Reaching Out to Mother Mary
“Let us run to Mary, and, as her little children, cast ourselves into her arms with perfect confidence” (Saint Francis de Sales).
For years, I struggled to cultivate a devotion to the Blessed Mother. I just didn’t understand her. I’d contemplate Our Lady and find myself at a loss. I tried to envision what she was like, but I could only picture someone impossible to relate to, perfect, and unspeakably distant. While I would never have admitted it, she almost seemed bland.
How would I even begin to develop a devotion to her?
A Disconnect in My Feminine Heart
During my early 20s, I became acutely aware that a number of compliments I received emphasized my more masculine traits—comments like, “You think like a man” or, “you’re not like the other girls.” I swelled with pride at being set apart. It seemed like I had achieved some sort of elusive status; I wasn’t the glittery, pink-wearing, rom-com-loving girl. No, I was poised, clever, and had an arsenal full of envied male qualities.
Isn’t that the ideal?
Well, no. But our culture is exceedingly cruel toward girls. I remember navigating puberty and hearing adults’ innumerable complaints regarding the agony of having a daughter. Whether it was disparaging their daughters’ love of makeup or making jokes about wild emotions and PMS, it seemed like there was something fundamentally unbearable about girlhood. While my own parents never expressed such views, the fear lingered inside me that one day I might slip up and give them reason to feel the same.
I would never be like those other girls, I vowed. But what my preteen self couldn’t grasp was that the problem didn’t lie with girls, the problem was—and is—that our society, a society that has forgotten Mother Mary, has also forgotten how to raise girls. As a result, so many young girls believe they have much to prove. We’re immersed in a society intent on raising girls like boys. As a result, girls have been at a loss when it comes to their own biological design. They’ve been convinced their feminine qualities are weak and that men are their competition.
Don’t believe me? Just observe any crew of high school girls and the manner in which they carry themselves. It’s surprisingly boyish.
While I grew up in a joyful household that cherished femininity, these pernicious lies from the world beguiled me. I was more pleased by compliments regarding my “masculine” attributes than by any regarding my feminine ones. It seemed that leaning into masculinity proved something, like I had more to offer. But the reality is, as I went down this path, a chasm began to open up in my heart.
Mary, Our Mother, Comes When We Call
When I look back on my early 20s, I see a girl who had mostly male friends, struggled with terms like “modesty,” and was pretty distant from her Heavenly Mother. While I loved my faith, the role of Our Lady became more and more complex and confusing. Interestingly enough, the word “feminine” started to confuse me as well. Despite all the compliments, I couldn’t shake the sense that whatever path I was on, I was moving farther away from my own femininity.
Heck, I couldn’t even define “femininity.”
But God’s grace was at work. From 2018 to 2019, the year that my now-husband and I got together, broke up, and got back together, all of my confessions would end with the priest saying, “Why don’t you ask Our Lady to help you be the woman you are called to be?”
I’d shuffle out of confession, find a quiet pew, say my penance, and swiftly add, “Dear Blessed Mother, please help me be the woman I am called to be.” To myself, I’d mutter, “Whatever that means.”
That’s it.
That was the feeble prayer that changed my life.
Mary is my mother. She is our mother, and if there is anything I now know about moms, they rush when they hear the cry of their little ones.
Mary’s Timeline
As I tried to navigate my fragmented relationship, I knew there was something inside of me that was just too confused (and too proud). So I did what any bibliophile would do: I read. Alice von Hildebrand and Gertrud von le Fort were just two of many authors I could not stop studying.
I was mesmerized reading about the goodness of the gift of femininity—of our receptive, life-sustaining role. It is a gift that God had given to me and that I was too timid to open, believing that it might not be good enough.
As I rambled one afternoon about my then ex-boyfriend (and now husband), my Mom remarked, “Why does everything between you two happen on a Marian feast? I hope you’ve entrusted your relationship to her; it really seems like you’re on Mary’s timeline.”
I looked at her suspiciously—and then reflected. My husband and I started dating on Our Lady’s birthday, and we broke up in Mary’s month of May. We met up for one of those difficult discussions on the feast of the Assumption, and we started all over again on Our Lady’s birthday. It had been a year guided by Mother Mary, and while I had been asking for Mary’s guidance, I had been completely oblivious to her loving care by my side.
It was through this time of getting my heart broken that it was being set free from all those worldly lies about femininity. Finally, through the steadfast love of Mother Mary, I found the strength to be receptive to the gift of my womanhood.
It took a year highlighted by Marian feasts for me to shed the lie that I needed to prove my worth and show off my independence. I was finally realizing that my femininity was soft, gentle, receptive, generous, and sensitive. Those are the qualities that describe a maternal heart, and they describe the heart of Mary, the ultimate mother.
In her gentle, motherly way, she had taken me by the hand and humbled me.
Almost overnight, my devotion to our Heavenly Mother blossomed. She had never been distant from me, but I, playing Miss Independent, had been running from her care like a fussy toddler. She, in her warm kindness, let me play as she stood by, knowing soon I’d reluctantly call out for “MOM!”
My life changed significantly from that moment on. I found that in turning to Mother Mary and truly loving her as my mother, that chasm in my heart closed up. Words like “modesty” no longer felt cringey; I could finally see their beauty. I could see that my femininity was a necessary gift and that through it, we can reveal God’s tenderness.
Mary’s Role Isn’t Bland
Our Lady lived a life of radical surrender to the will of God.
She lived out perfect receptivity, and in her unending gentleness and generosity, she bore the strength to stand at the foot of the cross.
We honor Mary on Saturdays, because on Holy Saturday, Our Lady kept the apostles together, sustaining those who had been too afraid to be with Him at Calvary. Her motherly love carried them through to Christ’s glorious resurrection on Easter morning.
Our femininity is a reflection of Mary’s love and gentleness, qualities that may seem soft but, in their softness, are unspeakably powerful. Such a heart can look at all the evil in the world and say, “I’m still here, and I still love.”
This May, let us renew our devotion to Mother Mary. If you don’t know where to begin, simply call out for Mom. She’ll hear you.
Marian Book Recommendations for the Month of May
The Life of Mary as Seen by the Mystics, by Raphael Brown
The Imitation of Mary, by Thomas á Kempis
Mary Was Her Life, by Mary Pierre Tirrell
The Secret of the Rosary, by St. Louis de Montfort
Ann Burns is the founder of The Feminine Project, an organization dedicated to restoring the joy of womanhood. She is a writer and speaker, and strives to uphold what is truly good and beautiful. Most of all, she is a wife and mother, and loves to share the joy in living each day well.