Terrified of Mary?

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Though not a cradle Catholic, I never feared Mary. In fact, I could do better to pay her more attention.

I fear the devil and evil, and I have prayed to God and Mary for protection from them.
 
As a kid, I used to go to the grotto by church and wait around for her to appear.

Of course, that was a kid (me) who used to think she was a train in first grade, pretended she was a grasshopper, and of course dyed her hair red with some red antiseptic in the bathroom. It didn’t work.

If Mary had appeared to me, I would have been the most unlikely of persons she would choose. Not only that, the nuns at school would have me sit in the corner all day if I told them, and I would have gotten a good, old-fashioned spanking when I got home for lying. Even if I was telling the truth, nobody would ever believe me.
 
I honestly am terrified of letting her down. As someone who is relatively new to serious faith, I sometimes feel like an adopted child trying to fit in with his new family. I love my Heavenly family, I just feel awkward, clumsy, and a bit lost sometimes. Like I’m not meeting their expectations for me. That’s what I’m scared of; regularly.
 
pianistclare said:
Father Ted is a spoof, and NOT to be taken as indicative of Catholic life.
The only one who is terrified of the Blessed Virgin is the prince of lies. And he should be.
Pray the rosary, and get to know Our Lady. She loves you.
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But my dad is not a spoof! My great-uncle reports having the same fear.
 
pianistclare said:
Also, a lot depends on what he heard as a child.
I remember my mother always pointing to a picture of the Child Jesus ( a really nice, framed one) in our living room and saying rather sternly…“The Baby Jesus is watching you!”.
Scared me for a while. I thought of Him as a snitch. 😃 For about 6 months.
Then, I started school and heard every day how much He loved me, and today, that framed antique picture has a proud place in my home.
But I never said “He’s watching you!” to my girls. LOL
In fact, as a child, I never wanted family pics or dolls in my bedroom. I hated the eyes staring at me in the twilight. But the picture of Our Lady of Grace? Cool beans. She was our “mama”. 😉
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I imagine if somebody’s mental image of Our Lady is of a statue, the idea of her visiting you would be like a statue coming to life. That would be nightmare fuel.
 
Thanks for all the comments, guys.

It seems that while you all love the Blessed Virgin, some of you do find the idea of her showing up any time a bit scary.
 
If we are so blessed to have an encounter with Our Blessed Lady that can only be good, God will give us the graces to handle whatever news she informs us of or asks us to do. Maximilian Kolbe accepted both the red and white crown she presented to him, white meaning to have purity and red meaning martyrdom and he died in that horrid cell in Auschwitz with a smile on his face and the SS officers couldn’t kill him for weeks with physical torment until they finally poisoned him to death. Even during starvation he was encouraging the other prisoners to sing hymns and praise God.
 
Arizona_Fat_Gir said:
As a kid, I used to go to the grotto by church and wait around for her to appear.

Of course, that was a kid (me) who used to think she was a train in first grade, pretended she was a grasshopper, and of course dyed her hair red with some red antiseptic in the bathroom. It didn’t work.

If Mary had appeared to me, I would have been the most unlikely of persons she would choose. Not only that, the nuns at school would have me sit in the corner all day if I told them, and I would have gotten a good, old-fashioned spanking when I got home for lying. Even if I was telling the truth, nobody would ever believe me.
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You waiting for her at the Grotto must have touched her heart. No one believes the people who Mary has visited right away, look at Saint Bernadette, everyone thought she was crazy and completely unworthy of such a visit because she was “a nothing”. It wasn’t until Bernadette told them the Lady’s name “I am the Immaculate Conception” that they believed her because the Church had just declared this doctrine and there was no way Bernadette would have known something that deeply theological, then people were being cured by the water at Lourdes where she appeared to Bernadette.
 
