If you say to Claret that you want to know and love Mary, he straightaway puts his pen in his hand and fire in his heart. Because he knows very well the importance of having a great and holy desire to achieve a goal and put in place the means to achieve it.
A prayer of the liturgy asks: ‘So that you can grant the desires of those who ask you, let them ask for those things that are pleasing to you’. Without doubt one of the desires that fills the heart of his Son with joy is to ask him to teach us to love the Virgin Mother just as He did. I believe that the answer Claret gave to the devotee, who was anxious because he felt greater love for Mary than for Jesus, was genuine. This is the magnificent reply that resounds in his heart: ‘You are crazy. Do you think you can love her more than me? The devotee went away content and happy.
It is a mercy of the Lord to feel great and holy desires, Teresa of Jesus tells us. Now we know the path to know and love more the Heart of Mary. Ask for the grace to desire it much more. We need her protection and although a mother cares for her son, he fills her with a profound joy when he calls her.
Beautifully the Council tells us: ‘With her maternal love she care for the brothers of her Son who are still on pilgrimage ‘ (LG 62) But we are going to give happiness to her Heart to call on her and to trust completely in her maternal tenderness.: To you we call the exiled children of Eve….turn to us your eyes of mercy’.
A recent saint, St. Genoveva Torres, understood herself thus: ‘I conceive of myself always wanting’. Now you know the task: great desire.