Prayer
to Mater Admirabilis (prayer
for strength and love)
O divine Mother of Jesus, we come to you as to the
spring of living, thirst-quenching waters, the flame
that warms us, the dawn that dispels all shadows,
the Mother ever attentive to the confusion of her
children.
O Wonderful Mother, the road of our life is hard
at times. It is not easy always to walk steadily
in the path of duty. It is not easy to love our neighbor,
our brother, as Jesus wants us to love him. It is
not easy to keep our soul always even among the inequalities
of life. It is not easy to love creatures a yet keep
oneself for God alone. It is not easy to be little
and humble when pride is staking its claim. It is
not easy to go to the God of Light along roads that
are dark with shadows. There are days everything
is a burden. But You, O Admirable Mother. You make
everything easy. And yet you do not take the sacrifice
away from our path, any more than God took it away
from yours; but you make the effort easier by making
love grow. It was love, ever victorious in you, that
make you say on the very threshold of your destiny: "Be
it done to Me according to thy word." And you
never took back that word of consent to the love
that was leading you. You never resisted suffering,
but offered to its action a soul humble and gentle,
utterly given to God.
O Mary, may your example be my strength. Make everything
easy in my life, not by taking trouble away, but
by giving me love, a love always greater than the
trouble.
O Mother most gentle, make my heart very strong;
and if you see that my love is getting exhausted
too soon. I implore you to give your child some of
your love and teach her again the lesson of true
love.
Prayer to Mater Admirabilis (prayer
for peace and humility)
Mater Admirabilis, to your friends you open the
way of Interior Progress. In contemplating you, O
Admirable Mother, the soul thrills with a holy desire
to penetrate into that world of love and grace in
which your would as made its dwelling. Who better
than you can reveal to us this interior life? Who
better than you can open us to the life of Jesus
and trace in us His divine characteristics? O Mother,
let us look at you; in the end a child resembles
its mother when its gaze never leaves her face.
You are the silent Virgin!
You are the utterly humble Virgin!
You are the faithful Virgin!
O silent Virgin, you teach us that silence creates
in us the gravity that befits our waiting on God;
and are we not always waiting thus? Silence, too,
must protect God's dwelling-place; such silence is
both an expression of love and a protection for love.
O Mother, keep calm and secluded the dwelling of
our soul into which Jesus descends every day.
O utterly humble Virgin, you teach us, too, that
there can be no progress without a loyal and generous
tendency to humility. God's gifts are only safe in
souls who attribute nothing to themselves and are
conscious of their poverty. Teach us that unpretentious
littleness that knows how to be docile, loves to
serve and then slips willingly away. The humility
of your heart rose up to God like a melody; it delighted
His heart; may ours bring Him down to us.
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