Most dear father,

I have three things to ask you, for when you have time to answer.

The first: there are people who argue that Our Lady could not recite the Lord’s Prayer, citing reasons such as that it would be contradictory for her in Heaven to ask to be freed from temptation, and similar arguments (and this, according to them, would be proof of the falsity of Medjugorje, where Our Lady prays the Lord’s Prayer with the seers).

They also argue that Jesus, when he recited the Our Father, did not truly pray to the Father, but only wanted to teach this prayer: it seems to me that he prayed to Him too, but I would like to know what he thinks.

Finally, a question about Mary’s role and her merit in the history of salvation: since she was prepared in a very special way, unique among all creatures, to become Mother of God, if she rejected the Incarnation, what would happen? It seems impossible to me to think that God would have used another woman, or that he would have incarnated without going through a gestation… and on the other hand it seems strange to me to believe that he would have left humanity deprived of the Redemption of Christ. It also seems impossible to me to think that Our Lady was not free to choose: if she had been “obliged” to accept the Incarnation, she would have had no freedom or merit; furthermore, the progenitors were free to reject God.

I ask you these questions regardless of the rubric “a priest answers”, but possibly put them there too, if you think they might be useful to someone else. I would need your answer, in the meantime, because I have to answer other people.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart and remember you in prayer.

Ilaria

Response from the priest

Dear Ilaria,

1. in Lourdes Our Lady did not recite the Our Father. Theologians gave this explanation: the Our Father is the prayer of the travelers, that is, of the people who are in this world.

However, while Bernadette was saying the Rosary, Our Lady was telling the beads of the crown. This means that she makes our prayers her own, purifies them, embellishes them and presents them to the eternal Father.

2. In Medjugorje she would recite it: even this eventuality does not surprise me because it would be nothing more than an explanation of what I told you in the second paragraph of the previous point.

3. Our Father is Jesus’ prayer.

Jesus taught us what he did first: He began to do and teach.

Origen says that Jesus always recited the Pater in his prayers.

Now, if Jesus always and only recited the Pater, I don’t know.

I am certain instead that this prayer sums up all his prayers. So if Origen’s materially understood statement were not true, it is at least true in his intuition.

We must not forget then that Christ fully sympathizes with us, that he has become sinful in our place and that he asks the Father for each of us whose head he is the remission of all our sins, in the same way that he has remitted them to his crucifiers

4. Recently, I was answering a visitor who asked me your same question about Mary

And I remembered that when we talk about Mary’s theoretical possibility of saying no to God’s plan, we forget the special status she enjoyed and put her on the same level as ordinary mortals, albeit with a higher degree of grace.

Mary, on the other hand, belongs to a special order.

By preserving her from original sin and inclination to evil, God has poured out upon her an amount of grace greater than that of the entire Church put together.

This exceptional degree of holiness made Mary even freer and prompted her to say her yes with a very high degree of love.

In fact then there has been an impeccability in Mary, though different from the impeccability of Christ. Theologians say that Mary was confirmed in grace from the first moment of her existence.

Confirmation in grace in saints occurs through a great increase in charity, the effect of the transforming union in Christ.

This increase is accompanied by many current graces that effectively preserve from sin and push for ever higher free and meritorious acts.

The p. Reginado Garrigou-Lagrange says that “in Mary there was special assistance from Providence, which, even better than in the state of innocence, preserved all her faculties from deviations and, even in the most painful circumstances, maintained her soul in the most perfect generosity…

This preservation from sin, far from diminishing Mary’s freedom or free will, meant that she had full freedom in the order of good without any deviation towards evil, just as her intelligence never deviated towards error. Thus her freedom, for example that of the holy soul of Jesus, was a most pure image of the freedom of God, which is both sovereign and impeccable” (La Mère du Sauveur, pp. 58-59).

I entrust you to the most powerful intercession of Mary and bless you.

Father Angelo

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