. This is the true beatitude of Mary: it is her faith. Mary was put to the test of faith and she triumphed. The obedience of faith translates a constant abandonment, a yes of love to the Word: “Let me be done according to your word”. To live it, 5 means are given to us.
1/ On the cross Jesus said to John: “Here is your Mother” When we take Mary home as John, you gradually learn to renounce your own will, to abandon yourself like her to the will of God signified by the event
. 2/ Mary is at the service of the Holy Spirit. She is the Bride. She invites us to life hidden which is a life of intimacy with the Trinity. As soon as Elisabeth was in relation with Marie, she was filled with the Holy Spirit. Mary is mediator towards her Son to obtain the Holy Spirit.
3/ By the privilege of her Immaculate Conception, Mary obtains for us a greater sensitivity to sin. It puts in us the desire for conversion. (Importance of self-examination) St Francis de Sales says: “It is a great consolation for me to see so many churches in my diocese dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. Whenever I enter a place dedicated to this queen, I sense thrill of heart that I am with my Mother, for I am indeed the son of her who is the refuge of sinners.
4/ Mary also educates in interior healing. All of us carry wounds in our heart or in our mind, in our memory, in our affective life which weaken our spiritual life, which handicap our relationship with God and neighbour. We built protective ramparts, defense mechanisms. The Holy Spirit wants to lead us to freedom, to truth. Mary can help us, she is Mother. By her gentleness and her mercy, she makes you humble.
5/ This work of healing education can only take place in an atmosphere of prayer In each of her interventions, Mary invites us to prayer, to fasting, to penance. She us leads to the Gospel, to meditation on the mysteries of Jesus through the rosary, for example.. A way to be heard by the Virgin Mary: “If you want her to pray for you, listen to his word: Do whatever he tells you. Do you want her to listen to you? Listen to her. She asks one thing of you: that you be obedient to his son. » Mary asks us for obedience faith that dispels all apprehension, all fear, all sadness. Let us help ourselves by rising in prayer, in fraternal life, by refusing all negative word against charity. Mary never chose herself; she always looked at Jesus. She us invites you to do the same to be a living stone of the community. In a pretty formula St. Francis de Sales evokes the places that the Virgin prefers to visit: he says: “Mary only loves places deepened by humility, impoverished by simplicity, enlarged by charity. » Let’s be these places so that the Virgin Mary comes to stay with us and feels so good there that she never leaves.