Yahweh and the Hail Mary

Yahweh is  a form of the Hebrew name of the Old Testament God whose name was regarded as too sacred to be spoken by the ancient Jews. As some linguists have pointed out the name can be spoken without any use of the tongue or lips: it is literally what you say when you follow an in breath with an out breath. Hence it is the first word every baby speaks as they leave the womb and the last word we all will say as we take our last breath. 

Some Catholics hope they will be reciting a Hail Mary, calling on the Virgin Mother to pray for us sinners at the hour of our death. Highly doubtful you will have the energy at the hour of your death for that to occur.  No, the Hail Mary is for when you are full of life, not in the hour of your death when you draw your last breath, in and then out. Then you will be worn down to your most elemental being, that very seed of life you have been carrying with you all this time. And all you will be capable of doing is to sigh Yah-Weh at the end. 

The question is whether you can perform the spiritual practice NOW that will carry you to that very same place. Can you live from the life you bear within you? Can you echo what Mary knew when she uttered those simple and uncomplicated words: "'Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.' And the angel departed from her." (Luke 1:38). 

It's nothing you need to "seek" or "create" within you. It's what you already have, that seed of a divine unmanifested
consciousness that lies within you but exists in the way that silence and space do -- totally unlike your chattering mind and the objects it grasps so eagerly to create its delusions. Wake up! the religions of the world teach. Jesus said "Repent!" the Greek word  "metanoiete:" 

In Mark's Gospel: "Repent and believe the Good News.” The word so often and so misleadingly translated as “repent” is metanoiete. This Greek term is based upon two words, mew (beyond) and nous (mind or spirit), and thus, in its most basic form, it means something like “go beyond the mind that you have.” The English word “repent” has a moralizing overtone, suggesting a change in behavior or action, whereas Jesus’ term seems to be hinting at a change at a far more fundamental level of one’s being.

Jesus urges his listeners to change their way of knowing, their way of perceiving and grasping reality, their perspective, their mode of seeing. What Jesus implies is this: the new state of affairs has arrived, the divine and human have met, but the way you customarily see is going to blind you to this novelty. In the gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus expresses the same concern: “The Kingdom of God is spread out on the earth, but people do not see it.” Minds, eyes, ears, senses, perceptions -- all have to he opened up, turned around, revitalized. Metanoia, soul transformation, is Jesus’ first recommendation. 

And Now I See, Bishop Robert Barron

Mary lived quietly and together with Jesus and Joseph went about earning her daily bread, discerning God fulfilling his mighty purpose,  moment to moment "filling the hungry with good things" (Luke 1:53). The same flowing that generously envelops us through every part of our bodies and souls to the very center of our being. We have only to allow ourselves to be borne on this tide and cease the unconsciousness of fish complaining "Where's the water?"