Teaching us to pray with Mary
Luis Fernando Figari, of Lima, Peru, is the founder of several ecclesiastic organizations, including the Fraternidad Mariana de la Reconciliación and the Christian Life Movement. The latter has expanded into several countries, including the United States.
In a recent interview with Our Sunday Visitor, Figari discusses his approach to Marian spirituality and his new book “With Mary in Prayer” (Our Sunday Visitor, $7.95 plus shipping).
OUR SUNDAY VISITOR: How did you come to write a prayer book?
FIGARI: The book was written in answer to the request of many members of the Christian Life Movement who asked me: “Why don’t you put some of your prayers in writing?” At first, I hesitated. But after some thinking and praying, I just did it.
VISITOR: How did you manage to remember your own meditations?
FIGARI: Well, it was not an easy task. I mean, when you are praying, you are just doing that. From the beginning, I knew it might not work. So I asked Mary to intercede, so that I could write down what I prayed in my heart. For some span of time, I carried pen and paper with me. That gave me the opportunity to write the words down in certain moments of prayer, one by one, on one occasion or another, as I prayed. I really was surprised as the written prayers were produced one after another.
It has been a very special experience to share those prayers. I hope that they may help those who read them and pray with them to get near Holy Mary's Immaculate Heart, and learn from her to increasingly love the Lord Jesus.
VISITOR: Why did you include some traditional prayers in “With Mary in Prayer”?
FIGARI: The traditional Marian prayers I have included are the ones most frequently used by Catholics around the world. They have been handed down to us from generation to generation. I have grown up with those devotions, as I assume many people have —for example, the 15 traditional mysteries of the Rosary. So it seemed logical to me to include them in a Marian prayer book as a way to express the continuity in Marian devotion.
VISITOR: You also included some new mysteries. You call them “Mysteries of Pain and Joy in the Christian Life of Our Blessed Mother”.
FIGARI: Yes, I did. In life, you find moments of joy, and also moments of sorrow and pain. They usually appear interlaced. I have been praying and meditating on those two dimensions of life for a long time. They seem to come along with the gift of living, almost as a pedagogical pattern to educate us to live them fruitfully when they appear in our own lives. It is not difficult to find them in Mary’s life. To come closer to our Blessed Mother’s experience, I began to pray the Rosary, meditating on those mysteries of her life. So the “Pain and Joy Mysteries” naturally came up.
VISITOR: Why a prayer book about Mary?
FIGARI: Mary is our mother and cares for us. We must take seriously the words our Lord Jesus uttered from the cross: “Behold, your mother”. Those words include us. They include all sons and daughters of the Church. We are Mary’s children. And as such we look at her as we seek to learn all we can from the way she answered God. We see her as the one who was nearer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We try to get as near as we can to her Immaculate Heart, convinced that she stands out among humankind as an unsurpassable example of love to Jesus. Her motherhood is an occasion to learn to open oneself to the Lord’s plan, and to live increasingly His gifts of faith, hope and charity.
Obviously, she stands as a permanent paradigm of Christian life. Knowing that she is our mother, we speak to her expressing our love, asking her intercession, giving thanks to her in different moments of our daily life.
We want to speak to her with filial love, share with her our joys and our worries, disclose ourselves to her, ask for her intercession, thank her, rely on her in different situations of our life. That's what the prayer book is all about.
VISITOR: You mentioned Mary’s intercession. Could you explain a little more?
FIGARI: I have just mentioned Our Lord’s words from the cross. He also said, “Woman, behold, your son!” He was addressing His mother. And in John, He was giving us all as her sons and daughters. We believe He gave us to Mary as her children. And He gave Mary to us as our mother.
Since early times, Christians have been conscious of Mary’s spiritual motherhood. That is the root from which her intercessory love sprouts. Christians have always looked toward Mary for help. Our invocation to Mary is based on God’s plan. Her spiritual motherhood is expressed in Our Lord’s words from the cross. Our trust in her intercessory prayers on our behalf comes from the confidence we have in the words our Lord Jesus said.
This is a very old belief in Church tradition. There is a well-known prayer from the third century, discovered in an Egyptian papyrus, called Sub tuum praesidium (“We Fly to Thy Protection” or “Under Your Shelter”). It may be translated thus: “We take shelter under your mercy, O Mother of God. Do not overlook our supplications when we are tempted, but see us freed from danger, O alone pure, O alone blessed.”
VISITOR: As a layman, you founded a society of apostolic life. What is the relation between prayer and lay experience in daily life?
FIGARI: The different experiences of every day are opportunities to pray. Special events that happen along one’s life are occasions to give thanks for so many good things with which we are blessed. There are also many difficult or sad situations in which to ask special communion and favors from God.
VISITOR: What would you say to a Catholic who claims having “no time” to pray?
FIGARI: Do you have time to eat or sleep? How come you say you don’t have time to pray? It’s even easier. To pray is to talk with God, to be conscious of His presence, to act according to His divine plan. To pray is to answer His word from the cross and accept the Immaculate Virgin as your mother, to love her accordingly and answer her instructions in Cana: “Do whatever He tells you.” That is the real way to happiness: There is no valid excuse for skipping prayer. Not to pray is choosing to flee from what matters most.
VISITOR: Many of your prayers imply the human desire to achieve holiness. Do you think that is possible for rank-and-file Catholics in today’s world?
FIGARI: Yes! Life is a way to holiness! Everything in it is a wonderful occasion to fulfill God’s divine plan for us. And He wants us to be saints. Grace is bestowed in abundance on us so we can answer correctly the different situations in which we find ourselves. So, we ought to live each day trying to discover new ways to come closer to God, to walk in his path. The Christian vocation is a call we all have received, lay people and clergy. In receiving that call, everyone has been invited to live a saintly Christian life.
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