Answers to Prayer

by Naomi

Mary was the wisest theologian. (She was the Mother of the Word, Who is at once the Love of God and of All humankind.) God's Truth entered so deeply into her life as to become Incarnate in her flesh. All Wisdom was centered in her heart. When the angel came to her, God found her in deepest silence. Few words are recorded of her who gave us the Word made manifest. And when she had given Him to the world, what should she do but listen to him? "She kept all these words, treasuring them in her heart?" " And so, in every way, Mary is the model of contemplatives and the mirror of mystics. Those who love the pure Truth of God instinctively love the simplicity of Mary. She draws them into the heart of her silence and of her humility. She is the virgin of solitude, whom God called His hermit She hid in the caverns of the rock, Saint John of the Cross was talking about. She lived as a hermit in the lofty mysteries of her Son. She lived all the time in the sky, though she walked on the earth and swept floors and made beds and made supper for the carpenters. What was happening in her unimaginably clear soul, in the stainless mirror of her being which God had made to receive His perfect likeness?
When the angel spoke, God awoke in the heart of this girl of Nazareth and moved within her like a giant. He stirred and opened His eyes and her soul saw that in containing Him she contained the world besides. The Annunciation was not so much a vision as an earthquake in which God moved the universe and unsettled the spheres, and the beginning and end of all things came before her in her deepest heart. And far beneath the movement of this silent cataclysm she slept in the infinite tranquility of God, and God was a child curled up who slept in her and her veins were flooded with His wisdom which is night, which is starlight, which is silence. And her whole being was embraced in Him whom she embraced and they became
tremendous silence.

Thomas Merton
From Ascent to Truth

And Mary prays for all those who pray, for those who call out for help. This picture was taken by someone I know this past week, and I wanted to share it with you, because Love appears to us in many forms and images, in the Light, in our hopes, and in our hearts.

Sent with Love, Naomi