A prayer for Mary’s help to obtain heaven, Mary: Day 121

A prayer for Mary’s help to obtain heaven

Though we may legitimately ask Our Lady’s help in countless matters, St. Alphonsus here focuses on the most important matter of all: obtaining heaven.

Queen of Paradise, you reign above all the choirs of angels, and you are the nearest of all creatures to God. Greeting you from this valley of tears, I beg you to turn your compassionate eyes toward me, for in whichever direction they turn, they dispense graces.

See, Mary, in how many dangers I am now, and will be as long as I live in this world—in danger of losing my soul, of losing heaven and God. In you, Lady, I’ve placed my hope. I love you, and I sigh to go soon to see you and praise you in heaven.

Mary, when will be that happy day on which I’ll see myself safe at your feet, and contemplate my mother, who has done so much for my salvation? When will I kiss that hand that has delivered me so many times from hell, and has dispensed to me so many graces—when, on account of my sins, I deserved instead to be hated and abandoned by all?

My Lady, in this life I’ve been very ungrateful to you. But if I get to heaven, I’ll no longer be ungrateful. There I’ll love you as much as I can in every moment for all eternity, and I’ll make amends for my ingratitude by blessing and thanking you forever.

I thank God with my whole heart, who gives me firm confidence in the blood of Jesus Christ and in you. Beg your Son Jesus, as I also beg him, by the merits of his passion, to preserve and always increase this confidence in me, and I will be saved. —St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
Am I aware of the spiritual dangers that constantly surround me and threaten to turn me away from heaven? Have I sought Mary’s help in overcoming those dangers?

CLOSING PRAYER
From a prayer of St. Alphonsus: Mary, my most dear mother, into how many evils would I have fallen, if with your compassionate hand you hadn’t so often helped me through the dangers into which I almost fell! Continue, O my hope, to preserve me from hell, and from the sins into which I may fall.

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