Daughter of the King
God is Our Father
God, the Creator of all, has adopted me. This means that I share in the inheritance of the kingdom of God. No longer and I just little me, human, weak, dirty, unworthy of the courts of Heaven. Heaven is my inheritance – as long as I remain a true daughter (reference the Prodigal Son).
When I was a child, I would follow my dad everywhere, look at whatever textbook he was reading, ask endless questions of “why?” “what's that?” and “how?” and any variation therein. I would ask him for anything; I let him know what was wrong; If he hurt my feelings, I let him know that too! I trusted that daddy could do anything, fix anything, and even make it rain. Daddy was superman. When daddy said I looked pretty, I glowed. If I did something that disappointed my daddy, my heart was crushed. When the geese at the pond wouldn't leave me alone, I ran to my daddy who scared the mean geese away. These are the things a daughter does to her daddy. (I assume sons are a bit different, but I have no personal experience there).
Fathers should be approachable, honest, always there, always supportive, and consistent. Now, while every human father falls short at some point or another, our Heavenly Father does not. God is our father though, and all those things I did as a kid to my earthly father can be translated to how we should approach our Heavenly One.
However, I also learned, as a child, how to tell when my daddy was in a bad mood, when he was angry at me, or when I was doing something wrong. God is a just God, and He will punish His children. We need to learn to obey Him and to learn what upsets him, angers him, breaks his heart. We should learn the words that will make Him smile, the gifts He desires, and the response He wants.
We should also never forget that sometimes, just as when I asked “why?” or “how?” to my father, we cannot understand the answers. I rarely understood my father when he talked about the protein folding procedure he was working on at work, but that didn't stop me from asking questions. I knew that daddy knew what it was, and I knew it was important, and I learned what I could, but I did not think that at thirteen I would understand all the complexities. Some things, some manifestations of God and His will, are beyond our minds. There is a reason they are called mysteries. If God says “Trust me,” we need to just trust Him.
Christ is Our Brother
Christ became our brother first by taking on our flesh. He became our brother in the most literal sense (past physically being born of the same loins) by this action. Christ also said that those who obeyed God and kept His commands would be his brothers and sisters. He even taught us to pray “Our Father.” He established Himself as Son of God, then He taught us to call His Father our Father.
I never had a big brother that acted like one in my family, but I have several young men I have adopted as brothers and have adopted me as a little sister. These young men are beautiful examples of Christ in many ways because when I need prayer, to talk, or company, I know I can call on them. Christ is the same way for each of us. When we need to talk to the Father, He goes with us. When we need to talk or just hang out, he is always there for us. Sibling help each other, stand up for each other, take (or share) the blame for each other (or cast the blame on the other one....), and they talk to parents for each other. How amazing is it that Christ is our Brother and fulfills all these roles as well?
Mary is Our Mother
If God is our Father, and Christ is our brother, we have no other option than to gratefully accept Mary as our Mother just as John – the Beloved Disciple – did at the foot of the cross. John, in accordance with Jesus' dying breaths, took Mary as his mother. If we are to fully imitate Christ, we must, then, love His Mother as He loved her – with total respect, abandonment, honor, and obedience.
Growing up, my mother was one of my best friends. I told her everything. I told her which boys I was most definitely going to marry. I told her when daddy had hurt my feelings. I brought her pretty (in my opinion) flowers. I drew her lots of pictures. If I needed a sympathetic ear, I went to her because she was more likely to be sympathetic to my cause than my father (with whom I was far too much alike). I learned how to be a strong woman by watching my mother. I learned how to care for children by watching my mother. I learned my faith sitting at her knee. She taught me how to read and opened the world to me. And she always helped sooth my father's and my ruffled feathers when we'd gotten into an argument.
Over the past few weeks, I have come to realize that that is exactly what Mary's role is. She was given to us as Mother. She is the spouse of the Spirit, Mother of the Son, and as thus, she is my Mother. If we want to truly imitate Christ, we must act as He did in regards to His mother. Look at the wedding of Cana (John 2). Mary goes to Him saying that their friends were out of wine. He replies, “what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.” He was telling her that it wasn't yet time for Him to do miracles. His public ministry had not yet started. She simply turned to the servants and said “Whatever He says to you, do it.”
And Jesus honored the position that His Father had given to her – being His mother – and he obeyed her wishes. He honored her. He did not brush her off because He was God. God chose to come to this world through a human vessel, and He gave her the honor due to her position. Even when Jesus was on the cross, suffering untold pain for us, he did not forget his mother. Billy Graham said, “Even when Jesus was dying on the cross, He was thinking of His mother!”
The martyr Saint Maximilian Kolbe said, "Whoever does not wish to have Mary Immaculate as his Mother will not have Christ as his Brother." Blessed Pope John Paul II said, “From Mary we learn to surrender to God's Will in all things. From Mary we learn to trust even when all hope seems gone. From Mary we learn to love Christ her Son and the Son of God!” Just as we look to our mothers to learn those things that are important, so too do we look to our Blessed Mother to learn how best to serve God. No one ever served God in a more pure fashion than His mother.
Many of you are probably digging your heels in right now and already planning scathing replies to this segment, so I leave you with just a few quotes to ponder before you do so.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.” Luke 1:41-45
“My soul magnifies the Lord
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
Because He has regarded the lowliness of His handmaid;
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed;
Because He who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is His name;” Luke 1:46-49
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
Because He has regarded the lowliness of His handmaid;
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed;
Because He who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is His name;” Luke 1:46-49
“Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did.” –Saint Maximilian Kolbe
"Let us not imagine that we obscure the glory of the Son by the great praise we lavish on the Mother; for the more she is honored, the greater is the glory of her Son. There can be no doubt that whatever we say in praise of the Mother gives equal praise to the Son." –Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
“As mariners are guided into port by the shining of a star, so Christians are guided to heaven by Mary" –Saint Thomas Aquinas
”Let those who think that the Church pays too much attention to Mary give heed to the fact that Our Blessed Lord Himself gave ten times as much of His life to her as He gave to His Apostles.” –Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
"We never give more honour to Jesus than when we honour his Mother, and we honour her simply and solely to honour him all the more perfectly. We go to her only as a way leading to the goal we seek - Jesus, her Son." –Saint Louis Marie de Montfort
Part of the Heavenly Court
So, yes, I am a Daughter of the King. That is a title I gladly, proudly, and humbly bear. I will not be ashamed of it, I will be proud of it. But I will also never forget that it was not my merit that allowed me to join this Heavenly Court. It was only because the Son obeyed his Father and took on human flesh and died a gruesome death, then rose again for me.
As part of such a magnificent court, I have duties. I am not permitted to just sit around and be happy and content not doing anything. I cannot just idly use resources and assume that life is going to be swell because of my apathy. I am called to go and invite more people to this Heavenly Family. I am called to remind my brothers and sisters that we are to honor or Mother and Father. I am called to be a harvester, a worker, a laborer. I am called not to rest in this lifetime. I am called to seek more fully the perfect will of my Heavenly Father. I am called to love Him and live a life of love.
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