May 26, 2026 • 31 mins
In this meditation, Msgr. Martin Schlag reflects on the relationship between Our Lady and the Holy Trinity, reminding us that she is a path to deeper union with God.
Drawing upon the teachings of St. Josemaria, Msgr. Schlag encourages us in our prayer and conversation with God to be open to the transforming presence of the Trinity is all aspects of our life.
Listen and reflect on:
- The example of the earthly trinity: the Holy Family
- Mary as a guide to deeper prayer
- Trusting God with simplicity
- The Trinity present in daily life
- Beginning again with peace and confidence
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SPEAKER_00 (00:10):
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, Amen.
My Lord and my God, I firmlybelieve that you are here, that
you see me, that you hear me.
I adore you with profoundreverence.
I ask your pardon for my sinsand grace to make this time of
(00:35):
prayer fruitful.
My Immaculate Mother, SaintJoseph, my Father and Lord, my
guardian angel, intercede forme.
The month of May has a specialfragrance in the church, and not
only because there are moreflowers, but because it is the
(00:59):
month of our Lady of Mary.
It's the Marian month, and webring flowers before the statues
of our mother.
We probably prayed the rosarymore frequently and a little
more slowly.
Maybe we have uh childhoodmemories or we remember
(01:21):
pilgrimages and rosary walksthat we undertook in in May, and
it's it's a month where we feelmore tenderness.
And then right at the end, onthe last day of this Marian
month, the church celebrates thesolemnity of the most holy
trinity.
(01:42):
May 31st in other years is thefeast of the visitation of Our
Lady.
This year, Mary cedes this dayto the Holy Trinity, and we
celebrate her feast day of thevisitation on June the first.
(02:03):
At first glance, these twotruths of our faith or these two
realities, Mary and the HolyTrinity can seem very different.
Mary as mother seems close tous, warm, human, approachable,
(02:27):
and that becomes palpable in theGospel of Luke where we read
During those days Mary set outand travelled to the hill
country in haste to a town ofJudah, where she entered the
house of Zechariah and greetedElizabeth.
(02:50):
When Elizabeth heard Mary'sgreeting, the infant leaped in
her womb, and Elizabeth, filledwith the Holy Spirit, cried out
in a loud voice and said, Mostblessed are you among women, and
blessed is the fruit of yourwomb.
(03:11):
And Elizabeth praises Marybecause she believed the message
that God had sent her through anangel.
It's such a human scene, ayounger woman with great
sacrifice undertaking thisjourney by foot or on a donkey
(03:31):
or in a cart, but certainly withgreat um uh lack of comfort or
uh all the amenities that wehave nowadays.
So with the spirit of service,she serves her older relative.
The Trinity, in contrast, seemsimmense.
(03:53):
We can't grasp this mystery ofour faith.
It's almost intimidating.
It seems like a truth fortheologians, uh, and and not
even for theologians, because weknow how many controversies
there were, how many people werecondemned because of errors that
(04:15):
they spread about the Trinity.
It seems inaccessible for anormal person.
And yet, in the words we justheard from Luke, we see the
Trinity in action.
The Holy Spirit is inspiringJohn to leap in the womb of
Elizabeth.
(04:35):
Elizabeth herself is filled withthe Holy Spirit, and the Son,
God, uh, Jesus, the Son of God,is present in Mary's womb, and
the Father is praised.
So, how present is the Trinityin my life?
Is my day structured accordingto the Trinity?
(04:59):
Am I appealing to the HolySpirit to help me pray like
Jesus in order to be heard bythe Father?
Do I work invoking the HolySpirit to inspire me so that I
identify myself with thesacrifice of Jesus and am
(05:21):
acceptable to the Father?
Am I a friend in the Holy Spiritasking him for his love so that
I can see Jesus in the othersand be united with the Father?
You know, there's a theologiancalled Karl Rana, he was uh very
(05:43):
famous, especially after theSecond Vatican Council, and he
has a he playfully teasesCatholics when he writes,
despite their orthodoxconfession of the Trinity,
Christians are in theirpractical life almost mere
monotheists.
(06:05):
We must be willing to admit thatshould the doctrine of the
Trinity have to be dropped asfalse, the major part of
religious literature could wellremain virtually unchanged.
End of quotation.
Of course, as I said, this isjust a playful provocation
because the doctrine of theTrinity can never be dropped,
(06:28):
can never be changed.
It is a dogma of the church.
And he says, well, most ofreligious literature could
remain virtually unchanged.
Well, that is certainly not truefor Saint Josumedia, who always
encouraged us to distinguish thethree persons of the Holy
(06:49):
Trinity, but never to separatethem.
We should deal with each personindividually, with the Father,
with the Son, with the HolySpirit, but knowing that each is
not a part of God, as if the Sonor the Holy Spirit or the Father
(07:12):
were like a third of God.
Each one is God.
