A portrait of Our Lady under this title was painted by the great Italian painter Carlo Maratta (1625-1713), who gave it to a young noble woman who would become the Abbess of the Convent of Poor Clares of St. Francis in the city of Todi.
The Abbess, today Venerable Sister Clara Isabel Fornari, embraced a severe life of penance and was favored with many mystical graces such as the Stigmata. She had a great devotion to the Blessed Mother, like all the saints, and a very special attachment to the image of Our Lady of Confidence which depicts Our Lady holding her Son. She appears in the portrait as a northern Italian beauty with auburn hair, hazel eyes and a pale complexion. In her arms she carries her great Treasure, who sits with the commanding air of a Great Prince.
“My Heavenly Lady, with the love of a true Mother, assured me that She would give a special tenderness and devotion toward Her to everyone who contemplated this image,” Sister Clara wrote.
This promise holds true even for copies. As Marian Therese Horvat, Ph.D. writes in an article about Our Lady of Confidence, she visited a copy of the miraculous image that hangs in the small chapel of St. Mary’s Seminary at the Lateran Basilica in Rome. Prayer before this image protected seminarians from a variety of crises over the years such as the scourge of the Asiatic flu which claimed many lives in Rome in 1837, and during World War I when over 100 seminarians were forced into the armed services. All returned home safely. To repay the goodness of their Queen, the seminarians crowned both Mother and Child with bejeweled golden diadems.
“The picture teaches us what the Holy Church has always instructed: Our Lord Jesus Christ always acts through Mary as a channel. All conversions and favors take place by means of and through the intercession of this Blessed Mother,” Dr. Horvat writes. “We need only approach with the confidence of a child in his mother to be certain she will attend to our needs. Mankind today does not have this lively confidence in the maternal love of Our Queen, and, because of this, we do not take advantage of the universal channel of grace for mankind.
“Mater mea, fiducia mea – My Mother, my confidence. With this small prayer, Mary asks for nothing but offers everything.”
For Reflection:
Consider the sentence, “All conversions and favors take place by means of and through the intercession of this Blessed Mother.” Including our own need for on-going conversion, who is the one person in your life who most needs to experience the grace of conversion. Entrust this soul to the Blessed Mother under her title of Our Lady of Confidence and pray this prayer to her every day.
“O Mary Immaculate, the precious name of Mother of Confidence, with which we honor you, fills our hearts to overflowing with the sweetest consolation and moves us to hope for every blessing from you. If such a title has been given to you, it is a sure sign that no one has recourse to you in vain. Accept, therefore, with a mother’s love our devout homage, as we earnestly beseech you to be gracious unto us in our every need. We pray that you will make us live in constant union with you and your divine Son, Jesus. With you as our guide, we are certain that we shall walk in the right way and that it will be our happy lot to hear you say on the last day of our life those words of comfort: “Come then, my good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord.” Amen.
