am" (I) The Church is fundamentally a bride, and this bride has only one word in her mouth, only one name, only one program: "Here I am!" The permanent "here I am" of the ever-present espousals. But we know
the most visible examples of the devotion of many Catholics to Mary. In 1858, a 14-year-old girl named Bernadette Soubirous reported having 18 visions of a beautiful “young lady” in a cave near Lourdes
give the Messiah her flesh and her features; he, the son of David and a carpenter, would give him a name in the royal line of David. Faced with Mary's pregnancy, Joseph responded with the greatest respect
"to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God."
medieval ballad told that she helps mariners in distress. The Anglican pilgrim hostel displays the name Stella Maris, Star of the Sea. This is one of Mary's more ancient titles. Walsingham, just a few miles
facility where she died in 1972. Among her ten children, a daughter, Mary, became a nun and took the name Sister Angela Maria. Eager to learn more about her family and her roots, she went to Italy. There
was the moment that the angel had foretold at Nazareth: "you will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High" (Lk 1:31). This was the moment
small village southeast of Liège in French-speaking Belgium. In the winter of 1933, a young girl named Mariette reported that the Virgin Mary had appeared to her on eight separate occasions. Mariette was
us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the power to rule shall be on his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase
this vocation of every woman is then perfectly fulfilled—how much so—in Mary’s "Here I am," in the name of all fundamental femininity. It is there to remind us all of our vocation, which is in itself a
