Meditation on the need to ask for Our Lady’s intercession before her Son.

Newsroom (06/05/2022 8:27, Gaudium Press) The month of May is dedicated to the Mother of God. With this in mind, we have separated a reflection for our readers to take advantage of this period to meditate on the need to ask for Our Lady’s intercession before her Son. See below some reasons to celebrate the month of Mary.

For the innocent

Very great is your need of Mary’s protection for your salvation. Are you innocent? Remember that you carry the treasure of innocence in fragile earthen vessels, and that you are in continual danger of losing it (Cf. 2 Cor. 4, 7.) How many, more innocent than you, have quickly fallen into sin and lost their way! How many have remained friends with God for many months, and even years, and then lost God’s grace and were shipwrecked just as they were about to enter the harbor! – This has happened not only to people engulfed in temporal affairs, in the pleasures of the world; others withdrawn in solitude, exhausted by fasting, exhausted by toil, led austere and penitent lives, and yet fell wretched victims to sin, perhaps by a glance, by a thought! See, then, that your innocence cannot give you security either.

For the sinner

Are you a sinner? Know then that without powerful help it is impossible for you to rise from the abyss into which you have fallen. Sin has taken away your strength: corrupted nature, inveterate habits, dangerous occasions bind you tightly to the earth. And who will defend you against the wrath of God, whose sword may already be raised? Who will deliver you from so many dangers? Who will save you in the midst of so many enemies?

For the repentant sinner

If you have already risen from sin, you need support no less. Who can assure you that you won’t fall again? Who can assure you that you will be faithful until death? More than once you have returned to God and more than once you have sinned again. Ah! if it were not for Mary, you would perhaps be irreparably lost!

Isn’t this my last month of May?

Well, well: with this month’s devotion to Mary, you can obtain her patronage and your Salvation. Is it possible that a Mother so tender would fail to attend to a devout child of hers? If because of a Rosary, because of a fast, She has granted special favors to the greatest sinners, She will certainly not deny them to you, if you serve Her for a whole month. But woe to you if you lose this grace! Woe to you if, after a good start, you slacken off after a few days! Who knows if this is not the last invitation that God gives you? The last opportunity to convert? Who knows if your final perseverance is not linked to this exercise? And, furthermore, who knows if this is not the last year, the last month of your life? Think about this seriously and resolve it.

A Month to ask for special graces

May the fruit of this meditation be the most fervent celebration of this month of Mary, preparing yourself for death, as if it had really been revealed to you that this month is the last of your life and that you will have to die in the first days of June. Instead of increasing the number of your devotional exercises, try rather to do the usual actions more perfectly, and fulfill the duties of your state with all rigor.

To this end, get up as soon as it is time to get up, so as not to begin the day with an act of laziness, and consecrate yourself entirely to the Divine Mother. Make your meditation with more fervor, listen every morning to Holy Mass, and during the day, as your occupations permit, read for a while on the Glories of Mary, or in another spiritual book; pay a visit to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and keep yourself continually in the presence of God by the frequent use of the aspiratory prayers. Above all examine your conscience, and if you find anything that may trouble you at the hour of death, adjust it as soon as possible by means of a good confession; and during this whole month keep from committing venial sins fully deliberate. Then, do not fail to practice exactly any special obeisance you propose to do in honor of the most holy Mary, and always invoke her in your needs, particularly with the beautiful title of Mother of Perpetual Help.

Source: Father Thiago Maria Cristini, C. SS. R., “Meditations for every day of the year taken from the works of St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church”, Herder and Co., volume II, pp. 325 – 328, Freiburg in Brisgau, Germany, 1921