Our Lord and Our Lady in the Fifteen Magnificent Prayers of Saint Bridget
A Prayerful Reflection
by
Fr. Anthony R. Curley
We are buffeted by the enemy of our souls. We feel the Passion of Jesus in his wounds, as we take the time to reflect upon them without rushing through to the end of our thoughtful contemplations of them. There are troubles on every side of us it seems, as a large river of water at flood stage. The problems surround us. Yet, Jesus and our Lady is with us, never forsaking us, nor leaving us, even unto the end of the age.
We are strengthen by the strength of Christ through the intercession of our Lady and the saints who also experienced his Passion, the holy sufferings of our Lord Jesus.
O, Immaculata, you were there with our Lord Jesus, your Holy Son, at the foot of the Cross with the youthful St. John the Evangelist.
Lovely soul of grace, St. Bridget, how reflective are your prayers that contemplate the wounds of Jesus, our Lord and our Savior. You have seen these wounds through the eyes of our Lady and our Lord. This, lovely St. Bridget, is the way of the Cross of Jesus, our First Love.
Help us to see the significance of each word, as we experience within ourselves the Passion of our Savior and our Beloved One.
First Prayer
Our Father - Hail Mary
< How lovely is that Holy Visage that was so marred at the hands of men. How our Lady must have sensed the deepest of wounds as she looked upon him who had come from her own body. How intimate was her love for her Beloved Son, the Son of Our Father who is in heaven. What Love was Manifested when Jesus was conceived within our Immaculata. That singular vessel of God's Grace felt the sorrow -- the pierced heart with the thorns from the roses. It is the bitter and the sweet that Mary felt within -- Mara, our Miriam, our Lady. < The sweetest consolation that we have with your holy apostles is the consolation of your Mother, Lord Jesus. How she consoles us in this valley of tears, the place where you came to be Immanuel. We need our Lady, the Mother of God, to console us, as she looked upon that event at your Last Supper. O' Immaculata, The Most Precious Body and Blood had come into being through your body, sweet Lady of Grace. In becoming Man, God provided for you, our Elect Lady, that most singular Grace to know the Divine plan in the context of your Magnificat. < Dear Lord Jesus, Holy Son of Mary. . .the Seed that fell to the ground for our sakes and our Salvation. May our hearts become knitted with yours to become intwined with the inner recesses of that Passion you have suffered so that we may desire sin no more. < Would to God that Israel would have chosen you, as did your Mother, dear Savior. She was the Alma, the Parthenos, the singular Woman who, as Israel should have done so, bowed to the supreme privilege of becoming the Theotokos, the Bearer of God in her body. She humbled herself with her Son, who humbled himself, laying aside his Glory, and therefore is Glorified. Our Elect Lady, you humbled yourself and were also glorified in him in your Assumption and Coronation in heaven. < You took upon yourself, dear Lord, all our derisive garments of sin and death. For the joy that was set before you, you endured the Cross, despising the shame. You are seated at the Right Hand of the Father. Mary looked upon these insults to her own Flesh and Blood she raised from Childhood and saw it mocked and beaten and scarred and that Face of God, the Man, so marred by sinful men and insults to the Glory that is God's. How was this pain within O, Immaculata, so tender and sweet? We, therefore, say, Our Father. . ., and, Hail Mary. . ., seeing the intimacy of the suffering Servant with that of suffering Mother, as suffering joined with suffering, and those also with sufferings through all of time in all places with holy men and women everywhere, uniquely joined with Jesus, crucified with him on Calvary. There with Mary -- we experience the Passion of Jesus, our Salvation. We see Mercy crucified. < Our Father - Hail Mary < O, Immaculata, our Lady, we are consoled as we hear these words that bring to us the Salvation of our souls. You Mothered him who freed us to bring us to liberty and paradise through the horror and sadness that surround us, the rest of your offspring, because your Child was caught up into heaven and given a scepter that he would rule the nations. The flood of waters encompass us, but, God is near us as we await the consummation of all things in Jesus, our King. Thanks be to Jesus our Lord and Mary for her faithfulness in Christ, the Fruit of her womb. Third Prayer Our Father - Hail Mary < When the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters, upon the deep, upon the abyssos, you, O' God, create a new heaven and earth that nothing can encompass or limit. Our Lady is the example of this limitless new creation in Christ, the chaste virgin we are likened to that is also becoming the new creation in Christ. Nailed to that Cross, pierced by a sword, we sense the depth of your identification with us in order that we might respond to this Holy Love and Mercy that you are and we become identified with your Passion and our death to self and our being raised unto newness of Life in Christ. How our Lady reflects this Glory that is God's. Truly by your wounds we are healed. Pierce us dear Lord for our Salvation in you alone. Pierce us with Mary, as we stand with St. John and look upon Love crucified, the Mercy of God betrayed, yet, fully operative in Immanuel. <> Fourth Prayer Our Father - Hail Mary < How can understand and sense this pain? How can we understand the pain of Mary at the foot of the Cross, looking upon her Son? We are numb with our human inability to sense these pains for us in Son and Mother. Help us to find this Passion for our experience within our hearts to bind us unto yours. < Fifth Prayer Our Father - Hail Mary < I was there with all of these dear Lord, when you saw me from the Cross. Our Elect Lady sought me out and brought me Home to your Church, the people of God. I was deep within the abyss I had fallen int, unable to retrieve myself from it, when you through your compassion and pity lifted me out of it, as a Mother for her Son, Mercy. Praise God who chose her to mediate Christ's Graces. She is the Mother of Mercy. < Sixth Prayer Our Father - Hail Mary < How intimately this picture unfolds for us. Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of Mary, is asked to behold her Son. She is the witness of Sorrow. St. John is also a son through faith in Christ Jesus. Now, Jesus, thinking of us all, asks his disciple (a son of God through Christ) to behold his Mother. Now, Mother, now, Woman, behold your son. . . and we now with John behold our Mother. How precious is this thought of Mary, that she is now our Mother. <> May that sword of sorrow be one that we come to embrace with Mary to bring compassion upon us in our troubles. Seventh Prayer Our Father - Hail Mary < O' Creator of the waters that cover the seas, the seas, the rivers, the streams, the lakes -- you thirsted for water. And, like the waters ourselves, more than physical waters, you thirsted for us to become your own, to be wedded to you in intimate Love. Like Mary, you desired that we desire, that we come to know, you perfect will and perfection. Bring us to that Holiness through obedience to Jesus in imitation of our Lady, that Virgin of all virgins. O' Furnace of the Sacred Heart inflame us and cleanse us through that Purgatorial Fire of Love. Encompass us with your Holy Passion that we may be jarred from our complacency. Eighth Prayer Our Father - Hail Mary < Mother of God, the bitterness and sweetness of his Passion touched you like vinegar and gall, yet, you remained unblemished through your holy sweetness of spirit. What more shall we say of the Spouse of the Holy Spirit? In this consolation whereby you were consoled, we may now be consoled when the vinegar and gall, the bitterness of life comes to us. May we imitate Mary, the Mary that Jesus gave to her children. Ninth Prayer Our Father - Hail Mary < Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you amongst women and blessed is the Fruit of your womb, JESUS. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Tenth Prayer Our Father - Hail Mary < Our Sanctissima, our highest virtue, is seen in our Lady, because she is what we ought to be like, the "chaste virgin" we are becoming in Christ, like the Blessed Virgin. O' we shall never be Mary. No, but, we are being made like unto her, because we are being made like unto our Lord Jesus Christ in the Body of Christ. Out of the abyss of Christ's suffering, his Passion, we are made into the likeness of the Image of God. What a privilege for us in Grace. Through the sufferings of Christ we are cleansed with broken Body and shed Blood. May we contemplate your Wounds at Eucharist. Eleventh Prayer Our Father - Hail Mary < There is always that abyss of Mercy toward us. Eternal Father, we offer you the Body and the Blood, the Soul and Divinity of your dearly Beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ in atonement for our sins and the sins of the whole world. For the sake of his sorrowful Passion, have Mercy on us and the whole world. One abyssos is exchanged for the abyss of the Mercy of Jesus, the Mercy of God, Dives in misericordia. Twelfth Prayer Our Father - Hail Mary < O Virgin of virgins, the virginal Flesh of Jesus is my Focus. As you, my Lord Jesus, were the Fruit of the womb of our Lady, may the fruit of your sufferings be renewed in my soul that I may never become complacent, but, ever ready to reflect upon these wounds of that Flesh and their relationship to our Lady, and, thereby to ourselves. Thirteenth Prayer Our Father - Hail Mary < How thankfully may we be consoled by these words, "It is consummated." Are these not the words that are alluded to in the Revelation of John, that apostolic son and beholder of Mary? He saw her in heaven clothed with the sun and moon with twelve stars. Then he heard the words that followed the vision of Mary through the sufferings that followed,Then I (John) heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have salvation and power come, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed. For the accuser of our brothers is cast out, who accuses them before our God day and night. 11 They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb Our Father - Hail Mary < May we in turn surrender our body and soul to our Lord Jesus Christ. May Satan, the flesh and the world's enticements become as nothing to us, as we behold the Face of Jesus, torn and wounded, and follow the example of our Lady in obedience to Christ. Fifteenth Prayer Our Father - Hail Mary < May we remember with Mary that without our True and fruitful Vine we can do nothing. May we remember that the fruits of the Spirit come through abiding in the Vine, as we partake of the Body and the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in Eucharist. O, come let us adore him, the Fruit of Mary's womb, there with Mary and Joseph. Let us be fully spent for Jesus in true and complete devotion, as Jesus was completely spent for us and our salvation, as his Body and Blood still remain for us and our salvation. Praise and Glory are Christ's. Conclusion: < Looking to Jesus and the example of Mary -- let it be so with us forever. Amen.
and by the word of their testimony; love for life did not deter them from death. 12 Therefore, rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell in them. But woe to you, earth and sea, for the Devil has come down to you in great fury, for he knows he has but a short time."
Fourteenth Prayer