In the mid 1990’s, if you wandered into any convenience store or supermarket in America, among the gum and candy and lighters and other impulse buy items at the checkout you would see an array of different-colored “WWJD” bracelets. The “What Would Jesus Do” phenomenon swept the nation, alongside Beanie Babies and The Macarena. Indeed, it was a thought-provoking statement, meant to bring to mind the moral example of Jesus. Unfortunately, by centering attention on the humanity of Jesus as seen through the eyes of millions of moral relativists and their WWJD gear, what was lost was the divinity of Christ, his role as our savior, and the fact that we cannot always fully comprehend the important part: his “why” behind the “what.” Like the Protestant roots of the WWJD bracelet, the “moral example of Jesus” the bracelet invoked was typically defined by the wearer who cherry-picked quotations from the Gospels to fit their own moral worldview, rather than unify followers of Christ in a goal of living the perfectly virtuous life that Jesus certainly lived.
WWJD missed the mark because it forgot the very important principles that Jesus is God and we are not, that his ways are not our ways, and that we think as man thinks not as God thinks. If only there was someone not divine, an earthly someone with human father and mother who lived a life of perfect virtue. Someone who is worthy of our imitation, who’s “why” is clear as crystal, who’s life we can meditate on… Oh wait. We’re Catholics. We know there is such a person: The Blessed Virgin Mary.
So when we ask, “What Would Mary Do?”, some of the answers are easy, because we know what she did. If the angel of the Lord comes and says to you that the Lord has chosen you for a special job, the answer is “let it be done.” If a family member needs a hand around the house for a few months, the answer is, “let me go and help them.” If your spouse is visited by an angel in a dream, the answer is, “I believe you and we’ll do whatever the angel said.” If you go to a wedding and they run out of wine, the answer is “I’ll tell the only person who can fix the problem.” And if your son is falsely accused and being put to death, the answer is, “I will not leave his side.”
But we can go further. We can meditate on other aspects of the phrase, “What Would Mary Do?”, and in so doing we can discern her “why” behind her “what.” It seems quite clear that it was her perfect fear of the Lord—one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit—from which all her actions flowed. From this fear came her perfection of obedience to God, and it was from this obedience that God’s graces filled her perfectly, making her truly worthy of being hailed as “full of grace.” From her reverential fear of the Lord rather than fear of his just punishment came the perfection of her love for God. And it from this love for God flowed her filial love for neighbor, whom she saw as a child of God just as she was. Knowing this one simple fact about her, we can write volumes about how she lived all of the virtues perfectly, how she employed all the gifts of the Holy Spirit without limit, and how she ceaselessly lived the corporal and spiritual works of mercy during her life on earth, and continues to live them as the Queen Mother, Queen of Heaven.
In meditating upon “What Would Mary Do?” we find the reason why the Mother of God has come to visit her children on so many occasions. We can see why she came to St. Dominic to give him the Rosary, so that through it she can lead us to her son. We can see why she came to St. Juan Diego, to bring the Mexican people to Christ and put an end to pagan human sacrifices. We can see why she came to St. Catherine Labouré, to bring the Miraculous Medal when so many of her children were dying from a pandemic and from religious persecution during the French Revolution. We can see why she came to St. Bernadette, to give us a spring of faith, providing miraculous healings for the bodies and souls of her suffering children. We can see why she came to St. Simon Stock to give us the sacramental of the Brown Scapular, which we her children can wear with hope of salvation from eternal fire. And we can see why she came to three shepherd children in Fatima, to warn them—and all of us—about the reality of damnation, and to plead for us to stop sinning, pray and fast for the conversion of sinners, and pray the Rosary every day.
We face many temptations every day, temptations of what we shouldn’t do, what we shouldn’t say, what we shouldn’t watch or listen to or read. And every day we are also presented with many opportunities to live a life of perfect virtue. Every day we can pray for the Holy Spirit to grace our undertakings with his gifts. And every day we can engage in the many acts of spiritual and corporal works of mercy out of love of neighbor. But most importantly, every day we have the opportunity to live a life of fear of the Lord as Mary did, and use that reverential fear to be obedient to God, and to love him above and before all others. All we have to do is ask the simple question: “What would Mary do?”