“Mama, I’m just so cold.” Standing on a sandbar in Lake Superior, my young daughter, face white, turned to look at me and promptly fell, fainting, into my arms.
My heart exploded with love and distress simultaneously.
We’d been kayaking for a few hours up the Brule River and then swimming in the cold lake.
Something should have dawned on me when my daughter asked while swimming: “Mama, can you get frostbite from the water?”
A combination of dehydration and the cold water caused her to faint.
Few people were around, and all that surrounded us was trees, sand, and water.
In the wilderness, help would only come by the grace of God.
Immediately, I placed my daughter in the kayak, and the rest of the family helped me try to get her as dry and warm as possible, slapping her legs and arms and covering her with a dry life jacket.
Within 30 seconds, she came to, but as any mother knows in such situations, that was the longest 30 seconds of my life.
No other recourse
In the moment of imminent danger, with no other recourse, my daughter innately turned to her mother.
With such helplessness in her eyes, my daughter knew she could not do anything to help herself, so, collapsing in humility, she slumped into her mother’s arms.
This is the way we must approach Our Blessed Mother in prayer.
She, who loves us beyond any comprehensible love of an earthly mother, is simply waiting for us to turn to her with the same helplessness and realization that we must ask her for help.
With open arms
Our Blessed Mother, whom Jesus gave to us as our own, stands behind us with open arms, waiting to catch us when we falter and fall, sometimes due to the weight of the trials of life or sometimes due to our own failings.
If only we could wrap our minds and hearts around how much she yearns to help us!
If I, as an Earthly mother, can recognize how much I want to aid my helpless child with every ounce of my being — that I would give her my very lifegiving breath or beating heart if I could — how much more must Our Blessed Mother yearn to help us, if only we’d ask.
To Jesus through Mary
Jesus cannot resist the pleading of His Mother, so why would we not ask her — she who is closest to Him of anyone who lives on this earth — for help?
“In the same way that He Himself came through Mary, He wants us to go to Him through Mary. It is the surest way, the most direct way, the sweetest way, too. Why? Because we find Jesus in the arms of Mary,” said Fr. Jean d’Elbée in I Believe in Love: A personal retreat based on the teaching of St. Thérèse of Lisieux (p. 264).
Like a child
If Jesus is in the arms of Our Blessed Mother, then so too must we fall into her embrace, with every prayer we utter, every Hail Mary we recite during this month of the Rosary — not rotely, but with great love.
“What attraction I feel toward Mary — the attraction of a child for his mother! Happily, fervently, lovingly, I hide myself under her mantle, I nestle in her arms, on her heart, blending my love with the love of the Father, her Father, for her; with the love of Jesus, her Son, for her; with the love of the Holy Spirit, her Spouse, for her. Everything is tenderness, gentleness, mercy; everything is shared; everything is love” (p. 265).
No matter what life brings or what choices we make, we can be assured of one thing: Our Blessed Mother is right there waiting for us, her children, to reach toward her open arms, wherein rests Our Lord.
If you’re looking for Jesus, ask Mary for help.
There is no other recourse but through the arms of Our Blessed Mother.
Julianne Nornberg, mother of four, works at St. John the Baptist School in Waunakee and the Cathedral of St. Bernard in Madison.