Rejoicing with Mary, foremost among specials, God's beloveds

The Easter season is the height of our year as Christians.  The faith passed on to us by the earliest community of disciples tells us that this is the first feast, the foundation of everything that we believe and hold dear as followers of Christ, and therefore the fount of our hope: the Pasch of His--yes, His saving passion and death, and--resurrection.  St. Paul instructs us:

"Now, since our message is that Christ has been raised from death, how can some of you say that the dead will not be raised to life? If that is true, it means that Christ was not raised; and if Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe... then your faith is a delusion and you are still lost in your sins... But the truth is that Christ has been raised from death, as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised."
[Paraphrased from 1 Corinthians 15:12:20]

I have always looked forward to Easter.  This year, this affirmation was strengthened: Christ of course does not die and rise again every year during Holy Week.  His life on earth which culminated in His self-offering on the Cross and victory with the empty tomb was definitive: it has united heaven and earth once and for all, provided the best blueprint for the journey of each human being, and gave birth to a full relationship between God as Father and all of humanity and the rest of creation as family.  But for me and for each disciple walking the earth each year, how does the annual remembering and making present bring me to my own self-offering?  How does it crucify my indifference and mediocrity, and roll away the stone so that new life, genuine community and burning charity may arise?

I also look forward to Easter because of the beautiful prayer recited during this season in lieu of the Angelus: the Regina coeli (and not only because it is shorter compared to the Angelus).

I am moved by the thought that my second post on this blog will be about the first in the line of all those specials, God's beloveds; the first and faithful disciple: Mary of Nazareth, wife of Joseph the carpenter, mother of the Lord.

Queen of heaven, rejoice! Alleluia!
For He whom you did merit to bear, alleluia!
Has risen as He said!  Alleluia!
Pray for us to God, alleluia!

Mary was special not because she considered herself so; she was, and continues to be, because no less than the Creator of the universe found favor with her, so as to invite her to be the mother of His only begotten Son.

I pray to always see that I am special only in relation to God.  In the quest for meaning, fundamental to every human being, I believe that alone matters.

And to know full well that God, almighty, prime mover, perfect love, thinks of me and loves me, weak, hardly mobile at times (maybe not so much as physically, but in my opinions, in my "moving-on", in my decisions), and often unloving, and to allow this knowledge, this loving remembering by my God of me, to renew my life, to revive my charity, to rekindle my trust, then can I, with Mary, indeed "rejoice and be glad... for the Lord has truly risen, alleluia!"