Drew518 said:
I honestly am terrified of letting her down. As someone who is relatively new to serious faith, I sometimes feel like an adopted child trying to fit in with his new family. I love my Heavenly family, I just feel awkward, clumsy, and a bit lost sometimes. Like I’m not meeting their expectations for me. That’s what I’m scared of; regularly.
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Don’t forget she is a mother. Mothers love unconditionally. ( most do.)
She loves you. Imagine being her…everyone around you has no trouble being rude, getting angry for no reason, being selfish. It must have been perplexing to her as a young girl to see people hurting.
I believe that why she has such endless compassion. She’s seen it all, no?
God bless you. Our Lady does love you with a pure and open heart.
 
pianistclare said:
Don’t forget she is a mother. Mothers love unconditionally. ( most do.)
She loves you. Imagine being her…everyone around you has no trouble being rude, getting angry for no reason, being selfish. It must have been perplexing to her as a young girl to see people hurting.
I believe that why she has such endless compassion. She’s seen it all, no?
God bless you. Our Lady does love you with a pure and open heart.
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She does have endless compassion! She is so graced by her Son.
 
I am unnerved by the idea of the supernatural and miracles in general. I used to be able to say two different rosaries a night in perfect calm, but now, I cannot keep my eyes closed during a rosary and rarely pray for long periods of time. Catholicism is fine to accept on the intellectual level, but I cannot rule out the possibility of miracles. I am one of those kinds of people who love rubrics and calculating everything, and the idea that God would throw me a wild card that defies the laws of nature instead of gradually revealing himself through book learning unnerves me. Yeah, and I guess this intolerance for spontaneity is a reason why I do not have a social life. I usually think to myself, “How can I have a relationship with a God that I cannot see if I cannot even have any with my neighbors that are as plain as day?”

So, I guess some people are afraid of Mary or, at least, are uncomfortable with her because she is closely tied to miracles, including a lot of modern ones. Or maybe because she is often painted as a sentimental character and is associated with cliches. I am the kind of person who is extremely intolerant of sentiment, so that also gets in the way.
 
redbetta said:
I am unnerved by the idea of the supernatural and miracles in general. I used to be able to say two different rosaries a night in perfect calm, but now, I cannot keep my eyes closed during a rosary and rarely pray for long periods of time. Catholicism is fine to accept on the intellectual level, but I cannot rule out the possibility of miracles. I am one of those kinds of people who love rubrics and calculating everything, and the idea that God would throw me a wild card that defies the laws of nature instead of gradually revealing himself through book learning unnerves me. Yeah, and I guess this intolerance for spontaneity is a reason why I do not have a social life. I usually think to myself, “How can I have a relationship with a God that I cannot see if I cannot even have any with my neighbors that are as plain as day?”

So, I guess some people are afraid of Mary or, at least, are uncomfortable with her because she is closely tied to miracles, including a lot of modern ones. Or maybe because she is often painted as a sentimental character and is associated with cliches. I am the kind of person who is extremely intolerant of sentiment, so that also gets in the way.
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It depends on where your focus is.
People forget that she was a young girl…asked by angel to bear the Messiah.
She said yes, and accepted a life of wife and mother.
She washed, cooked, went to the Temple and prayed, had neighbor friends, family, and travelled under duress. Her earthly life was pretty much like everyone else’s until of course, her beloved Son was executed. I believe it helps to identify with the human that Mary is…the person who understands in a unique way, and who, in many cases we can’t understand. Not too many of us would be able to bear the crucifixion and torture of our children.
I worry less about what she might ask of me, than I do worry about not giving her enough credit for her role in salvation history.
 
redbetta said:
I am unnerved by the idea of the supernatural and miracles in general. I used to be able to say two different rosaries a night in perfect calm, but now, I cannot keep my eyes closed during a rosary and rarely pray for long periods of time. Catholicism is fine to accept on the intellectual level, but I cannot rule out the possibility of miracles. I am one of those kinds of people who love rubrics and calculating everything, and the idea that God would throw me a wild card that defies the laws of nature instead of gradually revealing himself through book learning unnerves me. Yeah, and I guess this intolerance for spontaneity is a reason why I do not have a social life. I usually think to myself, “How can I have a relationship with a God that I cannot see if I cannot even have any with my neighbors that are as plain as day?”

