My Story with Mary

Before I entered Carmel, I felt embarrassed and maybe a little confused about my relationship with Mary. I knew many people who were smitten with her, who readily attached to her as their spiritual Mother and couldn't imagine their lives without her. I, on the other hand, had a difficult time relating to her.

I was fiery, passionate, and bold and I felt like their was no place for my temperament in her presence. She seemed like a porcelain figure on a pedestal, eyes cast up to heaven, perfect, flawless, and unrelateable. I couldn't say I wanted to be like her, as I knew her then. I couldn't say I knew how to be like her because of how different I felt from her.

Well, then I entered the Discalced Carmelite Nuns, an order that is literally called "Mary's Order". A subtitle of the order is "totus marianus", meaning "totally Mary's". I entered, and as a naturally zealous little novice I continued to find her at least relatively distant from me, though certainly beautiful and worthy of my love and affection. I knew the importance of her role, I knew the power of her intercession, but in my heart of hearts there still existed a gap between us as mother and daughter.

Slowly, ever so slowly, this beautiful woman drew me closer to her Heart, with great patience and tenderness. She continued to pursue me and teach me a sweeter, humbler way to Christ which in my pride and misguided zeal I initially resisted. She began touching my heart with her sweetness and with that, I began to realize how desperately I needed her gentle touch in my life, how desperately I needed her to reform my image of Christ and what He desired of me, how desperately I was in need of being mothered by her.

She revealed her Heart to me and I didn't find passive timidity, but a Heart total in its love, ablaze with the Holy Spirit, radical in her offering and continual and courageous "yes" to God. I began to see the radiance of her Heart, the depths of her audacious confidence in God, and the way I desired to follow and give myself to Christ.

She ceased to be a porcelain, untouchable figure on a pedestal, and she became my mother. Now, I myself can't imagine a day without her presence. I can't imagine meditating on Christ's life without her, or her constant intercession for me and all of my cares.

If you feel distant from your heavenly mother, or perhaps want to know her even more deeply than you already do, I propose three simple ways of drawing closer to her, very much modeled off of my own experience in Carmel.

1. Pray a daily Rosary. Not as quickly as you can without giving it any real thought. Take the time to meditate on the life of Christ through Mary's Heart. Ask her to teach you about Jesus.

2. Pray the Angelus. 6am, 12pm, and 6pm this prayer of the Church, prayed all around the world by the Church, is a powerful and simple tool to place yourself in the moment of the Incarnation and Mary's response of love. This prayer is said to be an "exorcism of the air", it is so powerful.

3. Wear the Brown Scapular. This became my favorite way of experiencing Mary in my life. She not only asks all of us to wear it, but she says that it is her garment, and wearing it means she is holding and interceding for you in a particular way as her child. I can't imagine a day not held in her tangible embrace.