God puts Mary in our lives to help us pray

We trust in her fidelity; we lean on her strength; we build upon her mercy and her charity ...

The Bible tells us that the Mother of God was present in the Upper Room with the Apostles as they awaited the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 1:12-14). Which means that God puts the Blessed Virgin Mary in our life to help us pray. This is a help we need! For, as the Letter to the Romans points out, “we do not know how to pray as we ought” (Romans 8:26). “The Spirit helps us in our weakness” — especially through the gift of the maternal mediation and intercession of the Mother of God.

St. Louis de Montfort poses a key question: “Is our purity sufficiently great to warrant our uniting ourselves with God, directly and of ourselves?” If we answer honestly and in humility, we must say that it is not. “Our own morality is insufficient for the proper worship of God” (Pope Benedict XVI). The Virgin Mary is given to us to be our principle of purity. As St. Louis de Montfort continues, “It is through Mary that Jesus Christ has come to us; and it is through her that we must go to him.”

De Montfort continues his good instruction:

Man — so corrupt — so weak and so inconstant — trusts in himself, relies on his own strength, and believes himself capable of preserving intact the treasury of his own graces, virtues, and merits. Now, by this devotion, we give into the safe keeping of the Blessed Virgin all that we possess. We trust in her fidelity; we lean on her strength; we build upon her mercy and her charity, in order that she may preserve and increase our virtues and our merits, despite all the efforts of the world, the flesh, and the devil, to deprive us of them.

Relying on the Blessed Mother as our principle of purity before God garners untold graces. The Cistercian St. Amadeus of Lausanne (+1159) asks: “Who did ever come away from Mary’s company sick or downcast, or devoid of some knowledge of the heavenly mysteries? Who did ever return home bereft of joy, after having entreated Mary, Mother of God, in behalf of his needs?”

Follow Fr. Cameron’s series on prayer here.

See some of the earlier pieces below:

Read more:Why pray to Mary?