May 1st - Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker Mary’s Husband, the Carpenter Leo XIII wrote, "Joseph, of royal descent, united in marriage with the most sublime and saintly of women, the putative father of [...] reverse when combined with virtue, and can become highly ennobled" (Leo XIII, "Quamquam pluries" 1889). "Jesus, the Son of God and God Himself", wanted to be seen and thought of as a craftsman, more than [...] than that, He did not shrink from spending a large part of His life on manual work. "This is the carpenter, surely, the son of Mary...?" Mark 6:3. (Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, 1891).
May 1st - Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker Mary’s Husband, the Carpenter Leo XIII wrote, "Joseph, of royal descent, united in marriage with the most sublime and saintly of women, the putative father of [...] reverse when combined with virtue, and can become highly ennobled" (Leo XIII, "Quamquam pluries" 1889). "Jesus, the Son of God and God Himself", wanted to be seen and thought of as a craftsman, more than [...] than that, He did not shrink from spending a large part of His life on manual work. "This is the carpenter, surely, the son of Mary...?" Mark 6:3. (Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, 1891).
struggled with a dark power more fundamental and more dangerous than those. What, or better, who is this threatening spiritual force? It is a devil, a fallen or morally compromised angel. Imagine a truly wicked [...] on—or perhaps to modernize it and make it a literary device, using symbolic language evocative of the struggle with evil in the abstract. But the problem with that approach is that it just does not do [...] very talented and very enterprising. Now raise that person to a far higher pitch of ontological perfection, and you will have some idea of what a devil is like. Jesus has entrusted to his Church the means
lavender that pervaded a room when a cradle was prepared. If today we no longer know how to wait, it is because we have run out of hope. Its sources have dried up. We suffer from a deep crisis of desire [...] December 5 – 2nd Sunday of Advent – Our Lady of the Annunciation (Italy, 1470) Holy Mary, teach us to wait Holy Mary, Virgin of waiting, give us some of your oil, because our lamps are going out. See: [...] desire. And, feeling satisfied with the thousand substitutes that beset us, we risk to no longer expect anything, not even those supernatural promises that were signed with the Blood of the God of the Covenant
November 25 - Our Lady of the Rock (Italy, 1028) Mary in the Temple (V) She resolved to love God with all her heart From her childhood, Mary was filled with the Holy Spirit, and as she grew grace increased [...] increased within her. She then resolved to love God with all her heart, that He may never be offended by her words or actions. Thus she paid no heed to earthly goods and gave all she could to the poor. She was [...] minimum to sustain her body. When she understood through the Holy Scriptures that God was to be born of a virgin to redeem the world, her heart became so engulfed in the flames of divine love that she had no
Saint Patrick (Ireland, d. 461) Mary, emblem of the victory against the evil one In these times of rejection of God and the truth of religion, the Virgin Mary, who is herself a victim of so many blasphemies [...] death he has unleashed on humanity. The woman of the Apocalypse, clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and crowned with twelve stars, the new Eve, will crush the serpent's head, which will of
November 25 - Our Lady of the Rock (Italy, 1028) Mary in the Temple (V) She resolved to love God with all her heart From her childhood, Mary was filled with the Holy Spirit, and as she grew grace increased [...] increased within her. She then resolved to love God with all her heart, that He may never be offended by her words or actions. Thus she paid no heed to earthly goods and gave all she could to the poor. She was [...] minimum to sustain her body. When she understood through the Holy Scriptures that God was to be born of a virgin to redeem the world, her heart became so engulfed in the flames of divine love that she had no
July 15 - Saint Bonaventure Mary and the Holy Trinity Never doubt that the Blessed Mother and Virgin Mary chose to deliver her Son for the salvation of mankind with a strong heart and constant determination [...] conformity with the Father. Inasmuch, her approval of her only Son’s sacrifice for the salvation of mankind is what makes her praiseworthy and merits to be cherished. However, she sympathized to such a point
July 15 - Saint Bonaventure Mary and the Holy Trinity Never doubt that the Blessed Mother and Virgin Mary chose to deliver her Son for the salvation of mankind with a strong heart and constant determination [...] conformity with the Father. Inasmuch, her approval of her only Son's sacrifice for the salvation of mankind is what makes her praiseworthy and merits to be cherished. However, she sympathized to such a point
silent. How could Mary have been anything but silent? A creature who lived so long with the Creator couldn't speak much; her heart was full, her soul reduced to silence. She had been with Jesus for twelve [...] long years, long years in relation to the formation of habits, although they would have passed for Mary as a holy ecstasy, full of painful love. She had carried Jesus in her arms. She had watched over him [...] revealed his heart to her. She had learned to understand it. All the similarities with God had passed into the soul of Mary. We know how silent God is. Frédéric William Faber (1814-1863) From Le Pied de la
