January 2004 VOICE OF SHALOM

PRAYING TO CHRIST WITH MARY Jesus invited us to turn to God with insistence and the confidence that we will be heard: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you" (Mt. 7:7). The basis for this power of prayer is the goodness of the Father, but also the mediation of Christ Himself (cf. 1 Jn. 2:1) and the working of the Holy Spirit who "intercedes for us" according to the will of God (cf. Rom. 8:26-27). For "we do not know how to pray as we ought" (Rom. 8:26), and at times we are not heard "because we ask wrongly" (cf. Jas. 4:2-3). In support of the prayer which Christ and the Spirit cause to rise in our hearts, Mary intervenes with her maternal intercession. "The prayer of the Church is sustained by the prayer of Mary". If Jesus, the one Mediator, is the Way of our prayer, then Mary, his purest and most transparent reflection shows us the Way. "Beginning with Mary's unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their prayer to the Holy Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ manifested in his mysteries". At the wedding of Cana the Gospel clearly shows the power of Mary's intercession as she makes known to Jesus the needs of others: "They have no wine" (Jn. 2:3). Pope John Paul II Rosarium Virginis Mariae

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