And when we invoke the HolySpirit, we immediately also
invoke the Son and the Father.
They are all in each other andinseparable.
And Saint Osumaria not onlyencourages us to distinguish the
(07:35):
three persons without everseparating them, he shows us
exactly how to get there.
He once wrote, talk to the threepersons, to God the Father, to
God the Son, to God the HolySpirit.
And so as to reach the blessedTrinity, go through Mary.
(08:00):
Our Lady exists precisely tobring us into the very life of
the Father and of the Son and ofthe Holy Spirit.
So to reach the Blessed Trinity,go through Mary.
Go through Mary, not around her,not beyond her, through her.
(08:27):
There's a beautiful and touchingscene in the writings of Saint
Usamaria that has always movedme deeply.
He says that he tries to reachthe Trinity of Heaven with
uppercase T through that otherTrinity, lowercase T of earth,
(08:48):
the Trinity of Earth.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
He says they are moreaccessible.
He invites his listeners toapproach this trinity of the
earth, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
And he describes, he imagineshimself entering the house of
(09:08):
Nazareth, he's standing at thedoor, and he wants to approach
Jesus directly, but he feelsashamed to do so because he
feels unworthy and feels theweight of his miseries.
So he goes to Mary and Josephand he imagines Mary taking the
(09:29):
child Jesus by the hand and him,Josemaria, by the other hand and
bringing them together.
This is so profoundly Christian,this scene.
God does not save us throughcold ideas or theories.
(09:50):
He saves us throughrelationships.
The deepest reality in our livesis not power, it is communion.
Or rather, communion is thegreatest power.
The Trinity, who is the creator,God, the Almighty, Eternal God,
(10:13):
He is perfect communion ofdivine persons.
We believe in one God.
We believe in only one God.
But our God is not lonely.
Our God is communion of persons.
He is a family of persons, theFather, the Son, and the Holy
(10:35):
Spirit.
The Father gives himselfeternally to the Son and to the
Holy Spirit.
The Son eternally receiveshimself from the Father, and the
Holy Spirit is the living lovebetween them.
And into that eternal exchangeof love enters a woman from
(10:57):
Nazareth, Mary, a creature, adaughter of Israel, a young
woman who says yes, yes to God,yes to her calling.
And from that moment on, allhumanity has a door into the
intimacy of God.
(11:18):
Perhaps many people, many of youlistening today, feel
spiritually tired.
And there's reason for that.
The world is noisy, people areanxious, we are hyper connected
and lonely at the same time.
We fool ourselves with screenimages.
(11:42):
Families are fragile,friendships are thinner,
politics becomes ever moretribal and angry.
Technology accelerates fasterthan wisdom.
Wisdom can't keep up.
Even prayer can become hurriedand distracted.
(12:03):
And into this atmosphere hereand now in our lives comes the
revelation of the Trinity, ofthe Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit.
And he comes not as amathematical puzzle or as a
riddle which we can't solve, butas the announcement that the
(12:25):
ultimate reality is love, notpower, not chaos, not
loneliness, but love.
And Mary, our mother, helps usbelieve this, that God is love,
because she lived inside thatlove more fully than any
(12:49):
creature ever has.
Saint Hosemilia loved repeatingthe traditional invocation in
the Catholic Church Hail Mary,daughter of God the Father, hail
Mary, Mother of God the Son,hail Mary, spouse of God the
Holy Spirit, greater than you,none but God.
(13:13):
Daughter of the Father, Motherof the Son, spouse of the Holy
Spirit, a unique relationshipnone of us can have in that
fullness of grace that Mary had.
But those are not poeticdecorations.
They describe the whole mysteryof salvation into which you and
(13:33):
I are incorporated.
Let us meditate on each of thesetitles.
Mary is daughter of the Father,of God the Father.
The Father eternally choosesher.
From all eternity, he thinks ofher as the mother of his son.
(13:54):
He prepares her by filling herwith grace from the first
instant of her conception.
And Mary has more grace than allthe angels and saints together.
The slightest amount of grace isbigger than the whole of nature.
And so Mary is above and greaterthan any of the angels, any of
(14:20):
the seraphim and cherubim.
Mary is also mother of Jesus,mother of the Son of God, mother
of the eternal word.
Sometimes people imagineholiness as tension, maybe even
as scrupulosity or as perpetualanxiety to be perfect.
(14:46):
But look at Mary.
Mary is completely receptive toGod.
She's totally open and she'spoor of spirit.
She calls herself the handmaidof the Lord.
She knows that she has toreceive everything from God.
And there's no resistance in hersoul.
(15:09):
No duplicity, no bitterness, noself-assertion before God.
And therefore she becomesluminous and transparent.
Holiness is not becoming lesshuman, it is becoming
transparent to divine love, tolet God's light shine into this
(15:31):
world.
The saints are people who turnon the light in this world.
