Prayer to Mary for the Church

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Pope Francis in his Angelus Address of Sunday, Oct 4, asked us to join in prayer with those at the shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii see HERE

In doing further research on the shrine, and its founder Bl. Bartolo Long, I found a beautiful homily by Pope Emeritus (Benedict XVI) on Our Lady of the Rosary, and noted that Pope Benedict had also prayed before the Synod in 2009 for Mary’s intercession. Here is an excerpt:

…I have come on pilgrimage to Pompeii to venerate the Virgin Mary, Queen of the Holy Rosary, together with you. I have come in particular to entrust to the Mother of God, in whose womb the Word was made flesh, the Assembly of the Synod of Bishops which is under way at the Vatican on the theme of the Word of God in the life and mission of the Church…

…The Lord’s presence is a source of joy, for wherever he is, evil is overcome and life and peace triumph…Yes, God’s love has this power: to renew all things, starting from the human heart which is his masterpiece and in which the Holy Spirit best brings about his transforming action. With his grace, God renews man’s heart, forgiving him his sins, reconciling him and instilling in him an impetus for good. All of this is expressed in the lives of the Saints and we see it here in particular in the apostolic work of Bl. Bartolo Longo, Founder of the new Pompeii…

…From its beginnings, the Christian community has seen the personification of Israel and Jerusalem in a female figure as an important and prophetic approach to the Virgin Mary, who is recognized precisely as a “daughter of Zion” and the archetype of the people who “found grace” in the eyes of the Lord. This is an interpretation we find again in the Gospel account of the wedding feast at Cana (Jn 2:1-11). The Evangelist John sheds symbolic light on the fact that Jesus is the Bridegroom of Israel, the new Israel that all of us are in faith, the spouse who has come to bring the grace of the new Covenant, represented by the “good wine.” At the same time the Gospel emphasizes Mary’s role, who at the beginning is called “the Mother of Jesus” but the Son himself later addresses her as “woman” and this has a very profound meaning: indeed, it implies that Jesus, to our wonder, before kinship places the spiritual bond according to which Mary herself impersonates the beloved Bride of the Lord, that is, the People he has chosen to shower his blessings upon the whole human family. The symbol of the wine, together with that of the banquet, reproposes the theme of joy and of the feast. In addition, the wine, like the other biblical images of the vineyard and the vine, alludes metaphorically to love: God is the owner of the vineyard, Israel is the vineyard, a vineyard that will find its perfect fulfillment in Christ, of whom we are the branches; and the wine is the fruit, that is, love, because it is exactly love that God expects of his children. And we pray to the Lord, who has given Bartolo to bring love in this land, so that also our life and our heart bears this fruit of love and thus renews the earth…

…May this Shrine and this city continue above all to be ever linked in a unique Marian gift: the prayer of the Rosary. When we see, in the famous painting of Our Lady of Pompeii, the Virgin Mother and the Child Jesus giving the Rosary beads to St. Catherine of Siena and St. Dominic respectively, we immediately understand that this prayer leads us through Mary to Jesus, as Pope John Paul II taught us in his Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, in which he explicitly mentions Bl. Bartolo Longo and the charism of Pompeii. The Rosary is a spiritual “weapon” in the battle against evil, against all violence, for peace in hearts, in families, in society and in the world… (underlining is mine)

http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/images/pompei1.jpg
See HERE for full homily.

 

[liturgy96]

Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us! Virgin most admirable, we commend our intentions (especially for the synod) in your hands.

 

[MariaChristi]

Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us! Virgin most admirable, we commend our intentions (especially for the synod) in your hands.

Dear liturgy96,

Thanks for your reply, and your prayers – especially for the Synod Fathers, and Pope Francis, in particular. May the Holy Spirit inspire them and lead them into the complete Truth.

Mary, Mother of the Church, Souse of the Holy Spirit, pray for us.