[Prayer] Holy Mary, Virgin of Time

Holy Mary, Virgin of the morning

Give us the joy of sensing, even amid so many mists of dawn, the hopes of a new day. Inspire in us words of courage.

Do not let our voice tremble when, despite so many evils and sins that age the world, we dare to announce that better days will come.

Do not allow lament to prevail over wonder on our lips, discouragement to overcome diligence, skepticism to crush enthusiasm, or the weight of the past to keep us from trusting in the future.

Help us to wager more boldly on the young, and preserve us from the temptation of flattering them with the cunning of barren words, aware that only through our own choices of authenticity and consistency will they be willing to let themselves be enchanted once again.

Multiply our energies, so that we may know how to invest them in the one enterprise still profitable in the marketplace of civilization: safeguarding the new generations against the atrocious evils that today stifle the earth. Give our voices the rhythm of the Easter alleluias.

Steep the deserts of our realism in dreams. Make us cultivators of warm utopias whose crevices let hope pour out over the world.

Help us to understand that pointing out the buds appearing on the branches is worth more than lamenting the leaves that fall.

And instill in us the certainty of one who already sees the east set ablaze by the first rays of the sun.

Holy Mary, Virgin of midday

Give us the intoxication of light. We are already experiencing far too much the extinguishing of our lanterns, the decline of the ideologies of power, and the lengthening of the twilight shadows on the narrow paths of the earth not to long for the midday sun.

Tear us away from the desolation of helplessness and inspire in us the humility of the search. Quench our thirst for grace in the hollow of your hand.

Lead us back to the faith that another Mother, poor and good like you, handed on to us when we were children, and which perhaps one day we tried to sell off in part for a wretched portion of lentils.

You, beggar of the Spirit, fill our amphorae with the oil destined to burn before God: we have already burned far too much before the idols of the desert.

Make us capable of superhuman abandonment to God. Temper our carnal pride.

May the light of faith, even when it takes on tones of prophetic denunciation, not make us arrogant or presumptuous, but grant us the joy of tolerance and of understanding.

Above all, however, deliver us from the tragedy of a belief in God that remains foreign to the concrete choices of every moment, whether public or private, and runs the risk of never becoming flesh and blood on the altar of daily life.

Holy Mary, Virgin of the evening

Mother of the hour in which one returns home, and savors the joy of being welcomed by someone, and lives the unspeakable happiness of sitting at table with others, give us the gift of communion.

We ask this of you for our Church, which likewise does not seem immune to the temptations of fragmentation, of parochialism, and of withdrawal within the boundaries marked out by the shadow of the bell tower.

We ask this of you for our city, which the spirit of division so often turns into contested ground, and which at times seems to become no man’s land.

We ask this of you for our families, so that dialogue, crucified love, and the serene living of domestic affections may make them privileged places of Christian and civic growth.

We ask this of you for all of us, so that, far from the excommunications of selfishness and isolation, we may always stand on the side of life, wherever it is born, grows, or dies.

We ask this of you for the whole world, so that solidarity among peoples may no longer be lived as one moral obligation among many, but rediscovered as the one ethical imperative on which to found human coexistence.

And may the poor be able to sit, with equal dignity, at everyone’s table.

And may peace become the goal of our daily commitments.

Holy Mary, Virgin of the night

We implore you to be close to us when pain threatens us, when trial breaks in, when the wind of despair whistles and the black sky of anguish, the cold of disillusionment, or the harsh shadow of death hangs over our existence. Deliver us from the shudders of the darkness.

In the hour of our Calvary, you who experienced the eclipse of the sun, spread your mantle over us, so that, wrapped in your breath, we may find the long wait for freedom more bearable.

Soothe, with your mother’s caresses, the suffering of the sick. Fill with friendly and discreet presences the bitter time of those who are alone.

Calm the longing in the hearts of seafarers and offer them your shoulder, that they may rest their heads upon it.

Preserve from all evil our loved ones who struggle in distant lands, and console, with the moving brightness of your eyes, those who have lost their trust in life.

Sing the Magnificat still today and announce overflowing waves of justice to all the oppressed of the earth. Do not leave us alone in the night to chant our fears.

On the contrary, if in moments of darkness you place yourself at our side and whisper to us that you too, Virgin of Advent, are waiting for the light, the springs of weeping will dry on our faces.

And together we will awaken the dawn. So be it.

Venerable Don Antonio Bello (d. 1993)

Recommended reading: Marialis Cultus (Paul VI), an apostolic exhortation on Marian devotion.

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