A Moment with Mary

June 18 – Apparition of Our Lady of Mount Carmel at Garabandal (Spain, 1961 to 1965—supernatural origin not established)

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:39:00 +0200

A Unknown Woman in a Blue Cloak

Dom Dominic Helion was born in Borussia (Poland) in 1384, from parents of very modest circumstances. His father, who died when Dominic was only 11, knew that he and his three other sons would be exposed to moral dangers at school. When his mother was widowed, she hired Dominic out to an elderly preacher who taught him the alphabet and the Pater Noster, and made him copy the Matins of the Blessed Virgin Mary early on so that he could carry them on him and recite the Hours. At that time he made a vow-which later, unfortunately, he kept badly-and diligently prayed the Virgin to help him become learned: "Sancta Maria," he begged her, "help me to study well enough so that I can become a priest."

A few years later, Dominic went to the University of Cracow, where he fell into debauchery and playing craps. At the age of 21, during a hike with friends, he stayed at the Carthusian monastery of Prague (a stay just as unsuccessful as it was for Pierre de Keriolet, the famous Breton penitent, at the Carthusian monastery of Auray). He came out worse than he had gone in. Initiated into the secrets of necromancy, he used his gains to distribute to the poor...

During Lent of 1407, he entered a church to weep over his sins, but was unable to do so. Then he gave his last coin to an unknown lady wearing a "blue cloak" who promised, in exchange for the coin, to deliver him from all his miseries. Later, he understood that he owed that grace to Mary, and that she was the one who had appeared under the features of that charitable beggar. Above all, he realized that he had to leave the world and choose the Carthusian Order over any other. In 1409, at the age of 25, he entered Saint Alban's Charterhouse near Trier.

Dom Yves Gourdel
The Devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary in the Carthusian Order
quoted in Hubert Du Manoir, Maria : études sur la sainte Vierge, Volume II (Paris: Beauchesne, 1952).

June 17 - Message of the Sacred Heart to St Margaret Mary Alacoque (France, 1689)

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 04:39:00 +0200

The lights of the Host and the flames of Jesus' Heart pass through the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Blessed Dina Belanger told this story:

"Our Lord, the God-Man, showed me his adorable Heart in the Sacred Host. I did not look at his sacred Face, but his Heart and the Host captivated me.

Both his Heart and the Host were perfectly united, so perfectly that I cannot explain how I was able to distinguish one from the other.

The Host emanated an immensity of luminous rays. From his Heart sprang an immensity of flames, which escaped in rushing torrents. The Most Blessed Virgin was there, standing so close to Our Lord that she seemed to be absorbed by him, and yet I saw her distinctly. Oh! She was so pure!

All the lights of the Host and all the flames of Jesus' Heart went into the Immaculate Heart of the Most Blessed Virgin.

Our Lord said: ‘Yes, make me reign through Jesus and Mary.' As I saw this and heard these words inside me still, I bent down on my knees and fell prostrate, as if I had been annihilated by love in the presence of my God. Then I spoke in a tone of supplication that I did not know I possessed, saying: ‘O Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, I beg you, by Our Lady of the Eucharistic Heart, reign in all souls as you desire.'"

Blessed Dina Belanger (1898-1929) Quebec
www.adoperp.com/adoration/saints/ndss.html#union

June 16 - Our Lady of Sorrows (Italy, 1892) - Canonization of Padre Pio (2002)

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 04:39:00 +0200

Mother as lucid as you are tender, tell the Father and the Son about us

Hail Mary, the Almighty awaited your answer while we were all there in the shadows, waiting for it with him. God did not impose anything on your freedom. You saw what was at stake, and you believed that the fullness of time had come when God would send his Son. You died to yourself, and placed yourself at the Lord's service. (...)

Holy Mother of God, you were alone at first in carrying this unutterable secret and then Joseph was allowed to share in it with you. Who better than you could enter into the Savior's plan? Limpid and inflexible, you proceeded on the proffered way. For more than thirty years you retained in the silence of your heart all that had been revealed to you. You watched the Son-your little boy-growing into a man. You followed him all the way to Jerusalem where he was exalted on the cross and you stood upright beside him. You believed, all alone, until the Lord appeared to the others. You were certain of his resurrection from the dead and amidst the apostles you waited for the coming of the promised Spirit.

Holy Mother of God, keep the place among us that you held in the nascent Church. O Mother of the Risen Christ, like the apostles we remember your unique relationship with him. We see in you the first link in our testimony, the model of a staunch and steadfast faith. O Mother of the Savior and of all the saved, may your presence stimulate and teach us to let ourselves be filled with and to soak up the grace of our vocation. May your prayer encourage and envelope ours. May it make us attentive and flexible to the breath of the Spirit who prays within us. (...)

L.M. Dewailly, O.P.
With Protestant Friends
in Le livre d'heures de Marie, texts collected by Alphonse Bossard, S.M.M.
Desclée de Brouwer, 1981.

