Amongst all the lessons that Jesus living in Mary teaches us, that on prayer must ever hold a foremost place. What is Prayer? "The lifting up of the heart and mind to God," the Catechism tells us. To love God, then, and to think about Him is to pray. Jesus lived in Mary uniquely to do the Will of His Father. He and the Father were one—one heart, one mind. He took pleasure in all that concerned His Father: "Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." He taught us to pray in the same way, taking our thoughts away from ourselves to our Father, and when we do ask for something for ourselves, letting it be just a short prayer for mercy or for help, acknowledging our weakness and misery and nothingness, while we keep our eyes fixed on our Father—He God, I His creature; He everything, I nothing. "God be merciful to me a sinner," this prayer contains all we need.
O my little Jesus, Who didst think of me in Thy communion with Thy Father, for Thou didst come to do His Will, and His Will was that I should be saved, teach me to think of Thee and to love Thee so much that my life, too, may be one perpetual prayer, that is, that communion with God may be the attitude of my soul.
Point II. Mary's Spirit of Prayer.
She was ever holding colloquies with her God within her, pondering things over in her heart, that is, talking them over with Him from Whom she had no secrets and between Whom and her soul she put no obstacles. Her life was spent with Him; whatever her duties might be, everything was done with Him, that is prayer. If duties or conservation demanded all her attention for a while, did it matter? No, for He was there all the same. He, in her, carried on the blessed converse with His Father; there was never any separation between Mary and the Blessed Fruit of her womb, Jesus. She would come back to Him with all the more joy, and tell Him what she had been doing and saying. Oh, blessed life of union between Jesus and Mary! Teach me, my Mother, what prayer is. Thou didst understand it so well. It was prayer that made thy life interior for thou wast ever communing with Him Who was within thee. "O Mother of the Word, despise not my words."
Point III. "Learn of Me."
When we think of Jesus praying for nine months to His Father, when we think of Mary's nine months' colloquy with Jesus, we begin to think that there is something wrong about our methods of prayer, that they need re-modelling. Let us try to understand something of what His prayer was. We think of Him, and quite rightly, as talking over with His Father all His plans for man's salvation, praying for each individual thing that would be connected with it through all time. We love to think that He prayed particularly for each one of us. But all this was not the essence of His prayer, if it were, we might well be discouraged and feel that we could never copy such a model; our distractions and fatigues, our ignorance and want of memory, to say nothing of our times of dryness and distaste for prayer would make such prayers, except perhaps now and again in times of consolation, impossible for us. Am I to turn away sadly then from Mary this time, saying: It is too hard for me, I cannot copy thy Son here? No, rather let me ask what was the essence of His prayer? What was it which lay behind all? It was the intention. And what was that? We have meditated upon it many times: "Behold I come to do Thy Will, O my God." The essence of His prayer was: Thy Will be done and I am here to do it. Naturally there are many different ways of doing that Will, and many degrees in the perfection with which it is done; and that is why we are quite safe in picturing to ourselves Jesus in the womb of His Mother forgetting no single detail; or perhaps a truer picture would be a union with His Father so perfect that everything lay open before them both, and that there was no need to talk about what was so evident. Now let me apply all this to myself and I shall find that instead of being discouraging it is most encouraging, instead of making my prayers harder it will make them far easier. What is my intention in my prayers? Is it not to please God and to do His Will? What does my Morning Offering mean, but that the prayers, work and sufferings of the day are all offered to Him? I form then my intention for the day, and as long as I do not deliberately take back that intention, it is there, even if I forget to renew it each morning. Now let me see how this works out in practice. I pay a Visit to our Lord, perhaps I am too tired to think about Him, I may even sleep in His presence; perhaps I am so busy that I find it impossible to keep away distracting thoughts; perhaps I am more taken up with the spiritual book I am reading than with Him—the time is up and I go, thinking, perhaps, what is the good of paying Him a Visit like that? There is great good even in that Visit which all the same might have been so much more perfect. What was my intention in paying it? Certainly to please Him. Then I have pleased Him. It was a pleasure to Him to see me come in and sit with Him, even though I was occupied with my own concerns most of the time. We are too much taken up with asking how we say our prayers, but the important question is why do we say them. To go and sit in His presence, because He is lonely or because I am tired and I would rather sit with Him than with anyone else is prayer, even if I say nothing. What God is doing for me is of far more importance to my soul than what I am doing for God; and all the time that I am there, whether I am thinking of Him or not, He is impressing His image on my soul, and this is true, if I am in the state of grace, not only of my stated times of prayer, but of all the day long and the night too. What God wants in our prayers is simplicity. To help us to understand what simplicity is, let us think of a little child with its mother. The mother gives it something to play with or something to do. Is she very much concerned about what the child is doing or how it is doing it? Not at all, that is of no consequence; nothing it does can be of any real service to the mother; but there is something that concerns her very much, and that is whether her child loves her, is happy to be with her, and wants to please her. We are only children and God is more tender than the tenderest mother. It makes very little difference to Him what we are doing while we are with Him or even how we do it (how can our little services make any difference to Him!); but whether or no we love Him, whether or no we care to be with Him, whether or no we want to please Him, these things make all the difference.
Colloquy with Jesus and Mary about prayer.
Resolution. To try to live more in the spirit of prayer.
Spiritual Bouquet. "Let nothing hinder thee from praying always" (Ecclus. xviii. 22).