II. Trust in Her

From the Series: Beneath the Standard of Mary – The Heart and Voice of an Auxiliary Member

There is a moment recorded in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke that I return to often.

An angel appears to a young girl, a girl with her own life ahead of her, her own dreams, her own plans, whatever they may have been in that time and place. The angel does not ask her to do something small. He asks her to set aside every personal thought or goal she has in her own future and become the vessel through which God Himself would enter the world. The risks were not invisible to her. In that culture, a young woman found to be pregnant before marriage could be stoned. She understood what she was accepting, and what it might cost her. And she did not flinch.

Let it be done to me according to thy word.

That one sentence, Mary’s yes, changed all of eternity. Every soul that has ever been drawn to Jesus Christ, every grace that has ever flowed from heaven to earth, every rosary ever prayed in the dark of a sleepless night, every deathbed conversion, every heart that turned back to God when it had no business doing so, all of it traces back to that single moment of total, selfless, fearless surrender.

That is who our Lady is.

So, when the Legion prayer asks God to grant us trust in her, trust in Our Lady specifically, personally, completely, it is not asking us to trust in a sentiment. It is asking us to trust in a woman who has already proven, at the highest possible cost, that she will always say yes to God on our behalf. Always, without hesitation or condition.

How could I not trust her?

I have seen her intercession at work too many times in my life to count. But I do not trust her because of what she has done for me personally, though she has done much. I trust her because of who she is. I trust her the way you trust a mother, a truly good mother, who you know in the marrow of your bones will always do the right thing for her children, regardless of what it costs her. That is not naïve, or a sentiment. That is reading the evidence of her entire life from Nazareth to Calvary and drawing the only reasonable conclusion available.

Look at the Wedding Feast at Cana. People miss what is really happening at that wedding feast. Mary sees a young couple on the verge of public humiliation. The wine is gone. In that culture, that is not a minor inconvenience; it is a social catastrophe. And Mary does not pray a formal prayer or present a petition. She simply goes to her Son for them and says: They have no wine. She brings the need to Jesus and steps back. And then she turns to the servants and says something that applies to every one of us who has ever come to her with a broken life and an empty cup: Do whatever He tells you.

She does not fix the problem herself. She brings us to the One who can.

That is her entire ministry. That is what she does for every one of us who comes to her in prayer. She takes our need, however small, however desperate, however complicated, and she brings it to her Son. And He has a heart for His mother. He loves her with a love we cannot fully measure, a love that accounts for every sacrifice she ever made, every sword that pierced her soul, every moment she stood faithful when everything around her was darkness. When she speaks to Him on our behalf, Jesus listens. Not because she overrides His will, she would never want that, but because their hearts have always been united in the same mission: the salvation of souls.

I found Our Lady for myself on a shelf at St. Patrick’s Church on Staten Island in 1983, my first-ever prayer meeting. She was put aside, forgotten. And something in me was immediately, viscerally offended. If we are going to gather in her name and Pray The Rosary, she should be present. I wanted her with us, so I defended her place in that room. Looking back now, I understand that what I felt in that moment was not just personal preference. It was the beginning of my relationship with her, a real one, with a mother who had been waiting for me to notice her.

I have been noticing our blessed Mother ever since.

Trusting in her is not the same as trusting in a doctrine. It is trusting in a person. A real woman who said yes when the weight of all human history hung on her answer. A mother who stood at the foot of the Cross and did not run. A Queen who reigns not with distance but with closeness, who is somehow present to millions of her children simultaneously, hearing prayers in languages she never spoke on earth, interceding without ceasing, drawing every soul she can toward her Son.

I have given my life to serve under her veil, to draw everyone. I came to her Son through the Rosary. That is not a mission statement I just composed; it’s the truth. That is simply what happened to me when I finally said yes to my Blessed Mother the way she once said yes to God.

In the end, and I think about the end more than people might expect, my hands will be folded, and I will be in a box six feet underground. Everything this world has ever offered me will be of no use whatsoever in that moment. Everything except one thing.

Whether I trusted in her.

Whether I let her bring me, the way she brings all of us, to her Son.

That is the only thing that will matter. And by the grace of God, the answer is yes.