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This month, my parents celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary. I’ve always found their October anniversary significant — as though in a special way, in this month we celebrate the Blessed Mother and her rosary, Mary has kept an especially watchful eye over my parents and our family.
My mother, 89, and father, 94, still manage to keep two holy hours every day, in addition to praying any number of novenas, especially rosary novenas, for various intentions. A while ago, my mother gave me a box that contained the notes she took on these novenas throughout the years, her catalog of when they were saying them, for whom, their specific intentions, and so on. It was filled to the brim.
A few years ago, my parents recorded the rosary, praying all 20 mysteries with light background music, and they gave a copy to all of us — children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I treasure this gift, though I have barely broken it out. My parents are still here, and thankfully I can still pray with them. One day too soon, I will have to settle for hearing their recorded voices at prayer, but what a gift, what a legacy.
They were not always as prayerful as they are now. Raising seven children was as full and busy a life as any. Like many of us, they grew into a more mature prayer life as they grew older and wiser. But there was one thing about their prayer that I always found very convincing: whether prayers were answered or not, they kept praying, returning to the rosary over and over and over.
Pope Benedict XVI makes an interesting observation about the Blessed Mother in “Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives” that is related to this. He writes:
“I consider it important to focus also on the final sentence of Luke’s annunciation narrative: ‘And the angel departed from her’ (Lk 1:38). The great hour of Mary’s encounter with God’s messenger — in which her whole life is changed — comes to an end, and she remains there alone, with the task that truly surpasses all human capacity. There are no angels standing round her. She must continue along the path that leads through many dark moments … right up to the night of the Cross.
“How often in these situations must Mary have returned inwardly to the hour when an angel had spoken to her, pondering afresh the greeting: ‘Rejoice, full of grace!’ and the consoling words: ‘Do not be afraid!’ The angel departs; her mission remains, and with it matures her inner closeness to God.”
I’m certain my parents have had some outstanding moments of consolation from the Lord. They wouldn’t have managed 64 years without them. But the fact their many novenas may not have been answered in the way they wished, in the timing they wished, did not keep them from filling that box to overflowing. Very much like Mary, after consolation, their mission remained, and they tended to it with extraordinary, unpretentious, unselfish faithfulness. They returned, again and again, to that moment when the Incarnation broke in upon our world and a little girl from Nazareth had the courage to say “yes.”
My parents are not perfect, but I’m pretty sure that when the time comes to face their judgment, any remaining sin-stain they might bear will be instantaneously blotted out by a lifetime of hailing Mary.
Mother Mary, I thank you for watching over this world, for your faithful intercession, and for your faithfulness to your mission. Pray for my parents, and for all parents, who are guarding and guiding the faith at home. Strengthen all families, encourage them in fidelity to their mission even in moments of darkness, and pray for us now, right now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Kelly Stanchina is the award-winning author of 11 books, including “Love Like A Saint: Cultivating Virtue with Holy Women” and “A Place Called Golgotha: Meditations on the Last Words of Christ” (forthcoming). Visit her website at LizK.org.
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