They spread the beauty of Godwith which they have fallen into
love.
Christianity is astonishinglyconcrete.
God does not merely send ideasinto the world.
(15:51):
He sends his son through thebody and heart of a mother.
Jesus received his humanity fromMary, his eyes, his voice, his
gestures.
His body and blood shed on thecross and in every mass on the
(16:13):
altar.
He received them from Mary, andno one like Mary can resonate
with the words of consecration.
This is my body, this is myblood.
Mary united her sacrifice withthat of Jesus on Calvary.
The sacred heart of Jesus beganbreathing, began beating beneath
(16:35):
the immaculate heart of Mary.
Sometimes we become accustomedto these truths and no longer
tremble before them.
Jesus, the eternal word of theFather, did not want to be
conceived in time without herconsent.
(16:58):
Her free consent was thecondition for our redemption.
And she envelops Jesus with herbody for nine months, and
through her he inspires John theBaptist in Elizabeth's womb to
be filled with the Holy Spirit.
(17:21):
The role that humans play in thelife of Jesus are perpetuated in
the church.
Every grace of Jesus passesthrough her.
She is the mediatrix, themediator to the redeemer.
Every grace goes through herhands, and we can really call
(17:42):
her queen of the universe, thespender of all graces, the
almighty supplicant, who is moreeager to help us than we are to
ask herself, to ask her help.
One Hail Mary, says SaintAlphonse Mary Ligwori, one Hail
Mary per day is enough forsalvation.
(18:04):
Anyone who prays one Hail Maryper day can be confident that
Mary will guide them to heaven.
And the same is true if we prayfor our family members to Mary.
Alphonse Mary Liguori alsoencourages us by writing that
whoever remembers to invoke Maryin temptation can be confident
(18:31):
that he did not consent to sin.
The eternal Son of God had ahuman mother, and this
motherhood never ends.
It extends now to the wholechurch and to each one of us.
Saint Jose Maria says, We cannever hope to fathom this
(18:52):
inexpressible mystery, nor willwe ever be able to give
sufficient thanks to a motherfor bringing us into such
intimacy with the BlessedTrinity.
Notice that phrase carefully.
Mary brings us into intimacywith the Trinity, not merely
(19:14):
into devotion, not merely intomoral improvement, into intimacy
with the Trinity.
The triune God wants to feel athome in you, in me, in our body
and soul, in our heart.
(19:36):
And the Father and the Son andthe Holy Spirit want us to trust
God and to be at home in Him.
We are home to Him and He ishome to us.
Christian life is notfundamentally self-improvement,
(19:56):
it is participation in divinelife which came into this world
through Mary.
And then Mary is spouse of theHoly Spirit.
This language can sound strangeto modern ears unless we
understand it properly.
It means that the Holy Spiritovershadows Mary with divine
(20:18):
fruitfulness.
Saint Maximilian Colbe all hislife asked himself, Who are you,
Immaculate Conception?
He had founded the Militia ofthe Immaculate Conception, and
he was puzzled by theself-revelation of Mary at
Lourdes, where she said, I amthe Immaculate Conception.
(20:42):
And he he said, Well, whydoesn't Mary say, I am
immaculately conceived?
Why does she say this ratherstrange formulation?
Why does she use that?
That I am the ImmaculateConception.
And so Maximilian Colby wasmeditating on this right up to
(21:04):
the moment he was arrested bythe Gestapo.
Actually, he finished writingthe solution that he found in
prayer two hours before he wasarrested.
So it was really a last-minutegrace.
And what he said was theuncreated immaculate conception
(21:25):
is the Holy Spirit, conceivedeternally of the Father and the
Son.
And this Holy Spirit is creatorspirit as we invoke him.
He is this immaculate conceptionin the Trinity is generative,
virginal, total and absoluteself-giving.
(21:48):
Mary is the created immaculateconception.
She too is total receptivity,and she is generative virginity.
And like a wife that takes thename of her spouse, Mary is Mrs.
Holy Spirit.
Her last name is ImmaculateConception.
(22:10):
From the Holy Spirit.
So Mary, spouse of the HolySpirit, Immaculate Conception.
All authentic Christianfruitfulness is born this way,
as a gift of grace.
There is nothing that is notgiven by God.
We want to grasp, like the firstsin, grasping the fruit from the
(22:37):
tree.
But in order to receive, we mustfirst let go.
Not through nervous activism canwe receive, not through my ego,
not through domination, butthrough docility to grace.
It requires the peace of soulthat has learned to wait.
(23:01):
Patience, the science of peace.
Mary teaches us the action ofthe Holy Spirit.
She teaches interior silence,availability, listening.
Perhaps one of the greatestspiritual crises today is our
inability to be silent.
We carry entire worlds insideour pockets.
(23:24):
We get nervous if we don't lookat our screens.
We receive notifications,messages, news, endless
commentary, and very frequentlyalso outrage.
