In the public domain, there is a beautiful poem whose author is unknown. It is called “The Folded Page”. It is about an adult paging through an old note-book of his childhood class. He comes across a page that was folded and on it is written “teacher says now to fold this page and write, ‘I don’t understand it now.’”. He opens the page, reads the page and says “teacher is right, now I understand”.

The poem goes on to say that there are pages in the book of life that we do not understand. So, fold it down for now and one day, perhaps in heaven we will turn those pages and say “now I understand”.
Today the Church celebrates “The Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary”. As the Gospel proclamation says Mary with her anxious heart, is frantically searching for her son in and around Jerusalem. When found inside the Temple, Jesus says to Mary “Why are you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?

The parents of our Lord Jesus did not understand what he said to them, but Mary kept all these things in her heart. Even though Mary did not know what was happening, she kept those things in heart reflecting on them. She had faith that God’s hand was in all these events and she treasured them with the faith that God would gradually unfold the meaning of everything.

It is also our human experience that often we come to know the meaning of things that are happening not at the time they happen but later on. It may be months, years or even decades later. What matters there is that we keep those events close to our hearts reflecting on them knowing that God is at work in them. Like Mary we keep our hearts open to God’s actions even though we cannot understand now. In dealing with hardships and setbacks in life we need not fold the pages but keep them treasured in our hearts, knowing some day we will understand fully the God given purpose.

Prayer: Abba Father though the intercession of our Heavenly Mother, when life’s dealings become hard to understand, help me keep them in my heart to seek in them the divine purpose and respond faithfully like the Blessed Mother. Amen