“Pray my children. God will answer before long. My Son lets Himself be moved.” – Our Lady of Pontmain
I read those words one morning and I kept saying them over and over again to the beat of my feet as I hiked along a wooded path. It is such a beautiful way to express the virtue of hope. And they are the words of Our Lady.
I am not an ‘apparition’ person; meaning that I don’t have a special attraction to any of Our Lady’s apparitions – except perhaps my great devotion to Our Lady of Walsingham whose message was simply that our homes, our own ‘Nazareths’ are holy places that must be tended.
But these words I found today were said by Our Lady of Pontmain. I have never heard of her before and I wish I had before now.
She is also known as Our Lady of Hope. There is much emphasis on Faith and Charity in our day-to-day spiritual lives. We seem to worry about and work on those two virtues quite a lot. But hope. I don’t often think of hope in my prayers. I always seem to vaguely assume it is something that involves a far-off and longed-for Paradise which doesn’t have much to do with the nitty gritty here and now of life.
Hope is the virtue that says to God “I trust that you want me to get to Heaven and that you will always give me, in every moment, the means to attain it”—trusting God’s help and his care for us. Our Lady says it so tenderly about her Son, “He lets himself be moved”. Do we believe that? That our prayers move Him? It’s a tremendous thing to believe. That He is just waiting for us to say the words – I trust that you want my good in this particular situation and that you want me with You.
When she appeared to the little children in the small mountain town of Pontmain, France in January of 1871, Our Lady probably had in immediate mind the fallout and suffering from the Franco-Prussian war that was raging on and on. She appeared only for three hours to some little children who saw her in a sky full of stars. As they prayed the rosary and her beautiful litany she became more clear and more and more stars appeared on her Cloak. The adults could not see her, but they believed she was there by the hope that suddenly descended into their hearts at her words.
If we have ever asked how our kids are going to make it through this crazy world so full of easy pitfalls? If we have ever asked how we are going to carry a diagnosis of Cancer wondering if we are going to be strong enough to make it through? If we once again sink into depression after fighting it off for so long, and we wonder if God is disappointed with us yet again and whether He wonders why we just can’t overcome it and get it together? If we see the Church and wonder if it will hold, and what will we do if it doesn’t? If we have lost a child to miscarriage or sickness and cannot seem to come to terms with the impossibly overwhelming sadness that crashes over us at the oddest times? If we trudge through our days and have lost sight of the end. Heaven. Happiness. Every tear wiped away. That is when we can go find Our Lady of Hope and hold onto her words.
We must know without a doubt, that indeed Jesus is moved by our prayers. Our sorrow. Our struggles. Our worries. And he is going to help us through them. He is going to protect our children somehow in ways we must believe. He is going to be there through every single chemo and surgery. He is going to help us carry the cross of depression all the way to the end – and he isn’t in any way going to yell at us roughly when we sink. He will only extend that pierced hand and pull us up. We must believe that He surrounds us with strength and love when we miss our children taken so much sooner than we expected. He is moved by our prayers. We must hold tenaciously to that truth. For that is the virtue of hope daily lived.
Our Lady of Pontmain quietly entered into my life this morning quite by happenstance – if there be such a thing, really. She is Our Lady of Hope and her message is simple and beautiful. She shares a place in my heart with Our Lady of Walsingham now.
“God will answer before long” Those are words that will get any of us through the longest night we can imagine. For her Son hears the prayers and, what a marvel to wonder at, He lets Himself be moved.
Let us pray for the gift of hope!!
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Image:Judgefloro, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
