14th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Mary, Patroness of Our Nation

In the first hundred years that followed our nation’s birth, the Catholic bishops formally convened 10 times, in what were called the Provincial Councils of Baltimore, to set the pattern for the Catholic Church of the United States of America.

From the sixth of these councils, the 23 bishops in attendance declared on May 13, 1846, the Blessed Virgin Mary as patroness of this nation, which at that time consisted of 30 states. They invoked Mary under her title of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception—nine years, mind you, before Pope Pius IX eventually declared the Immaculate Conception as dogma.

With that in mind, the holiday we celebrate this weekend commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, our independence from Great Britain. Two words that we tend to associate with today’s holiday are independence and freedom—they are among the highest values we hold as citizens of this nation. They speak of our desire to be independent of and free from the imposed rule of a state or government.

And yet, as citizens of God’s kingdom, we also have very different ideas about independence and freedom—we recognize that for us to flourish as human beings, we must acknowledge our complete dependence upon God, and further, that our truest freedom comes in saying ‘yes’ to His will for our lives.

We think of Mary’s response: “May it be done to me according to your word”. We tend to think of her as merely meek and lowly, a passive figure, but I believe we do well to look at her and her response from another perspective. At the heart of her ‘yes’ is an act of war. Satan first waged war against God, although he has no real way to hurt God directly. And so he does so by using us, just as he did Adam and Eve. He manipulates us, confuses us, tempts us, and gets us to hurt ourselves, to turn against each other and to turn away from our heavenly Father.

Acknowledging those spiritual truths, it makes Mary a well-suited patroness for us, who in her freedom, her ‘yes’, opened for us the door to interior freedom by crushing the head of the serpent, giving way to the invasion of grace that comes through her son, our Savior.

With all the upheaval that’s been at work in the first half of this calendar year—a pandemic, financial well-being at stake for so many, and civil rights violations—we find ourselves a nation divided perhaps as much as at any other time. Our home is in chaos as brothers and sisters scream, fight, kill, denounce each other, blame each other, and are pretty much burning down the house.

There’s a lot to sort through in all that’s amiss right now. In addition to the bright minds that would help us find solutions to the coronavirus and help our economy recover, we need calming voices, listening ears, understanding hearts—we need the peace of the Risen Jesus.

Maybe it’s fair to say that we need people who genuinely want solutions, but also who recognize that they don’t already have the answer to these complex issues, that they have something to learn, perhaps even from a differing viewpoint, even if it’s one that pulls them out of their comfort-zone. That might sound idyllic, but right now it feels like there are too many people pontificating about what needs to be done, and not enough listening; that there’s too much reacting and not enough careful consideration. I’m guilty of it too, coming as most of us do, with my own instinctive biases and fears.

But even more, I believe we would do well to consider the example of humility in the patroness of our nation, Mary Immaculate, the mother of our Lord. As sons and daughters of this one spiritual mother, we call upon her, just as we did in childhood to our biological mothers, when problems arose, and fear gripped us. It was Mary, our spiritual mother, who spoke of God’s power, His mercy, and His justice in that beautiful proclamation we call the Magnificat:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant…. ….From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. …he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers to Abraham and his children for ever.

May the God in whom Mary had such confidence and trust, whom she approached with humility and in whom she found true human freedom—may He hear the maternal prayers she makes for our nation and may He bless us with peace and unity.

Mary, Mother of Christ….Pray for us.
Mother of Divine Grace….
Mother of Good Counsel….
Mother of our Savior….
Mother of mercy….
Mirror of justice….
Seat of wisdom….
Cause of our joy….
Morning star….
Health of the Sick….
Comforter of the afflicted….
Queen of families….
Mary, Queen of peace….