- 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 the Son [...] pluries" 1889). "Jesus, the Son of God and God Himself", wanted to be seen and thought of as a craftsman, more than that, He did not shrink from spending a large part of His life on manual work. "This is [...] Son of God, nevertheless spent his whole life working, and, by his industry and skill, provided everything that was needed to sustain his family. [...] The work of the laborer, far from being demeaning can
March 31 - Our Lady of the Holy Cross, Jerusalem Mary’s Tears (III) When Mary weeps over us, her Tears are indeed a universal out flowing of heavenly Blood, of which she is the sovereign Dispenser, and [...] time the most perfect of oblations For, through grace, she is the only mother who has the power to lead her countless other children to worship by dint of her tears. The tears of the Blessed Virgin are [...] His Mother is doing. Saint Bernardino of Sienna says that the grief of the Blessed Virgin was so great that if it were divided and shared among all creatures capable of suffering, they would die in an instant
- Our Lady of Miracles (Lucca, Italy, 1588) Mary’s Tears (II) Tears are a legacy of the Mother of Sorrows, such an awesome legacy that it cannot be frittered away in the vain affections of the world without [...] blood of His human form. If Saint Ambrose, recalling Monica, refers to Augustine as "the son of so many tears", how much more so are we sons of the tears of that special creature who, as the Mother of God [...] wept for the misdemeanors of the future doctor of grace, her tears ran like a river of glory bearing her incredulous son in her tirelessly outstretched arms to the Author of Grace. Yet tears were all she
Ignatius of Antioch already bears witness to this connection: "Mary's virginity and giving birth, and even the Lord's death escaped the notice of the prince of this world: these three mysteries worthy of pr [...] adaptation to the ideas of the age. The meaning of this event is accessible only to faith, which understands in it the "connection of these mysteries with one another" in the totality of Christ's mysteries [...] March 26 - Sinaxis of the Archangel Gabriel, Byzantine On Mary’s Virginity and Giving Birth People are sometimes troubled by the silence of St Mark's Gospel and the New Testament Epistles about Jesus'
March 29 - Apparition of Our Lady to St Bonnet (7th C.) Mary’s Tears (I) The tears of the Mother of Sorrows fill the Scriptures and flow down across the centuries. All of the weeping mothers, widows and [...] the hearts of ten thousand desperate worlds. All those who are hurt, destitute or oppressed, the sad tide of humanity that choke the fearful paths of life will find succor in the ample folds of the sky-blue [...] cloak of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows. Each time that someone falls weeping, whether in a throng of people or alone, she is there weeping too, because all tears belong to her as the Empress of Beatitude
February 7 - Our Lady of the Bowed Head (Rome, 1610) Mary Did Her Part (III) There is very little unusual about the outward life of the Blessed Virgin, or at least the Gospels do not record it. They show [...] persecution of Herod drove her from Nazareth, but she returned and lived there with Jesus and Joseph, who worked to earn their daily bread. But what was the bread that nourished the faith of Mary and Joseph [...] s, disclosed that God was accomplishing very great things. O bread of the angels, heavenly manna, pearl of the Gospels, sacrament of the present moment! You give God under such lowly forms as the stable
February 2 - Purification of Our Lady (First celebrated in 544) This is the Time When Mary, Virgin and Queen, Came to the Temple with Her Son It was the day of the Purification of the Virgin. I was in Foligno [...] Foligno, in the church of the Minor Brothers. I heard a voice speaking to me, "This is the time when Mary, Virgin and Queen, came to the temple with her Son." I listened with great love in my soul. And having [...] gestures were so beautiful, her attitude was so marvellous, her entire person so noble and the sight of her was so sublime that my eyes could not remain fixed on Jesus alone, and were forced to look at His
that what was demanded of Mary at this great moment was something most glorious, but all this splendor would have meant nothing to her unless she had wanted to yield to the will of God. It was this will [...] February 6 - Our Lady of Louvain (Belgium, 1444) Mary Did Her Part (II) "Let it happen to me as you have said" (Lk 1:38). We should note that these words are in perfect agreement with those our Lord wants [...] sometimes obscurely, the activity of the Almighty and were an opportunity for her to praise God. Filled with joy, she regarded everything she had to do or suffer at any moment of her life as a gift from Him
January 14 – OUR LADY OF THE WORD (Spain, 1514) Mary, the Faithful Virgin (II) The second dimension of faithfulness is called reception, acceptance. The "quomodo fiet?" is changed, on Mary's lips, to a "fiat [...] the crucial moment of faithfulness, the moment in which man perceives that he will never completely understand the "how"; that there are in God's plan more areas of mystery than of clarity; that, however [...] heart, just as "Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart" (Lk 2:19; cf. Lk 3:15). It is the moment when man abandons himself to the mystery, not with the resignation of one who capitulates
faithfulness of Mary's mean? What are the dimensions of this faithfulness? The first dimension is called search. Mary was faithful first of all when she began, lovingly, to seek the deep sense of God's plan [...] the Angel of the Annunciation. Already in the Old Testament the meaning of this search is portrayed in an expression of outstanding beauty and extraordinary spiritual content: "To seek the face of the Lord [...] January 13 – OUR LADY OF VICTORY (Prague, Czech Republic, 1620) Mary, the Faithful Virgin (I) Among the many titles bestowed on the Virgin throughout the centuries by the filial love of Christians, there is
