May is a month in which nature seems to sing: we are in the heart of spring; the meadows fill with a rainbow of colors, and one flower above all is the flower of May, the rose; Mary's flower.
So let us begin the month of May, which the Church traditionally dedicates to her, with a thought for the Virgin Mary. In spirit, we offer her a rose, through the words of Father Tonino Bello, who portrays her as a woman of waiting and therefore of life that is always renewed; of hope that is always rekindled.
Mary, teach us to wait; Mary, teach us to live and to love!
Mary, woman of waiting
“True sadness is not when, in the evening, no one is waiting for you when you return home, but when you no longer expect anything from life. And you suffer the darkest loneliness not when you find the hearth unlit, but when you no longer want to light it: not even for a possible passing guest.
In short, when you think that the music is over for you. And that everything has already been decided. And that no living soul will come knocking at your door. And that there will be no more leaps of joy at good news, nor astonishment at a surprise. Nor even shudders of pain at a human tragedy: after all, there is no one left for whom you need to be afraid.
Life then flows flatly toward an ending that never arrives, like a magnetic tape that finished a song too soon and unspools endlessly, saying nothing more, toward its final cut.
To wait: in other words, to experience the joy of living.
They have even said that a person's holiness can be measured by the depth of their expectations. Perhaps it is true. If so, we must conclude that Mary is the holiest of creatures precisely because her whole life seems marked by the joyful rhythms of one who is waiting for someone.
Even the initial designation with which Luke's brush identifies her is laden with anticipation: “Betrothed to a man of the house of David.” Engaged, that is.
No one can fail to grasp the wealth of hopes and heartbeats evoked by that word, which every woman experiences as the prelude to mysterious tenderness. Even before her name is spoken in the Gospel, Mary is described as betrothed. A waiting Virgin. Waiting for Joseph. Listening for the rustling of his sandals at dusk, when, fragrant with wood and varnish, he would come to speak to her of his dreams.
But even in the final frame with which Mary takes leave of Scripture, she is captured by the lens in an attitude of waiting.
There, in the Upper Room, on the upper floor, in the company of the disciples, awaiting the Spirit. Listening for the rustling of his wing at daybreak, when, fragrant with oils and holiness, he would descend upon the Church to point out her mission of salvation.
A waiting Virgin, at the beginning.
A waiting mother, in the end.
“And in the arch supported by these two tremors, one so human and the other so divine, a hundred other poignant expectations. The expectation of him, for nine very long months. The expectation of legal formalities celebrated with scraps of poverty and the joys of family ties. The expectation of the day, the only one she would have wanted to postpone time and again, on which her Son would leave home never to return. The expectation of the ‘hour’: the only one for which she would not have been able to restrain her impatience and whose burden of grace she would have made overflow onto the table of humanity before its time. The expectation of the last gasp of the Only-Begotten nailed to the wood. The expectation of the third day, lived in solitary vigil before the rock. To wait: the infinitive of the verb to love. Indeed, in Mary’s vocabulary, to love infinitely.”
This wonderful portrait of Mary invites us to spend this month of May with her: let us learn from her and with her the joy of living! Let us discover or rediscover her as Mother, giving her a smile and a prayer every day!
The text by Father Tonino Bello is taken from:
