Dear Friends,

The key characteristic in work for Our Lady, the Immaculata, is humility. This is so for many reasons, but it must really guide us in our work for Her on the practical and daily level!

Firstly, Our Lady was pre-eminent in humility…”he hath regarded the humility of His handmaid.” Her humility is the opposite of Satan’s pride and is the greatest enmity between them.

Secondly, we are sinners, and impure, and erstwhile servants of Satan, even to the extent of unwittingly assisting him occasionally, even though we are enlisted in God’s service through the Immaculata! Thus, humility is necessary as a matter of maintaining ourselves in submission to God, lest we go astray since “pride goeth before a fall.”

Thirdly, by humility, we imitate Christ, Mary, St. Joseph and all the just, who delighted in this virtue in the same way that the deer delights in the grassy meadow. Such spiritual delight is easy to understand because the humble man recognizes His benefactor without fear of straying beyond His omnipotent protection nor out of range of His inexhaustible resources!

Fourthly, by humility, we find God’s will in the path He chooses that we serve Him. Thus Humility preserves our work and makes it useful, for so many things are done without God and so are consigned to the dust-bin of history (if they make it that far). Chiefly, this consists in obeying our superiors, or listening to the sound advice and directions of well placed people.

ON THE PRACTICAL LEVEL, humility enables us to do the little things, to be faithful in the little things and to seek to do the little things that help our neighbor move away from sin and closer to God.

For example, we smile to our neighbor on the bus and exchange a pleasant word, rather than to disdain speaking to them because there seems to be no big hope of big returns! Or we agree to teach catechism one on one for someone in a poor neighborhood, although we would prefer to teach a big class, rather we choose to do the little humble thing, since the bigger one isn’t available. Apostolically, humility doesn’t mean to do less when we can do more, but it means we seek the simple, down-to-earth little kindnesses and services, always focusing on the good of the soul within and not on the exterior benefits or praise etc.

For our daily apostolate in concrete life, let us speak frequently of the Rosary, the Mysteries of the life of Christ and Mary, of the Miraculous Medal, and let us explain the Scapular. Speaking frequently of these things, we will always have it in mind to bring all souls to Our Lady through the MI, or through a better practice of an MI service already begun. The key is to think with Mary’s Heart, with the internal attitude of Humility, and through this virtue allow Mary to do with us as she will.

Go forth humbly! Always more, always better, God wills it!

MI Messenger No. 2 — download

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