What Happens When a Protestant Meets Mary?

In my case, She waited patiently for 20 years, then got tired of waiting, boxed my ears, and said, 'OK, boy, it's time to come home.' That was 40 years ago.

From Catholic Stand

By Melanie Jean Juneau

Raised as a staunch Presbyterian, I believed Jesus was my only Saviour; praying to Mary was an offensive heresy. Yet, sometimes our most deeply held religious opinions contradict spiritual reality. Look at the Pharisees who were so outraged by Jesus they thought He was possessed by a demon:

The Jews said to him, ‘Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, “Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.”  Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?’  Jesus answered, ‘If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, “He is our God”, though you do not know him. But I know him; if I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I keep his word. Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.’ Then the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.’ (John 8:53-58).

The Pharisees knew exactly what Jesus meant; He was telling them, “I am God”.  So, they tried to stone Jesus to death for claiming to be God because they believed He had committed an act of blasphemy. The Pharisees did not recognize God in their midst. When we are set in our own religious opinions, Christ must symbolically knock us off our horse like Saint Paul before we can see the truth. As Pope Francis once said at an Easter Vigil, God delights in shaking us up. Just when we think we have the Almighty all figured out, He pulls another fast one on us.

Help- Mary is Living in my Heart

When I gave God permission to do whatever He wanted in my life as a young Christian, I did not have a clue what I was saying but He took me at my word.  While attending my first Mass with a group of fellow university students, I experienced an overwhelming sense of the Presence of God and a driving desire to receive the Eucharist.  Right after Mass, I made an appointment to meet with the Jesuit chaplain and within six months, I had converted.  I was even more surprised when Mary, the Blessed Virgin, made a home for herself in my heart, even though I did not believe in her. My heart and my logical anti-Mary mindset were at war for about the next ten years. I guess eleven years of Presbyterian Sunday School in my childhood had built a firm bias against Mary.

As a new Catholic, I was reluctant to turn to Mary; I couldn’t help but feel like a heretic somehow denying Jesus. My way of seeing things was from my perspective and not from God’s perspective.  “Why should I pray to Mary when I can pray straight to Jesus?” sounds reasonable, except when she is present within your very soul.

Over and over, God only offered healing and peace when I reluctantly turned to His Mother. Finally, a wonderful priest from Madonna House, the Director-General of Priests, Fr. Bob Pelton, smiled at me compassionately and said something like this:

“Melanie, why don’t you relax for a few months and stop tormenting yourself with guilt? Simply relax into the bosom of the Church and Her teachings and allow your relationship to Mary grow naturally, without fighting everything with your intellect? Trust in your own heart as well.”

So, I decided to take the Church’s teaching on Mary to heart and turned off my intellect for a while:

I. MARY’S MOTHERHOOD WITH REGARD TO THE CHURCH

Her role in relation to the Church and to all humanity goes still further. In a wholly singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the Savior’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls. For this reason she is a mother to us in the order of grace.”

“This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation . . . . Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.“(CCC 968).

Even now, some 45 years later, tears still well up and I could weep with relief all over again as I write these words. Somehow I was given the grace to lay down my logic, reasoning, and Protestant theology and simply throw myself into the arms of Mary, my Spiritual Mother.

Nobody loved and loves Jesus more than Mary does; she is the perfect disciple. Catholicism is the religion of the Incarnation, and faith in the Incarnation must be nurtured– here, Holy Mother Church, of whom Mary is the type, teaches us how to nurture that faith; to prepare Him room in our hearts and minds and in our very lives.

Child’s Play

Christ challenged adults in the gospels to lay down their adult logic and embrace spirituality with the same trust as a child because the relationship to the living God and to Mary is child’s play. Listen to this exchange between my young children:

One afternoon, I was making dinner, standing at the counter with my back to our three youngest children. Grace and Daniel were lounging around the kitchen table, with three-year-old Rebecca perched like a little elf on a high stool, happily swinging her legs.

Simply making conversation, Grace who was eight, asked Rebecca,“Rebbecca, whose your favourite, Mum or Dad?”

Rebecca replied,” Both!”

Still facing the counter, I looked over my shoulder and intruded on their conversation, “Smart answer, Rebecca.”

Rebecca was not done though, “But she’s not my real mum, Mary is.”

Grace rolled her eyes, slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand, and said incredulously, “Where does she get this stuff?”

I tried to explain as simply as I could, “Well, the Holy Spirit is in her heart and she listens to His voice.”

Rebecca jumped right back into the discussion and chanted in a sing-song, lilting voice, “That’s right. God the Father in my heart. Baby Jesus in my heart. Holy Spirit in my heart. Mother Mary in my heart…but…I still like Mum and Dad the best!”

Grace rolled her eyes and plunked her head down on the table with a loud sigh, “Where does she get this stuff?”

I just laughed.

This three-year-old was made in the image of God, she was a daughter of Mary and got it right from God, the source of all truth.

Clueless but Thankful

We really do not have a clue what we are saying “yes” to at the beginning of our Christian walk. At our wedding, forty years ago, I sensed these words within my heart:

“I will change the way the two of you work and play, the way you walk and talk, the way you laugh and cry, everything about you, so that you will reflect the glory of my Father in Heaven.”

Foolishly we thought that this was a nice word from God! Little did we know that years later we would still be being turned inside out. I agree wholeheartedly with Pope Francis, God does seem to delight in shaking us out from our narrow little lives. I could not live any other way.

Thank you, God, for not listening to my opinions or plans for my life.

Thank you for the grace to give You permission to take over and make me yours.