So, I guess some people are afraid of Mary or, at least, are uncomfortable with her because she is closely tied to miracles, including a lot of modern ones. Or maybe because she is often painted as a sentimental character and is associated with cliches. I am the kind of person who is extremely intolerant of sentiment, so that also gets in the way.
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We are all different personalities, and I assure you that our Blessed Mother does “hidden miracles of grace” as well as those we can see with our physical eyes.
“Blessed are those who have not seen, and believe.”
 
I have never been terrified of our Blessed Mother but our oldest son used to have dreams (nightmares) about Mary and Jesus leaning out of the picture frames in our house and they had an eerie evil look about them in his “dreams”. When he was about in the 5th grade, he would tell me that he didn’t think that he would like to go to heaven. To him it seemed like heaven was a boring place to be where every one stood around wearing long white robes and singing “Ahhhhhh…” forever. He was afraid he would not be able to do all of the things that he enjoyed doing on this earth. Then one morning he came down to breakfast and said that he wasn’t afraid any more. He had a dream where there were two lines of people that merged into one line that was going up to heaven and our Blessed Mother was there leading them in. One line were the holy people dressed as of old and the other line was people wearing blue jeans and T-shirts like kids of today. He is grown up now, 42 years old and has strayed. I keep praying that some day he will remember to turn to Our Lady and she will lead him back to her Son.
 
celestialhost said:
But my dad is not a spoof! My great-uncle reports having the same fear.
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It would be interesting to find out what the story is behind this fear. Something in your family background was experienced by both men. It could be as simple and a painting or story that was taken wrong.

You never know how a child will see something or misinterpret an event.

Is it possible that your father’s uncle may have unwittingly pass down his fear to your father?
 
Terrified of Mary!! Never. After my three year old brother died, the night of his funeral, she visited my sister and I. You can laugh if you want to, but this is what happened.
I was six, and my sister seven. We were in our room in our bunk beds feeling quite sad about our brother, and we were worried about who would be with him and tuck in in at night. Just feeling so sad.
All of a sudden, I could smell flowers in the room and I asked my sister do you smell something and she said it smelled like roses. There was a light in the doorway, and all of a sudden we could see the outline of a lady. Very beautiful and she was smiling at us.
We could hear her say words, but her mouth did not move.
She said to not worry, that she was there and she would be watching over him, and he was waiting for us to come someday.
Then she disappeared, and we both pulled the covers over our head and did not say a word to each other.
We did not bring this up until we were much, much older. My sister asked if I remembered what happen the night of our brother’s funeral, and we both said the same exact words she said. Did it really happen? I really think it did.
 
Peace and All Good!
JamalChristophr said:
I would be so happy if our Blessed Mother would visit me!!!

Scared?? No way, Jose! :nope:
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:amen::amen:

Yeah, I’d be overjoyed, probably pretty shocked and a little confused at first (“why would our Blessed Mother visit me of all people?” kind of thing) but certainly not scared, much less terrified! A very unexpected but most welcome visit it would be indeed!
 
CarolNoel said:
Terrified of Mary!! Never. After my three year old brother died, the night of his funeral, she visited my sister and I. You can laugh if you want to, but this is what happened.
I was six, and my sister seven. We were in our room in our bunk beds feeling quite sad about our brother, and we were worried about who would be with him and tuck in in at night. Just feeling so sad.
All of a sudden, I could smell flowers in the room and I asked my sister do you smell something and she said it smelled like roses. There was a light in the doorway, and all of a sudden we could see the outline of a lady. Very beautiful and she was smiling at us.
We could hear her say words, but her mouth did not move.
She said to not worry, that she was there and she would be watching over him, and he was waiting for us to come someday.
Then she disappeared, and we both pulled the covers over our head and did not say a word to each other.
We did not bring this up until we were much, much older. My sister asked if I remembered what happen the night of our brother’s funeral, and we both said the same exact words she said. Did it really happen? I really think it did.
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I believe it did too.

Our Mother is like that! It doesn’t have to make the headlines of a newspaper.
 
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