Of course she knows about you. Her Son talks about you all the time to her. (He loves you, remember? And you have a relationship with Him, right?) She prays for you every day.
I should say one other thing about this, too- even if Jesus talks to Mary about me, and even if she prays for me, that doesn’t mean I have a personal relationship with her. If I may, I’ll flesh this out for you a little bit more.
There’s this guy from Mozambique that I have a personal relationship with. He’s the president of an organization called More Than a Mile Deep. I don’t know if it’s considered good form for me to post his entire name or any personal information, but his first name is Andre and he became a Christian in 1989 (ten years in advance of the fall of Communism in that country) because of a missionary couple that is closely affiliated with the church I grew up in. (After spending decades in Africa, they returned to America and attended/taught at my church until the male half of the couple died a few years back while the female half continues to attend there…but that’s a different story). Andre went on to become a student of the Bible. A student in the sense that he got numerous advanced theological degrees. By the turn of the century, he went from being a student of the now-deceased missionary to being a colleague. He continues to be an educator at the seminary level.
He’s also gone on to be the president of the aforementioned organization. It’s dedicated to improving Bible literacy in Africa, particularly among new-ish Christians in parts of the world where evangelism is advancing well ahead of doctrine. Christianity is spreading fast in Africa, but there’s not much depth. Christianity is often described as “a mile wide and an inch deep.” Andre- and the organization he founded- is committed to the goal of making it a mile deep and then some.
I have a personal relationship with this Andre person. I have this relationship because I’ve met him, talked to him, and gotten to know him. Matter of fact, I spent a good deal of time talking to him last week. We had lunch with some other people, he met up with a different group of people after that, and he was back in Mozambique by Monday. (He was only here for about 10 days).
Andre’s work in Africa takes him all over the place- primarily Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya, and Somalia. He knows a lot of people there. I’d venture to guess he has a lot more personal relationships with Africans than I do.
Sometimes I pray for some of those Africans. Sometimes I pray for specific people that Andre (or another missionary) has told me about. Sometimes I pray for groups of people they know quite well, although I haven’t met them. These could be family members I haven’t met, or people they work with on a regular basis, or a local member of the community with some kind of prayer-worthy situation.
But Andre is the one I have a personal relationship with. That’s because I know him personally. Some of his family members- even if I know things about them and pray for them- are not people I have a personal relationship with because I don’t know them personally. Some of his co-workers, and most of the other people affiliated with More Than a Mile Deep across a half-dozen different African countries- I pray for them in general, and I may pray for some of them specifically at times. But again, Andre is the one I have a personal relationship with. The other people- as long as I haven’t met them and gotten to know them personally- are not people I have a personal relationship with. I’m very confident that the vast majority of these people are worthy of a personal relationship, but I just don’t have that with them. They’re in Africa, I’m in America, and we haven’t ever spoken or met. In that regard, they are not like Andre, who I caught up with last week.
Getting back to the Mary situation, though. In this example, Andre would be (roughly) analogous to God, at least as far as personal relationships go. Contrast this with Mary- even if she has heard things about me second-hand (which is doubtful) and even if she does pray for me specifically on a regular basis (which is unlikely), the best kind of relationship she can have with me is the kind that I have with the friends, family, and co-workers of Andre that I have never met with or spoken to (and probably never will). And that’s not a bad thing. It’s just the way it is.
Just last week I found a copy of “Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary” in the adoration chapel - I had no idea that this liturgy existed and so have ordered a copy.
