What Would Mary Gossip About?

Of course Mary would never gossip about anyone.  She was filled with grace and love, and she would have said kind things about the people she knew.  But I so often fall into the trap of being with my girlfriends and updating them on our other friends and without realizing it, our stories cross the line from sharing to gossiping.  It’s a really fine line, so it’s easy to cross.  Most sins are born from something that is good.  It’s a good thing to share news.

My friends and I we mean well.  We really love our other friends and our family.  There’s goodness is sharing news.  Molly just had her baby!  My cousin got a new job and is moving to New York. Sally is going to a new parish and she loves it. These are wonderful events that we should share.  We also share tragic things.  Sean has colon cancer, please pray for him.  Bob has been out of work for six months, can you pray for him when you go to adoration?  My three-year-old has been really defiant lately, do you have any ideas?

But in this sharing, we can sometimes color the news with opinions.  We add judgment.  We make it clear that’s not how WE would have handled the situation.  We make helpful suggestions that we’ll never share with the person we’re talking about.  There’s a reason we wouldn’t share those suggestions, because they wouldn’t be well received. 

“Well she really should just discipline him more strongly.” 

“Maybe if she didn’t buy so much at Target, they wouldn’t be struggling.” 

“Maybe if her husband helped out around the house more, she wouldn’t feel stressed.” 

“Maybe if she stopped drinking eggnog lattes, she wouldn’t be complaining about getting rid of her baby weight.” 

Even just typing those things felt yucky.  But, I’d be lying if I never thought or said anything like those judgments. My face would be flaming red if anyone ever caught me saying something like that.  And often times we are saying it from a place of love, so it feels justified.  We want our friends to be happy.  We want them to have less stress.  We want them to spend more time

So the other day I was talking to Mary, like I often do, and I thought, “What would I do if I was gossiping about someone and turned around to see Mary standing there?”  I pictured our beautiful mother with a sad face, looking disappointed.  And that’s exactly how she’d look. She might even be crying.  It made me feel so bad. 

I really sat with those yucky feelings for a while.  I didn’t want to forget them.  I wanted to remember how real and negative and sinful it is to speak poorly of someone else, even if it’s disguised as helping.  Now, I try to say the Memorare before meeting up with friends to keep me focused on Mary.  I’ve also tried to picture Mary sitting in the room with us as we chat.  I can often feel her guiding me gently to rephrase things or omit opinions.  I don’t get it perfectly right, but I do a lot better than I did before!

I’ve even been tempted to carry a Mary statue with me and put her in any room I’m in.  This is probably excessive and would be received with funny looks.  Instead, I try to wear something like a necklace or a bracelet that points me to Mary. I try to touch it every now and then to refocus my mind on the love of Christ and spreading His peace and love in every situation. Of course the truth is that Jesus and Mary see everything we do! Just because we can't physically see them, doesn't mean they're not aware of our words and of the state of heart when we speak those words.

So speak carefully. Go and spread kindness and joy. That’s what God wants of us and that makes Mary pleased with us as her children.