exhausted the depths of that mystery? Then say to yourself, "How would Mary have seen her Son on the cross?" And then ask Mary, "Give me a little of your own understanding." In this manner, the Virgin is no [...] (1370) Mary's Own Understanding I am convinced that when the shepherds arrived at the grotto, they did not go straight to the Christ Child. They must have looked first at the Blessed Virgin Mary, looked [...] have shown them her Child, and then they would have looked at Jesus with her eyes. Try to meditate upon the mysteries of the Gospel with the Virgin's eyes. Think about the death of Christ on the Cross. Do

solemnized in the Slavic Churches, was instituted following a vision that St. Andrew, "the Bishop of Christ", had in the 9th century, on a day when a vigil was being celebrated in the Church of the Blacherns [...] air, supported by a mysterious force. The Mother of God then rose towards the heavens, surrounded by a very bright light, and disappeared, leaving the Christian people her holy veil as a guarantee of her [...] Veil of Mary over Constantinople On October 1, the Orthodox Churches celebrate on October 1 (October 28 for the Greek Church) the holy protection of their Queen, the Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary. This

statue of Mary was left intact Around 11:30 pm, the cathedral was open. I entered through the portico, not venturing too far in of course. I was amazed to find that the statue of the Virgin Mary was still [...] still there, although part of the vault of the nave near the choir had collapsed. What a shock! It was apocalyptic, with debris lying everywhere. Everything was broken around her, but in the midst of all the [...] the destruction, the Virgin was still there, on her pillar, not at all damaged, along with the pieta and the glorious Cross installed by Cardinal Lustiger... Like them, the famous statue of the Virgin

deliver us if we have recourse to her with the Antiphon: We fly to thy patronage: "Sub tuum presidium," etc, or with a "Hail Mary," or only invoking the most holy name of Mary, which has particular power against [...] against demons. The blessed St Francis, in a temptation against purity, had recourse to Mary, and she immediately appeared to him, and placing her hand upon his breast, delivered him. It is useful to kiss [...] granted fifty days’ indulgence to those who pronounce the name of Jesus and Mary. Saint Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary , Devotion IX: Of Frequent Recourse to the Divine Mother

the fruit of the Blessed Virgin Mary” In eating the forbidden fruit, Eve broke the image and likeness of God she possessed. In the blessed fruit of her womb, Mary, and with her all Christians, found what [...] salvation: he who eats this fruit will have eternal life. Eve was after a kind of transitory beauty and she picked a deadly fruit, whereas Mary has given mankind the most beautiful fruit that angels will ever [...] what Eve was seeking: union with God through Christ and the resemblance of God. Eve sought pleasure and joy, but she found pain and nakedness. In the fruit of the womb of the Virgin, we find grace and salvation:

Church crisis and Mary Does the Mother of Jesus have any relevance to the present Church crisis? Mary brings the Divine Redeemer into the world by an obedient fiat . She does so with an obedient faith… [...] her superiority to Peter in most every conceivable measure, Mary responded to Peter’s office of authority with the same obedient fiat . For Mary saw Jesus in Peter, and thus continually gave the obedience [...] and joyfully, possible in our times. Our Lady, with a unique and personal maternal solicitude, encourages each of us, in the quiet of our hearts, towards a greater generosity of time in Adoration of her

marked by finitude. This presence, following the example of Mary at the Annunciation, fosters a sort of availability without which the encounter with God cannot take place. In this sense, the music of Pärt [...] (Rwanda, 1981-1989) The Virgin Mary and the Musician In 2017, an 82-year-old Estonian Orthodox composer was one of the three winners of the Ratzinger Prize, together with the German theologians Theodor [...] Theodor Dieter and Karl-Heinz Menke. For the first time, the "Nobel of Theology" went to a musician, Arvo Pärt . During a “spell in the wilderness” that lasted 8 years, Pärt studied Gregorian plain-chant, and

obtains between a mother and a son, they readily acknowledged the supreme royal dignity of the Mother of God. Hence it is not surprising that the early writers of the Church called Mary "the Mother of the [...] that the Son of Mary would reign forever, and on the words of Elizabeth who greeted her with reverence and called her "the Mother of my Lord." Thereby they clearly signified that she derived a certain eminence [...] January 5 – OUR LADY OF THE TWELFTH NIGHT (4th Century) The Epiphany of Our Lord and the Queenship of Mary (I) From early times Christians have believed, and not without reason, that she of whom was born the

Christ through Mary On March 17, 1635, the Blessed Virgin appeared to Elisabeth Caille, a resident of Bargemon (France), who had been suffering for 2 years from a constant fever accompanied by a retraction [...] Elisabeth’s door, carrying a statuette of Our Lady in a box covered with green taffeta. They wanted to ask her husband, who knew the master glassmaker of the region, to provide them with an encasement to house [...] nerves, which made her prone to accidents. She fell several times a day, and all medical treatments were useless. The Virgin appeared as a pilgrim who knocked on Elisabeth’s door and asked for directions

united hypostatically with the Divinity. My maternal womb was very narrow – dark; there was not a glimmer of light, and I saw Him in my maternal womb, immobile, enwrapped in a deep night. …And so my dear [...] just as I conceived Him within a sea of light, within a sea of light He came out of my maternal womb. Luisa Picarreta, Italian mystic (1865-1947) From her book The Virgin Mary in the Kingdom of the Divine [...] Lady of Saint-Acheul (Amiens, France) In Mary’s womb, Jesus was already suffering for us In the following excerpt from Luisa Picarreta's book(1), the Virgin Mary recalls the nine months during which she