Many of my family members had a devotion to the Virgin Mary. My late grandmother would constantly request Our Lady’s intercession and would often fall asleep at night while praying the Rosary.
When I received my driver’s license, I immediately placed a Rosary in my first car and while I regrettably did not pray the Rosary, I always felt a connection to Mary, thanks to my upbringing. However, my true devotion to Mary did not begin until I was faced with a life-changing experience.
When I was pregnant with our first child, a blood test around 13 weeks showed our baby had a 9 in 10 “risk” of Down syndrome. The first and seemingly only “option” that the genetic counselor offered was abortion. After yelling at the counselor to never say that again and gripping my husband’s hand, I looked at my mother, who joined us at the appointment and asked, “What do we do?” She responded, “We just pray.”
It is important to note we had no knowledge of Down syndrome and relied on the information provided by the counselor, who depicted a bleak outcome for our baby with frightening health conditions and statistics that, now having learned more, do not justly depict what each person who has Down syndrome will have.
My OBGYN at the time must have thought that I was foolish when I told her that I really didn’t think our baby had Down syndrome and that the test was wrong. She would grin and nod, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with my gut feeling.
As I was scrolling Facebook one day, a friend shared a post about the Blessed Virgin Mary which explained the power of the Holy Rosary for our petitions to God.
I only prayed the Rosary one time before this at our parish during a procession on a Marian feast day. After seeing that post, my husband and I began to pray the Rosary each day. We prayed that God’s will be done and if it was His will, to spare our child from the frightening conditions the counselor had told us about.
It was also then that I researched what abortion entails. Although we never considered abortion, something made me look it up. The horrifying methods that I learned about caused me to completely change course on my former “a woman shouldn’t be told what to do with her body” stance and I became irrevocably pro-life.
I also began to wear the Miraculous Medal and repeated the prayer, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.”
Now to the day our baby was born. Screaming loudly from the first breath, our little love did not have Down syndrome. Our pediatrician had all of the chromosomes tested and my OBGYN could not give us a reason for the inaccuracy of the test. My gut feeling was correct.
“Blessed is the crisis that made you grow, the fall that made you gaze up to heaven, the problem that made you look for God.” - St. Pio of Pietrelcina
Now one of our greatest joys after attending Mass together is to pray the Rosary as a family. While our children rarely sit still, watching them pray, even one Hail Mary, gives me hope that their devotion to Mary will be planted during their childhood, bloom throughout their lives and continue to grow until they, hopefully, reach Heaven.
My own love and devotion to Mary has only grown stronger and now, since becoming a mother, I have never felt closer to her.
I made my “Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary” years ago and renew it each year. When one of our children gets hurt, I immediately request her intercession and then tend to their needs, knowing my Heavenly mother is constantly interceding for our family. I also enjoy learning just how powerful Our Lady is.
Our Lady is the perfect model of a true disciple of Jesus for us all to emulate and strive to become. Our Lady’s only desire is to lead every soul possible to her Son, also in perfect virtue.
In his book “True Devotion to Mary: With Preparation for Total Consecration,” St. Louis de Montfort stated, “Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been or ever will be—a God-Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time.”
Here’s to becoming and raising saints for Jesus through Mary!
Christina Frye is a lifelong Rhode Islander, wife, mother and founder of Catholic Mom Rhode Island, www.CatholicMomRI.com.
