We struggle to see some way to live sanctified lives; we seek to find our role in building up the Kingdom of God; we want to find a solution to our own problems and the problems of the world; we need some standard by which we can judge the things which happen to us and around us. Questions haunt us: what is moral? what is right? what is God’s Will in a given situation?
The one thing that is essential for us to learn and practice is to look to the life of our Lady for the necessary guidance, and to ask for her intercession so that we will receive the grace we need in our search.
Many of the traps which wait for us in the world today, many of those confusions which keep the light from our minds and hearts, are such that we are hindered from knowing truth which would be more evident if we lived in a truly Christian time and in a Christian society. But we don’t. How often we feel that the world is so dark, that what would appear in the Gospel to be straightforward and clear, is obscured in our attempts to live out our day to day lives. It is an unfortunate fact that, living in our world as we do, we are bound to be influenced by our surroundings - by the false standards of the world, by its distorted ideas. What we need to do is to stop trying to figure out by ourselves what we should do - what is right and moral and good - and we must start turning to Mary to ask her to implore her Son to give us His light. She is Our Lady of Wisdom, and she can give us the understanding we need to illumine our minds concerning the truth which is revealed through the Holy Catholic Church. She will show us the wisdom which will make clear all things of earth and time and interpret them in the light of God Himself, and of eternity. She will give us the counsel to see clearly how all the practical details of our lives should be ordered so that we will be led to sanctity, so that we will know the things of the world for what they really are, and we will know the truth of God for what it really is: namely, that truth which gives us eternal life.
Whatever our situation, through the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary can give to our minds a truly heavenly brightness. If we will but ask for light, we will need to have no fear of losing our way in the maze of the world, or of falling into error. Mary, “pondering in her heart” the things concerning her Son, is our model for obtaining light and wisdom from God.
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Painting: "Madonna and Child"
by William Dyce (1806-1864)