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S i d e b a r
To Thee Do I Come
By Jane Cavolina
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This Rock
Volume 17, Number 8
 September 2006 
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When I try to pinpoint the beginning of the road that led me back to Mary, she is always one step ahead of me. When I’m sure it was the time I bought a medal of the Blessed Mother in an antique store, I remember my inadvertent visit to the site of one of her apparitions. When I’m satisfied that it was that occasion that brought her to my consciousness, I remember my Memorare bookmark.
I’m certain that there are other, earlier markers, which I think of now as petals dropped along my path, leading me on. But the bookmark is the first one I clearly recall. It was a curiosity, a piece of Catholic kitsch, given to me in 1983 by Maureen Kelly, one of the people with whom I wrote Growing Up Catholic. In the course of writing that book, I not only reclaimed a lifetime of Catholic memories, experiences, and beliefs, but I also found myself the owner of a wealth of Catholic "stuff." Statues. Medals. Photos. Certificates.
The bookmark sat, of all places, on the vanity in my bathroom for years before I really looked at it. Yet for all the time I owned it and saw it every day, I never thought to say the prayer inscribed on it. Praying was something I didn’t do anymore. It hadn’t been a conscious decision; I’d just forgotten about it. As my life moved into perilous and troubling waters, an anchor sat on my bathroom counter next to my hairbrush, unnoticed and untouched.
Like Leaves of Grass
A few years later I was in Ireland, driving from Sligo to Galway. I saw signs for Knock, and I remembered that Mary had appeared there. I was curious; it seemed too interesting to pass by. I went into the cathedral built on the site of the apparition and said a prayer, because that’s what you do in churches.
I visited the Madeleine in Paris, a beautiful church devoted to Mary. It was filled with tapers (beautiful tall candles), and I lit one and said another prayer.
Then on a trip to Rye, England, I wandered around the pretty streets of the ancient town for hours, browsing in bookshops, buying needlework, stopping for tea. Before I headed back to the train station, I looked into a lovely old antique shop and found a Virgin painted on a small round piece of mother of pearl. I bought it and put it on.
Some time after the publication of Growing Up Catholic, I was asked to speak at a Rosary Society luncheon (another petal) at Our Lady of Victory (still another) in Floral Park, New York. I met a warm and welcoming audience of women. I thought how nice it would be to live in a parish like this, even though I had stopped thinking of the world in terms of parishes when I graduated high school. Their parting gift to me was a statue of the Blessed Mother, and I was moved to tears by it. These loving strangers had offered me the solution to a problem I didn’t yet know I had. I put it on a bookshelf opposite the sofa in my living room, where I looked at it quizzically when I was sewing or knitting or watching TV. I wondered how I came to have a statue of the Virgin Mary in my house.
I know now that these occasions were, in Walt Whitman’s words, like leaves of grass, "the handkerchief of the Lord," "a scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners."
Mary was placing herself in my way until, by some act of grace, I would come to her.
Hear and Answer Me
But none of these things consciously brought me any closer to devotion, to a feeling of religious ardor. But that changed for me the night I woke up on my bathroom floor in the middle of the night in pain. I remembered lying down on the cool tiles, too weak and nauseous to stand or walk. Then I must have fainted. I didn’t know what had happened, what was wrong, or how much time had passed. I only knew that I was very sick. I could not have been more alone.
I finally pulled myself up and leaned against the vanity in despair. I had to pray; there was nothing else I could do to help myself. I took the bookmark in my hands and said the words of the Memorare out loud, not even remembering to bless myself:Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen. "Mary, please help me," I begged. "I don’t know what to do."
It was an old instinct that made me turn to her, an instinct I didn’t know I had anymore. I didn’t know what she would do; I didn’t expect her to do anything. All I knew was that I couldn’t face things on my own, and there was no one else. When after such a very long silence I finally called on Mary for strength and help, I immediately received her first gift: It was given to me to remember that I was not alone after all.
Mother of Mercy
The truth that came to me while I was praying to Mary has transformed and redeemed my life. I have gratefully joined the legion of Catholics who have turned to Mary in times of trouble and found comfort and fortitude, serenity and love. It is why we call her our Lady of perpetual help, our Lady of sorrows, refuge of sinners, help of the sick, comforter of the afflicted, Mother of mercy. We all come to Mary for different reasons and in different hours of need, but what we receive when we turn to her is the same for us all, in an unbroken chain going back thousands of years.
I have prayed to Mary and my prayers have been answered time and again. I magnify her holy name—that is, I tell everybody. I am telling you. In Walt Whitman’s words, she stops somewhere waiting for you.
Jane Cavolina is This Rock’s copyeditor and the author of Growing Up Catholic, More Growing Up Catholic, and (with Matthew Bunson) All Shall Be Well.
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