His vision, and not according to our human preferences and limited understanding. Perhaps the vision then is to learn to renounce control over our own lives, to take a leap of faith and place God’s will, [...] evangelist - Our Lady of Graces (Trieste, Italy, 1486) Our hope is in Mary’s Immaculate Heart In a time of increasing isolation, conflicts and fragmentation – within society, and within the heart of man – what [...] the return of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ? Surely it takes something, or someone supremely elevated, to transcend above the poverty and despair of our competitive self-aggrandising world to bring us
June 5 - Our Lady of Haut (Hainault, France, 1428) Mary, Our Loving Mother One evening I was on the sun deck getting ready to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. Before beginning prayer, I like to take a few [...] minutes to consider what I'm about to do. I look at creation around me, seeing the wonder and beauty of it all, realizing that all of this was made for me. And here I am in my little corner of God's Kingdom [...] said. Aren't these the words of a Queen? Aren't these the words of a Mother? See how close she and Heaven are to our spirit? If I want to be like Mother Mary, I must remember that I am dust, that this dark
June 15 - Our Lady of All Graces (Italy) Is Our Heart the Same One as Yours? In 1865, Japan reopened its doors to foreigners after more than 2 centuries of closed borders. Fr Petitjean of the Foreign Missions [...] Missions of Paris debarked in Nagasaki and fitted up a small church in this city. "One day," he said, "a group of 12 to 15 men, women and children, stood outside the door of our church. I hastened to open [...] and said to me, putting her hand on her chest: "Is our heart, and the heart of us all here present, the same one as yours?" I answered her: "Certainly, but where do you come from?" - "Almost all of us are
October 16 - Our Lady of Purity - Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (d. 1690) O Our Sweet Hope O our sweet hope let us feel your power over the loveable Heart of Jesus, and use your credit so as to make a place [...] Ask Him to exert his sovereignty on our hearts, making his love reign in our heart, that He may consume us and change everything into Himself. May He be our Father, our Husband, our guard, our treasure [...] treasure, our delight, our love and our everything; destroying and annihilating in us all that there is of ourselves to fill us only with all that is of Him, so that we may be pleasing to Him! May He be the support
October 16 - Our Lady of Purity - Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (d. 1690) O Our Sweet Hope O our sweet hope let us feel your power over the loveable Heart of Jesus, and use your credit so as to make a place [...] Ask Him to exert his sovereignty on our hearts, making his love reign in our heart, that He may consume us and change everything into Himself. May He be our Father, our Husband, our guard, our treasure [...] treasure, our delight, our love and our everything; destroying and annihilating in us all that there is of ourselves to fill us only with all that is of Him, so that we may be pleasing to Him! May He be the support
the mystery of the Word made flesh a new light of your glory has shone upon the eyes of our mind, so that, as we recognize in him God made visible, we may be caught up through him in love of things invisible [...] March 13 - Our Lady of Rose (Italy, 1635) Like Mary, let us reflect on the past year in our heart Do you know who remembers more about your childhood than you do? Your mother. Men have memories, but we [...] we tend to turn to mothers and grandmothers when we want to know our past. They have stories, even about us, that we cannot recall. St. Luke’s infancy narrative twice mentions Mary’s memory. When the shepherds
March 14 - Our Lady of the Breche (Chartres, France, 1568) Take Saint Joseph as Our Own Adoptive Father Saint Joseph is often unrecognized, not to say unknown, although he is very great in God's eyes. [...] think of Saint Joseph, we imagine him most of the time with the Child Jesus in his arms or working beside Him in his humble workshop of Nazareth. It is true that Saint Joseph lived in the intimacy of Jesus [...] adoptive Father of Jesus, we can also consider him as our own adoptive Father. We put our trust in him because we know, for having experienced it, how much he watches over each one of us and over the persons
June 18 - Our Lady of Prada (Italy, 1747) The Only True Child-like Gaze Ever Raised Upon Our Shame The Virgin was innocence itself. Do you realize what we, the human race, are to her? Oh, of course she [...] that gaze which is not one of indulgence - for indulgence is a product of some bitter experience - but one of tender compassion, pained surprise, of some as yet indefinable, inconceivable, unutterable feeling [...] and done, she has no experience of it. The Virgin has the only true child-like gaze that was ever raised upon our shame and wretchedness. Yes, my child, when you pray to her you should feel upon you that
explained that one of the most common misconceptions among Catholics is that we have to be perfect before we can be holy and close to God. “We don’t even have to change to go to God. We go to God and He changes [...] September 6 - Italy: Our Lady of Tears (1553) Mary is the best person to lead us to Jesus Are youths today being empowered by the Holy Spirit? This topic was discussed by about 100 teens and young adults [...] a fact that the Mother of Jesus was with me.” He further encouraged the participants to develop a relationship with the Blessed Virgin, for she is the best person to lead us to Jesus. Adapted from Herald
July 9 – Our Lady of Prodigies (France) This surgeon never failed to pray to Mary before operating on a patient The Saint Lukas is one of five government-funded medical trains that travel to remote towns [...] The duration of each stop depends on the degree of health care available on the ground; some larger towns have several thousand inhabitants and a hospital, while others have a population of only a few hundred [...] the only one of the five medical trains to include a carriage that houses a chapel, where believers can pray between medical tests or baptize their children if their town has no place of worship. Patients
