Mar. 15 - USA Day of Prayer - Wk 2 - Day 5 - "to acquire a better understanding of Mary"

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Let us praise God, that President Trump declared yesterday that today is “A Day of Prayer”. Of course, for those who love God, everyday is a day of Prayer, but it was a blessing to know our President sees the need for Divine Assistance even while using all the the medical and scientific aids available to us. Let us pray for one another and for all those in most need of God’s Mercy as this trial of Covid-19 continues.

This Third Sunday of Lent, our Mass Readings help us on our journey, during Wk 2 seeking a better knowledge of Mary, especially invoking the Holy Spirit. In the Gospel, Jesus speaks of “Living Water” signifying the Holy Spirit to come:

"…whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst;
the water I shall give will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life…

How important for us to listen to the First reading in which we hear “grumblings” of ungrateful people and the Responsorial Psalm warning us:

If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

St. Paul in the Second Reading encourages us:

…the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Mary is both Mother and Model for the Church, and so we pray to the Holy Spirit and Mary. Let us open our hearts today to the power of the Holy Spirit, given to us in Baptism and Confirmation in special ways but He comes daily as we pray to Him and to Mary Who constantly is interceding for us before the Throne of God:

Litany of the Holy Spirit: see HERE

Ave Maris Stella: see HERE

5 decades of the Rosary for greater understanding of Mary

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear KBS,

Thanks again, for your “Faith - Full” heart, which is always an encouragement to those making this journey toward Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary. The more I read St. Louis de Montfort’s words in “True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin”, the more I thank God for all He has given us. As the Second Reading at Mass reveals:

…the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

In sending Jesus through Mary, God gave us His only Begotten Son, and after His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, Jesus and the Father sent the Holy Spirit upon the Church to bring us into the fullness of Truth and Love.

Seeking “to acquire a better understanding of Mary” this week, I’ve continued to ponder paragraph 108 from St. Louis’ “True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin”:

…true devotion to our Lady is holy, that is, it leads us to avoid sin and to imitate the virtues of Mary. Her ten principal virtues are: deep humility, lively faith, blind obedience, unceasing prayer, constant self-denial, surpassing purity, ardent love, heroic patience, angelic kindness, and heavenly wisdom.

Today, I’m pondering Mary’s obedience which St. Louis describes as “blind obedience”. That phrase can be misunderstood because even when Mary did not “understand” exactly what her “Yes” would entail, she obeyed – totally convinced that God’s Love is completely trustworthy. “Blind obedience” is to obey in the darkness of faith - Mary’s Light came from God and not from her own human understanding. We can “Behold our Mother” as Jesus told us, and by God’s Grace, we can imitate her virtues.

 

[hazcompat]

IOANNES PAULUS PP. II
REDEMPTORIS MATER
On the Blessed Virgin Mary
in the life of the Pilgrim Church
8. Mary is definitively introduced into the mystery of Christ through this event: the Annunciation by the angel. This takes place at Nazareth, within the concrete circumstances of the history of Israel, the people which first received God’s promises. The divine messenger says to the Virgin: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk. 1:28). Mary “was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be” (Lk. 1:29): what could those extraordinary words mean, and in particular the expression “full of grace” (kecharitoméne).
If we wish to meditate together with Mary on these words, and especially on the expression “full of grace,” we can find a significant echo in the very passage from the Letter to the Ephesians quoted above. And if after the announcement of the heavenly messenger the Virgin of Nazareth is also called “blessed among women” (cf. Lk. 1:42), it is because of that blessing with which “God the Father” has filled us “in the heavenly places, in Christ.” It is a spiritual blessing which is meant for all people and which bears in itself fullness and universality (“every blessing”). It flows from that love which, in the Holy Spirit, unites the consubstantial Son to the Father. At the same time, it is a blessing poured out through Jesus Christ upon human history until the end: upon all people. This blessing, however, refers to Mary in a special and exceptional degree: for she was greeted by Elizabeth as “blessed among women.”
The double greeting is due to the fact that in the soul of this “daughter of Sion” there is manifested, in a sense, all the “glory of grace,” that grace which “the Father…has given us in his beloved Son.” For the messenger greets Mary as “full of grace”; he calls her thus as if it were her real name. He does not call her by her proper earthly name: Miryam (= Mary), but by this new name: “full of grace.” What does this name mean? Why does the archangel address the Virgin of Nazareth in this way?
In the language of the Bible “grace” means a special gift, which according to the New Testament has its source precisely in the Trinitarian life of God himself, God who is love (cf. 1 Jn. 4:8). The fruit of this love is “the election” of which the Letter to the Ephesians speaks. On the part of God, this election is the eternal desire to save man through a sharing in his own life (cf. 2 Pt. 1:4) in Christ: it is salvation through a sharing in supernatural life. The effect of this eternal gift, of this grace of man’s election by God, is like a seed of holiness, or a spring which rises in the soul as a gift from God himself, who through grace gives life and holiness to those who are chosen. In this way there is fulfilled, that is to say there comes about, that “blessing” of man “with every spiritual blessing,” that “being his adopted sons and daughters…in Christ,” in him who is eternally the “beloved Son” of the Father.

 

[hazcompat]

Continued…

When we read that the messenger addresses Mary as “full of grace,” the Gospel context, which mingles revelations and ancient promises, enables us to understand that among all the “spiritual blessings in Christ” this is a special “blessing.” In the mystery of Christ she is present even “before the creation of the world,” as the one whom the Father “has chosen” as Mother of his Son in the Incarnation. And, what is more, together with the Father, the Son has chosen her, entrusting her eternally to the Spirit of holiness. In an entirely special and exceptional way Mary is united to Christ, and similarly she is eternally loved in this “beloved Son,” this Son who is of one being with the Father, in whom is concentrated all the “glory of grace.” At the same time, she is and remains perfectly open to this “gift from above” (cf. Jas. 1:17). As the Council teaches, Mary “stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently” await and receive salvation from him.

 

[MariaChristi]

Thanks hazcompat, for your quotes from Pope St John Paul II’s Encyclical, “On the Blessed Virgin Mary in the life of the Pilgrim Church”. How beautifully, Pope St. John Paul II helps us to meditate with Mary, on the words the Angel spoke to her! By God’s Grace, may we continue “to acquire a better understanding of Mary.” These words especially blessed me today.

…In an entirely special and exceptional way Mary is united to Christ, and similarly she is eternally loved in this “beloved Son,” this Son who is of one being with the Father, in whom is concentrated all the “glory of grace.” At the same time, she is and remains perfectly open to this “gift from above” (cf. Jas. 1:17). As the Council teaches, Mary “stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently” await and receive salvation from Him.