You were given the most understa

You were given the most understanding, the most self-sacrificing, the most loving of mothers. God created in her heart a love for us of infinite tenderness, of undying devotion, and of profound affection. Her mother's heart is merciful, understanding, vigilant, and unchanging in its love for each of us. Of all the children of Eve, our Blessed Lady most perfectly fulfills the function of motherhood. Thus when we call Mary, "Mother"-in a very true sense we have said everything that can be said to her! She is physical mother of Christ and spiritual mother of all Christians. She mothers spiritually all men called to share in the life that her Son came to pour out so abundantly. What should your response be to the truth of Mary's spiritual motherhood? You should approach her with the heart and spirit of a child. The humility, the spirit of confident trustfulness, the dependence (here in the spiritual realm) of a child should characterize our love. Each of her children will express his love in accord with his nature, of course, but the interior love must be there. This devotedness should be a persistent and habitual thing. Mary is not our spiritual mother now and then - she is ALWAYS our spiritual mother. True devotion to our Blessed Mother is more than an occasional "Hail Mary." It's not just rattling off a prayer in times of a spiritual or temporal crisis. True devotion to Our Blessed Mother means a permanent state of mind and an habitual manner of acting. It's something that fills every hour of every day - just like a child's relationship to his mother! You should turn to her always, depend on her with confidence, and lean on her wise guidance. The words of the great Apostle St. Paul sum up perfectly the function of Our Blessed Lady in your life. He said: "My little children, for whom I am in labor until Christ be formed in you." If this be so true of the Apostle Paul, how much more true it is of the Mother of Christ. She is in constant and perpetual labor, as it were, to bring forth even more perfectly, the likeness of Christ, her divine Son in our hearts and lives. St. Bernard sums up the great spiritual advantage of true devotedness to our Blessed Mother in the following consoling sentences:'

"By following her, you will not go astray.
By praying to her you will not despair.
By thinking of her you will not make a mistake.
Supported by her, you will not fail.
Under her protection, you will no longer be afraid.
Guided by her, you will never grow weary.
Having her benevolence, you are assured of salvation."

The first statue I saw of the Virgin Mary was on the campus of Fordham University in New York. I was startled that a college would have a statue, not of Einstein or Newton or Plato, but, instead, of a robed figure, half-child, half-woman, doing nothing except extending her palms upward in a gesture of receptivity. As I got to know Catholic men, I was amazed at the attachment they had for the mysterious Mary. My godfather could not pass a picture of Mary without tears filling his eyes. Tough Catholic boys carried rosaries in the frayed pockets of their jeans next to their knives. Why? Reflecting on the words of the rosary prayer, ". . . blessed is the fruit of your womb .... holy Mary, mother of God ... pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death . . . , " I came to understand that man, who has no womb, was yet born from a womb and ever seeks the protective warmth of the feminine. He turns to the women in his life and to his heavenly mother to heal the wounds the world has inflicted on him. The feminine teaches him to put love before the competitiveness he falls into in pursuing his role as provider. The figure of the heavenly mother on the altar draws him out of weariness into the hope of the promises of the kingdom where there will be for all, women and men, no more toil and tears, only joyl Paintings of Mary have played a crucial role in my life. I love the famous Botticelli Annunciation, where the angel starts the dance and Mary bends backwards in ecstasy. I love the flaming Grunewald Madonna, with her flowing blondish-red hair, in a brilliant red velvet gown, her eyes gazing down in utterly peaceful joy at the gift of God held in her long slender hands. Most of all, I love the unfinished sepia-colored Da Vinci Nativity. 1, an untamed sensual girl, first discovered the beauty of purity upon gazing at the simple, girlish outline of this virgin Madonna in a museum in Florence, Italy, and shed the tears that began the cleansing of my heart. At Fordham University, Father Donceel, the well-known Jesuit theologian- philosopher, used to begin the class with the Our Father followed by the phrase, "Seat of Wisdom, pray for us." I was perplexed. What was the seat of wisdom? Oh, that woman, Mary. How could a village girl with no graduate degrees be the seat of wisdom?l Then I learned about contemplation. I had never heard of the word before. I was told that the lyrical, poetic side of me, with its luminous images hidden deep in my heart, this soft blissful innerme, counted as much, if not more, than the me who churned out term paper after term paper of well-organized concepts. Deep within me was the source of wisdom. joy, joy, Joyl Your title Our Lady, Star of the Sea also attracted me. I have rarely been at sea, but the name Our Lady, Star of the Sea on churches in beach towns has always moved me: the contrast between the raging waves and the still, silent woman -the image of strong men in small boats rowing towards the harbor, towards the waiting woman, glowing in the darkness, hands outstretched in welcome. The feminine is the refuge. This universal need for refuge and comfort, is She to be scomed as weak, whining self-pity? I think not. Self-pity is nurtured in lonely brooding. The one who acknowledges her vulnerability and fear and feels reassured in the fact that there are mothers to tend her wounds, is far less prone to whining. I resented She when the often sentimental statues of Mary were pitched out of the churches, to be replaced by jagged, triangular glass shapes, coldly beautiful, but chilling for the child in man. Then Mother Mary came back to me personally in the form of the women of the prayer groups, encircling the heaving, battered forms of each other with embraces of compassion. I became mother over and over again kissing the cheeks of women whose tears had smeared away their cosmetic masks and of men whose stoicism cracked at the miraculous touch of sisters and brothers who were unafraid to be tender. Soothed, they were ready to join us in the circle to rescue the next supplicant. I thought at the time: Oh, I wish we had a queen. And so we do in you, Mary. "To the queen of hearts is the ace of sorrows," goes the ballad. And so I wonder what I would have seen in your face and form as you were crowned Queen of Heaven and Earth. Would there be some sorrow lingering in your eyes still, souvenirs of old wars? A compassion and a depth that would draw the beholder? Are you different as queen than you were as girl, as bride, as woman of sorrows? I would like to paint you if I could, or bring you flowers on a rainy day. I would stand a long time on a corner to see you smile and wave your hand. Why is feminine power so beautiful? Liquid grace and ease and warmth, freedom and flow, earth, air, and fire reflected on the water that is woman. The water mirrors them all - light and movement, buoyancy, containment, floating, floating- all the sea's movement and power evoke the queenly hand. No wonder we hasten to call you Star of the Sea, fire reflecting on water. I read that our ancestor's pre-ancestors came from the sea, that the fluid in our veins has the same salts as those in the seas. When I look at the sea and throw to her my confusion and fear, she takes them as my mother and hides them in her faithful ebb and tide which soothes me with its receding roar. The sea is queen, and I am strengthened by bathing in the reflection of her waters. Are you, as Queen of Heaven, the sea become person; are you the waters from above become separate for the waters below? I am comforted that you are my queen and mother; like the sea, you will not fail. I, too, will not fail, but endure all the tides and seasons, all the elements of earth, air, fire, and water, for as you were made of heaven and for heaven and brought full circle crowned with sorrow and with glory, so I am made not only of sea salts, but made of heaven, for heaven. "Our life, our sweetness and our hope," we sing in the Salve moaning over the "0 mild, 0 devout, 0 sweet Virgin Mary." Oh, we who are in the valley of tears are pulled from its darkness by the thought of you who passed through the dark, help me to know to whom I pledge my loyalties, whom I serve, whose colors I wear.

Let me bow down before the glory of the feminine, willing to wear her liquid graces.

Ronda Chervin and Mary Neill