Mary, Mother of Hope, Mary: Day 140

Mary, Mother of Hope

Mary gives birth to a holy hope in our hearts, St. Alphonsus observes, both by her example of hope, and by her powerful intercession.

We rightly and reasonably call the Blessed Virgin our hope, trusting, as St. Robert Bellarmine says, “that we shall obtain, through her intercession, what we couldn’t obtain by our own unaided prayers.” “We pray to her,” says the learned scholar Francisco Suárez, “so that the dignity of the intercessor may supply for our own unworthiness. . . . To implore the Blessed Virgin in such a spirit is not distrust in the mercy of God, but fear of our own unworthiness.”

It’s not without reason, then, that the holy Church, using the words of Sir- ach, calls Mary “the mother of holy hope” (see Sir 24:18). She is the mother who gives birth to holy hope in our hearts: not to the hope of the vain and transitory goods of this life, but of the immense and eternal goods of heaven.

Before the Divine Word took flesh in the womb of Mary, he sent an archan- gel to ask her consent, because he willed that the world should receive the incar- nate Word through her, and that she should be the source of every good. For this reason, St. Irenaeus remarks that as Eve was seduced, by a fallen angel, to flee from God, so Mary was led to receive God into her womb, obeying a good angel. In this way, by her obedience, Mary repaired Eve’s disobedience and became her advocate, and that of the whole human race. “As the human race was bound to death through a virgin, it is saved through a virgin.” —St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
In what ways has Mary given birth to hope in my life? How has her model of hope inspired me to put my full confidence in God?

CLOSING PRAYER
From a prayer of Pope St. John Paul II: Mary, Mother of Hope, accompany us on our journey! Teach us to proclaim the living God; help us to bear witness to Jesus, the one Savior.

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