La Poverella

Ven. Mary of Agreda - Words of the Queen - The Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple

2009-05-19T11:18:00.001-07:00

Let not the thought that thou art so useless and or that thy desires and labor avail but little, discourage thee; since thou canst not know how the Lord will accept of them and in how far He shall consider Himself served thereby...
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Thou must supply thy insufficiency and thy misery by offering up to the eternal Father the living host of his onlybegotten Son, especially when thou receivest Him in the holy Sacrament and possessest Him within thee: for in this thou shouldst also imitate David, who, after asking the Lord what return he should make for all his benefits, answers: "I will take the chalice of salvation; and I will call upon the name of the Lord" (Ps. 115, 13). Thou must accept the salvation offered thee and bring forth its fruits by the perfection of thy works, calling upon the name of the Lord, offering up his Onlybegotten.
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My daughter, what thou must especially learn from this chapter is, that thou accustom thyself to humble thanksgiving for the benefits which thou receivest, since thou, among many generations, art so specially signalized by the riches of grace with which my Son and I visit thee without any merit of thine. I was wont to repeat many times this verse of David: "What shall I render the Lord for all the things that he hath rendered to me?" (Ps. 15, 12). In such sentiments I humiliated myself to the dust, esteeming myself altogether useless among creatures. Therefore, if thou knowest what I did as Mother of God, consider what then is thy obligation, since thou must with so much truth confess thyself unworthy and undeserving of all thou receivest, and so poorly furnished for giving thanks and for making payment. Thou must supply thy insufficiency and thy misery by offering up to the eternal Father the living host of his onlybegotten Son, especially when thou receivest Him in the holy Sacrament and possessest Him within thee: for in this thou shouldst also imitate David, who, after asking the Lord what return he should make for all his benefits, answers: "I will take the chalice of salvation; and I will call upon the name of the Lord" (Ps. 115, 13). Thou must accept the salvation offered thee and bring forth its fruits by the perfection of thy works, calling upon the name of the Lord, offering up his Onlybegotten. For He it is who gave the virtue of salvation, who merited it, who alone can be an adequate return for the blessings conferred upon the human race and upon thee especially. I have given Him human form in order that He might converse with men and become the property of each one. He conceals Himself under the appearances of bread and wine in order to accommodate himself to the needs of each one, and that each one might consider Him as his personal property fit to offer to the eternal Father. In this way He furnishes to each one an oblation which no one could otherwise offer, and the Most High rests satisfied with it, since there is not anything more acceptable nor anything more precious in the possession of creatures.
In addition to this offering is the resignation with which souls embrace and bear with equanimity and patience the labors and difficulties of mortal life. My most holy Son and I were eminent Masters in the practice of this doctrine. My Son began to teach it from the moment in which He was conceived in my womb. For already then He began to suffer, and as soon as He was born into the world He and I were banished by Herod into a desert, and his sufferings continued until He died on the Cross. I also labored to the end of my life, as thou wilt be informed more and more in the writing of this history. Since, therefore, We suffered so much for creatures and for their salvation, I desire thee to imitate Us in this conformity to the divine will as being his spouse and my daughter. Suffer with a magnanimous heart, and labor to increase the possessions of thy Lord and Master, namely, souls, which are so precious in his sight and which He has purchased with his life-blood. Never shouldst thou fly from labors, difficulties, bitterness and sorrows, if by any of them thou canst gain a soul for the Lord, or if thou canst thereby induce it to leave the path of sin and enter the path of life. Let not the thought that thou art so useless and or that thy desires and labor avail but little, discourage thee; since thou canst not know how the Lord will accept of them and in how far He shall consider Himself served thereby. At least thou shouldst wish to labor assiduously and eat no unearned bread in his house (Prov. 31, 27).

The Church says:'I am wounded with love'....She sees the Father's only Son carrying His cross..and the sword of love pierces her soul more deeply

