Hands filled with mercy and generosity, Mary: Day 065

Hands filled with mercy and generosity

Don’t hesitate to seek Mary’s help, counsels St. Alphonsus; in her generosity, she’s more eager to grant us graces than we are to receive them!

Do we perhaps fear that Mary doesn’t see, or doesn’t feel for, our needs? Not at all! She sees and feels them far better than we do ourselves. “There is not one among all the saints,” says St. Antoninus, “who can ever feel for us in our miseries, both bodily and spiritual, as does this woman, the most Blessed Virgin Mary.” So much so, that wherever she sees misery, she must instantly fly and relieve it with her tender compassion.

The Roman historian Suetonius reports that the Emperor Titus was so eager to render service to those who came to him for help, that when a day passed without his being able to grant a favor, he used to say with sorrow, “I have lost a day; for I have spent it without benefiting anyone.”

Now it’s probable that Titus spoke in this way more from vanity and the desire to be esteemed, rather than from true charity. But if such a thing were to happen to our Empress Mary, and she had to pass a day without granting a grace, she would speak in the same way Titus did—but from a true desire to serve us, and because she is full of charity.

“Indeed,” says the distinguished preacher Bernardine de Bustis, “she is more eager to grant us graces than we are to receive them. Whenever we go to her, we always find her hands filled with mercy and generosity.” —St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
Have I ever found myself eager to help someone who is nevertheless reluctant to ask for help? If that’s how Mary is with me, shouldn’t I overcome my reluctance and run to her right away?

CLOSING PRAYER
From a prayer of St. Alphonsus: Lady, pray for me; for you will ask for the graces I need with greater devotion than I can dare to ask for them; and you will obtain far greater graces from God for me than I can presume to seek.

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