In prayer… as a child and a mother

I’ve always prayed since I have remembrance of it. I think my parents and grandparents taught me that.

The sign of the cross, Hail Mary and Our Father. As a child the clerical sisters made us recite the Act of Pain every morning and in May the Long live Mary was sung in front of her statue adorned with flowers.

But I learned real praying, I mean praying with the heart, later. After having met you.

On Monday my family took me to church. I sat next to my grandmother, touching the marble of the balustrade, and I looked at you through the white columns. I observed your praying, looking at the Our Lady with the face full of light.

That day I had no desire to pray, to recite the Holy Rosary. My mind was distracted, but your face, your lips hardly touching on an already mentioned smile, made me wish to be with Jesus as you were. “You are not alone, there is Jesus with you, the Virgin Mary and all of Heaven”. I learned from you, Maria, to pray every time I listened to your words from Monday to Monday. They were words of love, truth and encouragement to spur and to remind with our life that Jesus loves us.

I listened to your words with all my body, Maria. My heart beat fast with emotion and I was moved to hear how you spoke of Jesus, how you turned to him. What a beautiful dialogue was born from that heavenly bright gaze!

Praying wasn’t just saying prayers, however beautiful and complete they may be. Praying meant entering into the intimacy of the soul and revealing the personal self his identity without hypocrisy and his own lowliness before the immense love of Heaven.

I learned from you, Maria, how to pray while the music and singing resonated with the angels from your silences and from your mouth and pure joy of true love flooded your face. You made prayer a constant, remaining in the simplicity of daily affairs.

That Monday from the balustrade I also looked at the Our Lady and I asked her with my heart in hand to change my thoughts, to drive away my restlessness and anxiety and to help me be a better being. I was little more than a child.

I learned from you Maria. You know… my daughter likes to sing. You always hear her singing some known or invented tune by her at the spare of the moment.

It makes her and also my heart happy. I look at her with eyes shining with love and thank heaven for having her next to me. My thoughts go to Her, the Mother of all mothers. As I perform the gestures of daily management of domestic life, even with no little physical and mental fatigue, I wonder: who knows if she too got tired while cleaning, cooking, cradling and feeding. I fancy about what her daily routine could be like at home… with God.

We pray together, my daughter and I, while the little child smiles. We pray while we make the bed and in singing songs we choose the nicest ones for you Jesus and Our Lady. And in the singing done with the heart I hand over my whole self to you, because only you can and know my nights. The day becomes brighter and the hours ahead shorter. In our song for you Maria.

Daniela Di Pinto