Mary and Her Unanswered Prayers: And Her Unanswered Prayers

By Mr. Joseph Smith

THE AUTHOR
Joseph L Smith is a cradle Catholic who spent his professional years as an accountant. Being trained in analysis motivated him to study in detail the life of this great Lady, Mary. The humanism of the Blessed Mother needs to be shared with the world. If only one person learns and understands more about Mary it will be worth all the research. Smell the roses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477124871

Mr. Joseph Smith

THE AUTHOR Joseph L Smith is a cradle Catholic who spent his professional years as an accountant. Being trained in analysis motivated him to study in detail the life of this great Lady, Mary. The humanism of the Blessed Mother needs to be shared with the world. If only one person learns and understands more about Mary it will be worth all the research. Smell the roses.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

RABBI     May this union be fruitful as the Lord intends. And may His blessings be upon you.

HELI AND ANNE     Thank you Rabbi.

Later lively music and dancing starts as the happy couple greet the crowd. A friend of Heli slaps him on the back.

FRIEND     My friend, you are very fortunate man to have a wife like Anne, so young and beautiful. Are you going to be able to you know, be fruitful?

HELI     Don’t worry. God will bless us with many children. Living with Anne’s parents, we must be fruitful to help work the farm and the many servants. The Lord will help.

9 Months Later

FRIEND     I knew you could do it Heli. God extended His blessing. What is the name?

HELI     Maria, Maria Heli.

8 Years Later

HELI     What have I done?

ANNE     What do you mean, what have you done?

HELI     Maria is eight years. Why haven’t we had more issues?

ANNE     It is the Lord’s will. We shouldn’t question His wisdom.

The next afternoon while Heli is leaving the Temple after working there he is approached by a fellow priest.

PRIEST     Heli you are a priest. It is a disgrace that God hasn’t given you another issue. Maybe He thinks you unworthy to contribute toward the coming of the Messiah. I am the father of 4 girls, and 6 boys. Maybe my family, eh?

HELI     Maybe. You are indeed very blessed.

Heli walks away swiftly.

Later at home Heli voices his frustrations to Anne.

HELI     We have had to suffer increasing contempt and even insults from our neighbors and friends. We have been patient and continue to pray that God might bless our marriage with another issue. Maria is 8 years now and not another issue. God has not blessed us. What have I done? He pauses. Today at the Temple… He stops in midsentence and puts both hands over his face.

We must get away. Move to another town and begin a new life, a more mortified and holy life in order to earn God’s blessing.

ANNE     Maybe our great affliction is entirely due to our unworthiness before the Lord. Let us increase our charity and gifts to the poor. We must move for a new beginning.

And so Anne and Heli move to a smaller farm near Nazareth to start a new life.

11 years later at the Temple where Joachim (Heli’s name is changed) is making his offering another priest approaches him.

PRIEST     Why do you come here Joachim? Your offerings are not acceptable to the Lord.

Joachim, his face burning with shame, withdraws to a corner of the Temple and prays.

JOACHIM     O Lord God, my sins merit this disgrace, but as I accept it according to Your will, do not cast me away.

Then with a sore heart Joachim left the city and goes to some of his flocks on the distant slopes of Mount Hermon. He is so troubled that he stays there in prayer and penance for several months without communicating with Anne. Through friends Anne hears about his being reproached by the priest and this only adds to her keen suffering. She often weeps, lying flat on the ground in her room. Once when Anne refuses to allow a lightheaded servant to go out to a party, the girl exclaims bitterly.

GIRL     God inflicts a double punishment on you because you are so severe; you are sterile and now your husband has abandoned you.

With a sad heart, Anne sent the girl back to her family.

Later in the afternoon Anne is praying under a great tree in her garden.

ANNE     Lord God, please send Joachim home and let us have at least one more issue. I promise to dedicate my child to You and Your holy Temple. I am forty plus four in years, but if You will it, it will be done. Lord I pray for the coming of the Messiah and the fortunate family, to the Holy mother God chooses. Oh who shall be worthy to be the servant of her servants?

TRINITY     Now is the time to begin the work of Our pleasure and to call into existence that pure creature and that soul, which is to find grace in Our eyes above all the rest. Let Us furnish her with the richest gifts and let Us deposit in her the great treasures of Our grace. Since all others, whom We called into existence, have turned out ungrateful and rebellious to Our wishes, frustrating Our intention and impeding by their own fault Our purpose, namely, that they conserve themselves in the happy state of their first parents, and since it is not proper, that Our will should be entirely frustrated, let Us therefore create this being in entire sanctity and perfection, so that the disorder of the first sin shall have no part in her.

Let Us create a soul according to Our pleasure, a fruit of Our attributes, a marvel of Our infinite power, without touch or blemish of the sin of Adam. Let Us perfect the work which is the object of Our Omnipotence and a pattern of the perfection intended for Our children, and the finishing crown of creation.

All have sinned in the free will and resolve of the first man; let her be the sole creature in whom We restore and execute that, they in their aberration have lost. Let her be a most special image and likeness of Our Divinity and let her be in Our presence for all eternity the culmination of Our good will and pleasure. In her We deposit all the prerogatives and graces which in Our first and conditional resolve We had destined for the angels and men, if they had remained in their first estate. What they have lost We renew in that creature and We will add to these gifts many others. Thus Our first decree shall not be frustrated, but it shall be fulfilled in a higher manner through this Our chosen and only One.

