Everyone experiences personal difficulties at some point, times of heavy crosses we must carry for a short time or all our lives.
For some of us, these struggles appear visibly in physical ailments or relationship conflicts. For others, invisible difficulties take the form of mental anguish or spiritual battles. For all of us, hard times are inevitable.
Even for moms.
One time in the car, I struggled anxiously with my own brokenness while riding in the passenger seat. Although I tried to hide my tears from the children sitting behind me, a ray of compassion from my son broke through my barricade.
Pushing his giant, over-stuffed, well-loved elephant into the space between the seats, he asked quietly: “Mommy, would you like to squeeze LuLu?”
“Thank you,” I said, tightly hugging the scruffy lovey and knowing my son was offering the best he had. His beautiful simplicity was profound, powerful.
To a mother, it’s her children’s little acts of love that mean the most.
It’s the same with Our Blessed Mother in heaven, who accepts our “LuLus,” the best we have to offer of ourselves, as little acts of love.
Little ones’ love
During this month of May when we celebrate our mothers as well as Our Blessed Mother, think back on all the times we presented our moms with gifts — homemade tissue paper flowers, hand-strung beaded necklaces, painted jewelry boxes still sticky with glue.
Always moms recognize the love behind these timeless gifts created by their little ones’ hands. If this is true of earthly moms, imagine how much more Our Blessed Mother appreciates the love behind the prayerful offerings we bring as her children.
To Jesus through Mary
When we ask for Mary’s intercession, remember that we are approaching Jesus through Mary.
In True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis De Montfort explains it in this way: “She embellishes our works, adorning them with her own merits and virtues. It is as if a peasant, wishing to gain the friendship and benevolence of the king, went to the queen and presented her with a fruit which was his whole revenue, in order that she might present it to the king. The queen, having accepted the poor little offering from the peasant, would place the fruit on a large and beautiful dish of gold, and so, on the peasant’s behalf, would present it to the king. Then the fruit, however unworthy in itself to be a king’s present, would become worthy of his majesty because of the dish of gold on which it rested and the person who presented it” (93).
Childlike simplicity
What is my little offering? What is my gift to Our Lord that I wish to present through the intercession of Our Blessed Mother?
In a moment at Mass the other day, I was allowed to grasp in breathtaking simplicity what my offering is supposed to be. In a stripping away of all that was in my heart, I became suddenly very aware that all that Our Lord wanted from me was my love. He wants me to bring to Him and lay at His feet in gentle childlike simplicity all that is within my heart and mind, all that I hope for, all that I love, all that I fear, all that I am.
And, peasant that I am, what better person could I ask to give this to Him than my Queen, Our Blessed Mother?
She herself experienced here on earth the deepest pain a mother could have: seeing her own Son suffer and die an excruciating death. She knows the stripping of the heart that must occur in order to offer all to Our Lord in simple, gentle love. She did it herself — this offering up of all things in complete surrender — and she can help us do it, too.
This May, take some time to ponder what it means to offer to Our Blessed Mother our own “LuLus,” giving the best of ourselves in the most openly loving way we can, with the simplicity of little children.
Julianne Nornberg, mother of four children, is a member of St. John the Baptist Parish, Waunakee.