DEC. 7: MARY, OUR TEACHER IN EVERYDAY LIFE. Day 8 of the Novena to the Immaculate Conception

SPIRITUAL CONSIDERATION

We can’t forget that Mary spent nearly every day of her life just like millions of other women who look after their family, bring up their children and take care of the house. Mary sanctifies the ordinary everyday things – what some people wrongly regard as unimportant and insignificant: everyday work, looking after those closest to you, visits to friends and relatives. What a blessed ordinariness, that can be so full of love of God!

For that’s what explains Mary’s life – her love. A complete love, so complete that she forgets herself and is happy just to be there where God wants her, fulfilling with care what God wants her to do. That is why even her slightest action is never routine or vain but, rather, full of meaning. Mary, our mother, is for us both an example and a way. We have to try to be like her, in the specific circumstances in which God wants us to live. -St. Josemaria, Christ is Passing By, 48

PRAYER

We turn to Our Lady for protection, because we can be quite sure that each of us, in our own state in life – priest or lay-person, single, married or widowed – if we are faithful in the daily fulfilment of our duties, will achieve victory on this earth, the victory of being always loyal to Our Lord. And afterwards we will reach Heaven and rejoice forever in the friendship and love of God, with the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Prayer before Our Lady of Guadalupe, 24 May 1970