Mary Can Help Us Work with Hope - Happy Day! - 2

Today we continue with Father Leen's discussion of Mary as the Mother of Hope. Our objective here, again, is to help us to grow our spiritual life even in the midst of a typically busy day at work.

One of the challenges we Catholic men at work face is seeing to it that we don't neglect our spiritual life. We can do this by setting aside time each day. But we can - really should - also incorporate our spiritual life into our daily toil. Typically we begin by doing all we do for the greater glory of God. But this can become a kind of dry formula if we're not careful. We say it as we begin the day's work, then...what?

By deepening our understanding of spiritual matters, such that our understanding informs our thoughts, words, and actions, no matter how preoccupied or busy we get in our daily work, we stand a better chance of not just mumbling a few prayers, but actually incorporating our spiritual life into the nitty gritty daily tasks we perform. That's what we're trying to do here - with Father Leen's help.

But Father takes us beyond the teacher instructing pupils on some theoretical level. Instead he focuses his teaching on Mary. What better example could there be than Our Blessed Mother? We see how Mary's deep holy Hope sustained her continually. As we read how Our Blessed Mother used her daily activities to grow closer to God, we might think of our own activities at work, and how they can draw us closer to God.

“Mary is the Mother of Hope. Why? Mary always aspired towards God, always and in all her activities. Her hope was constant, sustained without a break. Mary was aspiring after and attaining to Him in all the minute preoccupations of a woman’s domestic life. For she did all things in view of her God – Jesus. She worked, she swept, she cooked, she tidied up for God. She ‘aspired’ after Him, in and through all these trivial details and occupations of an everyday existence."

With this understanding of Mary's efforts, we now turn to ourselves:

"Are there many of us who aspire so after God? We can answer that question by putting to ourselves another. What are the things that preoccupy us? We cannot desire anything very strongly and at the same time be preoccupied with other desires. If, at any given moment, we examine our desires we may find a multitude, which are more or less strongly pulling us in various directions. Our desires are the tendencies of our life; their multiplicity is a sign that we are not moved solely by the hope of straining towards God. Mary thought nothing of importance in her life except the entering into fresh and fuller possession of God at every moment of her existence. We, too, should have that strong hope; at least we should desire it, aim at it."

Yes, we too can imitate Mary's example - but only if we desire the attainment of a closeness with God as she did. Father realistically recognizes such desire may not result in our fully achieving that closeness, even if our desire is singular and persistent. Our fallen human nature will always serve as a drag on such efforts. But hope will help us to press on. And if we find ourselves discouraged, we might ask ourselves whether this results from a lack of hope:

“Why do we fail? Why are we so often disappointed? We lack hope. We think we cannot reach God. We think that, today, because prayer is difficult, God is out of our reach. Perhaps we are even content with living merely on our own plane, content to occupy ourselves with the ordinary affairs of life, not using them hopefully as a means to press towards God. There should be a constant effort to realize that God is ours; that God must be ours. God has put this virtue of Hope into us for this purpose. The motive of Hope is always God, God ready to succor us in this enterprise which is the pursuit of God. When we are acting in the virtue of Hope we have not to pray God to help us. God will, in virtue of our Hope, put Himself at our disposal; He will give us all that we require to attain Him. Therefore, if we are not persuaded that by His help, we can reach Him, have intimacy with God, possession of God, love of God, as Mary had, let us turn to Mary, Mother of Fair Love, of Fear, of Knowledge and of Holy Hope, and ask her to obtain for us the grace to live and act in the virtue of Hope, and thus tend constantly towards Him Who is its object.”

We must not any difficulties in our efforts to grow closer to God derail us. Would we do this when pursuing important goals in our business? Not if we consider them important enough. We must apply the same rigor and persistence to our spiritual life. 

The good news from Father Leen is that we have an advocate in Our Blessed Mother. We learn from her example. We turn to her, daily, even many times a day, for the grace to continually work towards God, the object of our hope.

Holy Mother Church has given us a simple powerful prayer to keep hope alive in our daily efforts, the Act of Hope. Let's pray this now:

O my God, relying on Thy almighty power and infinite mercy and promises, I hope to obtain pardon of my sins, the help of Thy grace, and Life Everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.

...or we can say, with simple sincerity, Mary, Mother of Hope, pray for us!