Hidden Life Of Mary
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Human life is one and indivisible; the same man is leading the same life, but in different aspects, when he plays, when he prays; no part of the life of any person is the same. Religiously speaking, everybody lives a hidden life in his personal relations with God.
It is clear that nothing is known of Mary’s inner or hidden life, since we have no record of her spiritual strivings, aspirations, gifts, graces, watchings, consolations; if she spoke to anybody of them, her confidence was respected. Mary valued this element of hiddenness and privacy. St. Luke tells us after the shepherds had worshipped the new-born Babe at Bethlehem, “Mary kept in mind all these words, pondering them in her heart.”
From the above we learn that Mary pondered, meditated on, thought about, the things of God. Since she had been chosen to bear the Divine Son of God and to co-operate in the redemption of the world, she fed her soul upon the things of God, ceaselessly, to a degree beyond what has ever been vouchsafed to any other human being; the fact that she was full of grace involves that. Like any other loving mother, she was “wrapped up” in her Son and His life, but her Son is God and her very love of Him was divine contemplation. There is, too, the evidence of the Magnificat: “My soul doth magnify the Lord…holy is His name.” Praise of and thanksgiving to Almighty God, were the very stuff of Mary’s life, a pattern of what they are meant to be in all Christianity – the heart of the matter. The Mass is a Eucharist, a thanksgiving; it is also a sacrifice of praise.
There is much speculation about Our Lady’s inner or hidden life among French spiritual writers of the 17th century. It was emphasized that the Holy Spirit was the principle and author of her perfect dispositions. Mary is the most perfect image of Christ, lovingly portrayed by the Holy Spirit.
Just as Jesus was constantly united with His Father in Heaven, so, Mary, who gave birth to the Son of God, must have been living with the presence of God the Father in her heart, and for more than thirty years in the physical life of her Son. Her thoughts could not have been centered on anything but the spiritual.
