If Today You Hear Her Voice, Harden Not Your Hearts
“There is nothing that I will not do for sinners.”
The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Queen of All Saints is also the Mother of Mercy and the Refuge of Sinners. There is nothing that she will not do to help a fallen sinner rise from his sin. There is nothing that she will not do to draw a sinner to the Heart of her Son.
Though sinless from the moment of her conception, Mary is not repulsed by sinners; on the contrary, she is drawn to sinners. God has given her a Heart full of pity for sinners. Mary will pursue a sinner to the very gates of hell, pleading for him and pleading with him to stretch out his hand to hers. Only in the light of glory will we see the immense number of sinners rescued by the Mother of God and brought, by the ministrations of her mercy, to great holiness.
There are, I think, certain sinners whom it pleases Our Lord to reserve for his Mother. In some way, He entrusts them to her Heart and leaves them in her hands. Sinners who accept this particular disposition of the Mercy and Wisdom of God will necessarily become saints. In heaven they will shine with a particular glory reflected from Mary’s Immaculate Heart.
This perhaps is why Saint Bernard, Saint Alphonsus, the Curé of Ars and so many other saints, when confronted with hardened sinners, abandoned them into the hands of Mary as their final recourse. What no preacher can do, what no tears can obtain, Mary does and Mary obtains. While the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Queen of All Saints, she is even more the Queen of those whom she herself delivered from bondage to sin. There is nothing in the Virgin Mary that is not wholly at the service of the Mercy of God.
Add a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Thank you for your posts on the Holy Virgin and the rosary. One of the most important calls given to the church by Pope John Paul II was to renew the contemplative dimension of the rosary. All of us who hear this call must “cast out into the depth” and enter into the prayer of the heart of Maria+Ecclesia.
You mentioned Fr Lafrance’s book on the rosary, his book on the rosary and all his other works are available in english from Editions Paulines in Canada (the have a web page to order or any of the Daughters of St Paul stores can order them. Also there is a wonderful book by Robert Llewlyn: A DOORWAY TO SILENCE, the contemplative use of the rosary.
Do you know the short quote from Carlo Carretto on the rosary? i could send it if you want…..patrick
Dear Patrick, Thank you for your wonderful comment. I did not know that Father Lafrance’s book was available in English. I was, in fact, thinking of translating it. Lovely to know that it is already available. I will look up Llewlyn’s book. And do please send the quote from Carlo Carretto. Again, thanks.
this link should take one to a list of all Fr Lafrance’s book in English.
http://www.heandi.qc.ca/
This quote is from Carlo Carretto’s book LETTERS FROM THE DESERT.
“It was in the desert that I came to realize that those who debate the rosary have not understood the soul of this prayer.
The rosary is a point of arrival, not of departure. Normally it is a prayer of spiritual maturity. If a young man doesn’t like saying the rosary, and says he gets bored, don’t force him. Reading a text from scripture is best for him, or some intellectual kind of prayer.But if you meet a child in the romote countryside, or a peaceful old man or a simple old woman who tells you they love the rosary without knowing why, REJOICE and be glad, because the Holy Spirit prays in their hearts. The rosary is an incomprehensible prayer for the ‘common sense’ person, just as it is incomprehensible to repeat “I love you” a thousand times to a
God one canot see. But for the pure in heart it is understandable; the person rooted in the Kingdom and living the Beatitudes understands the rosary.”
I have found the intuition of Br Carlo to be true that “the rosary is a prayer of arrival and not of departure.” often we stop “saying” the rosary at sometime in our life so that we can really learn all types of deep prayer! but after we run all around, try all types of things, we may run out of steam one day, and finally arrive at real inner poverty and then we see the rosary with new eyes and find it is the prayer for those who are broken hearted and truly seek to know the mercy of the Father’s embrace.
Absolutely, Patrick. You are spot on.
just one last quote that i found a long time ago and it has been helpful to me over the years:
“Blessed Daniel used to take great care to assure all who asked him for prayer that he would remember them daily in the holy rosary.
One day a disciple asked him how this could be possible since there was not enough time to rememeber all the many requests during the prayer time.
Blessed Daniel answered ” every care and request that is entruested to me is engraved in my heart. Then just before and during the rosary, I open my poor heart to the Holy Mother of God and cry ” Holy Mary read and take all that is engraved in my heart and pray for us now and at the hour of our death.”
sorry i forgot to put my name on the above entry.
Which Blessed Daniel would that be? Blessed Daniel Brottier?