Mary- Untier of knots by Christine Valters Paintner

 

Today is the Feast of Mary, Untier of Knots, she loosens our constrictions. This is one of my favorite images of Mary. 

*Calling on Mary as Untier of Knots*

Mary invites us to each consider the restrictions we are experiencing in our lives. When you slow your thoughts down and breathe deeply, what knot do you notice you are carrying right now?

This knot might be a challenging relationship or conflict; it might be a job that has become life-draining; it could be a physical illness for yourself or a loved one—anyplace where it feels like the harder you push, the further away from healing you move. The more you try to figure things out, the tighter that knot becomes.

Are there places in your life that cause you to freeze up? To live more narrowly? To reject the call you have been given to live more fully into your gifts and offer them in service to a world in need of healing as well?

Imagine each place in your body, your mind, and your heart where you are holding too tightly to something as a knot that can be gently loosened through Mary’s healing support.

This pathway of healing demands that we become vulnerable. Sometimes we are so used to being strong for everyone else in our lives that it becomes hard to admit we need help ourselves. We live in a culture that does not value vulnerability or tenderness, and yet Mary invites us to share our broken places with her. She asks us to see those tender, hurting places as portals for divine grace. It is only in embracing our wounds with humility that healing can enter. If we continue to insist that we are fine and we can handle things on our own, we never allow room for other support.

Call on Mary to help you access that healing dimension of yourself that can lead you to the way of deeper freedom. Day by day, see if you can release your need to overcome your internal divisions through your own effort. 

Soften your heart and your body so that the knots gently begin to loosen. 

Notice if your invitation to say yes or no to life becomes easier or more difficult.

*Blessing*

Mary, we come to you knotted

in a hundred different ways.

Our hearts are knotted with grief and anger,

our bodies feel knotted with tension,

our minds knotted with anxiety and fear.

We ask you to gently work on those places

of tightness and holding within us,

to loosen them so gently,

so that freedom emerges slowly.

Mary, you are the untier

of all the knots of our lives.

Be with us as we try to release

all of our tangled places:

the frustrations we carry,

the paths that feel like dead ends,

the complexity of relationships.

Help us to soften our hard edges

and yield to your grace.

Allow us to see you at work within us,

slackening and unbinding.

Sustain us in the moments

when all feels like it is unravelling.

Help us to trust your work

and know that we must first come undone

before we can be woven back together again.

Bless us with patience and wisdom;

support us in loosening our steady grip

so we might also prevent more knots

forming in days to come.

Excerpted from Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal by Christine Valters Paintner