THE CALL FOR MARY
Echoes of Ancient Centuries
Compiled by
F. Albers
Published by
CALL FOR MARY PUBLICATIONS
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INTRODUCTION
You may kneel down in your modern church.
You may do so in any Catholic Church throughout the World
Somewhere in it is a bright spot.
You know what it is: burning candles in front of the statue of Our Lady.
You are aware of their meaning:
hearts burning in love, in sorrow, in agonising anxieties or in desperate struggle.
Each candle is a living heart, left with Mary, calling for Her mercy.
Beside you people come and go. They kneel in prayer.
Some with words, others speechless, few with tears, all ardent.
They call for Mary.
Centuries have called for Mary...
We know our time. We know how it lives, how it sins, how it prays. It is worthwhile and instructive to know how ancient centuries have prayed, prayed to Mary. It is strengthening to see how the dust and the dusk of the past was lit up as the lighted spot in a catholic church even in our 20th century.
The past prayed to Mary. For the past has sinned too ...
When the Ancient World of paganism once again brought humanity to the brink of absolute ruin, there was only one way out: the fulfilment of God's Promise in Paradise; a God made Man. And in the preparation for this all-decisive meeting between a lost world and its Divine Redeemer, millions have repented. If the meeting with Jesus is the only and whole meaning of life here on earth, not only for Ancient Jews, but for every soul, for every newborn child, even for every nation under the sun, then the preparation for such a meeting cannot be a hazardous one, left to chance. Every member of the Human Race ought to be familiar with God's enlightened preparation of His People, laid down, under His immediate inspiration, in the Books of the Old Covenant.
Modern paganism is bringing the World of our times once again to the very edge of ruin. And again the meeting with the God made Man is the only way out of it. Once again God has a definite all-embracing preparation for this renewed encounter.
We pray to Mary. We call for Mary.
To show us again the only meaning of modern life: to show us Jesus.
The Ancient Jews in their preparation did not yet know Mary. But in their ardent call for a Saviour they were calling for Her who was to become His Mother. And so Ancient Centuries too were calling for Mary...
The most beautiful that the Old Testament, under God's immediate inspiration, could say and write about Holy Wisdom, in God's preparation of the Ancient Jews, that Our Holy Mother the Church applies in the New Testament directly to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit. And so we know, that the people in the Old Testament were calling for Mary in their inspired prayers for Wisdom.
We, it is true, have the inestimable privilege of calling directly for Her loving Person; of praying to a human Heart, the Immaculate Heart of our most loving Mother, Sedes Sapientiae, Seat of Wisdom. Although disadvantaged in time, the people of the Old Regime made up for it in inspiration, and we could do much worse if we allowed ourselves to be inspired by them. The all-decisive meeting with Jesus has in God's Plan only one and the same preparation, for the Ancient Jews as well as for us, moderns.
No wonder then, that our Holy Mother the Church has understood so well the nature and purpose of the prayers for Holy Wisdom of old, and has reminded us, in the Lessons of the Feastdays of Our Blessed Lady, of the way the Old Testament called for Mary. And so we are encouraged to use the same prayers in our ascent to Mary as were used by the Ancient Saints and Prophets in their ascent to Holy Wisdom. Just read in these most sublime pages of World Literature 'MARY' instead of 'WISDOM', and you will have prayers addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary inspired by God Himself. In them we can read God's old ways of preparing His people for their meeting with His Son, and yet, we could not find anything more modern in our calling for Mary.
The following pages are the echo. then, of Ancient Centuries in their call for Mary, in their final call for Her Son our Saviour. And by this inspired interpretation, in applying these prayers to Mary, the Catholic Church has fulfilled Our Lady's prophecy, when She said: “ALL GENERATIONS SHALL CALL ME BLESSED.”
Encouraged by the response that followed the first publication of these few pages, Christmas 1974, I have decided on a second issue, this time dividing the prayers into NINE DAYS, so as to give people an opportunity to use them as a Perpetual Novena in honour of Our Lady.
In compiling this rich material, I have used any - and only - authorised translations, wherever the rendering of the text was done most beautifully. As we all know: the Jerusalem Bible has done violence to many passages, and so I have turned also to the Vulgate, the new American Bible ( Cath. ed.), the Knox translation and the Revised Standard Version (Cath. ed.).
Seat of Wisdom.
Pray for us.