Marche avec Marie
Photo by Dolina Modlitwy on Unsplash
A (very) short and simple story about a walk with the Mother of God.
“Marche avec Marie” the priest encouraged with a twinkle in his eye as I turned to return to the silent retreat. “Walk with Mary. Take a walk with Mary.”
I smiled as I remembered his words from years before as I squelched through the saturated fields of the countryside, gently guiding the familiar beads one at time through my fingers. Since then, I have enjoyed praying the Rosary whilst walking in the sanctuary of God’s creation. I was on the Mystery of the Nativity.
“Hail Mary Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee …”
My mind drifted from the obscure and heavenly scene at Bethlehem to consider all the wonderous miracles I had seen when intentions were prayed in the Rosary. From young married couples finding a home, to conceiving a long-awaited child, from a healing of the heart to rescues from the hand of death, these miracles and more I had seen in the lives of those around me. All from the Rosary. All from a form of prayer one may laugh at looking from the outside in without context or knowledge of it. But I did not need further convincing. I had seen enough to know that heavenly grace was what bound these beads and not the rope itself.
I thumbed another bead.
Still, it was a strange paradox to think of the plenitude of grace from breathing in and out this prayer, while at the same time attempting to absorb even a small aspect of the beauty that was sliding down the mountains in the distance, and briskly moving the clouds across the sky over the excited waving trees while they passed by.
It made me think a little more …
“Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus…”
I recalled the words of Our Lord “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:19-20). I love praying the Rosary with others, in fact, it’s greatly encouraged especially in light of this scripture, yet many times due to circumstances, I find myself praying it on my own. Many of the answered petitions that came to mind were not group intentions, but simply brought forward when praying the Rosary in the secret place. How interesting …
The next bead was gently passed through my finger. I squelched on through the field. Quite briskly.
“Lord Jesus how is this?” I asked as I turned down the path that lead to the orchard. “How is it that even though I find myself praying the Rosary on my own that these petitions are answered? How does this correlate with what you said in that Scripture?”
That beautiful piercing silence of the assurance of an answered prayer without quite hearing the answer surrounded me.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners …”
At this point I stopped abruptly in my track. The answer collided into me and embraced me as I prayed that line. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners …”. Of course! The simple truth wrapped in humility! Every time the Rosary is prayed, we ask the Mother of God to pray with us! For every bead that is earnestly held asking Mary to pray for us, she truly does pray for us. She joins with us to offer our hearts to her beloved Son, who can refuse nothing from her. And so there I was joined in agreement of petition with the Mother of God. I was walking with Mary.
When you pray the Rosary, you never pray it alone.
“Now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
The beautiful complexity of human beings! So often we get caught up in trying to understand the big questions, when it is often found in the simplicity in front of us. Like the treasure hidden in the field (Matthew 13:44). Yes, I had truly found a treasure in the field, there on my “Marche avec Marie”.
As my walk came to a close, and I carefully placed my beads back in my pocket, I thought once more of that priest’s encouragement all those years before. “I don’t think he was just talking about a stroll outside” I said as I smiled to myself.
I went in to sit down. But have not yet finished my “Marche avec Marie”.
Originally published on Substack, @outofthesecretplace