Imitating Our Lady. Renewing our surrender


 
Our Lady dedicated herself entirely to God, moved by the Holy Spirit, and perhaps she did so at that age when children begin to have the use of reason, which in her, full of grace, must have been of a particular luminosity; or perhaps from always... without any formal act taking place. "St. Alphonsus M. de Liguori affirmed that the child Mary was well known, that God does not accept divided hearts, but wants them completely consecrated to his love in conformity with the divine precept: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength (cf. Dt 6:5), so that, from the moment she began to live, she began to love God with all her strength and gave herself completely to him". Mary always belonged to God; and this belonging must have been ever more conscious, with a love that reached a new fullness in every occasion and circumstance.


Today could be a good opportunity for us, meditating on this feast of Mary, in which her complete dedication to the Lord is made manifest, to renew our dedication to God in the midst of our normal daily chores, in the place where the Lord has placed us. But we must keep in mind that every step forward in our union with God must necessarily involve more frequent contact with the Holy Spirit, the Guest of our soul, to whom Our Lady was so docile throughout her life. Today, to ask for this grace, we can be helped by the prayer that St. Josemaría Escrivá composed for his personal devotion: "Come, O Holy Spirit: enlighten my understanding, that I may know your commands; strengthen my heart against the insidiousness of the enemy; inflame my will..... I have heard your voice, and I do not want to harden myself and resist, saying: later... tomorrow. Nunc coepi! now, lest tomorrow be wanting to me.


"O Spirit of truth and wisdom, Spirit of understanding and counsel, Spirit of joy and peace: I want what you want, I want because you want it, I want it as you want it, I want it when you want it...".


Let us also ask Our Lady that there may be many people who, docile to the Holy Spirit, give themselves entirely to the Lord, as she did, from their earliest youth.