Day 4: Family conflicts

On the fourth day of the Mary Undoer of Knots Novena, we bring to Mary the knots of family life: the marriage in distress, the parent-child relationship that has frayed, the sibling estrangement that has hardened over years, the in-law conflict that has poisoned holidays. Mary, the Mother of the Holy Family of Nazareth, knows the labor of family love and the patience of family healing.

Today's meditation

The Schmidtner painting that gave rise to this devotion has its origin in a real Bavarian marriage in distress: the marriage of Wolfgang Langenmantel in 1615, which had begun to fail and which was restored through the intercession of Mary as Father Jakob Rem, S.J., placed the knotted marriage ribbon before her image. The original knot of this devotion is, historically, a marriage knot. The Mother to whom we pray today is the Mother who, three centuries before her Augsburg image was painted, was already at work undoing the knots of Catholic marriages.

Mary's own family was the Holy Family of Nazareth, the household into which the Eternal Word was born. The Holy Family was not exempt from the difficulties of family life. Joseph and Mary had to flee with the Christ Child into Egypt in the night to escape Herod's massacre. They lost the boy Jesus in the temple at twelve and searched for Him with anxiety for three days. They lived in obscurity and poverty in a Galilean village whose inhabitants would later say of Jesus, "Is not this the carpenter's son?" (Matthew 13:55), as a kind of dismissal. Mary's family knew the texture of family life under stress. From that experience, she now intercedes for ours.

Today's intention

Today, place under Mary's care the knots of your family. Be specific. Name the relationships that need healing:

• The spouse from whom I have grown distant.
• The teenager I cannot reach.
• The sister I have not spoken to in months.
• The parent who has hurt me and to whom I have not been able to extend the forgiveness Christ asks of me.
• The in-law whose presence brings a particular tension.
• The grandchild being raised without faith.

If you wish, light a candle in your home before an image of Mary or the Holy Family during this prayer.

The principal prayer to Our Lady Undoer of Knots

Virgin Mary, Mother who never refuses to come to the aid of a child in need, Mother whose hands never cease to serve your beloved children because they are moved by the divine love and immense mercy that exists in your heart, cast your compassionate eyes upon me and see the snarl of knots that exist in my life. You know very well how desperate I am, my pain and how I am bound by these knots.

Mary, Mother to whom God entrusted the undoing of the knots in the lives of His children, I entrust into your hands the ribbon of my life. No one, not even the evil one himself, can take it away from your precious care. In your hands there is no knot that cannot be undone.

Powerful Mother, by your grace and intercessory power with your Son and my Liberator, Jesus, take into your hands today this knot (name it). I beg you to undo it for the glory of God, once for all. You are my hope.

O my Lady, you are the only consolation God gives me, the fortification of my feeble strength, the enrichment of my destitution, and, with Christ, the freedom from my chains. Hear my plea. Keep me, guide me, protect me, O safe refuge!

Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for me. Amen.

The first three decades of the Rosary

Today, pray the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary if at all possible: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation, and the Finding in the Temple. The Joyful Mysteries are the mysteries of the Holy Family in its earliest years and are particularly fitting for today's intentions.

Reflection

Family knots have a particular character: they are tied with people we cannot simply walk away from. Even when we have legally walked away (in the case of estrangement, divorce, or the geographic dispersal of family), the bond persists. The blood is not ended by distance. The marriage covenant, even when broken in fact, retains its ontological reality. The parent-child relationship is permanent. Family knots are therefore among the most painful: they cannot be cut, they can only be untied.

Mary, who watched her Son carry the cross laid upon Him by His own people, knows the sorrow of family. The wider family of Israel rejected Him; some in the wider family of Nazareth rejected Him in the synagogue (Mark 6:1-6). The piercing of her own soul, prophesied by Simeon at the Presentation (Luke 2:35), took place not only at Calvary but in many smaller crucifixions through the years of the public ministry. She knows what it is to love members of one's family who are causing one anguish.

The knot of family conflict in your life is in her hands. She will untie it. Trust her. The work she does in the order of grace is sometimes invisible at first; the relationships do not heal in a single day. But the prayer of this novena begins a real work that, with patience, you will see bear fruit over the months and years that follow.

Closing prayers

Conclude with the Memorare and:

Holy Mary, Mother of the Holy Family, Undoer of Knots, pray for us.