A Moment with Mary

November 10 - OUR LADY OF THE LAST AGONY

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:39:00 +0100

The New Adam Must Come from Virgin Soil

If Adam was created from virgin, untilled soil by the virtue and might of God, so too the new Adam must be drawn from virgin soil, by the same might and virtue of God. Mary is that virgin-soil of whom Christ becomes the "first-born son."

November 9 - OUR LADY OF ALMUDENA (Madrid, Spain)

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:39:00 +0100

A Gift is Fully a Gift Only if Well Received (II)

The richer and nobler the gift, the better equipped to receive it the recipient should be.

If the Father wanted to give His Son to the world, He couldn't take the risk that His son be half-way welcome, even three-quarters of the way. For the Incarnation to be whole, nothing in the Son could be foreign to humankind. Jesus couldn't be an unwanted child, even as little unwanted as could be.

Now, after the tragic Fall, no human being was capable of total love and total freedom. How then...(+)...

November 8 - OUR LADY OF THE FAIR MOUNTAINS (Rocky Mountains, 1841)

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:39:00 +0100

A Gift is Fully a Gift Only if Well Received (I)

Let's use a concrete example to help us better understand that there is no contradiction or mutual exclusion between God's action and man's.

An octogenarian religious was hospitalized for a minor fibula fracture. He seemed to have lost his taste for life and rejected any food. If a nurse tried to spoon-feed him some yogurt he would spit it out at once.

In that same town lived a young woman who had been before her marriage a professor in the institution where the religious lived. He had...(+)...

November 7 - OUR LADY OF SUFFRAGE

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:39:00 +0100

Our Lady of Poor Souls (II)

One of the best means to find God's favor is to imitate Mary's love for the Poor Souls. Pray often to the Mother of Mercy for these suffering souls; those of parents, relatives, friends, acquaintances gone before. Above all, say the Rosary for these holy souls. Our compassion will be most pleasing to the Mother of Mercy, and when our hour shall come, she will remember us and show herself a true mother.

That which was but vain conceit among the ancients, is truth and reality among...(+)...

November 6 - OUR LADY OF GOOD REMEDIES (Mexico, 1519)

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:39:00 +0100

Our Lady of Poor Souls (I)

Mary loves the Poor Souls in Purgatory because she has also gone through a kind of purgatory of tribulation - not indeed, in punishment of her sins, for she had none - but that she might have more compassion on us, and be more fully entitled to the name by which she is so well know, "Comforter of the Afflicted." For this reason she descended into a sea of sorrow, into the depths of tribulation, into the furnace of poverty, exile, persecution. For this reason she suffered those pains of mind...(+)...

November 5 - OUR LADY OF DAMIETTA (Egypt, 1220)

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:39:00 +0100

Mary and the Souls in Purgatory (V): Consoler of the Afflicted

The mystical body of Jesus belongs to Mary, i.e. to the Church militant, triumphant and suffering: or, to say it more eloquently, to Jesus fighting on earth against hell, Jesus triumphing in heaven, and Jesus suffering in his members in purgatory; this is because when that same Jesus gave himself to his divine Mother, he gave all things to her along with himself.

And Mary belongs to the Church militant, triumphant and suffering, because her Son Jesus gave her to the Church militant to be...(+)...

November 4 - OUR LADY OF PORT LOUIS (Milan, Italy)

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:39:00 +0100

Mary and the Souls in Purgatory (IV): Joy and Suffering

We can draw from the thought of purgatory more consolation than apprehension. Most of those who greatly fear purgatory are more focused on their own interest than on the interests of God's glory; and this comes from their envisaging only the pains of that place, without considering at the same time the felicity and peace God lets them taste.

It is true that the torments one experiences there are so great that the most extreme pains of this life cannot be compared to them; but at the same...(+)...

November 3 - OUR LADY OF RENNES (France, 1451)

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:39:00 +0100

Mary and the Souls in Purgatory (III): The Rust of Sin

I don't believe there can be found a comparable contentment to that of a soul in purgatory, if you except the saints that are in heaven. Each day this contentment increases through God's action in those souls, and this action keeps augmenting at the same time as all that impedes this divine action burns away. This impediment is the rust of sin. Fire slowly consumes this rust and thus the soul exposes itself more and more to the divine influx.

Just like an object shrouded by something cannot...(+)...

November 2 - OUR LADY OF MONTLIGEON (France, 1884)

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:39:00 +0100

Mary and the Souls of Purgatory (II): No Unholy Soul Can Be Happy in Heaven

I answer as follows: That, even supposing a man of unholy life were suffered to enter heaven, he would not be happy there; so that it would be no mercy to permit him to enter. (...)

How forlorn would he wander through the courts of heaven! He would find no one like himself; he would see in every direction the marks of God's holiness, and these would make him shudder. He would feel himself always in His presence. He could no longer turn his thoughts another way, as he does now, when...(+)...

November 1st - All Saints Day - OUR LADY OF THE PALM (1755, Cadiz, Spain)

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:39:00 +0100

Mary and the Souls in Purgatory (I): What is Purgatory?

The Holy Church of God, considered in its totality, is composed of three parts: the Church militant, the Church triumphant, and the Church suffering, or purgatory. This triple Church constitutes the mystical body of Jesus Christ, and the souls in purgatory are no less her members than the faithful on earth and the elect in heaven.

In the Gospel, the Church is ordinarily called the Kingdom of God; purgatory, just like heaven and the Church on earth, is a province of that vast Kingdom. The three...(+)...