Mama Mary and the Son of God

This Tuesday, my parish was fortunate enough to host the pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima.  We had an evening of prayer with our Blessed Mother asking for her intercession and guidance as we seek to put our lives, our petitions, our thanksgivings wholly in the hands of her Son.

I know, I know, in this depiction, she is very white.  That always bothers me; Mary was Middle Eastern!  Pictures of blue-eyed, blonde Mary and Jesus always make me pretty uncomfortable.  Black Jesus and Mary, Korean Jesus and Mary, etc. don't bother me a bit.  But because of the racial tension still present in many places, especially regarding color, I feel a little weird about white depictions of our Lord and His mother.

This is also the closest I have ever experienced to idolatry within the Catholic faith.  It is necessary to use precaution when venerating a statue of any saint—especially a statue of such renown.  What we are doing is NOT statue worship, nor is it Mary worship—the statue is an image of our Lady and being in the presence of the image helps us to remember that she is praying with us.  Just as a photograph of my grandmother reminds me that she is watching over me, praying for me in Heaven.  Mary is, as someone recently told me, our "prayer partner"—just like when I ask my own mom to pray for me or for a petition I have, I can ask Mary to pray for me also.

Even when there are issues like this, I try not to let it distract me from prayer.  The point of being in the presence of this statue is to pray with Mary, to spend time with the Lord as she has taught us to do.

And her eyes—her eyes sparkle like real eyes.

The message of Our Lady of Fatima is one of peace, the kind of peace that can only be found in God.  This statue travels around the whole world to remind people of the message Mary preaches of peace that Jesus can bring us.  In fact, in April, the statue will be in Washington, D.C.  (Christlife—heads up!)

As I was praying with Mama Mary, I started by asking for a miracle—the same miracle I've been praying for for a little over a year now.  I thought that was the only miracle I was supposed to pray for that night, but the Lord put some other people on my heart, some dear dear friends who don't know God's love for them—and I was moved to tears.  God pressed on my heart some things I'd been hiding from, and in some ways it hurt.  But overall it has brought me clarity and reminded me of some very important prayers I need to pray.

My Callada (quiet) friend, my Payaso (goofy) friend, and my Soccer-loving friend, and a couple of the other jovenes were there, and we all prayed together, holding hands.  I was a little embarrassed that I had cried so much, I apologized the next day.  But they assured me, "Cuentas con nosotros."  You count with us.

Callada told me that when you cry during prayer, God is cleaning your heart.

Then, on Friday night, a bunch of us went to see the Son of God movie.  We saw it dubbed in Spanish at a movie theater/restaurant place.  We all got really into the movie—it's a beautiful portrayal of our Lord.  I give it a B for cinematography, an A for music (Hans Zimmer!), and an A for its message.  The emotions of the disciples were really well explored, and the acting was great!  I even liked the portrayal of Jesus, emotion-wise, which I was the most worried about.  The actor portrayed him as gentle and kind but not a pushover—and he smiled a lot.  He was too white for my liking, but the whole cast was pretty diverse, and it was NOT a white = good guy casting situation (which was what I feared the most).  The disciples were really well done, especially John, Mary Magdalene, and Peter.  Overall, I give it a thumbs up and I highly recommend it!

The way we got split up at the theater, I sat next to Soccer, and he is the funniest movie talker!  I had to keep reminding him to keep his voice down.  He also warned me before the movie that he is a movie crier—and sure enough, every time there was violence, he whimpered sympathetically.  During the entire crucifixion scene, he was holding my hand and crying into my shoulder.  It was hard to watch!  I think God was cleaning all our hearts; I'm pretty sure most of us cried.

We sat in the dark, holding hands.  Terrified, we watched Jesus cry out, drenched in blood, still able to pray a psalm on the cross.  I'm pretty sure we were all thinking about the fact that He went through all that pain—for us.  For me.  For you!

In times like these, my upcoming midterms seem pretty trivial.  All the same, pray for me this week?