Lord and Lady

Nine o’clock on a Saturday morning bears its own definition of early, especially before the first cup of coffee.

For caffeine addicts like me, it is no exaggeration to say that early morning lethargy is debilitating. As a natural night owl constantly discovering the hidden treasures of the morning, the pearls found in the mists just before sunrise, I found a useful truth in Jesus’ words “This kind can only come out through prayer” (Mk 9:29). 

This was the case one Saturday last month when my habit of praying Lauds, the morning prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours, before morning Mass had fallen victim to the timeless enmity between sleep and prayer.                                                            
My hair still veiled in dew from my shower, I sat in stillness at the “cove on Craig,” offering Morning Prayer before the statue of Our Lady of Craig Street outside St. Paul Cathedral. The peace of the Eucharistic gift I had just received at Mass drove from my heart the anxiety I might have felt about a growing to-do list. Mary stood still, yet every curve of her figure enswathed the movements of my prayer.

Looking directly and fully on Our Lady with eyes and soul, reality seemed to shift, but without shifting. It was as if the flow of traffic and the squawk of birds needed to continue, though their presence in my prayer seemed the complete absence of their existence.  When my vision was upon Mary, the boasting Cathedral behind her lost its bravado. No longer imposing, it became a protective fortress for our Mother, as it is for the Body of her Son- now Lord and Lady. 

One last “Amen” blessed my lips and the world as thoughts of the day’s duties percolated through my being. I headed out from the “cove” to clean my floors, a much neglected task. I thought, “Perhaps this week could be another bye week.”

And perhaps God desired, in His great love for me, that I mop the floor so that I would have a clean home. I once heard a priest say in his homily that he didn’t think Mary would have been in formal prayer when the angel Gabriel appeared to her. It is more likely, the priest said, that she would have been about her daily duties.

Moving on to my chores, as we all do, I thought of the dignity shared between Christ and his mother, Lord and Lady. I thought of how this reflects Mary’s fiat; how by accepting God’s will for her, she was free to be and to live in the shadow of God’s refuge, filled with a darkness of our unknowing, of God’s Mystery. She knew the shadow of his wing that points toward the light. 

Our essence as God’s beloved is found beneath the shadow of His wings. It is there that our shortcomings and worldly habits no longer hinder our rising each day with and in Christ.

Lauren is a member of the St. Maria Goretti and Our Lady of the Angels parish grouping. She works in the development office for the Capuchin Friars. Lauren describes herself as "absolutely and totally in love with the Lord."