Marian Spirituality

For some, a spirituality with major components based on Mary's relationship with Jesus does not come easy. They can relate to God the Father, to Jesus, even to St. Marcellin with relative ease, but have little or no connection to Mary. Yet in striving to follow the Marist Way, or Marist Spirituality, they know that somehow they need to work on this, they need to acquire a better understanding of Mary's role in leading them to Jesus. After all, the Marist motto is, "All to Jesus through Mary."
One first step might be to look again at the Annunciation story and put ourselves in Mary's sandals. Would we take the appearance of an angel as part of the ordinary course of a day's events? Hardly. So, she must have been as startled as we would have been. And then, the message! Mother of God? Wouldn't we have asked, "How can this be?"...or even , "Why me?"
The point is to see that Mary in many ways is just like us. The difference might be in her total openness to take the risk and agree to the mysterious request. Did she fully understand the impilications? Probably not, but her experience of God, unblemished as it was by original sin, allowed her to put her total trust in him. Here's where we can begin. Can we say "yes" to the unexpected, to the demands of our daily routine, to the people whose opinions differ from ours?
If we can just start here, then we will be able to move that "yes" to the larger requests that God inevitbaly will present to us. The attitude of willingness to give up our own will to do the will of God so often manifested in our daily circumstances, our job, our family, is to walk the way of Mary, to embrace a Marian Spirituality.
Bro. Rene