Mary is called the Queen of contemplatives…. But what does this mean? To live a contemplative life is to live at depth; to live below the surface in the world of faith, the world of reality and not appearances.
We do not know how Our Lady spent her days; the details are unimportant. We are told the only things that matter and which must be true of all who belong to Christ. Contemplative living has written into it this Marian attitude or mode of being. We are to be contemplatives living in the depths of reality. Our fantasy can take us into excitements, the lights, satisfactions. Faith keeps us in the here and now: in this moment and no other, in this situation and no other. Here is my Jesus, here in this moment, this duty, this set of circumstances. What a test of faith is this daily round, this pressure of seeming trivialities! What a test of faith in the dull, wearing pain, lacking all glamour and grandeur! All the time, the heart of the contemplative is racing out beyond appearances to embrace the Beloved who cannot be seen, cannot be felt. It means being drawn secretly to God…. Mary has allowed herself to be transformed by love into what she was called to be.
RUTH BURROWS, OCD
