Easy

“Before, by yourself, you couldn't. Now, you have turned to our Lady, and, with her, how easy it is!” (Saint Josemaria, “The Way” at 513).

The Crucifixion (Icon)

I have seen people from a distance, and they make their lives look easy.

For example, I have read about movie stars in Hollywood who have divorced their husbands or wives and talk about how much they still love each other and how committed they are to coparenting their children.  They go on vacation as a “family” and continue to speak very respectfully about each other and about the new partners that they each have.

And I have watched this completely baffled, trying to work out how they manage to stay so civil to each other under such trying circumstances.  And when they go out in public and wear their makeup and their fancy clothes and pose in front of the cameras, everything looks so easy.  And yet, it is clearly not an easy thing to do…

I have been thinking about what things can be easy and what things can be hard and I am firmly convinced that nothing is easy without faith.  You see, with faith I can do anything because with faith I am not doing anything at all – God is doing everything for me…

Saint Josemaria writes, in “The Way” at 513, “Before, by yourself, you couldn't. Now, you have turned to our Lady, and, with her, how easy it is!”

It is the same feeling – being a child of God and being a very young child of my mother.  You see, as God’s child I am looked after.  As a very young child I can rely on my mother to attend to me and look after me.  I do not need to ask her how things are going.  I do not need to wonder if she has forgotten me.  Instead, I can focus solely on whatever I have in hand and whatever has fixed my attention.  This is why very young children get lost easily if their parents do not keep hold of them.  They are engrossed in their own world and do not have time to worry about where their mother or their father is.

And yet, my earthly mother wants me to be close to her.  She wants me to stay near her because she loves and wants to spend time with me.

And the Blessed Virgin is really no different.  She is our Heavenly mother.  She wants us to remain close to her because she loves us and wants to spend time with us.  She wants us to learn how to please her Beloved Son because she KNOWS His goodness and understands how much He loves us and wants us to receive the Grace of this love…

And in a way, the Blessed Virgin is like those Hollywood actors and actresses who divorce and make things look so glamorous and simple – not because she divorces or is concerned with things of this world – but because things are not simple or easy at all.  The sacrifices of the Virgin are terrible and tremendous – greater than the sacrifices of any other soul, with the exception of Her Son…

And I have been thinking about that today, as I think about easy.  Because – of course – nothing that matters ever is easy at all…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.