Walking into the Darkness in Faith

December 15, 2021

Fr. John Riccardo

“I am a man of great trust. I learnt to be so here.” 

St. Pope John Paul II said those words during one of his papal visits to Czestochowa. As most of us know, John Paul II repeated over and over again, “Do not be afraid.” But how in the world could it be that this man, whose mother died when he was very young, who shortly thereafter lost his brother and then his father, and who endured the oppression of two of the fiercest and most totalitarian regimes in world history, could be a man of such trust and hope?

From his words at Czestochowa, it seemed the pope was giving us a clue. It seemed as though he was saying it was at the school of Mary, if you will, that he learned to trust in God. Furthermore, he seemed to be encouraging us to go to the same school, to sit at her feet, to ask her to help us grow as she did in trust. Mary, after all, is not some statue but a real person, and because no one knows another quite like a mother does her child, no human being can teach us about Jesus like Mary can.

We can often forget that Mary had to learn to trust. She had to learn to trust that the message delivered to her by Gabriel would in fact come true, namely, that she would conceive in her womb a child without the aid of a man. She had to learn to trust that God would somehow - somehow!- help her husband, Joseph, believe against all odds that the child in her womb was not the result of her infidelity but God’s astounding intervention. She had to learn to trust that God would give her the grace to endure the gossip and the stares of the townspeople in the village of Nazareth, who most certainly talked about her situation. She had to learn to trust that God would provide for her, Joseph and her child when Herod went on the warpath, in murderous pursuit of her Son. She had to learn to trust that God would provide a job for Joseph when they fled to Egypt. She had to learn to trust that God would take care of her and Jesus after Joseph died. She had to learn to trust that God knew what He was doing when, after all she had gone through, her Son was still at the age of twenty, twenty-five, twenty-nine still at home making who knows what out of His carpenter shop.

She had to learn to trust God when she saw and heard the townspeople and especially the religious leaders rejecting Jesus, going so far as to call him the devil. She had to learn to trust God when He was arrested, betrayed by one of His best friends, a man she knew well. She had to learn to trust God when her Son was being scourged nearly to death. She had to learn to trust God when she saw Him on His way to Calvary, shouldering the weight of the cross, crowned with thorns and condemned to the most shameful of all deaths. 

She had to learn to trust God when she was standing beneath Jesus’ cross, her body covered with His blood as it freely flowed down upon her. She had to learn to trust God when she heard Him say His last words and saw Him breathe His last breath. She had to learn to trust God when Jesus was taken down from the cross and placed in her arms, those same arms that once held Him as a child. She had to learn to trust God when he was wrapped in a burial shroud and placed in a tomb.

She had to learn to trust God when she went to bed that Friday night. She had to learn to trust God when she tried to get up and go about her day on that Saturday, as her Son unbeknownst to her was liberating hell. She had to learn to trust God when she woke up that first day of the week, before it was known as Easter.

In all of these things, and many more, Mary had to learn to trust God. And because no one has ever seen God’s faithfulness more than Mary, no one can teach us to trust like she can. 

We are all facing challenges of so many kinds right now - our own health, the health of loved ones, children who have fallen away from God, the state of the Church, the increasing divisions in our country, tragedies and traumas of so many kinds. In all of these, the mother of Jesus and the mother of us all is interceding for us, inviting us to come to her feet, to learn from her, just as she learned many years ago. Again and again she whispers to us, “God is faithful. He has a plan. Do not be afraid. Trust Him, even when, especially when, nothing seems to make sense. 

As we get ever closer to the celebration of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, Sovereign King of the Universe, let’s ask our Lady to help us grow in trust.

(This is adapted from the Introduction in Learning to Trust from Mary: Meditations on the Rosary, by Fr. John Riccardo, recently published by ACTS XXIX Press and The Word Among Us.)