And we notice this lack of trueleisure, this lack of ease.
(23:47):
We become uneasy.
And then we wonder why prayerfeels difficult.
Nazareth teaches another rhythm: quiet work, meals together, (23:54):
undefined
conversation, manual labor,prayer, rest, hiddenness, love
expressed in ordinary things,and when the Holy Trinity
crowned Mary as queen of theuniverse, he crowned the years
(24:18):
of her hidden life of cleaning,washing, cooking, dealing with
her neighbors.
All of that was crowned as pathto holiness and to glory.
This is why Saint Hosemarialoved the holy family so much
and called her the Trinity onearth, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
(24:41):
Of course, he didn't meananother divine trinity.
He was far too theologicallyprecise for that.
He meant something deeply humanand deeply consoling.
God has made his lifeapproachable, accessible, even
domestic.
The Trinity of Heaven reflectsitself mysteriously in the home
(25:03):
of Nazareth.
And perhaps this is especiallyimportant today because modern
people are starving for home.
Not merely houses, but homes, aplace where one is received
without performance, knownwithout fear, loved without
calculation.
Nazareth becomes the school ofdivine intimacy.
(25:27):
Sometimes we imagine mysticalunion with God as something
extraordinary and inaccessible.
But look at the gospel.
Where did Jesus spend most ofhis earthly life?
Not preaching, not performingmiracles, not in public glory.
Thirty years of his life werehidden in a workshop with dust,
(25:51):
tools, conversations, withfatigue, but also with meals,
with family affection, and Marywas there for all of it.
(26:13):
That the Trinity comes to dwellin kitchens, offices, highways,
classrooms, nursing homes,airports, spreadsheets, diapers,
emails, friendships, andexhaustion.
(26:35):
All that makes up your ordinarylife, my ordinary life, is not
an obstacle to divine union.
It is the place of divine union,of mystical union with God.
Sometimes people think holinessmeans escaping ordinary life.
No.
(26:56):
The incarnation means God entersordinary life.
And Mary is the first person towelcome him there.
There's a deeply comfortingrealism in Saint Josemaria's
Marian devotion.
It is affectionate withoutbecoming sentimental, cheerful
(27:17):
without becoming superficial.
He had humor, warmth, humanity.
One of the dangers for seriousChristians is becoming slightly
grim, as if sanctity requiredemotional rigidity.
But genuine love of Our Ladysoftens the soul, makes it
younger, simpler, more trusting.
(27:39):
Saint Usumeria frequently saidthat he wanted to become a child
before God, and children knowsomething adults often forget.
One reaches the father throughthe mother very naturally.
There is no competition betweenMary and the Trinity.
Mary exists entirely for theTrinity.
(28:01):
Everything in her says, dowhatever he tells you, like at
the wedding at Cana.
She never keeps anything forherself.
She magnifies the Lord with herwhole life.
The closer we get to Mary, thecloser we get to Jesus.
The closer we get to Jesus, thedeeper we enter the life of the
Father and the Holy Spirit.
(28:23):
And this is why the rosary is sopowerful.
People sometimes dismissrepetitive prayer because they
misunderstand love.
Love repeats.
A mother repeats.
Lovers repeat.
Children repeat.
The rosary slowly places usinside the mysteries of Christ
(28:47):
through the eyes of Mary, andgradually our soul becomes
calmer, more recollected, morecontemplative, more available to
grace.
In a fragmented world, therosary unifies the heart.
In an anxious world, it teachesspiritual rhythm.
(29:11):
In a distracted world, itteaches presence.
And Mary gently educates us inTrinitarian life, in giving us a
Trinitarian structure.
Perhaps some listeners feelunworthy today, burdened by sin,
discouraged, spirituallymediocre, tired of beginning
again.
(29:32):
That too belongs in thismeditation, because Saint
Usumedia never preachedperfectionism.
He preached divine filiation,being beloved children of God,
being the prodigal son whoreturns to the Father's embrace.
And Mary helps us believe that.
Saint Usumedia wrote in hisfirst book, which was on the
Holy Rosary, the beginning ofthe way, at the end of which you
(29:56):
will find yourself completelycarried away by love for Jesus
is a trusting love of Mary.
A good mother does not humiliateweak children.
She lifts them, encourages them,cleans them, she begins again
with them.
Sometimes our spiritual lifebecomes too self-conscious, too
(30:18):
centered on our own performance.
Mary redirects our gaze awayfrom ourselves toward God,
toward trust, toward gratitude,toward beginning again
peacefully.
During this Marian month and onthe solemnity of the Most Holy
(30:42):
Trinity, let us go to Mary, notas a detour, but as the path God
Himself has given us.
Through Mary to Jesus, throughJesus in the Holy Spirit to the
Father.
Holy Mary, daughter of theFather, Mother of the Son,
(31:06):
spouse of the Holy Spirit, bringus into the life of the Blessed
Trinity.