2009-05-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

The Spiritual Beauty of Christ
But beyond the recognition of the beauty of the Word of God as it is manifested in the loveliness of creation, there is the far superior spiritual beauty of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Such beauty can be found by meditating on Sacred Scripture, or it may be discovered in the Church through the beauty of her teachings, the example of her Saints, the dignity of her Sacred Liturgy. Many are the means that Christ uses to allow His beauty to be shown forth and the holy angels help us to make use of them. For they enlighten our minds, helping us to understand spiritual things in their spiritual light. The famous words of the Russian author, Dostoevsky, “It is beauty that will save us”, were said in reference to the redemptive beauty of Jesus Christ. It is the perception of this beauty which serves as the real impetus in the lives of the Saints. For it is the perception of beauty that draws us, moves us, as it were, wounds us with a wound of love.
The 14th Century, Byzantine-Orthodox theologian, Nicholas Cabasilas, spoke of the phenomena of being wounded by the beauty of Christ which leads to heroic virtue. He wrote in his book, The Life in Christ: “When men have a longing so great that it surpasses human nature, and eagerly desire and are able to accomplish things beyond human thought, it is the Bridegroom who has smitten them with this longing. It is He who has sent a ray of His beauty into their eyes. The greatness of the wound already shows the arrow which has struck home; the longing indicates who has inflicted the wound” (The Life in Christ, Bk. 2, ch. 15). In the same vein, St. Augustine, having been entranced by the vision of the true, eternal beauty of God, wrote of his conversion experience as a spiritual wounding of longing for God:
Thou didst call and cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odors and I drew in my breath; and now I pant for Thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace. (Bk. X, ch. 27)
St. John of the Cross says that this wound of love is effected in particular by the interior inspiration of the holy angels (cf. Spiritual Canticle, stanza 7). They communicate to men the indescribable grandeur of the attractiveness of the Divine Spouse. The angels communicate the lights of faith which allows us to see all things bathed in the loveliness of our Redeemer. In the Sanctus, the hymn which the Church sings at every Holy Mass expressly in union with the angels, she declares together with the angels that “the heavens and the earth are full of [God’s] glory”. In fact it is particularly by means of joining in the pure praise of God, together with the angels, that we can more perfectly hear the “heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament proclaim His handiwork” (Ps 19:1). For with the help of the angels we can discover the beauty of the Incarnate Word of God within creation.
In his poem, Joseph Plunket aptly expresses this same spiritual vision of creation:
I see His Blood upon the rose,And in the stars the glory of His eyes;His Body gleams amid eternal snows,His tears fall from the skies.I see His Face in every flower.The thunder and the singing of the birdsAre but His voice and, carven by His power,Rocks are His written words.All pathways by His feet are worn,His strong Heart stirs the ever beating sea,His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,His Cross is every tree.
The Beauty of the Man of Sorrows
As beautiful as are Christ’s teaching and the example of His life, there lies beyond them a most perfect manifestation of the beauty of God in the example of His suffering and death. It is indeed a strange incongruity that the ugliest event in human history should be the purest reflection of true spiritual beauty and indeed, the fountain from which all the beauty of the Church and her Saints flows. In a conference given in the year 2002, Pope Benedict XVI (then still Cardinal) said that each year he is struck by a certain paradox which occurs in the Liturgy of the Hours on Monday of Holy Week. Every four weeks, it is the custom of the Church to sing in Monday Evening Prayer, Psalm 44 (45) which describes the wedding of the King, his beauty, his virtues, his mission, as well as the loveliness of the Bride. The third verse of the Psalm in particular praises the beauty of the Bridegroom with the words: “You are the fairest of the children of men and grace is poured upon your lips”. On Monday of Holy Week, however, the Church adds to this very Psalm an antiphon taken from the prophecy of Isaiah: “He had neither beauty, nor majesty, nothing to attract our eyes, no grace to make us delight in him” (53:2).
Cardinal Ratzinger asked the question: “How can we reconcile this? The appearance of the ‘fairest of the children of men’ is so wretched that no one desires to look at Him. Pilate presented Him to the crowd saying: ‘Behold the man!’, to rouse sympathy for the crushed and battered Man, in whom no external beauty remained” (The Feeling of Things, the Contemplation of Beauty, August 24, 2002). This strong contrast, which seems to imply a contradiction between the perfect beauty of Jesus, the Son of God, and the Man of Sorrows, bereft of all beauty, touches upon the most profound and central truth which lies at the heart of our Catholic faith. To follow the logic of St. Paul, we can say “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength, and God’s ugliness is more beautiful than human beauty” (cf. 1 Cor 1:25). The Son of God became the visible image of the deformity of sin precisely to reveal the glorious beauty of His faithful love towards us.
It is with this vision of faith that St. Bernard interpreted the verse from the Canticle of Canticles: “My dove, hiding in the clefts of the rock, in the coverts of the cliff, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely” (Cant 2:14). In the expression “clefts of the rock”, St. Bernard saw represented the wounds of Christ. He wrote:
The secret of His Heart is laid open through the clefts of His Body; that mighty mystery of loving is laid open, laid open to the tender mercies of our God, in which the morning sun from on high has risen upon us. Surely His Heart is laid open through His wounds! Where more clearly than in His wounds does the evidence shine that You, Lord, ‘are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love’? No one shows greater mercy than He who lays down His life for those who are judged and condemned. (Commentary on Song of Songs, 61,4)
It is precisely in the perfect manifestation of God’s mercy that the Church can know for certain that “His voice is sweet and His Face is lovely”.
St. Bernard writes elsewhere: “The Church says: ‘I am wounded with love’. ...She sees the Father’s only Son carrying His cross. She sees the Author of Life and glory transfixed by nails, wounded by a lance, smeared with abuse and finally laying down His precious life for His friends. She sees these things and the sword of love pierces her soul more deeply.” Once more the mellifluous doctor shows how to see the entrancing loveliness of the Man of Sorrows ...

