By Sr. Mary Cecilia, C.K.
School Sisters of Christ the King
“To be a Christian is to be Marian, and to encounter the sacramental worldview means that we need to move away from a purely pragmatic and action-oriented attitude and develop the attitude of Mary.”
These words made me pause as I read “Mysterion” by Father Harrison Ayre. He went on to say that “a Church that acts but doesn’t pray, and plans but doesn’t ponder is a Church more in the image of ourselves than the body of Christ.”
Mary is a real person. When we see her, we see what we should be like, how we should live. Her virtues are examples to us, signs of how we should participate in the life of Christ, and how we should experience His saving grace. If we are called to be Marian as a Church, we must take time to ponder: to be receptive, to spend time in contemplation, and to strive to be humble.
A receptive Christian is one who is open to receive God. We must recognize our dependence on God, that everything we have, everything we are completely depends on God. Looking at Mary, we see her complete reliance upon God for everything, her complete openness to receive God. That’s what we see in the Annunciation, in her willingness to stand at the foot of the cross, and to be present to the Church in the days after Pentecost.
A contemplative Christian is one who ponders the workings of God, waiting for Him to speak. We must be silent; both interior and exterior silence is necessary. We ponder what God tells us in our hearts. We let the Word of God infiltrate our being, our heart, and allow it to transform us. The Scriptures tell us that “Mary pondered all these things in her heart.” She allowed the presence of Jesus in her life to change her, to fill her, to guide her. That’s at the heart of the contemplative Christian.
A humble Christian relies upon the virtue of faith. To receive faith according to God’s terms and not our own is truly humbling. To know that we are fully dependent upon God, to know that everything is a gift from Him, and that God is ultimately the source of our freedom, that’s true humility. Mary could say “yes” to God because she knew this deeply. She saw everything that God had done for her as a gift, and her response back was one of humble openness. How could she say anything but “yes” as a response to God at every moment of her life?
Living the sacramental worldview is to recognize that receptivity, contemplation and humility are not the world’s values. The world places before us a plentitude of screens, noises and distractions. The world wants us to react, to act first, to constantly be doing something, keeping busy. Mary gives us the example of slowing down, simple reflection, peace of heart. Mary shows us how to approach the world seeing what happens around us through the eyes of Christ. We see the Scriptures as an encounter with Jesus, the sacraments as a gift from our Heavenly Father, the activity around us as ways in which God interacts with us. Mary shows us how to be receptive to the little graces every day, the ways that God wants us to slow down and notice how He’s working in our lives and the lives of those around us, and to give Him thanks for everything.
One of the best ways to begin living the sacramental worldview is by noticing the feast days the Church puts before us. This month of May began with the feast of St. Joseph the Worker. How do we receive the gift of work in our lives? Do we see it as a sharing in the beauty of creation that originates from the original creation of the world? Or do we see it as something that must be borne as a cross?
The feast of Pentecost is nearing. How do we become receptive to the gifts of the Spirit in our lives? Do we even notice them? The month of May ends with the beautiful feast of the Visitation. Do we recognize the presence of Christ that we bring to others when we encounter them, no matter where we are? Do we recognize when others bring Christ to us?
We are called to be a Marian Church, one that follows Christ as Mary did. Let us continue to step out in faith, so that the Church we manifest to others is not one of our own making, but made in the image of Christ with Mary as our model.
