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The Child Mary Soon to Become the Ark of the Covenant ( for Mary’s Birthday 8 September)
“One meets the Blessed Virgin inevitably when one attains a certain intensity of spiritual aspiration, when this aspiration is authentic and pure. The very fact of having attained a spiritual sphere which comprises a certain degree of intensity and purity of intention puts you in the presence of the Blessed Virgin... just as the experience of having a mother belongs naturally to human family life on earth. It is therefore as ‘natural’ for the spiritual domain as the fact of having a mother is natural in the domain of one’s terrestrial family. The difference is that on earth one can certainly be motherless, whilst in the realm of the spiritual this can never happen.”
Valentin Tomberg
Page 281 “Meditations on the Tarot : A Journey into Christian Hermeticism” (published in English 1985)
I know that sounds pretty dense but I think he’s saying two things:
If you really long to meet Mary with an intense longing, you will.
And that she is the Mother of all of us, even if we never had, or no longer have an earthly Mother.
Please don’t be put off by his words about spiritual intensity and purity.
Like, I’m not good enough, Mary would never come to me.
I’ll tell you something our Croatian guide told us in Medjugorje, and she knew the visionaries there. She said a few of the kids (24 June 1981) were out sneaking a smoke when Mary first appeared and they all immediately ran home, when they saw her. But the next day at exactly the same time, without communicating to each other, they all showed up at the same time and place, and there she was again.
If that’s not true, the point is they were all very normal kids, and when they asked her, why us, she told them basically... that’s why. Mary wanted to turn a fairly normal parish into a place where people could come meet her, and prepare the world for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
So how do you define meeting Mary ? Since 1981 over 30 million pilgrims have traveled to Medjugorje, Bosnia, Herzegovina. And most of them come back with some kind of experience of meeting Mary, not an apparition, but in a million different ways. As I’ve said before, she lets you know that she knows you’re there, and that she actually brought you there.
She also gave the visionary Vicka an account of her life, and a date when it can be published. She promised to leave a major “sign” that she’s been there, when the apparitions are finished, which can be photographed but not touched.
Now if it turns out that all this is untrue, it won’t shake my faith at all, and I’ve been there 4 times.
In the early 80’s I did a beautiful watercolor and gouache painting of the Colorado mountains with a circle of bright stars above it. I never had it professionally photographed, and I don’t know where it is. If I find it, I’ll show it to you. The title is “The Birth of the Virgin.”
This image is really an Advent painting I’ve shown before, but I think you’ll see it better now, with no holiday stress around you. It’s a symbolic painting of the mist of the Shekhinah surrounding the child Mary, as she floats above the Ark of the Covenant, which the Israelites carried with them; a physical sign that they were walking with the presence of God.
And I imagine the child Mary just a few years before she was visited by Archangel Gabriel, and told that she would be carrying God inside her. That’s why the Litany of Loreto, calls her the Ark of the Covenant, House of Gold, Mystical Rose, and many more beautiful titles, like Seat of Wisdom, Gate of Heaven, Morning Star, Health of the Sick, Cause of Our Joy, Refuge of Sinners, Comforter of the Afflicted, Mirror of Justice, etc etc.
One title I love, not in the Litany, is Enclosed Garden. Maybe someday, hopefully, I can come up with that image. I have a friend here in Alburquerque who has this very beautiful enclosed garden, and it gets a lot of shade so everything blooms there constantly. It has a vey holy feeling to me, and he has a large statue of Mary, who seems to change her facial expression from softly gazing at you to outright smiling. I know, it sounds crazy, but ...
“Hail Mary full of grace
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women, and
Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners, now and at the
Hour of our death.
Amen “
Fr William Hart McNichols 💮 September 2023