Day 5: The knot of worry and anxiety

On the fifth day of the Mary Undoer of Knots Novena, we bring to Mary the knot that is most familiar to the modern Catholic soul: the knot of worry, anxiety, fear about the future, paralysis in decision. The midpoint of the novena is a fitting day for this knot, because at the midpoint we have begun to feel the relaxation that Mary's care has already brought, and we can ask her to address directly the disposition that ties new knots faster than the old ones can be undone.

Today's meditation

The Gospel records Mary at the Annunciation receiving the announcement of the angel Gabriel: "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God" (Luke 1:30). The same word is given to Joseph in the dream concerning the conception of Jesus: "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife" (Matthew 1:20). The Holy Family lives under the divine word that addresses fear directly and dispels it: "do not be afraid."

Modern Catholic souls live under a different cultural word: be afraid, be informed, be prepared, be vigilant, anticipate every contingency. The cultural word is not always wrong (prudence is a virtue), but it has become detached from its proper place in the spiritual life and has hardened, in many of us, into a habit of low-grade anxiety that ties our days into knots before we even arrive at the actual difficulties of life.

The Mother to whom we pray today is the Mother who heard do not be afraid and lived the rest of her life in the disposition that word created. She is uniquely qualified to undo the knot of our anxiety, because her own life was the demonstration of the divine answer to fear.

Today's intention

Today, name to Mary the specific anxieties that have been tying knots in your interior life:

• The anticipated medical results.
• The financial calculations I keep redoing.
• The argument I am imagining might come.
• The illness I fear I might have.
• The future I cannot control.
• The death I am afraid of.

Bring each of these to her. Then ask for the disposition that received the angel's word at Nazareth.

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

Pray the first three decades, or three Hail Marys and a Glory Be.

Reflection

The Catholic spiritual tradition has long observed that anxiety is one of the principal modern obstacles to the life of grace. Saint Francis de Sales, in the Introduction to the Devout Life (1609), names anxiety as the second-greatest enemy of the soul (after sin itself), because anxiety, "by stealing peace from the soul, makes the soul incapable of rightly serving God or rightly bearing the present moment." The remedy he recommends is precisely what the angel said to Mary: do not be afraid.

Mary did not respond to the angel by clarifying the technical mechanics of the conception. She did not request a letter of explanation about how a virgin could become a mother. She received the word, asked one practical question (Luke 1:34), accepted the answer, and gave her fiat. The Catholic spiritual tradition has held this exchange as the model of the soul's response to every divine word: receive, ask once for the practical clarification you need, accept, and consent.

The knots of anxiety are tied by a habit of revisiting the same fears in the imagination. Mary's response is to break the habit by referring the matter to God once and not returning to it. The Surrender Novena of Don Dolindo Ruotolo (in the Surrender Novena) develops the same teaching from a different angle. Today's prayer is, in part, the Marian form of the same medicine: Holy Mary, Undoer of the knots of my anxiety, undo this knot in my soul.

Closing prayers

Conclude with the Memorare and:

Holy Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for us, especially of the knots of fear.