I thank you, my God, for thegood resolutions, affections,
and inspirations which you havecommunicated to me in this
meditation.
I ask your help to put them intoeffect.
My Immaculate Mother, SaintJoseph, my Father and Lord, my
(31:27):
guardian angel, intercede forme.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, Amen.
My Lord and my God, I firmlybelieve that you are here, that
you see me, that you hear me.
I adore you with profoundreverence.
I ask your pardon for my sinsand grace to make this time of
(00:35):
prayer fruitful.
My Immaculate Mother, SaintJoseph, my Father and Lord, my
guardian angel, intercede forme.
The month of May has a specialfragrance in the church, and not
only because there are moreflowers, but because it is the
(00:59):
month of our Lady of Mary.
It's the Marian month, and webring flowers before the statues
of our mother.
We probably prayed the rosarymore frequently and a little
more slowly.
Maybe we have uh childhoodmemories or we remember
(01:21):
pilgrimages and rosary walksthat we undertook in in May, and
it's it's a month where we feelmore tenderness.
And then right at the end, onthe last day of this Marian
month, the church celebrates thesolemnity of the most holy
trinity.
(01:42):
May 31st in other years is thefeast of the visitation of Our
Lady.
This year, Mary cedes this dayto the Holy Trinity, and we
celebrate her feast day of thevisitation on June the first.
(02:03):
At first glance, these twotruths of our faith or these two
realities, Mary and the HolyTrinity can seem very different.
Mary as mother seems close tous, warm, human, approachable,
(02:27):
and that becomes palpable in theGospel of Luke where we read
During those days Mary set outand travelled to the hill
country in haste to a town ofJudah, where she entered the
house of Zechariah and greetedElizabeth.
(02:50):
When Elizabeth heard Mary'sgreeting, the infant leaped in
her womb, and Elizabeth, filledwith the Holy Spirit, cried out
in a loud voice and said, Mostblessed are you among women, and
blessed is the fruit of yourwomb.
(03:11):
And Elizabeth praises Marybecause she believed the message
that God had sent her through anangel.
It's such a human scene, ayounger woman with great
sacrifice undertaking thisjourney by foot or on a donkey
(03:31):
or in a cart, but certainly withgreat um uh lack of comfort or
uh all the amenities that wehave nowadays.
So with the spirit of service,she serves her older relative.
The Trinity, in contrast, seemsimmense.
(03:53):
We can't grasp this mystery ofour faith.
It's almost intimidating.
It seems like a truth fortheologians, uh, and and not
even for theologians, because weknow how many controversies
there were, how many people werecondemned because of errors that
(04:15):
they spread about the Trinity.
It seems inaccessible for anormal person.
And yet, in the words we justheard from Luke, we see the
Trinity in action.
The Holy Spirit is inspiringJohn to leap in the womb of
Elizabeth.
(04:35):
Elizabeth herself is filled withthe Holy Spirit, and the Son,
God, uh, Jesus, the Son of God,is present in Mary's womb, and
the Father is praised.
So, how present is the Trinityin my life?
Is my day structured accordingto the Trinity?
(04:59):
Am I appealing to the HolySpirit to help me pray like
Jesus in order to be heard bythe Father?
Do I work invoking the HolySpirit to inspire me so that I
identify myself with thesacrifice of Jesus and am
(05:21):
acceptable to the Father?
Am I a friend in the Holy Spiritasking him for his love so that
I can see Jesus in the othersand be united with the Father?
You know, there's a theologiancalled Karl Rana, he was uh very
(05:43):
famous, especially after theSecond Vatican Council, and he
has a he playfully teasesCatholics when he writes,
despite their orthodoxconfession of the Trinity,
Christians are in theirpractical life almost mere
monotheists.
(06:05):
We must be willing to admit thatshould the doctrine of the
Trinity have to be dropped asfalse, the major part of
religious literature could wellremain virtually unchanged.
End of quotation.
Of course, as I said, this isjust a playful provocation
because the doctrine of theTrinity can never be dropped,
(06:28):
can never be changed.
It is a dogma of the church.
And he says, well, most ofreligious literature could
remain virtually unchanged.
Well, that is certainly not truefor Saint Josumedia, who always
encouraged us to distinguish thethree persons of the Holy
(06:49):
Trinity, but never to separatethem.
We should deal with each personindividually, with the Father,
with the Son, with the HolySpirit, but knowing that each is
not a part of God, as if the Sonor the Holy Spirit or the Father
(07:12):
were like a third of God.
Each one is God.
And when we invoke the HolySpirit, we immediately also
invoke the Son and the Father.
They are all in each other andinseparable.
And Saint Osumaria not onlyencourages us to distinguish the
(07:35):
three persons without everseparating them, he shows us
exactly how to get there.
He once wrote, talk to the threepersons, to God the Father, to
God the Son, to God the HolySpirit.
