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But no matter what we do or don’t do, no matter if we get it “right” or “wrong,” no matter if we figure out what we’re “going to do with our lives” or take every moment in stride, God will be there at our side guiding our path. Our goal in discernment is not to answer all of the big questions once and for all, to check boxes off a list and cast them—and God— aside until we have another question; our goal is to journey with God, to be constantly listening for the call that he has for us, the call to be a disciple of his Son in today’s world.

May the Virgin Mary, model of meditation of the words and acts of the Lord, help us to rediscover with faith the beauty and richness of the Eucharist and of the other sacraments, which render present God’s faithful love for us. In this way, we fall ever more in love with the Lord Jesus, our Bridegroom, and we go to meet him with our lamps alight with our joyous faith, thus becoming his witnesses in the world.

Say a rosary today. As you progress through the decades, put yourself in Mary’s place. Ponder in your heart what she sorted through at each event, joyful, sorrowful, glorious, or luminous.  Sometimes, we are too anxious about what’s going to happen tomorrow, next week, or next year to ourselves or our loved ones. We go over our problems again and again in our heads or in conversations with others. Write down your biggest fear and ask for Mary’s help in turning it over to her Son.

We can all understand the universal care of our Mother in Heaven for us or, at the very least, the longing for that spiritual motherly care in our lives. The Blessed Mother’s love and care is especially healing for those whose own biological mothers were unwilling or unable to provide authentic self-giving love. Mother Mary loves us all with a pure, selfless, and steadfast motherly love. She tirelessly calls to our hearts and souls. Her utmost aim is to bring us to her Son. Mother Mary’s care is rooted in the Holy Spirit.

The Lord often surprises us in his choice of messenger. He uses the humble, the weak, the small. Often, he chooses children to bear his message of hope and peace. In Fatima, he chose Lucia dos Santos, age ten, and her younger cousins, brother and sister Francisco, nine, and Jacinta Marto, seven. These three simple yet faithful children, all from Catholic farm families, were good children from humble backgrounds. Yet, by God’s grace, their lives—and ours—were forever changed. Because of heaven’s designs on their hearts, they all experienced deeper conversions of heart

When I was younger, it bothered me when Jesus addressed his Mother as “Woman” in the Gospels. This was long before I had grown into my own womanhood, or knew what it meant to be a woman. Now I hear that word in a new light. “Woman,” he calls her. Archetypal, she is not just one woman among many, but the Woman, just as Eve was “woman” at creation. In her very being, Mary embodies all of womanhood’s beauty, goodness, and grace. She is as woman was created to be. She first embarked on the journey of walking with the Savior so the rest of us might follow.