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"Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother
and sister and mother." - Matthew 12:50
The Mary
of the Interior Life
In
1279, in the region around Douai in what is now northern France, near the
Belgian border, a Cistercian abbey dedicated to Our Lady was flourishing at a
place called Flines. The Abbey of Flines was a house of Cistercian women,
contemplatives who had given their lives to prayer, silence, and the interior
life, all under the special patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Cistercians had a particular and beautiful relationship with Our Lady.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the great twelfth-century doctor and the most
eloquent Marian preacher of the medieval Church, had imprinted on his order a
deep, almost filial tenderness toward Mary. Every Cistercian church was
dedicated to her. Every monk and nun looked to her as their special protector
and model.
Our Lady of Flines represents the contemplative stream of Marian devotion, not
the Mary of apparitions and public miracles, but the Mary of the interior life.
The woman who pondered. Who was silent. Who listened. Who let the Word of God
take root in her and bear fruit in time.
For
the nuns of Flines, she was the pattern of their own vocation, not dramatic,
not public, but deep. The kind of faith that lives in the roots.
Today's Gospel - John 17:1-11
Jesus
prayed for His disciples in what we call the High Priestly Prayer: "I pray
for them... Holy Father, keep them in your name." It is the most intimate
prayer in the Gospels, Jesus speaking to His Father on behalf of the people He
loves.
Mary lived inside that prayer. She was the first to be kept in the Father's
name, the first to be consecrated by the truth, the first to be sent into the
world for the sake of the world's salvation. The contemplatives of Flines
modeled their lives on hers, staying, praying, keeping the fire of intercession
burning in the silent places.
The world does not see what contemplatives do. Neither did the world see what
Mary did, most of the time. But the prayer was heard. The fruit came. It always
does.
A Prayer
Our
Lady of Flines, model of the contemplative heart, teach us to be still.
In
our busy, loud, relentlessly distracted lives, create within us a small
Cistercian silence. A place where the phone does not reach. Where the news does
not intrude. Where the only voice is the One worth listening to.
You
pondered things in your heart. Teach us to ponder. You let the Word of God grow
slowly in you before it bears fruit. Teach us that patience. You were silent
when silence was the truest prayer. Teach us that silence.
Our
Lady of Flines, pray for us. Amen.
Reflection
Mary
pondered these things in her heart. The Cistercians built their entire way of
life around that kind of posture.
When
did you last genuinely ponder about, think about it, let it rest in you, allow
it to develop without acting or reacting? What is God asking you to ponder
right now rather than rush past? In God’s time matters, because our Lord’s
time is always perfect in our lives.
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
