THE ATTITUDE OF THE MAZENODIAN FAMILY: LIKE MARY

Posted on August 26, 2022 by franksantucci

“It is the emptiness like the hollow in the reed…which can only have one destiny; to receive the piper’s breath and to utter the song that is in his heart.” (Caryl Houselander)

Caryll Houselander captured this spirit when she referred to Mary as the “Reed of God” through which the music of the Incarnation took flesh.

Mary’s encounter with the plan of God’s love for her had changed her life – just as Eugene’s encounter with God’s love had done. The Gospel of Luke narrates the response of Mary to the actions and words of her son: “His mother treasured all these things in her heart” Luke 2:51.

Similarly Eugene, treasured the “virtues and examples of Jesus Christ” and pondered them in his heart and in this way his “inner vision” would be a source of meaning and of transformation for himself and for others. He wrote in the first Rule of the Missionaries:

During the day we will also make … a visit … to the Blessed Virgin, to whom we will all have a special devotion and great affection.

1818 Rule, Part Two, Chapter One. §5 On prayer and exercises of piety 

Today, Mary continues to be this missionary model :

We shall always look on her as our mother. In the joys and sorrows of our missionary life, we feel close to her who is the Mother of Mercy.

CC&RR, Constitution 10

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One Response to THE ATTITUDE OF THE MAZENODIAN FAMILY: LIKE MARY

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Lay Oblate says:
    August 26, 2022 at 13:03

    At first I struggle because if I give my devotion to Mary then I lessen my love to God. And then I argue with myself for it is not a measure of more or less, or better or best. Our hearts are capable of much more than ‘measures of…’

    My heart searches for words this morning only because it seems that within our hearts and souls everything is multi-dimensional, without the boundaries of time and space and physicality. And just as our physical bodies require air to breathe for our lives to be sustained, within our beings it is love that is the connector, the ocean that carries nourishes and sustains us. That is the most that I can say to try describe what it is like in a non-physical dimension. In this life each nourishes and sustains the other.

    What I struggle to explain or give words to Caryll Houselander’s description of what Mary is like is so incredibly beautiful and expresses what my words cannot. And I pause as I realize that Jesus himself spoke of what the Kingdom of God and heaven were “like”.

    For a brief moment I understand (or think I understand) and am almost able to visualize what my words so imperfectly try to express how our bodies (which are only a very small part of who we are) are like reeds that Houselander writes of.

    I think how the ends are not the musical instruments, pens that write, the Rules of Life or even our own bodies. No, they are but living expressions of what our hearts and beings are like… The music we make, the images we paint are but a foretaste.

    Mary is a living expression of that new life with God, as are each of us, but that is another reflection…

    Reply

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