And since We assigned and prepared the most perfect and estimable of Our gifts for the creatures who have lost them, We will divert the stream of Our bounty to Our well-beloved. We will set her apart from ordinary law, by which the rest of the mortals are brought into existence, for in her the seed of the serpent shall have no part. I will descend from heaven into her womb and in it vest Myself from her substance with human nature.

It is befitting and due to the infinite goodness of Our Divinity, that it be founded and enclosed in the most pure matter, untouched and unstained by fault. Nor is it proper that Our Equity and Providence overlook what is most apt, perfect and holy, and choose that which is inferior, since nothing can resist Our will. The Word, which is to become man, being the Redeemer and Teacher of men must lay the foundation of the most perfect law of grace, and must teach through it, that the father and mother are to be obeyed and honored as the secondary causes of the natural existence of man.

The Law is first to be fulfilled by the Divine Word by honoring her as His chosen mother, by exalting her with a powerful arm, and lavishing upon her the most admirable, most holy and excellent of all graces and gifts. Among these shall be that most singular honor and blessing of not subjecting her to Our enemy, nor to his malice; and therefore she shall be free from the death of sin.

On earth the Word shall have a mother without a father, as in heaven He has a Father without a mother. In order that there may be the proper correspondence, proportion and consonance in calling God His Father and the woman His mother, We desire that the highest correspondence and approach possible between a creature and its God be established. There at no time shall the dragon boast of being superior to the woman, whom God will obey as His true mother.

This dignity of being free from sin is due and corresponds to that of being Mother of the Word, and it is in itself even more estimable and useful. It is a greater good to be holy than to be only mother; but all sanctity and perfection is nevertheless due to the motherhood of God. The human flesh, from which He is to assume form, must be free from sin. Since He is to redeem in it the sinners, He must not be under the necessity of redeeming His own flesh, like that of sinners. Being united to the Divinity His humanity is to be the price of Redemption, wherefore it must before all be preserved from sin, and We have already foreseen and accepted the merits of the Word in this very flesh and human nature.

She is to be a daughter of the first man; but in the order of grace she is to be singularly free and exempt from fault; and in the order of nature she is to be most perfect and to be formed according to a special Providence. And since the Incarnate Word is to be the Teacher of humility and holiness and for this end is to endure labors, confounding the vanity and deceitful fallacies of mortals by choosing for Himself sufferings as the treasure most estimable in Our eyes, We wish that she, who is to be His mother, experience the same labors and difficulties, that she be singularly distinguished in patience, admirable in sufferings, and that she, in union with the Onlybegotten, offer the acceptable sacrifices of sorrow to Us for her greater glory.

GOD SPEAKS TO THE ANGELS     Now the time has arrived which was resolved upon by Our Providence for bringing to the light the Creature most pleasing and acceptable to Our eyes. That creature, in whom the human nature is freed from its first sin, who is to crush the head of the dragon, who was typified by that singular sign, the woman that appeared in the heavens in Our presence, and who is to clothe the Eternal Word with human flesh. The hour is at hand, so blessed for mortals, in which the treasures of Our Divinity are to be opened and the gates to be unlocked.

Let the rigor of Our justice be softened by the chastisements, which We have until now executed upon the mortals; let the attribute of Our mercy become manifest; let the creatures be enriched and let the Divine Word merit for them the treasures of grace and of eternal glory.

Now let the human race receive the Repairer, the Teacher, the Brother and Friend, to be life for mortals, a medicine for the sick, a consoler for the sorrowful, a balsam for the wounded, a guide and companion for those in difficulties. Let now the prophecies of Our servants and the promises made to them, that We would send a Savior to redeem them, be fulfilled. And in order that all may be executed according to Our good pleasure, and that We may give a beginning to the mystery hidden since the constitution of the world, We select for the formation of Our beloved Mary the womb of Our servant Anne. In her she be conceived and in her let that most blessed soul be created. Although her generation and formation shall proceed according to the usual order of natural propagation, it shall be different in the order of grace, according to the ordainment of Our Almighty power.

You do already know how the ancient serpent, since he saw the sign of this marvelous woman, attempts to circumvent all women, and how, from the first one created, he persecutes all those, whom he sees excelling in perfection of their works and life, expecting to find among them the one, who is to crush his head. When he shall encounter this most pure and spotless creature, he shall find her so holy that he will exert all his powers to persecute her in pursuance of the concept which he forms of her. But the arrogance of this dragon shall be greater than his powers; and it is Our will that you have particular charge of this Our holy city and tabernacle of the Word, protecting, guarding, assisting and defending her against Our enemies, and that you enlighten, strengthen and console her with all due solicitude reverence, as long as she shall be a wayfarer among the mortals.

THE ANGELS     Most High and Incomprehensible God and Lord, You are worthy of all reverence, praise and eternal glory; and we are Your creatures and made according to Your divine will. Send us, most powerful Lord, to execute Your most wonderful works and mysteries, in order that in all things Your most just pleasure may be fulfilled.

Then the Most High chooses and appoints those who are to be occupied in this exalted service (the guardianship of Mary) from each of the nine choirs of angels. He selects one hundred, being nine hundred in all. Moreover He assigns twelve others who should in a special manner assist Mary in corporeal and visible forms; and they are to