Initial Prayer for Every Day
Addressed to the Eternal Father, in the anointing of the Spirit, looking to Mary as the Masterpiece of the Most Holy Trinity
Eternal Father,
Inexhaustible Source of Being and Love,
who, in pronouncing from your eternity the Name of your Son, wished it to resound also in the whitest silence of a Woman,
I bless you for the Immaculate Conception of Mary,
first glimmer of Redemption, intact dawn that anticipates the light of the eternal Day.
You, who from always dreamed of a creature capable of saying “yes” without shadow,
a flesh without wound that could welcome the Word without trembling,
wished for your Son a pure, strong, luminous Mother,
and for us, his brothers, a compassion without limits.
For that reason, you preserved her from original sin
and introduced her into history as a river of grace that never becomes turbid.
Holy Father,
look upon our lives so often weary,
wounded by sin, overcome by haste, scattered by noise.
And for the love you have for that Woman without stain,
make it so that in this Advent Christ finds in us a grotto,
poor but open, available, humble, desirous of Him.
Send upon us the Holy Spirit,
that same Spirit who covered Mary with his fecund shadow
and made her Mother of the Word.
May He purify our heart,
return to us the lost simplicity
and grant us a gaze similar to hers.
And you, Immaculate Mary,
Clean Homeland where God wished to be born,
make this prayer rise to the Father with your same music.
Push us toward Jesus,
accompany our weariness,
heal our sorrows,
rekindle us from within with the joy of children.
Amen.
Immaculate Mary and Mediatrix
The grace that She receives, She receives to give it.
Mary was not cleansed of sin to withdraw into the haughtiness of the pure,
but to become a bridge,
an amiable path through which mercy passes.
The Immaculate does not accumulate graces: She pours them out.
Everything that She is, She is “for us”.
In Her we already see the maternal Mediation:
God fills her; She overflows. God gives her; She distributes.
God descends; She leads toward Him.
Look at her as a clean fountain. Approach without fear.
Nothing in Her stains; everything in Her heals.
Prayer:
Immaculate Mother, Mediatrix of all graces,
let me drink from the clear water that flows from your heart.
Lead me to Jesus by the most direct and smoothest path: You.
Amen.
Final Prayer
Immaculate Mary,
Tota pulchra from the eternal dawn,
Mediatrix of all the graces that Christ has merited for us,
Co-Redemptrix associated with the only Redeemer in the holy hour of Calvary,
Most Powerful Advocate who never abandons those who implore you,
Spiritual Mother of the Church and of each one of her children,
Most Loving Patroness of Spain, which has always recognized you as its Queen,
receive my gratitude and my supplication;
I deposit them in your hands
like one who hands a small candle to the clarity of noon.
Do not look so much at the poverty of my prayer
as at the desire to love your Son with a love similar to yours.
Immaculate Mother,
turn your merciful eyes to Spain, which is yours,
marked by your name in its mountains and seas, in its cities and villages,
which wished—and wishes—to continue being land of the Most Holy Mary.
Guard it in unity, in faith, in the purity of its Christian roots.
May prayer not be extinguished in it,
nor the memory of God be erased,
nor the signs that remind the world
that Christ has conquered be torn down.
Make, Immaculate Mother,
that in Spain the Cross remain standing, tall, serene and visible,
like a column of heaven planted in our history
and like a silent witness to the victory of Love.
May no shadow, no fear, no ideology
be able to topple the Cross that proclaims, from on high,
that only Christian forgiveness illuminates.
And to me, your child,
cleanse me with your light,
teach me to give myself without reservations,
to obey the Spirit as you obeyed,
to remain beside Christ with the same firmness
with which you remained beside the Cross.
Immaculate Mary,
Mediatrix, Co-Redemptrix, Advocate, Mother and Lady,
lead me by your hand to Jesus.
And when my last hour arrives,
cover me with your mantle
and present me before the Father
with the tenderness with which you carried the Child in Bethlehem
and with the strength with which you stood at the foot of the Cross.
So be it.
Texts and reflections by Mons. Alberto José González Chaves