The Holiest Form of Flattery: Imitating Mary

     There’s an old saying:  Imitation is the sincerest form of
Flattery.  It shows that you like and
admire that person and want to be like him or her. In the case of the Blessed
Mother, imitating her is our highest calling. 
We can do no better than to be like Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and the
holiest person that ever lived.

     As a matter of fact, the very worst
thing about Mary is that so many of our Christian brethren do not appreciate
her.  They love Jesus but ignore his
mother. That is so sad because Mary has
so much to offer us.

     Author Marge Fenelon, in her book Imitating Mary: Ten Marian Virtues for the
Modern Mom, lays out ten
scenes in Mary’s life in which every modern mother can relate. The stories and
Marge’s reflections and own personal experiences, lay out the virtues we should
aspire to in a way that makes them both desirable and attainable. 

      From a distance, in the day-by-day
grunge work of motherhood, the Blessed Mother seems to be on another
stratosphere. Doing laundry, separating squabbling siblings, finding out who
left the mess in the kitchen…does not seem very Mary-like on the surface.  Mary only had only one very holy child who
was God.   How little her life reflects
ours, right? 

      Yet, as Marge points out, even
being the holiest woman ever born with a child who was also God, Mary did not
have it easy.  She begins with Mary’s
Annunciation, when the Angel Gabriel announced that she was to be the mother of
God.  It is with both appreciation and
awe that Marge reflects on this moment in salvation history. “At the moment of
the Annunciation, Mary set off a chain of events with far-reaching
implications.”

     Because of Mary’s yes, God became
man. “Allowing herself to become the instrument for Jesus’ Incarnation also
meant becoming the instrument for God’s plan of salvation for us,” Marge
writes. And as explained in the Vatican II document Lumen Genium, by her perpetual virginity, and through her son Jesus,
Mary became the spiritual mother of the entire Church.  As such, Marge explains, “Mary’s universal motherhood
guarantees her position as mediator and her ability to know everything about us
including our personal needs and concerns.” She adds that Mary is capable of
caring for every aspect of our lives. Yes, even cleaning the bathrooms or
getting gum out of someone’s hair.

      In each of the ten chapters, Marge
uses a moment in the life of Mary and identifies the virtue she displayed and
then relates it to our own lives. For instance, when Mary responded to the
Angel Gabriel that she was the handmaid of the Lord, Marge writes about Moms
feeling like we are always serving others. 
“On days when you’ve been pulled and tugged in every direction, it can
feel like you’ve been conscripted into subservience and as though you can’t
make anybody happy.  At times like these,
think of Mary and her trustful service to God.”

      She shares ways in which she went
the extra mile to be a hand servant to her family, such as playing games even
when it was not of particular interest to her. Now, ironically, Marge is often
the one getting the games started.

     Mary is the Queen of our world and
of our hearts. We cannot get too much of her because she always  leads us to her son, Jesus. Marge’s book is not just a guide
in imitating Mary, it is a way to spend time with her and get to know
her better. And to know her is to love her. 
From there, the next natural step is to imitate her. The best part is, she will
help us to do it.

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