(Part 1 can be found here).
How does this relate to the one Hail Mary? That time of “Prayer of Quiet” was in the New and Improved Place, so I didn’t have access to daily Mass. I entirely believe that getting closer to His mama gets closer to Him. And it’s not like I was rewarded or whatever for honoring His mother, but more of … being more receptive to Him than before. Could I have done it without her? Who knows. But I know she is intrinsically connected in my contemplation (however small it may be) and my closer relationship with her Son.
May is almost done and I am worked up to one decade of the Rosary. I don’t usually meditate on a Mystery from the Rosary, but I try and find a Mystery that is the closest to what I’m feeling right now. Which is, betrayed. So, my Mystery of choice for the last few days has been on Christ’s Passion, mainly how betrayed He felt (especially when good ol St. Peter denied Him three times) and His sufferings. Mine are nothing like His, but I see how He dealt with it and I do my best to imitate Him in my sufferings. Sometimes I stand with Mary and watch Him from the Cross in His agony, other times I’m the one banging in the nails and He just looks at me and says He loves and forgives me. Sometimes I’m with St. Peter, denying Him right alongside. It all depends. And while I still have no magic cure for how betrayed I feel, I do feel comforted by the fact that Christ has been through it all and if He’s been through it all for me, certainly I can do stuff for Him. I know He is helping me throughout the day and the night, and I feel some peace (at least, when the other side isn’t trying to bring me down).
I hate to use the phrase “I feel” so much in this because it’s more than just feelings. It’s knowledge, concrete examples for me to rely on in the future. It’s not a warm fuzzy feeling to be banging in the nails or to be standing at the foot of the Cross. It’s not a warm fuzzy feeling I am after with that “one time” – rather, it is God, it is a deeper relationship than what I have. As God is eternal, so too our relationship can be, as long as I am receptive to what He is trying to do with me.
All that from just, at the most; a decade of the Rosary. A Hail Mary at the least. Never once have I thought that Mary > God, quite the opposite. The deeper I go, the more I see how perfect of a role model she is for us. She is His mother, after all. But she is still humble, pure, charitable, and other things that I strive to be. She’s not a bad gal to hang around, to talk to, to bounce ideas off of. She prays for me – I need all the help I can get.
And she wants nothing more than me to love her Son more. I think I can handle that. 