June 15 - Feast of all the Churches of the Holy Land (Ethiopia)

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 04:39:00 +0200

Reverence Towards the Virgin Mary in the Life and Ministry of Priests

In closing, and regarding the spiritual life of priests, I would like to draw your attention to this element of life that consists in the special respect showed to the Blessed Virgin Mary. If I did not mention it, I would not have properly witnessed to the spiritual life of priests in my homeland, especially in the life of the Servant of God Fr. [Saint] Maximilian Kolbe. (...)

But the reverence shown to the Virgin Mother of God in the priestly life and ministry is actually a universal value, if we remember what the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council said in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, where the role of the Virgin Mother in the work of Christ and the Church is highlighted.

Is there anything more important for a priest to take into account if he is working for Christ and the Church? Or set his heart on, as he strives to develop that work, if he wishes to harvest abundant fruits?

Excerpt from Cardinal Wojtyla's (Blessed John Paul II) talk
on the theme "Priestly Ministry and Spiritual Life," 1971.

June 14 - Apparitions to Frances Romaine Macuys in Skiemoniai (Lithuania, 1962, devotion encouraged by Bishop Preikas)

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 04:39:00 +0200

Jesus Brought Peace While Still in Mary’s Womb

God so loved the world that He gave His son-it was a gift. God gave His son to the Virgin Mary, and what did she do with Him? As soon as Jesus came into Mary's life, she immediately went in haste to give that good news. And as she came into the house of her cousin Elizabeth, Scripture tells us that the unborn child-the child in the womb of Elizabeth-leapt with joy. While still in the womb of Mary, Jesus brought peace to John the Baptist who leapt for joy in the womb of Elizabeth. The unborn child was the first one to proclaim the coming of Christ.

And as if that were not enough, as if it were not enough that God the Son should become one of us and bring peace and joy while still in the womb of Mary, Jesus also died on the Cross to show that greater love. He died for you and me, and for the leper and for that man dying of hunger and that naked person lying in the street, not only of Calcutta, but of Africa and everywhere. Our Sisters serve these poor people in 105 countries throughout the world. Jesus insisted that we love one another as He loves each one of us. Jesus gave His life to love us and He tells us that we also have to give whatever we can to do good to one another. And in the Gospel Jesus says very clearly: "Love as I have loved you." (...)

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (d. 1997)
Excerpt from an address at the National Prayer Breakfast
(Sponsored by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives), February 3, 1994.

June 13 - Byzantine feast of the Ascension in the Byzantine Church (Julian Calendar) - Second apparition in Fatima

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:39:00 +0200

It is no accident that Mount Athos is called the Virgin's Garden…

(...) I was looking for a place to listen to God, far from the cultural bombardment of our world. Mount Athos became the focus of my aspirations.

There, I was first struck by the natural beauty of the place. Nature respected by men, wild and virgin nature. It is no accident that Mount Athos is called the Virgin's Garden. Its valleys, mountains and trails are a reflection of life itself, a journey we must undertake. (...)

Legend has it that the Virgin was traveling with Saint John the Apostle across the Aegean Sea when a storm forced them to dock at Mount Athos. The Virgin Mary was so charmed by the place that she asked her Son to be allowed to finish her life there.

This is why it is called the Virgin's Garden. No woman is allowed there except the Virgin Mary. When a pilgrim walks on the trails of Mount Athos, he greets others in this fashion: "May the Virgin be with you, may she protect you and save you from all dangers..."

Magazine Madre di Dio, (1992),
Intervista con il pittore Bizantinologo Emmanuele Grassi, a cura di Stefano Andreatta.

June 12 - Mary is Proclaimed Queen of China in Zikawei (Shanghai, 1924)

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:39:00 +0200

The Moving of the House of Nazareth to Loreto: Another Legend…

It is believed that at the most odious and oppressive stage of the Muslim invasion of the Holy Land, an angel came down once again from heaven to Nazareth, not to bring news to Mary, but to carry her house to a more appropriate and devout place. Some scholars and critics have commented that the move was not made by celestial angels but by the Di Angelis, a family of Italian crusaders. When the Di Angeli family left the Holy Land for good, they allegedly brought the Holy House with them as a trophy, stone by stone.

Let me tell you a different version. There was a time, as it always happens in the course of the history of mankind, when Mary's fiat became walled in and buried under gold, marble, incense, sermons and commentaries. This was so much the case at that time that the poor man who, at the risk of his live, had made the pilgrimage all the way to Nazareth, when he knelt down to pray he could only hear both in his ears and in the recesses of his heart the din of praises blocking him access to the true shrine.

So, maybe for the first time in his life, Joseph became angry. During a coal black night, accompanied by a few angels, he slipped down from heaven like a prowler and snatched away Mary's house from that pious vanity. This had to be done, to ensure that his spouse's fiat to God would continue to shine for ages and ages, thus enchanting the hearts of the poor and humble.

