THE VIRGIN MARY: tota pulchra

I was born in a small village, Flores island, in Indonesia. Everyone in my village is Catholic. Even statistically 95 percent of the population in Flores (3 million people) are Catholics and divided into 4 dioceses (Ende, Ruteng, Maumere and Larantuka). I am used to the life of a strong Catholic religion in my region. The most memorable thing in my memory is that every May and October that there is always a rosary from home to home every night. The same habit still persists to this day.

Our Lady is in the hearts of the people of Flores. There is no place of sight of the Virgin Mary. However, devotion to Mary is alive. The name " Notre Dame du Sacre-Coeur, Lourdes and Fatima" is so well known. The procession of statue of the Virgin Mary is also often made in parishes and greeted with joy many all people. Even the Mary is adorned with traditional Flores clothing. They placed flowers at the base of the statue and recite a short prayer to Our Lady.  The faith there stems from Portuguese missioners in the 16th century and Dutch missioners in the 19th century.

At Oct. 11 1989, Pope John Paul II visited people of Flores. At the time, the celebration was opened with a procession with the statue of Our Lady of Fatima from Lela, a village on the south coast about 20 kilometers from Maumere.

We know in the history, that many important persons were close to Mary. For example, John Paul II’s rapport to Marian pilgrimage places inspired him to speak of a geography of shrines (cf. RM 26) which reaches beyond his native Poland. That’s why, during his pastoral visits throughout the world the pope always tried to visit at least the country’s national Marian Shrine with which he usually connected the entrustment of that people to Our Lady or some other devotional act as, for example, a coronation of a Marian icon or statue.

Among the Marian devotions important to John Paul II, Schmiedl mentions the influence of Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort’s True Devotion of Mary from which also his motto Totus tuus originated. Furthermore, as a sixteen-year-old Wojtyła joined a Living Rosary group, an association of lay people who studied the Catholic faith in common, developed a lay spirituality and practiced a specific apostolate. Finally, there is the so-called Call of Jasna Gora which unites all Polish faithful, in particular the Polish youth. Each day at 9 pm they make a spiritual pilgrimage to Our Lady of Częstochowa and invoke her with the words: Mary, Queen of Poland, I am near you, I remember you, I watch.

Almost the same experience was the Father Jules Chevalier. We know that 160 years ago he gave the name to Mary, a beautiful attribute. It was never imagined before by his companions. “We called her:”Our Lady of the Sacred-Heart.” Chevalier said those words with the deep conviction. For reaching to this great faith, Chevalier has already sailed in the ocean of spiritual journey. He was educated by his mother who was very close to Mary, even his mother put him in front of Mary when he was baby. After, in his studies in the seminary of Bourges, he kept always the spirit of praying to Mary. And even to start his dream in Issoudun to build up the congregation he asked the praying of Mary in the novena. He promised to honor Mary in the special way, and it happened.   

There were many others founders of the congregation religious who had the big devotion to Mary. Even for the other religion, like Muslims, they also honor Mary. There are many shrines of Mary that visited by Muslims. Mary has truly become the Mother of all believers. Men and women of every time and place have recourse to her motherly kindness and her virginal purity and grace, in all their needs and aspirations, their joys and sorrows, their moments of loneliness and their common endeavours.  

Their intimacy with Mary is in a line with what Pape Francis said:” “Devotion to Mary is not spiritual etiquette; it is a requirement of the Christian life,” the Pope said Jan. 1 2018. Pope Francis even decreed the feast day, which designates Mary as the "Mother of the Church," that celebrated on the Monday following Pentecost. The decree stated that the feast day is intended to celebrate Mary not only as the mother of Jesus, but also as a fundamental figure in the church.

Francis hoped the feast day would "encourage the growth of the maternal sense of the church in the pastors, religious and faithful, as well as a growth of genuine Marian piety."

NOT ONLY THE DEVOTION-BUT THE ACTION OF LIFE LIKE MARY

The Church extols the Mother of God as “all beautiful,” or “tota pulchra,” in Latin. This is because her beauty is not found in her outward appearance, but in her total freedom from sin. Let us ask for her help to remain free of sin, so that we too can live a beautiful life, saying “yes,” to God.  

In many paintings, Mary is depicted sitting in front of the angel with a small book. The book is scripture. The Word of God was her secret: close to her heart, it then took flesh within her womb. Remaining with God, dialoguing with Him in every circumstance, Mary made her life beautiful. In Deus Caritas est, Pape Benedict XVI writes:” She speaks and thinks with the Word of God; the Word of God becomes her word, and her word issues from the Word of God.”

She kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.  In the Gospel, Mary does not speak a single word, simply keeping everything in her heart, pondering it. We can learn from her silence for our life nowadays. That in quiet is how we “keep” ourselves, how we “keep” our soul free from being corroded by consumerism, “the blare of commercials, the stream of empty words and the overpowering waves of empty chatter and loud shouting.”

Mary, Virgin and Mother, shows us what love is and whence it draws its origin and its constantly renewed power. To her we entrust the Church and her mission in the service of love:

Holy Mary, Mother of God,
you have given the world its true light,
Jesus, your Son – the Son of God.
You abandoned yourself completely
to God’s call
and thus became a wellspring
of the goodness which flows forth from him.
Show us Jesus. Lead us to him.
Teach us to know and love him,
so that we too can become
capable of true love
and be fountains of living water
in the midst of a thirsting world.