How is your relationship with Mary?

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Interesting thread,
Like others, my relationship with Our Lady is less than it could and should be.

And, like others, she was instrumental in my conversion of heart. I was a skeptical, protestant raised, de-facto pagan, having studied my way to being a intellectual Catholic. The night of my spiritual conversion, at one point I asked Mary, not all that respectfully, to help me to pray to her Son Jesus. I didn’t really believe it but thought I would give it a try. Much to my surprise she led me right to Him. I had not felt His presence before like that. It was as though she took me by the hand and brought me to her Son Jesus.

So I owe her big time. And I feel guilty when I neglect the rosary. It is the least I can do in return for her generous help.
 
Thomas!!! Holy $&*@!!! What a pleasure to see you on here!!! 😃 Thomas is my “homie” we go wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy back.

Well I will answer your question. If not for Mary I would have blown my brains out long ago. no questions asked. I started going back to church (went in there one day when it was empty) and the first thing I did was kneel at Mary’s statue and start crying like a baby…
suffice it to say I’ve been having to go through hell what with everything going wrong in my life (and its my fault trust me)
In any case I have been going to Confession and Communion and feel a peace within my soul that I can never again trade for anything. The alternative would have been a self inflicted death. I was to that point. :eek:
 
Amazing that you ask this…this very question has been on my heart for some time now.

I remember learning (grudgingly) the rosary as a child, but when a storm hit us (I was deathly afraid of storms–especially after a tree hit our house), I remember sitting on our livingroom step, watching the storm and praying the rosary. My brother made fun of me but I didn’t care…the Blessed Mother was the only one who had time to listen to me just then and I am convinced she was there through each and every storm thereafter.

As I grew older my Mom was diagnosed with bipolar and she became fanatical (not in a good way). Everythign about Mary she almost literally shoved down my throat. I was at that rebellious teenage stage anyway, and having her throw books at me and order me to read actually served not only to distance me from her, but from our Blessed Mother as well.

My relationship to Mary was renewed when I visited the Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico in 1994, when I was in college. I was in Mexico for a semester, and 2 years later I returned. I was a seperated Catholic at that point–non practicing, questioning, etc. That particular image is the one I now relate to the most.

Then, since I didn’t have Catholic radio, when I came back to the Church I listened to Christian radio…which doesn’t have anything to do with Mary.

Now I wear the scapular, ask for her protection and “adoption”, and still struggle with keeping focus during the rosary.

My relationship with my earthly mother is a struggle on the best days. I love her very much but our past is very much a wedge. I think this keeps me from a good relationship with the Blessed Mother so I have been praying to her to help us bridge that gap.

Sorry so long winded…I have a big mouth, and tend to process by “thinking out loud”. Thanks for your patience!
 
I am consecrated to Our Lady in the Militia of the Immaculata. www.consecration.com
I was consecrated on Dec. 12, 2002 on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
It has been an interesting journey to say the least. Being a convert from evangelicalism, I was skeptical before and took the consecration mostly as an act of faith. Since then, Our Lady continues to tap me on the shoulder and presses me into service. Mostly through prayer and counsel to others.
I have in the last year, cultivated a devotion to OLOG.

I have to object to the previous posters suggestion:
  • IOW, I don’t find the approach through Mary to Christ helpful; unlike the approach to Mary through Christ. And there are Saints one finds more attractive - because so much more is known about them. Mary is too vague and unsolid for me - too much of a holy abstraction.*
    Holy abstraction? what is that?
    Our Lord saw fit to come to us through Mary, It is no more an abstraction for us to do the same. And to say there is so little known about Mary is quite a mouthful. :eek: Are you kidding?
    I have found my approach to Christ through our Lady to be ennourmously transforming. And I didn’t even try that hard. It is the Lords work.
 
I was a progressive Catholic, which means I didn’t need Mary or the rosary, did not even own one, until one afternoon I was napping while DD, a new driver, took her sibs to CCD. I sat straight up in bed, knew there had been an accident. Strangely calm, I waited for the phone to ring, and picked up a rosary, which was there on the bedside table. Query: where did it come from? I still have no idea. I could not remember exactly how to say the prayers, so just held it and asked Mary to protect my children. Call came a few minutes later, they had been in an accident, rear end collision, busy street in the rain. Neighbor took me to the scene. Youngest transported in ambulance, but all 3 kids were okay and released, just shaken up. I had the absolute assurance from the beginning of my premonition that Mary would take care of them, and she did. I have been praying the rosary ever since, even and especially during periods when other prayer is impossible for me.
 
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ridesawhitehors:
I am consecrated to Our Lady in the Militia of the Immaculata. www.consecration.com
I was consecrated on Dec. 12, 2002 on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
It has been an interesting journey to say the least. Being a convert from evangelicalism, I was skeptical before and took the consecration mostly as an act of faith. Since then, Our Lady continues to tap me on the shoulder and presses me into service. Mostly through prayer and counsel to others.
I have in the last year, cultivated a devotion to OLOG.

I have to object to the previous posters suggestion:

IOW, I don’t find the approach through Mary to Christ helpful; unlike the approach to Mary through Christ. And there are Saints one finds more attractive - because so much more is known about them. Mary is too vague and unsolid for me - too much of a holy abstraction.

Holy abstraction? what is that?
Our Lord saw fit to come to us through Mary, It is no more an abstraction for us to do the same. And to say there is so little known about Mary is quite a mouthful. :eek: Are you kidding?
I have found my approach to Christ through our Lady to be ennourmously transforming. And I didn’t even try that hard. It is the Lords work.
Click to expand...
**## It always is. And I’m glad that you do. However, not everyone does; people have different attractions, in matters of spirituality as in everything else. You find devotion to Our Lady helpful ? Good. I don’t - and I don’t have to, nor does anyone else. One can no more compel someone to have the same tastes or inclinations as oneself, than one can compel everyone to like sardines or cheese or the colour blue. **
**I’m not kidding - if one compares what the New Testament says about Mary, either explicitly or by implication, there is still far less than is known about St.Alphonsus Liguori, or St.Philip Neri, or others who could be mentioned. I think it is fair to say that more is known about St. Paul than about her. **
**I find reading the Puritans very helpful - is it “transforming” in this particular case ? That is God’s affair and not mine. I do know that what I have read has been a great blessing. **
I’m sorry if my earlier post upset you. ##
 
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