And so as to reach the blessedTrinity, go through Mary.
(08:00):
Our Lady exists precisely tobring us into the very life of
the Father and of the Son and ofthe Holy Spirit.
So to reach the Blessed Trinity,go through Mary.
Go through Mary, not around her,not beyond her, through her.
(08:27):
There's a beautiful and touchingscene in the writings of Saint
Usamaria that has always movedme deeply.
He says that he tries to reachthe Trinity of Heaven with
uppercase T through that otherTrinity, lowercase T of earth,
(08:48):
the Trinity of Earth.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
He says they are moreaccessible.
He invites his listeners toapproach this trinity of the
earth, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
And he describes, he imagineshimself entering the house of
(09:08):
Nazareth, he's standing at thedoor, and he wants to approach
Jesus directly, but he feelsashamed to do so because he
feels unworthy and feels theweight of his miseries.
So he goes to Mary and Josephand he imagines Mary taking the
(09:29):
child Jesus by the hand and him,Josemaria, by the other hand and
bringing them together.
This is so profoundly Christian,this scene.
God does not save us throughcold ideas or theories.
(09:50):
He saves us throughrelationships.
The deepest reality in our livesis not power, it is communion.
Or rather, communion is thegreatest power.
The Trinity, who is the creator,God, the Almighty, Eternal God,
(10:13):
He is perfect communion ofdivine persons.
We believe in one God.
We believe in only one God.
But our God is not lonely.
Our God is communion of persons.
He is a family of persons, theFather, the Son, and the Holy
(10:35):
Spirit.
The Father gives himselfeternally to the Son and to the
Holy Spirit.
The Son eternally receiveshimself from the Father, and the
Holy Spirit is the living lovebetween them.
And into that eternal exchangeof love enters a woman from
(10:57):
Nazareth, Mary, a creature, adaughter of Israel, a young
woman who says yes, yes to God,yes to her calling.
And from that moment on, allhumanity has a door into the
intimacy of God.
(11:18):
Perhaps many people, many of youlistening today, feel
spiritually tired.
And there's reason for that.
The world is noisy, people areanxious, we are hyper connected
and lonely at the same time.
We fool ourselves with screenimages.
(11:42):
Families are fragile,friendships are thinner,
politics becomes ever moretribal and angry.
Technology accelerates fasterthan wisdom.
Wisdom can't keep up.
Even prayer can become hurriedand distracted.
(12:03):
And into this atmosphere hereand now in our lives comes the
revelation of the Trinity, ofthe Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit.
And he comes not as amathematical puzzle or as a
riddle which we can't solve, butas the announcement that the
(12:25):
ultimate reality is love, notpower, not chaos, not
loneliness, but love.
And Mary, our mother, helps usbelieve this, that God is love,
because she lived inside thatlove more fully than any
(12:49):
creature ever has.
Saint Hosemilia loved repeatingthe traditional invocation in
the Catholic Church Hail Mary,daughter of God the Father, hail
Mary, Mother of God the Son,hail Mary, spouse of God the
Holy Spirit, greater than you,none but God.
(13:13):
Daughter of the Father, Motherof the Son, spouse of the Holy
Spirit, a unique relationshipnone of us can have in that
fullness of grace that Mary had.
But those are not poeticdecorations.
They describe the whole mysteryof salvation into which you and
(13:33):
I are incorporated.
Let us meditate on each of thesetitles.
Mary is daughter of the Father,of God the Father.
The Father eternally choosesher.
From all eternity, he thinks ofher as the mother of his son.
(13:54):
He prepares her by filling herwith grace from the first
instant of her conception.
And Mary has more grace than allthe angels and saints together.
The slightest amount of grace isbigger than the whole of nature.
And so Mary is above and greaterthan any of the angels, any of
(14:20):
the seraphim and cherubim.
Mary is also mother of Jesus,mother of the Son of God, mother
of the eternal word.
Sometimes people imagineholiness as tension, maybe even
as scrupulosity or as perpetualanxiety to be perfect.
(14:46):
But look at Mary.
Mary is completely receptive toGod.
She's totally open and she'spoor of spirit.
She calls herself the handmaidof the Lord.
She knows that she has toreceive everything from God.
And there's no resistance in hersoul.
(15:09):
No duplicity, no bitterness, noself-assertion before God.
And therefore she becomesluminous and transparent.
Holiness is not becoming lesshuman, it is becoming
transparent to divine love, tolet God's light shine into this
(15:31):
world.
The saints are people who turnon the light in this world.
They spread the beauty of Godwith which they have fallen into
love.
Christianity is astonishinglyconcrete.
God does not merely send ideasinto the world.
(15:51):
He sends his son through thebody and heart of a mother.
Jesus received his humanity fromMary, his eyes, his voice, his
gestures.
His body and blood shed on thecross and in every mass on the
(16:13):
altar.