A wise craftsman, who knew what an effect a precious and well-positioned object can have on the human soul, Joseph settled the house atop an Italian hill, in Loreto, right in the middle of a region where smooth talkers were boasting about how God had not bothered to come down from his heavenly abode for a very long time.

On that memorable night, Joseph cleaned that dear old house stone by stone with miraculous oil, and in the morning, the first sick person who came by, surprised to find a strange building, felt healthy again, inaugurating a long procession of complaints changed into praise. (...)

But, in the heart of Nazareth, when he stole the Holy House, Joseph unearthed something even more precious: the place of reverent silence where Mary stood when the angel Gabriel, stopping at the corner and not daring to go closer, made the Annunciation.

Author unknown

June 11 – Saint Barnabas the Apostle - Leo XIII consecrates the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus who is “One” with the Heart of Mary (1899)

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 04:39:00 +0200

In the Church, the devotions to the Heart of Mary and to the Sacred Heart have developed alongside each other

In 1899, Pope Leo XIII consecrated the Church and the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 1942, Pope Pius XII dedicated the Church and the world by a similar act of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Pope John Paul II renewed that same consecration in both 1984 and in 2000.

Jesus and Mary are inseparable. This is why when we consecrate ourselves, we dedicate our lives to both Hearts at the same time.

In the Litanies of the Sacred Heart, we say: "Sacred Heart of Jesus, formed by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mother..."

In the Virgin's womb, through the work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus became man with a human heart. From the outset, the two Hearts were united in a lovable way.

Mary's Heart was the first to venerate the Heart of Jesus and to realize the depths of his love.

Mary, mother and educator, formed the human Heart of her son.

At the moment when the spear of the Roman soldier pierced Christ's Heart on the Cross, Mary's Heart was also pierced by the sword of sorrows. (...)

In the Catholic Church, the devotion to the Heart of Mary and to the Sacred Heart have developed alongside each other. The day after the feast of the Sacred Heart, we remember to celebrate the Immaculate Heart of Mary (...).

In 1916, during the three apparitions of the angel in Fatima, the angel of peace spoke of both Christ's and Mary's Hearts. (...)

MDN Team

June 10 – Our Lady of Saint Luke (Italy, 1857)

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 04:39:00 +0200

Testimony of the Famous Austrian Trapp Family Singers

From the old country (Austria) we took with us the longing to pray at a wayside shrine in honor of Mary. As there were no shrines here (the United States), we simply made one ourselves. During the month of May we often walk in a little procession over to this shrine, saying the rosary and singing hymns. There is no reason why people could not make a shrine of their own in their gardens - under an apple tree, behind a rose bush - and during the month of May the whole family could once or twice a week have their May devotion outside.

We must lose the inhibition that our friends or neighbors "might mind" such exhibition of our faith. In all the years we have been living in America, time and again we have found that the average American is a most tolerant person when he senses that what you do is the outgrowth of an inner conviction.

Take this instance: Three times a day the bell in our chapel rings the Angelus, whereupon everybody in the house stops talking, drops any work he is doing at that moment, and says the age-old prayer, "The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary." At the words, "And the Word was made flesh," we make a genuflection. After the Angelus we make the sign of the cross and return to whatever we have been doing before.

Most of the time people of various religious affiliations are among our guests, but not one single time have I seen the flicker of a smile or any sign of criticism or contempt or whatever else we timid Catholics might be expecting.

We are put to shame by every Mohammedan. At certain times of the day he takes his little prayer rug and kneels down, facing the east, to say his prayers, not minding what everybody might think or say. What his prayer toward the east is for the Mohammedan, the Angelus might be for us Catholics. If the circumstances of our life allow it, why not start this custom next month of May and keep it up ever after?

Excerpt from, Maria Augusta Trapp,
Around the Year with the Trapp Family, 1955, by Pantheon Books

June 9 - Mary Mother of Grace (France)

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 04:39:00 +0200

God is No Longer Disembodied: He has a Mother … Mary!

This devotion is both consistent to reason and to the Catholic Church's practice. (...) It is essential because of the mystery of the Incarnation-the Word became flesh-and therefore God is no longer disembodied. He has a mother, Mary, who good Christians like to invoke under the sweetest of names: "Mother most chaste, Virgin most prudent, Powerful Virgin, Seat of Wisdom, Refuge of sinners, Cause of our joy, Comfort of the afflicted, Help of Christians, Queen of angels, Queen of all the saints, Mediatrix of all graces..."

"Terrible as an army set in battle-array," the woman who must crush the head of the Serpent (1) possesses another remarkable title: "Mary, Victorious over all heresies." Indeed, all heresies break against the Virgin's feet like ripples.

All too often, errors arise from the fact that one looks at Christ in a totally abstract manner, like a disembodied being, a pure symbol.

A symbol has no mother... One cannot eliminate Christ without eliminating his Mother beforehand.

---

(1) Genesis 3:15: a text that we should know by heart, and which restores courage during the most hopeless crises...

Adapted from Fr. Michel Mallet,
Le culte des saints, Ed. F.-X. de Guibert, 1995.