Prologue: “I want to go to Medjugorje!”
As I Kneel
As I kneel before you,
As I bow my head in prayer,
Take this day, make it yours,
and fill me with your love.
All I have I give to you,
every dream and wish are yours.
Mother of Christ, Mother of mine,
present them to my Lord.
As I kneel before you,
as I see your smiling face,
ev’ry thought and ev’ry word
is lost in your embrace.
I didn’t know the Mother of God was actually my Mother, at least not in my heart, although I had certainly been trying to wrap my mind around that. I hadn’t until some months before understood that she was my Mother at all until my friend, who absolutely did know, confidently told me so, repeating to me the reassuring words spoken by Our Lady to Juan Diego in 1531, words so timeless, so incredibly beautiful, so truly meant for us all:
"Am I not here, I, who am your Mother?”
It was his attempt to rein in my ruminating and help me to trust as he reminded me to simply bring my worries as intentions to Our Lady in the rosary we were praying instead of talking about them. I had never heard those words or the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, despite growing up Catholic. I pushed the concerns distracting me aside and tried to listen intently as he told me the story, tried to take it all in, but still, Our Lady remained yet a mother only in my head.
Until one spring evening, while praying the rosary with him over the phone as I walked a winding path through my backyard, when suddenly I began to cry and blurted out in the middle of a Hail Mary, “I want to go to Medjugorje!” Those words spoken out loud were immediately followed by the silent words and realization heard just as clearly but only in my mind: ‘I have to pack up my classroom!’
I stopped and stood beneath the old oak in my backyard, staring up into the evening sky through the branches above me in awe.
I felt her…I finally felt her! It was what I had been missing when I prayed “As I Kneel” each day! Some time before, I had begun to say the lyrics of this beautiful song to Our Lady as a daily prayer, but it had really bothered me when I prayed the last lines about seeing her smiling face and my thoughts being wrapped in her embrace because it just hadn’t felt true. I couldn’t see her. I hadn’t felt her embrace. Until now. And as this revelation of being called to go to Medjugorje washed over me, although I couldn’t see Our Lady, I could feel her in the way described in those last lines of the prayer!
I used to cry because I wanted a relationship with Our Lady but didn’t know how. I cried because I couldn’t feel her presence. But that night I cried because I could, and I stood in wonder in the awareness of her, my mind swirling as I looked up above me, lost in her embrace in the way that I had so deeply desired. In those most precious few moments of encounter with the love of Our Mother during her most holy rosary, I knew I was going to Medjugorje, and I knew that it would be very soon.
Because I blurted out those life-changing words on May 24, on the Feast of Mary, Mother of the Church.
And the last day of school was in 11 days.
“As I Kneel before You by Maria Parkinson.” 2019. Blogspot.com. 2019. https://arienslibrary.blogspot.com/2011/12/as-i-kneel-before-you-by-maria.html.