Meditation with Mary
Mother Mary, under the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, is my principal patron saint. I maintain my relationship with her through ceremony, education, and most importantly mystical meditation.
As a Catholic saint and the mother of the J man, associating Mary with meditation can be odd or off-putting for many recovering Catholics. Conjuring the image of Dharmic chants and yogic postures and jamming Mary into that equation is understandably confusing.
Luckily, Mary is already heavily associated with meditation- she even comes with her own beads! - not like that, get your mind out of the gutter… lol tho.
Mystical Meditation simplistic, it’s a trance-state achieved through focused visualization and the chanting of specific prayers. For catholics, this style of meditation is found in the rosary. By praying a decade of Hail Marys, you draw mary’s immaculate heart to yours. Repeating her holy name with love and devotion is sure to get her attention. The Virgin Mary helps with almost any issue we may face in life and after death.
Praying the rosary is straightforward, you say the opening prayers, recite a mystery, pray a decade, and repeat. However, for Recovering Catholics or Queer Mystics with uncomfortable or traumatic experiences with Christianity, the rosary can feel like the biggest hurdle to our spirituality.
Developing an alternative
The first step in reclaiming the rosary style of meditation is identifying where your discomfort is.
Commonly, the issues lie with this language of the prayers, the Our Father, Jesus prayer, and the Hail Mary are laced with subtle misogyny and catholic propaganda. If you’re uncomfortable saying them, the fix is easy. REWRITE THEM!
Something I suggest for clients experiencing this is to omit what downright feels bad to say. Don’t like the Our Father - cut it out. Remove the issue. The unfortunate downside is the loss of an aspect of Catholic Mysticism. Addressing a Creator is a core pillar of the faith, by removing the Our Father, you lose out on the chance to reclaim it. Consider subbing mentions of God for “Universe” or “Source”. Or rewriting the prayer to address the concept of creation abstracted from masculinity or omnipresence. You can follow suit with the other prayers; Jesus prayer, Hail Holy Queen, Glory be, Etc.
Those of us who just can’t get through the Hail Mary are in a tougher spot. Being the core prayer of the mediation, we can’t omit it like the others. We are forced to reclaim it if we want to develop a mystical realtionship with Mary. It can be really complicated, the Hail Mary has a lot of theology packed into those 2 stanzas. To truly reclaim the prayer, we’d have to go through line by line, and redefine the Hail Mary. It’s such a complicated process, that I created a whole class just to set you on your rewriting journey. Magnifying Mother Mary walks you through the prayer, explaining the history, biblical refrences, and most importantly highlight the patriarchal thumb restricting Mary’s Magnificence. The core of which is this: cut what harms you, keep the intention of the prayer whole.
Finding Mary in the Mysteries
Between each decade of Hail Marys, a mystery is recited. These are brief scenes from the lives of Jesus and Mary, meant to give us something to think on while we pray. You’re intended to put yourself in these scenes, imagining what Christ is experiencing through his birth, life, ministry, and execution. Unfortunately, they get a little fixated on Jesus, forsaking Mary to highlight the Church’s main man.
As a full-fledged queer mystic, I like to view Mary as a divine figure, not just the birth canal/water slide for Christ. She had autonomy and lived a rebellious life dedicated to her faith. She was the most powerful medium to walk the earth, not just channeling spirits but channeling divinity into the world.
She’s often left at that, summarising an entire life into her being a Mother exclusively.
One of my first trace journeys as a budding medium was into the Glorious Mysteries. Arguably the most Mary-centric of the lot. Being a proper heretic, I saw reflections of Mary’s journey in the tarot. Her deep empathy is seen in the Queen of Cups. Her immense motherly protection in The Empress. Her powerful ability to channel the divine in The High Priestess.
I began drawing a card before praying the rosary, asking Mary to show me the deeper truth of HER mysteries.
Overtime, I saw so much in my mystical visions that I had to corroborate them with evidence. I looked to the canon literature, combing the bible for references to Mary. There are very few… Like less than 20… There are 400 mentions of bread… Just for perspective.
Despite the depressing display of Marian Mysticism in the Mysteries of the Rosary, I found solace in other Catholic traditions. Mary’s titles reflect her undeniable magic. “The Seat of Wisdom” speaks to Mary’s Queen of Cups vibes. Identifying her as a vessel of spiritual knowledge and emtional intellegence. I made a great deal of discovery in images of Mary. The most famous (and relevant) being The Pentecost. A scene depicting Mary, flanked by the apostles after Jesus’ death. A flame glows above her head, a symbol of God’s presence and the possesion of the Holy Spirit. The source of Mary’s mystical and mediumistic ability. As the story goes, Mary lead the apostles in prayer. Acting as the first priest of christ, she beckons God to bless them all, as she calls out, a flame erupts into the room, passing through and filling each person present. The apostles are overcome with the graces of the spirit and begin speaking in tongues and preaching. From this moment forward, they’re empowered to scatter and preach the gospel.
Just the image of a woman, wizened by love and loss, giving power to the men who will be credited with the creation of Christianity is powerful. SHE did that. She embraced her divinity, brought God into creation, and set the spiritual foundations for the next 2000 years of religious thought.
Yet I guarantee this will never be discussed openly by the church.
The importance of Mary’s Mysteries
Our Mother is benevolent, all-loving, and even all-powerful. Ultimately divine and still desperate to connect to her mortal children. Mary is a fountain of healing, compassion, and spiritual development.
Mary’s Mysteries exist to highlight that for experienced devotees, mystics, mediation queers, and everyone who desires a deeper, more authentic, and mystical relationship with Mary. In some small way, I pray these mysteries are provocative enough to incite healing within each of us. Maybe by remembering the Mother who loves us we can remember to love each other.
Mary’s Mysteries is available in hand-stitched paperback and soon to be in digital format.
Thank you for reading. It’s peace I offer you, It’s in peace I leave you.