He received them from Mary, andno one like Mary can resonate
with the words of consecration.
This is my body, this is myblood.
Mary united her sacrifice withthat of Jesus on Calvary.
The sacred heart of Jesus beganbreathing, began beating beneath
(16:35):
the immaculate heart of Mary.
Sometimes we become accustomedto these truths and no longer
tremble before them.
Jesus, the eternal word of theFather, did not want to be
conceived in time without herconsent.
(16:58):
Her free consent was thecondition for our redemption.
And she envelops Jesus with herbody for nine months, and
through her he inspires John theBaptist in Elizabeth's womb to
be filled with the Holy Spirit.
(17:21):
The role that humans play in thelife of Jesus are perpetuated in
the church.
Every grace of Jesus passesthrough her.
She is the mediatrix, themediator to the redeemer.
Every grace goes through herhands, and we can really call
(17:42):
her queen of the universe, thespender of all graces, the
almighty supplicant, who is moreeager to help us than we are to
ask herself, to ask her help.
One Hail Mary, says SaintAlphonse Mary Ligwori, one Hail
Mary per day is enough forsalvation.
(18:04):
Anyone who prays one Hail Maryper day can be confident that
Mary will guide them to heaven.
And the same is true if we prayfor our family members to Mary.
Alphonse Mary Liguori alsoencourages us by writing that
whoever remembers to invoke Maryin temptation can be confident
(18:31):
that he did not consent to sin.
The eternal Son of God had ahuman mother, and this
motherhood never ends.
It extends now to the wholechurch and to each one of us.
Saint Jose Maria says, We cannever hope to fathom this
(18:52):
inexpressible mystery, nor willwe ever be able to give
sufficient thanks to a motherfor bringing us into such
intimacy with the BlessedTrinity.
Notice that phrase carefully.
Mary brings us into intimacywith the Trinity, not merely
(19:14):
into devotion, not merely intomoral improvement, into intimacy
with the Trinity.
The triune God wants to feel athome in you, in me, in our body
and soul, in our heart.
(19:36):
And the Father and the Son andthe Holy Spirit want us to trust
God and to be at home in Him.
We are home to Him and He ishome to us.
Christian life is notfundamentally self-improvement,
(19:56):
it is participation in divinelife which came into this world
through Mary.
And then Mary is spouse of theHoly Spirit.
This language can sound strangeto modern ears unless we
understand it properly.
It means that the Holy Spiritovershadows Mary with divine
(20:18):
fruitfulness.
Saint Maximilian Colbe all hislife asked himself, Who are you,
Immaculate Conception?
He had founded the Militia ofthe Immaculate Conception, and
he was puzzled by theself-revelation of Mary at
Lourdes, where she said, I amthe Immaculate Conception.
(20:42):
And he he said, Well, whydoesn't Mary say, I am
immaculately conceived?
Why does she say this ratherstrange formulation?
Why does she use that?
That I am the ImmaculateConception.
And so Maximilian Colby wasmeditating on this right up to
(21:04):
the moment he was arrested bythe Gestapo.
Actually, he finished writingthe solution that he found in
prayer two hours before he wasarrested.
So it was really a last-minutegrace.
And what he said was theuncreated immaculate conception
(21:25):
is the Holy Spirit, conceivedeternally of the Father and the
Son.
And this Holy Spirit is creatorspirit as we invoke him.
He is this immaculate conceptionin the Trinity is generative,
virginal, total and absoluteself-giving.
(21:48):
Mary is the created immaculateconception.
She too is total receptivity,and she is generative virginity.
And like a wife that takes thename of her spouse, Mary is Mrs.
Holy Spirit.
Her last name is ImmaculateConception.
(22:10):
From the Holy Spirit.
So Mary, spouse of the HolySpirit, Immaculate Conception.
All authentic Christianfruitfulness is born this way,
as a gift of grace.
There is nothing that is notgiven by God.
We want to grasp, like the firstsin, grasping the fruit from the
(22:37):
tree.
But in order to receive, we mustfirst let go.
Not through nervous activism canwe receive, not through my ego,
not through domination, butthrough docility to grace.
It requires the peace of soulthat has learned to wait.
(23:01):
Patience, the science of peace.
Mary teaches us the action ofthe Holy Spirit.
She teaches interior silence,availability, listening.
Perhaps one of the greatestspiritual crises today is our
inability to be silent.
We carry entire worlds insideour pockets.
(23:24):
We get nervous if we don't lookat our screens.
We receive notifications,messages, news, endless
commentary, and very frequentlyalso outrage.
And we notice this lack of trueleisure, this lack of ease.
(23:47):
We become uneasy.
And then we wonder why prayerfeels difficult.
