Plunging into the Water

 This Friday in Lent, I feel like Lent has had it's 40 days in the past week! Each day came with specific challenges that were hard to face with faith. Thankfully, the eyes of my heart lifted to Mary and asked her to be with me and help me get through those moments, and she did. 

Little signs of hope for spring

Little signs of hope: the first school bus I have seen in a year! Woo hoo!

Even ol' Bentley was happy to go outside and nibble on grass like a horse. Here comes the sun!

Mother Mary, Our Lady of Benneux, Belgium was a major inspiration for Father Al Schwartz, founder of the World Villages for Children: the schools he built for over 20,000 insanely poor and discarded children.

Fr Al promised Our Lady of the poor to serve the poor children till he died and bring them Christ. He did just that.

"Mary shows she cannot only smile, but also laugh. Love is not only sweet and smiling, but has a delightful sense of humor" - Fr Al

"Mary is called 'Mother of fair love.' She is is the mother of this new, sweet love which Jesus comes to teach us." - Fr Al

"Mary speaks to Mariette not as a queen to a subject, a master to a slave, or even a teacher to a pupil; but rather as a loving mother to a daughter, or as a close friend to another.  'Love is friendship.' says St Thomas Aquinas." - Fr Al

 Mary's story in Benneux, Belgium is one we can each take to heart. She appeared to a little girl called Mariette Beco who was 11 and came from an incredibly poor home.

Little Mariette on the left

 On January 15, 1933, between the World Wars, Mary appeared to this little child. She told her, "I am the Virgin of the Poor. I come to relieve suffering." Then she asks little Mariette to put her hands in a cold stream and hold them there telling her, "This spring is reserved for me, for all nations and for the sick."

A frozen stream seems like the most unlikely place to find faith. 

Mariette Beco paid a high price for sharing her visions of Mary with priests, bishops and even her family. She was bullied violently at school and at home it was not much better: her own grandmother and cousins would mock her.

Mary statues among unwanted items donated at Goodwill. Seems like many people discard Mary in their hearts.

Hidden among the unwanted.

In the dark shelves of rejection. Summed up to be an item to be tossed, an item of use which is no longer of use, an object: there she is in the poverty of rejection and darkness of objectification.

 The apparition of Mary in Benneux was finally approved by St. Pope John Paul II.

So what is this to us? Well, everything. You see, where there is Mary, there is Jesus and where there is Jesus there is healing and and the gift of living in redemption to live in Heaven one day. In heaven there will be no pain, no suffering and no tears. I think that is worth repeating slowly: in Heaven there will be no pain, no suffering and no tears....let that sink in. 

Mother Mary is always with Jesus and as the first apostle she teaches us how to love Him, how to follow him and how to convert perfectly. Therefore, when Mary appears on earth she always brings with her a message for conversion and to help us along the way. Because, left to our own devices and our own reasoning we can pave our way to hell through a life as a slave to sin and pain.

In this podcast by Kevin Wells and Fr. Dan Leary, they discuss Mary and our Lady of Benneux. Father Dan discusses how Mary is at the foot of the cross when Jesus is crucified, and that she can be found at the foot of each of our crosses with us in our pain. In Belgium, Mary asked the little girl to plunge her hands, in freezing January, into the water of the stream. What is this stream for us? Yes, there is a physical stream where this happened and where miracles occur, but we each have a cold, January, uncomfortable stream where we can meet Our Mother. She is the Virgin of the Poor so perhaps our stream is to be found in her title where we are faced with being comfortable and complacent in indifference to life after death, or plunge ourselves heart and soul into saving our souls through faith in Christ. 

"No thanks! I will be cozy till I end up here..." we are constantly tempted to say no matter where we are in faith.

I always find it interesting that Jesus loves water. You see it in the Bible where He chooses fishermen as disciples, walks on water, turns water into wine and as He dies says, "I thirst". The water He gives is Eternal life and He promises that those who choose to try to live like Him on earth will never thirst. He said this to a woman of ill repute who had multiple husbands. She converted. Threw in the hat and converted. Faith in Christ satisfies in ways things never can fulfill.

Likewise, Mary asks us, like little Mariette Beco to plunge our hands into water, this is an invitation to step out of indifference in our comfy cozy routine and arm ourselves with courage to ask how can we serve God through our life? Excuses no doubt will bubble to the surface as soon as that question is made. "I'm not good enough. God doesn't want to hear from me. I don't even know how to pray. How dare I, I have always made fun of Christians. " And perhaps the worst, "What with they say about me?" The powerful "they" will have no say in your eternal life, trust me. Etc. Heaven is filled with beautiful saints who were once the most colorful sinners and turned from their inner darkness to loving Jesus with every fiber in their being on earth. Sometimes we are more willing to take Polar Bear Plunges in life to satisfy a goal or desire that taking a small plunge in our own hearts.

The plunge out of our comfort zone can often start in the most difficult of places. Sometimes we are sick and Mary is our only comfort, sometimes our soul is sick and in need of healing. Sometimes all of the above!

Mary, Virgin of the Poor will meet you at your cross of doubts, indifference and pain if you ask her to. She is Virgin because she is chaste and invites us to a heart of chastity and purity. She identified as "of the Poor" because the Poor are you and me, those who have a poverty that needs a mothers loving care.

Enjoy this Podcast on Our Lady Virgin of the Poor and don't doubt for a second that you have a Heavenly Mother who is everything a mom should be: patient, kind, killer of snakes in your life, she'll stand at the crosses of your pain and she'll urge you to Heaven one drop of yourself at a time till you find yourself plunged into the stream of faith, the water that never stops giving life.