The Tribune

By Rev Angela C Bosfield Palacious


AS we consider the life of St Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, we recognise distinct periods of time in her life when she experienced the different seasons of spirituality. Our observations may assist us when we find ourselves mystified by occurrences that happen to us.
After the appearance of the angel Gabriel, there was the season of promise with the joy of her selection as the mother of the Messiah.

Her visit to her cousin Elizabeth allowed both of them to share the emotions and thoughts which would have accompanied this tremendous moment in their people’s salvation history. Perhaps you are hugging a secret in your heart that God is calling you to ministry or a mission of some kind.

Continue to trust and remain alert for further instruction.
Life in Mary’s home in Nazareth was probably a time of sweet family routines, with Joseph and Jesus working in the carpenter’s shop; the other children to nurture and domestic duties to perform. The spiritual summer of growth and development lasted for quite some time before Jesus began his ministry, but in the midst would have come the sorrow of the death of her husband (his absence from the pages of Scripture suggest this).

Are you experiencing a summer of quiet satisfaction drawing closer to God as you worship, pray, work and witness to others?


The autumn of her son’s season of ministry may have been accompanied by a mellowing of her own sense of call, filled with memories of the extraordinary encounter with God’s angel, Simeon and Anna’s prophecies, and the journeys to Bethlehem and Egypt.

Are you ripe with realised potential? Are you giving to all who will receive from you the blessings that you have received from God? Are you investing whatever you have into the lives of others?


When winter comes, we have to go inwards and survive as best we can. The crucifixion (and the ominous signs of the days prior to this event) was winter for Mary at its worst. What has been your worst season of suffering if you have lived through more than one? How did you survive? What advice would you give to those who have not yet faced a fiery ordeal?

Perhaps, we can assure them of God’s presence in the midst of it all even if it seemed more like absence at the time. We may want to create a small album of Scriptures and hymns, book titles, and poems for use whenever adversity strikes.


The most important message that we have to offer is that the time of desolation is followed by a time of rescue and fulfillment, in this life for the most part, but definitely in the eternal spring of resurrection after death, and summer in the nearer presence of God. We are to cultivate an attitude of praise and thanksgiving from now, saying like Isaiah: “

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exalt in my God” (Is. 61: 10 NRSV), and like the psalmist: “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall ever be in my mouth. I will glory in the Lord”. “ (Ps. 34: 1-2a NRSV).
Let us trust that in the “fullness of time” our season of triumph will come just as God has caused it to happen so many times in the past: “when the fullness of time God sent his son, born of a woman born under the law to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.” (Gal: 4: 4-5 NRSV).