Fiat & The Holy Family

Our Lady of Tenderness, one
of my favorite titles and images
of Our Mother

When we were in grad school, a highly musical friend of ours would host these awesome Advent caroling parties. I have always loved Advent, and the discovery of all these songs specifically honoring the time of mystical waiting was super exciting. One time, though, a friend returned as worked up as I'd ever seen her from a debate over "The Cherry Tree Carol." For those unfamiliar, in the song Mary asks Joseph to pick her some cherries. Joseph flies into wrath and says "let the father of your child pick your cherries!" so, because of his harshness, the cherry tree bows low before the pregnant Mary so she can have her cherries. What's the big deal, right? My friend expostulated in words along these lines: that the song is antithetical to everything St Joseph is. He is the guardian of the Church because he was first the guardian of Mary and Jesus. He is the model of how an earthly father can mirror God the Father--by being first and foremost a patient protector, and that the song casts aspersion on these very qualities.

I have had a long and rocky road with Our Lady. We often said the Rosary as a family growing up, and more often than not I found it long, tedious, baffling, even irrelevant. I never understood the point, really. What's the point of all these prayers "to Mary?" Nonetheless, when in my Protestant days some members of the praise and worship team sang "Mary, Did You Know?", I was first excited--hey, cool, they're singing about Mary!--and then increasingly confused--Well, sure she knew, right? . . . Right? I mean, you did know, Mary? Maybe not the particulars, but you knew your baby was God? The Annunciation verses? . . . Right?

Fiat

I didn't think much more about it; I wasn't interested enough at the time. My college-age "reversion" to the faith brought little clarification, despite slowly increasing acceptance of Mary. Some friends of mine, girls I admired so greatly, persuaded me to make St Louis de Montfort's Consecration to Mary, and I did, despite being unsure of the whole Mary thing and not completely comfortable with the idea of "consecrating" myself to her. Of course, it was the beginning of this chipping away of years of doubt, confusion, and even anger. Just the beginning: for years those questions would continue to haunt me: Mary, how *could* you know? How could you possibly understand? You were perfect. The Holy Family is perfect. You never had to deal with . . . whatever, etc. Even, I asked you to help me guard my heart! How could you let this happen!?

About a year ago, I picked up a book my mum had bequeathed to me years ago, The World's First Love--Fulton Sheen's book on Mary. It was revelatory. It was the first time I had encountered the idea that Mary's Fiat contained the full knowledge of Christ's suffering and death, that when she consented to bear Our Lord, she did so fully aware of what she would suffer.

Our Lady of Czestochowa, whose
face was attacked by some say
a Muslim, some a lunatic, and
whose scars continue to show
despite efforts as "restoration":
She suffers with us.

This year has been unrelentingly bad. Not completely bad, of course! It began, or nearly began, with the birth of my sweet daughter, our Sunshine Girl, our Happy Baby, who has been nothing but a boon and joy to our family. I have grown closer in friendships, rejoiced in beautiful days, delighted in the dizzying growing of my two amazing crazy boys. Overall, though, it has been possibly the hardest year of the last decade for me. One thing remains as an incredible blessing, and the thing to which I attribute whatever peace of heart and soul and mind I have been able to find: a steadily increasing understanding of, acceptance of, and reliance on Our Lady. She's been gently, insistingly demanding my attention these last months, and she has kept hold of my hand and my heart and lifted them up to Our Lord when I have had not the strength.

Our Lady of Tenderness

I will not enter into theological debates on songs like "The Cherry Tree Carol" and "Mary, Did You Know?", but now more than ever I cannot help but think: surely, there is more. Elizabeth--Saint Elizabeth, said to Mary, "Who am I that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?" Surely, I should not say less. I do not have to attribute my shortcomings to this courageous carpenter and his blessèd wife--what a normal man would feel about a mysteriously pregnant fiancée; what a woman not "full of Grace" would question about her Divine Child. Rather, I can run to confidence to the Holy Family and bury my weary head in their laps: Mary was a young mother, alone in the hostile Egypt, with no one but St Joseph and her new little baby. She was tired, afraid, confused . . . but she never wavered. She did not give up, did not lose faith or lose heart. Perhaps she gave thanks that she was not to lose her Child so soon as Herod's great massacre, when Jesus would have been just two; perhaps she was full of gratitude that it would not be so soon, the death of her Son. Her son, the Son of the Most High who would be the Salvation of mankind (or humankind, if that's your speed).

Fiat

She lost sight of the presence of Jesus when He stayed in the temple. She ran around, looking for Him, wondering perhaps if it was to be now that He would be taken from her. And with all the joy she must have felt in finding Him, think how His words must have struck her: "I must be about my Father's business", which was, of course . . . to die.

Yes, she knew. She knew what, and Who, her Baby Is and she knew of His suffering and her own and she knows all of our sufferings, our sorrows, our trials. She suffered all with Jesus during His Passion and Death, mostly suffering alone--all the men had fled. She suffered even before, knowing each day brought her closer to this horrible, bloody death that was so necessary for her redemption and that of all people. She knew, and yet she still said Fiat. I, for one, know I would have not the courage. But she did, and she is my Mother, our Mother.