A Trusting Love for Mary

This is one of my favorite pieces of artwork (and I've got a lot of things hanging on my walls--ask anyone who's ever been inside my house!), even though it is not the least bit valuable in any monetary sense.  It is unsigned and titled "His Prayer."

I originally blogged about this wonderful vintage piece, a secondhand shop score,  here.

This morning my husband and I attended daily Mass, and as I was reading through my Magnificat before the service began, there was a "Saint Who?" essay right before today's morning meditation that caught my eye.  It was all about recently canonized St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, a saint who was devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  He wrote a book called The Holy Rosary to help form Opus Dei's members, and here is a quote from that book:

"My friend if you want to be great, become little.  To be little you have to believe as children believe, to love as children love, to abandon yourself as children do...to pray as children pray.  You have to do all this if you are going to achieve what I am going to tell you in these lines: The beginning of the way, at the end of which you will find yourself completely carried away by love for Jesus, is a trusting love for Mary."

As soon as I read that, I thought of my sweet pastel print of a blonde-haired little boy (who reminds me very much of five little boys I used to know, once upon a time), gazing at a statue of Our Lady and praying before Her as only an innocent, unsullied, trusting child can do, with simplicity and abandon. 

I want to be like that child.  God, make me like that child!