Mary the homemaker

“The woman of Nazareth, as a homemaker, offers an enormous challenge for us, urging us to set aside a spirituality based on a fascination for the extraordinary in order to find mysticism in our daily routines. From theoretical fantasies to a tangible reality in the simplicity of the everyday… that is where God walks.
Ermes Ronchi, Le domande nude del Vangelo (The bare questions of the Gospel), p. 176.

“We truly need a home. A home is extremely important… It needs to be kept as most holy Mary kept hers, which hosted no less than Jesus, so she needed to do something in harmony with he who was the Word of God.
“It was the beauty of God, it was brilliant, it was glorious, for glory means God’s brilliance. I don’t know if you can imagine, as a way of saying, God as a sun that is setting. Its rays that shine forth are the Word. The Word of God that became flesh is Jesus. So he is truly the glory, the height of beauty, splendor.
“And so Mary… in her home… she knew how to keep it well, in a way that hosted Jesus well… Our calling, if it is a Marian calling, is making a home. You can’t understand Mary if you don’t understand a mother at home, beyond being the seat of wisdom, someone who knew how to keep a home.”
Chiara Lubich on May 30, 1996, at the inauguration of the Gen house in Loppiano, Italy

“A mother is more about intuitions of the heart than speculations of the intellect, more poetry than philosophy. She is quite magnificent and grounded, close to the human heart.
“Thus it is so with Mary, mother of mothers, who is the sum of all affection, goodness and mercy, to which all the world’s mothers cannot compare. Mary is peaceful like nature, pure, serene, clear, moderate, beautiful… She is gifted, spirited, tidy, steadfast, rich with hope.
“She is too close to us and unpretentious to be contemplated… She brings the divine to earth, like a heavenly plane that gently slopes from a dizzying height of the heavens down to the infinite smallness of creatures.”
Chiara Lubich, Disegni di luce (Designs of light), p. 84–85.