Mar. 17 - Wk 2 - Day 7 - "to acquire a better understanding of Mary"

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

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If anyone is making this 33 Day journey for the first time, perhaps you are beginning to see why St. Louis encouraged all to renew this preparation and Act of Total Consecration at least every year on the Feast of the Incarnation! Each time I make this journey it is “different” and definitely more fruitful.

Today, we conclude this week on the Feast of St. Patrick, which is very meaningful, for like Our Mother, St. Patrick was well acquainted with suffering but also like our Mother he remained devoted to God, loving Him totally and all those God brought into his life for love of Him. If you have never read the “Lorica” also called the “Breastplate of St. Patrick”, I encourage you to read it HERE

Now, let us consider the 3 final virtues St. Louis listed in his “True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin”, paragraph 108:

1. Third, 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.

Ah, it almost seems to me that St. Louis saved the best for last! The 3 last virtues so sweetly describe our Mother! Let us beg God to enable us, to cast ourselves into the perfect mould of our Mother and be transformed into Christ! Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your Faithul. Kindle in us the Fire of Your Love!

Litany of the Holy Spirit: see HERE

Ave Maris Stella: see HERE

5 decades of the Rosary for greater understanding of Mary

 

[hazcompat]

IOANNES PAULUS PP. II
REDEMPTORIS MATER
On the Blessed Virgin Mary
in the life of the Pilgrim Church

1. The Letter to the Ephesians, speaking of the “glory of grace” that “God, the Father…has
   bestowed on us in his beloved Son,” adds: “In him we have redemption through his blood” (Eph.1:7). According to the belief formulated in solemn documents of the Church, this “glory of grace” is manifested in the Mother of God through the fact that she has been "redeemed in a more sublime manner."24 By virtue of the richness of the grace of the beloved Son, by reason of the redemptive merits of him who willed to become her Son, Mary was preserved from the inheritance of original sin.25 In this way, from the first moment of her conception- which is to say of her existence-she belonged to Christ, sharing in the salvific and sanctifying grace and in that love which has its beginning in the “Beloved,” the Son of the Eternal Father, who through the Incarnation became her own Son. Consequently, through the power of the Holy Spirit, in the order of grace, which is a participation in the divine nature, Mary receives life from him to whom she herself, in the order of earthly generation, gave life as a mother. The liturgy does not hesitate to call her "mother of her Creator"26 and to hail her with the words which Dante Alighieri places on the lips of St. Bernard: "daughter of your Son."27 And since Mary receives this “new life” with a fullness corresponding to the Son’s love for the Mother, and thus corresponding to the dignity of the divine motherhood, the angel at the Annunciation calls her “full of grace.”

 

[patricius79]

Pope Leo XIII teaches that all graces are given through Mary. in his Encyclical “Octobri Mense”, he writes:

Thus do those whose actions have disturbed their consciences need an intercessor mighty in favour with God, merciful enough not to reject the cause of the desperate, merciful enough to lift up again towards hope in the divine mercy the afflicted and the broken down. Mary is this glorious intermediary; she is the mighty Mother of the Almighty; but-what is still sweeter - she is gentle, extreme in tenderness, of a limitless loving-kindness. As such God gave her to us. Having chosen her for the Mother of His only begotten Son, He taught her all a mother’s feeling that breathes nothing but pardon and love. Such Christ desired she should be, for He consented to be subject to Mary and to obey her as a son a mother. Such He proclaimed her from the cross when he entrusted to her care and love the whole of the race of man in the person of His disciple John. Such, finally, she proves herself by her courage in gathering in the heritage of the enormous labours of her Son, and in accepting the charge of her maternal duties towards us all.
http://www.vatican.va/content/leo-x...nts/hf_l-xiii_enc_22091891_octobri-mense.html

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear KBS, patricius and Stephie,

Thanks again for your “faith-full” hearts in continuing to listen to the Love and Wisdom, God shared with St. Louis de Montfort in his writing of “True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin”. I never tire of repeating that it is an encouragement to me and to others that you let us know you are on this journey of 33 days to Total Consecration. Most important, however, is the honor you give Jesus by honoring His Mother.

I hope you had time to follow my link to pray “The Lorica” (Breastplate of St. Patrick) on the Feast of St. Patrick today. It is such a beautiful Prayer! Of course it is aprayer you can pray any day and any time. Prayer is our “ongoing” and essential relationship with God, and Mary is our Model – showing us by her example how to pray always.

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear hazcompat,

Thanks again for another beautiful quote from Pope St. John Paul II, “On the Blessed Virgin Mary in the life of the Pilgrim Church”. As I read the paragraph you posted, the words of Pope St. John Paul II reminded me of St. Patrick’s “Lorica”: Let me share both Saints’ Praises of the Trinity in the life of Mary and through Mary in the lives of the Saints of like St. Patrick:

…from the first moment of her conception- which is to say of her existence-she belonged to Christ, sharing in the salvific and sanctifying grace and in that love which has its beginning in the “Beloved,” the Son of the Eternal Father, who through the Incarnation became her own Son. Consequently, through the power of the Holy Spirit, in the order of grace, which is a participation in the divine nature, Mary receives life from Him to whom she herself, in the order of earthly generation, gave life as a mother. - taken from words of St. JPII

Compare with St. Patrick’s opening words of his “Lorica”:

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

Mary is a model for the Church’s praise of her Creator and of ours! I hope anyone who has not read the “Lorica” (also called the Breastplate of St. Patrick) will prayerfully ponder its beauty and the power of God’s work in all the Saints who like Mary open themselves to His Plan for their lives - their union with Him in the Perfection of Holy Charity.

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear patricius,

Thanks for your quote from Pope Leo XIII, who like Pope St. JPII extolled the Lord through Mary. How truly the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, did wonders for Mary, as Pope Leo XIII wrote::

…Mary is this glorious intermediary; she is the mighty Mother of the Almighty; but-what is still sweeter - she is gentle, extreme in tenderness, of a limitless loving-kindness .

Totus Tuus!