“I prayed for you today, at the feet of the Divine Mother. My prayers were short and very sweet, I assure to you it was no bother.”
You are warmly invited to join us for our next Crown of Mary Prayer Circle — a sacred online gathering dedicated to deepening our connection with Mary, the Mother of Christ.
Each gathering blends reflection, teaching, and contemplative prayer, inviting us to explore the mysteries of Mary’s life, her role in Christ’s ministry, and her ongoing presence as a spiritual guide.
At the heart of our journey are the 12 Stars of Mary’s Crown — twelve sacred moments that reveal her extraordinary story and the divine light that continues to shine through her.
Our fifth gathering turns to the mystery of Jesus’ birth — the Nativity.
If you know anything about what is told to us in the Gospel, the conditions surrounding Jesus’ birth were not favourable. Mary and Joseph were travelling at a very late stage in Mary’s pregnancy, a time when she would have been at her most vulnerable. And yet, this was also the moment when she had to draw on the strongest part of herself in order to safely bring Christ into the world.
When they arrived in Bethlehem, we are told that there was no room for them. There was no place prepared for Mary to give birth. You can imagine how stressful and overwhelming this must have been — a frantic search for safety at the very moment new life was ready to come forth.
Eventually, they found a place to stop, somewhere animals were kept. And it was there that Jesus was born. He was wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger.
This tells us something very powerful: before people were ready to receive Christ and what he represented, the earth received him first. It reminds us that when great light comes into the world, it often arrives in conditions that are not welcomed or understood. And when great change is coming, many turn away from it, because change can feel threatening and surrendering to a greater plan can seem like it will uproot everything we know.
In our meditation, we will enter into this scene to understand that even though the conditions were not favourable, something holy was still being born through Mary’s yes. Light was still coming into the world.
This helps us recognise something in our own lives: when we feel called to bring something meaningful into the world — when we feel drawn toward our own spiritual mission — the circumstances are not always ideal. The timing is not always comfortable. And yet, we are still asked to say yes.
We will also reflect on the first witnesses to Christ’s birth. They did not come because someone told them the news. They came because they were drawn by the light they could see in the distance. Light gathered them in.
And so, as we visit this scene in meditation, we will then move into prayer and say yes — yes to welcoming light into the world, and yes to giving birth to what our own hearts are calling us to bring forth. We will also open ourselves to support from beyond ourselves — whether that comes through people we already know, people we love, or people we have not yet met.
Because when we step into the light, we often discover that support is drawn toward us in unexpected ways — just as the shepherds were drawn to Mary and her child.
In Crown of Mary, we do not only come to feel the presence of Mary. We come to sit with the mysteries of our own lives. Through prayer and meditation, we allow the Gospel to come alive within us — not just as a story from long ago, but as a living invitation to widen our inner vision, to see through the eyes of Christ, and to open ourselves to love, support, and what is still possible.
This is a donation-based gathering, offered on a pay-what-you-want basis — and that can also be nothing. No one will ever be turned away from the light of Mary. Everyone is welcome.