Nazareth teaches another rhythm: quiet work, meals together, (23:54):
undefined
conversation, manual labor,prayer, rest, hiddenness, love
expressed in ordinary things,and when the Holy Trinity
crowned Mary as queen of theuniverse, he crowned the years
(24:18):
of her hidden life of cleaning,washing, cooking, dealing with
her neighbors.
All of that was crowned as pathto holiness and to glory.
This is why Saint Hosemarialoved the holy family so much
and called her the Trinity onearth, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
(24:41):
Of course, he didn't meananother divine trinity.
He was far too theologicallyprecise for that.
He meant something deeply humanand deeply consoling.
God has made his lifeapproachable, accessible, even
domestic.
The Trinity of Heaven reflectsitself mysteriously in the home
(25:03):
of Nazareth.
And perhaps this is especiallyimportant today because modern
people are starving for home.
Not merely houses, but homes, aplace where one is received
without performance, knownwithout fear, loved without
calculation.
Nazareth becomes the school ofdivine intimacy.
(25:27):
Sometimes we imagine mysticalunion with God as something
extraordinary and inaccessible.
But look at the gospel.
Where did Jesus spend most ofhis earthly life?
Not preaching, not performingmiracles, not in public glory.
Thirty years of his life werehidden in a workshop with dust,
(25:51):
tools, conversations, withfatigue, but also with meals,
with family affection, and Marywas there for all of it.
(26:13):
That the Trinity comes to dwellin kitchens, offices, highways,
classrooms, nursing homes,airports, spreadsheets, diapers,
emails, friendships, andexhaustion.
(26:35):
All that makes up your ordinarylife, my ordinary life, is not
an obstacle to divine union.
It is the place of divine union,of mystical union with God.
Sometimes people think holinessmeans escaping ordinary life.
No.
(26:56):
The incarnation means God entersordinary life.
And Mary is the first person towelcome him there.
There's a deeply comfortingrealism in Saint Josemaria's
Marian devotion.
It is affectionate withoutbecoming sentimental, cheerful
(27:17):
without becoming superficial.
He had humor, warmth, humanity.
One of the dangers for seriousChristians is becoming slightly
grim, as if sanctity requiredemotional rigidity.
But genuine love of Our Ladysoftens the soul, makes it
younger, simpler, more trusting.
(27:39):
Saint Usumeria frequently saidthat he wanted to become a child
before God, and children knowsomething adults often forget.
One reaches the father throughthe mother very naturally.
There is no competition betweenMary and the Trinity.
Mary exists entirely for theTrinity.
(28:01):
Everything in her says, dowhatever he tells you, like at
the wedding at Cana.
She never keeps anything forherself.
She magnifies the Lord with herwhole life.
The closer we get to Mary, thecloser we get to Jesus.
The closer we get to Jesus, thedeeper we enter the life of the
Father and the Holy Spirit.
(28:23):
And this is why the rosary is sopowerful.
People sometimes dismissrepetitive prayer because they
misunderstand love.
Love repeats.
A mother repeats.
Lovers repeat.
Children repeat.
The rosary slowly places usinside the mysteries of Christ
(28:47):
through the eyes of Mary, andgradually our soul becomes
calmer, more recollected, morecontemplative, more available to
grace.
In a fragmented world, therosary unifies the heart.
In an anxious world, it teachesspiritual rhythm.
(29:11):
In a distracted world, itteaches presence.
And Mary gently educates us inTrinitarian life, in giving us a
Trinitarian structure.
Perhaps some listeners feelunworthy today, burdened by sin,
discouraged, spirituallymediocre, tired of beginning
again.
(29:32):
That too belongs in thismeditation, because Saint
Usumedia never preachedperfectionism.
He preached divine filiation,being beloved children of God,
being the prodigal son whoreturns to the Father's embrace.
And Mary helps us believe that.
Saint Usumedia wrote in hisfirst book, which was on the
Holy Rosary, the beginning ofthe way, at the end of which you
(29:56):
will find yourself completelycarried away by love for Jesus
is a trusting love of Mary.
A good mother does not humiliateweak children.
She lifts them, encourages them,cleans them, she begins again
with them.
Sometimes our spiritual lifebecomes too self-conscious, too
(30:18):
centered on our own performance.
Mary redirects our gaze awayfrom ourselves toward God,
toward trust, toward gratitude,toward beginning again
peacefully.
During this Marian month and onthe solemnity of the Most Holy
(30:42):
Trinity, let us go to Mary, notas a detour, but as the path God
Himself has given us.
Through Mary to Jesus, throughJesus in the Holy Spirit to the
Father.
Holy Mary, daughter of theFather, Mother of the Son,
(31:06):
spouse of the Holy Spirit, bringus into the life of the Blessed
Trinity.
I thank you, my God, for thegood resolutions, affections,
and inspirations which you havecommunicated to me in this
meditation.
I ask your help to put them intoeffect.
My Immaculate Mother, SaintJoseph, my Father and Lord, my
(31:27):
guardian angel, intercede forme.
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