Mother of God, Teach Us to Trust!
January 1, 2025
Fr. John Riccardo
Brothers and sisters: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. As proof that you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then also an heir, through God
(Gal 4:4-7).
Some years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Poland on a pilgrimage. One of the many highlights for me was the celebration of Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, one of the most significant Marian shrines in the world and a true spiritual center for the Polish people.
To help me prayerfully prepare for the pilgrimage, I had printed out the various homilies and addresses that Pope John Paul Il had given during his very first visit to Poland right after he had been elected Pope in 1978. I was profoundly struck by something that he said while he was at the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa just before he consecrated Poland again to her care. He said simply this: "I am a man of great trust. I learnt to be so here."
As many of us probably know, Pope John Paul Il said over and over again, "Do not be afraid." In fact, these were among the very first words he said to the world as Pope that evening from the balcony at St. Peter's Basilica after he was announced as the newest successor of the man buried beneath that basilica. But how in the world could it be that this man, whose mother died when he was a very young child, who shortly thereafter lost his brother and then his father, and who endured the oppression of two of the fiercest and most brutal totalitarian regimes in world history, could be a man of such confidence, of such trust, and of such hope?
It seemed that here, during his return to the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, he was giving us a clue to the answer. It seemed as though he was saying that it was at the feet of Mary, at the school of Mary, if you will, that he learned to be a man of great trust. In other words, Mary taught him how to trust. In saying this to us, he seemed to be begging us also to sit at the feet of this woman chosen by God to be the mother of His Son. He seemed to be begging us to see that Mary is not some statue that stands in our churches but a real person, living now with the Lord in heaven and a person who had to grow in trust herself. Because no human person ever knew Jesus like she did, she was and is uniquely qualified to teach us how to trust.
I think we can forget sometimes that Mary had to learn to trust herself. But clearly, she did. She certainly had to learn to trust that the message Gabriel delivered to her would in fact come true, namely, that she would conceive in her womb a child.
She had to trust that God would somehow – somehow! – help her husband, Joseph, to whom she had already been married but with whom she had not yet lived, to believe against all odds that the Child in her womb was not the result of infidelity on her part but was really the result of God's action in her.
She had to learn to trust that God would give her the strength to endure the gossip and the stares of her many nosy neighbors in that small village of Nazareth where surely people talked about her “unique situation.”
She had to learn to trust that God would provide for her and her Child when Herod went on a warpath seeking to kill all the children in the area where she was living.
She had to learn to trust that God would provide a job for her husband when they fled to Egypt, though they might not have had any connections there or have even spoken the language.
She had to trust that God would provide for her when Joseph died, an event that surely had happened although we know nothing about it or else it would have been absurd for Jesus to have given Mary over to the protection of the apostle John from the Cross.
She had to learn to trust that all she had gone through was somehow going to amount to something when Jesus, whom she knew was no mere man, was still at home at the age of twenty, twenty-five, twenty-nine, making who knows what in His carpenter shop.
She had to learn to trust when she heard and saw the rejection of the townspeople to her Son, even going so far as to call Him the devil.
She had to learn to trust when He was arrested, betrayed by one of His best friends, a man she knew very well.
She had to learn to trust when her Son was being tortured nearly to death.
She had to learn to trust when she saw Him on the way to Calvary, carrying a cross, unjustly condemned to death.
She had to learn to trust when she was standing beneath His Cross, when His precious blood was gushing out of His head crowned with thorns, and His hands and feet, which had been punctured by nails the size of small railroad ties.
She had to learn to trust when she saw and heard Him breathe His last breath.
She had to learn to trust when He was taken down from the Cross and placed in her arms, even as she once held Him in her arms when He was a child.
She had to learn to trust when He was wrapped in a burial shroud and placed in a tomb.
She had to learn to trust when she tried to go to bed on that first agonizing night after He had died, not knowing that anything further was coming.
She had to learn to trust when she tried to go about her day on that Saturday that we now call "Holy."
She had to learn to trust when she woke up the first day of the week, a day not yet known as Easter.
Yes, Mary had to learn to trust.
And because no one had to learn it more than she, and because no one saw God's faithfulness more than she, she is able to teach us to trust like no one else can.
For this reason, the Rosary can be a great school and a kind of classroom with Mary as our instructor helping us to know her Son in a way that only a mother can. This should be our aim as we pray the various Mysteries of the Rosary. Rather than just merely mouthing words, we should gaze at the various events of the life of Jesus asking the intercession of the woman who knew Him best and who knows Him best, that they may not be mere events of history for us but events that happened for us out of God's great love and mercy so that we may have the fullness of life.
Trust is something that, if we’re honest, we all desperately need. Not trust that God will answer our prayers the way we think best. Trust that He is good, faithful, and knows what He’s doing, especially when we don’t know what He’s doing.
On this New Year’s Day, the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, perhaps as good a resolution as any we could make would be to ask her to teach us to trust and to commit to pray the Rosary every day this year.
ACTS XXIX Prayer Intentions
January 2025
For our mission with SEEK 2025 in Cologne, Germany and the gathering of leaders in London, that God may be proclaimed and glorified.
For our mission with Our Lady of Lebanon Eparchy in Phoenix. May our time together be a source of refreshment and restoration for the priests.
For our time at the Evangelical Catholic Conference in Texas. May all those gathered be filled with the Holy Spirit and ever more fired up for the mission.
For a holy Christmas season for our Episcopal Advisory Committee, Board members, benefactors, prayer partners and all those running The Rescue Project in their parishes, homes and college campuses.
For God’s protection upon Fr. John Riccardo, the ACTS XXIX family and all our families.