Hail Mary (because she was human)

In some ways, just a mommy and her baby

I don't like what Christmas has become and yet I am guilty of doing what a lot of people do...I focus on buying presents, I watch Elf and Christmas Vacation, make cookies with the kids...and all of this is fine but it's completely useless if you don't remember, as they say, The Reason for the Season.  I guess this is one way I am reflecting....

I remember being surrounded by the Virgin Mary as a small Catholic schoolgirl.  I remember learning how to pray on my rosary, reciting “Hail Mary, full of grace.  The Lord is with thee.  Blessed are thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death….” over and over and over and yet I didn’t see her as human. She was Jesus's mother, she was a virgin (and therefore in my mind she was perfect) and we thanked and respected her for having him.    

I realize that I will probably say nothing groundbreaking here to anyone else, but have you ever found something to be so engrained in you that you fail to truly think about it on your own and then when you do, you think "Why didn't I see that before? DUH!!?"  That's how I feel some of the things I learned growing up in Catholic school, particularly about Mary.  

I was in Milwaukee for Christmas when I was 20.  I felt crappy because I was pregnant and under stress; I had just found out I was having twins and felt very much alone.  I was resting on the couch and Breath of Heaven started playing.  My mother played this Christmas album every year since it had come out, but this one time in particular, I started crying.  There were people who wanted me to have an abortion or give the kids up for adoption and I remember fighting and fighting and wanting to scratch and claw those particular people for suggesting that I do something I didn't want to do.  They were not just suggesting things, they were vicious toward me and I couldn't believe it.  I already loved my kids even though I was terrified and I hated these people for pressuring me and telling me that I could not raise them.  Anyway, I was on the couch listening to this song and I thought "Mary did it.  I will trust God too." I am not suggesting that I thought I was as special as Mary, but I did realize that God intended me to trust him just the same as she did.  And so I did.  And I told everyone who attacked me that I would prove them wrong....then I was quiet and did just that.  I never said even one nasty word to them.  I just concentrated on being a good mother and I knew they would eat their words. 

All of those Hail Marys I had recited mindlessly and it had never dawned on me to think of Mary as just a girl.  How faithful and obedient does a woman have to be to know she was going to go through the worst agony imaginable…losing a child?   I know how much I love my children and I can’t imagine knowing at their birth that I would someday lose them—not only lose them, but lose them brutally and unjustly.  Even if the plan was beyond imaginable and the purpose was to shed grace upon literally everyone I knew, I can't imagine the pain.  I think everyone assumes that because Mary had an understanding of what God’s plan was and because she was faithful to God that it somehow that made it easier on her, but I am not sure that in those hours of sadness and fear that it made it any more unpleasant.  She was human just like us and she had to be strong, like we all have to be from time to time.  She was also just a mommy.  She picked her son up when he fell, snuggled him and nursed him.  He loved her and kissed her back, all the while knowing he would be gone one day. Then she had to watch him suffer and die that day.  I guess I am happy that there are some things that a 10-year-old girl cannot possibly understand.  

Here is the song I am referring to.  I think the piano gets me as much as the words do....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8_475FKJWQ