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"Behold
your mother." - John 19:27
She
Comes to the Quiet Places
In
the year 1305, just beyond the crowded streets of medieval Paris, in a grove of
willows on the outskirts of the city Saussaie being the old French word for a
place of willows, a Marian devotion took root that would draw pilgrims from the
surrounding region for generations.
It
was not a cathedral, or a basilica. It was a grove of trees, a quiet place
outside the noise of the city, where someone encountered Our Lady and something
holy began.
Medieval
Paris was already a city of breathtaking Marian devotion. Notre-Dame was rising
on its island. The Sainte-Chapelle blazed with light. Confraternities of Our
Lady met in every parish. And yet she also appeared in a willow grove. In the
ordinary edge of things. Just beyond where the city ended and the quieter world
began.
This
is who she is. She is not only found in the grandest cathedrals. She comes to
the humble places, the in-between places, the places where ordinary people go
when they need to breathe. France, which would later receive her at Lourdes in
a grotto, at Rue du Bac in a chapel, at La Salette on a mountainside, has
always known this about her. She goes where the heart is willing. She does not
require grand settings.
Today's
Gospel - John 14:15-21
Jesus
said: "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." He was
preparing His disciples for His absence, but promising that the absence would
not be abandonment.
Our
Lady of Saussaie is a living sign of that promise. She appeared not in the
great churches of Paris but in a grove of willows, to ordinary people in an
ordinary place, because a mother does not wait for the right setting to show up
for her children.
"I
will not leave you orphans." Mary has spent two thousand years making that
promise visible. She shows up in the quiet places, the out-of-the-way places,
the places where the lonely and the searching tend to find themselves.
A Prayer
Our
Lady of Saussaie, honored in the quiet grove outside the great city, come to
our quiet places too.
We
do not always find you in the magnificent moments. We find you in the ordinary
ones: in a morning walk, in a moment of stillness, in the gap between the noise
of one thing and the noise of the next.
Help
us to look for you there. Help us not to require grand occasions to pray, grand
settings to feel your presence, grand words to speak to you. You came to a
willow grove. You will come to wherever we are.
Our
Lady of Saussaie, pray for us. Amen.
Reflection
Our
Lady did not choose the cathedral. Notre-Dame stood just across the river,
magnificent, soaring, already a wonder of the world. She chose a grove of
willows. An ordinary edge of things. A quiet place where ordinary people went
when they needed to breathe.
This
is who she is, not a figure for grand occasions, but a mother who goes where
her children actually are. She appeared at Lourdes in a grotto. At La Salette
on a mountainside. In a side chapel on the Rue du Bac. Always the humble place.
Always the threshold between the noise and the quiet. Always exactly where
someone needed her to be.
Jesus
promised His disciples: I will
not leave you orphans. Mary has spent two thousand years making
that promise visible, not from a distance, not in the magnificent moments, but
in the small and hidden ones. In the morning before the day crowds in. In the
car before you go inside. In the gap between one hard thing and the next.
She
is not waiting for you to find the right setting, the right words, the right
frame of heart. She came to a willow grove. She will come to wherever you are.
So where are you, right now, and are you willing to let her find you there?
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
