I learned to tie knots as a child. Square, slip, clove hitch, two half hitches and bowline. I learned how to tie knots with a needle to start and finish a sewing project. I learned how to tie knots for fish hooks and anchor ropes. For some reason, I had the greatest difficulty with tying shoe laces. It would not be until I was a pastor that a staff member, seeing multiple knots in my shoelaces, demonstrated an easier way for this basic knot.
Father Charles Lachowitzer
Then there were the knots of childhood that were not so helpful. The unwanted knots in a tangled fishing line. The unwanted knot in my stomach before a big test at school, or whenever I had to stand up in front of the whole class, or when a hockey game was tied, with less than a minute to go.
A bad knot might be the reason a boat is no longer at the dock. A bad knot can be a convenient excuse for why a big fish got away. A knotted muscle, called a “Charlie horse” can be excruciatingly painful. Recently, I was trying to tie down a load of lumber in the back of my truck with a coil of rope. I asked the lumber yard worker, “What knot is best?” He replied, “Ratchet straps.”
An icon of Mary Undoer of Knots in Augsburg, Germany. CNS
Knots are also the metaphor for phrases like, “My hands are tied” and “I am all tied up right now.” A good knot can hold earthly things in place and is an image for binding ourselves to God. Marriage is colloquially referred to as “tying the knot.” Some of my brother priests and I have a particular vesting routine that includes different styles of knots to tie up a cincture.
Some Jewish people tie phylacteries to their arms and heads and use special knots in the strings that hang down from their prayer shawls. In sacred Scripture, there is quite a contrast between the corded whip that Jesus used to clear the temple area of cheating money changers and the corded whip used in his scourging.
Mary Undoer (Untier) of Knots
There is an image where this side of life is a bunch of tangled threads and knots. In heaven, we see the other side and it is a beautiful tapestry. A title for the Blessed Virgin Mary, “Mary Undoer (Untier) of Knots,” comes from an early 18th century painting in Germany. Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, when he was the archbishop of Buenos Aires, used this title in a prayer for marriages that were undergoing difficulties.
For our own archdiocese, after the difficult move to a rented office space, the new chapel in the Archdiocesan Catholic Center was dedicated to Mary, Undoer of Knots. Whenever we experience knots that defy untying, we in humility turn to Jesus. Whatever knots need undoing, whether the financial challenges of the unemployed, the assault on the unborn’s right to life, the sin of racism that leaves people un-included, the lack of charity that relegates certain people as unlovable or the malaise of the uninvolved, let us turn in prayer to Mary, Undoer of Knots.
Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for me.
Virgin Mary, Mother of fair love, Mother who never refuses to come to the aid of a child in need, Mother whose hands never cease to serve your beloved children because they are moved by the divine love and immense mercy that exist in your heart, cast your compassionate eyes upon me and see the snarl of knots that exists in my life. You know very well how desperate I am, my pain, and how I am bound by these knots. Mary, Mother to whom God entrusted the undoing of the knots in the lives of his children, I entrust into your hands the ribbon of my life. No one, not even the evil one himself, can take it away from your precious care. In your hands there is no knot that cannot be undone. Powerful Mother, by your grace and intercessory power with your Son and my liberator, Jesus, take into your hands today this knot.
(Mention your request here.)
I beg you to undo it for the glory of God, once for all. You are my hope.
O my Lady, you are the only consolation God gives me, the fortification of my feeble strength, the enrichment of my destitution, and, with Christ, the freedom from my chains.
Hear my plea. Keep me, guide me, protect me, o safe refuge!
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