“We are charting our own dispositions every day. By the way we dispose ourselves to tend this Advent, we dispose ourselves to tend at Christmastide.”
Mother Mary Francis – Come, Lord Jesus
Every Friday, I do the Stations of the Cross. It may not seem very Advent-like at first glance, but skipping it would have been against my disposition at this point. And in anticipating the coming Messiah, I can’t help but consider why He is coming. To save us by dying for us. And I always think of Mary. Holding her sweet Baby in her arms, right after His birth. And holding her sweet Jesus in her arms, right after His death.
Mary’s disposition was to be a little servant, the handmaid of the Lord. We see it all throughout her life.
“Always that disposition toward good was growing in her, so that what was perfected on Calvary was what had been already present before the Annunciation, at Bethlehem, in Egypt, in the temple, at the edge of the crowd, on the way of the Cross – speaking not a word, just being there. Her pattern of goodness was growing by repeated good.”
Mother Mary Francis – Come, Lord Jesus
It is said that Mary is the one who started the devotion of the Stations of the Cross. That she set it up in her backyard in Ephesus and repeatedly walked the path to Calvary in honor of her Son. I didn’t know that the first time I walked this path. But walking it repeatedly ever since is charting a disposition I can no longer live without. Following her way is like holding her Son in my arms, in the joy and in the suffering. And when I get to the foot of the Cross, finding her still there with me is the greatest comfort I’ve ever known.
Come, Lord Jesus. In the same way You came to us before…through Mary, Your most Holy Mother.
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