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read more here:

The Beauty at the Heart of Things

www.opusangelorum.org/English/beauty_at_heart.html

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Adorable Face of Thy Beloved Son

2009-05-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Adorable Face of Thy Beloved Son, for the honor and glory of Thy Name, for the conversion of sinners, and the salvation of the dying.

This chaplet was composed by Sister Saint-Pierre, a Carmelite of Tours. Saint Athanasius relates that the devils, on being asked what verse in the whole Scripture they feared the most, replied:"That with which the 67th Psalm commences:

'Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered.

Let them that hate Him flee from before His face.'"

They added that this always compelled them to take flight.
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Prayer of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus O Jesus, who in Thy bitter Passion didst become "the most abject of men, a man of sorrows", I venerate Thy Sacred Face whereon there once did shine the beauty and sweetness of the Godhead; but now it has become for me as if it were the face of a leper! Nevertheless, under those disfigured features, I recognize Thy infinite Love and I am consumed with the desire to love Thee and make Thee loved by all men. The tears which well up abundantly in Thy sacred eyes appear to me as so many precious pearls that I love to gather up, in order to purchase the souls of poor sinners by means of their infinite value. O Jesus, whose adorable face ravishes my heart, I implore Thee to fix deep within me Thy divine image and to set me on fire with Thy Love, that I may be found worthy to come to the contemplation of Thy glorious Face in Heaven. Amen.

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ROSARY IN HONOR OF THE SACRED FACE

[Uses Regular Rosary Beads]

Most Sacred Face, we call on You until You hear our prayers.
You are able to help us wonderfully, Holy God, Mighty God,
Holy Immortal God! Have mercy on us and on the whole world!
Turn Your Face towards us and we shall be saved!

At the large beads we pray:

Heavenly Father, humbly and fervently we offer You the infinite merits
and sufferings of the Sacred Face, His Precious Blood, all the wounds
and tears of Jesus, to Your greater Glory, for help in our great need!

At the small beads, instead of the Hail Mary, we pray:

FIRST DECADE

O Sacred Face, covered with wounds,
have mercy on us, who call on You!

SECOND DECADE

O Sacred Face, covered with blood,
have mercy on us who call on You!

THIRD DECADE

O Sacred Face, shedding tears with infinite Love,
have mercy on us who call on You!

FOURTH DECADE

O Sacred Face, despised and insulted,
have mercy on us who call on You!

FIFTH DECADE

O Sacred Face, silently bearing the most bitter pain,
have mercy on us who call on You!

Conclude:

Let us adore the Sacred Face of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our Savior, Whose merits are infinite and Whose mercy is fathomless. May He grant us the remission of our sins and true conversion. Let us console His Sacred Face by the purity of our lives, by fearless witness to our Faith and by the depth of our love! Amen.

Chaplet of the Holy Face
The purpose of the Crown or Chaplet of the Holy Face is to honor the Five Wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and to ask of God the triumph of His holy Church. This chaplet is composed of a cross and 39 beads: of these, 6 are large beads and 33 small ones: to this chaplet is attached a medal of the Holy Face. On the Cross, which reminds us of the mystery of our redemption, we begin the chaplet by saying the words: "Incline unto my aid, O God; O Lord make haste to help me. Glory be...." The 33 small beads represent the 33 years of the mortal life of our Divine Lord. The first 30 beads recall to us the 30 years of His hidden life, and are divided into 5 parts of 6 beads each, in honor of the senses of touch, hearing, sight, smell, and taste of Jesus, and, as they were situated principally in His Holy Face, to render reparative homage for all the sufferings which Our Lord has endured in His Face through each of these senses. Each 6 beads are preceded by a a large bead, followed by a Glory be to recall the sense we wish to honor. The 3 other beads mark the 3 years of the public life of Our Lord, and have for their intention to honor all the wounds of His adorable Face; there are also preceded by a large bead, to be followed by a Glory befor the same intention. On each large bead is said: "My Jesus Mercy." On the small beads is said: "Arise, O Lord! and let Thy enemies be scattered, and let them that hate Thee fly before Thy Face." The Glory be is recited 7 times in honor of the seven last words of Jesus upon the cross, and the Seven Dolours of the Immaculate Virgin.

The chaplet is concluded by saying on the medal:

"God, our Protector, look down upon us and cast Thine eyes upon the Face of Thy Christ."

How the Trinity is spoken of in the Lord's Prayer

2009-05-09T19:35:00.000-07:00

The Roots of Christian Mysticism (pg 62)...

Maximus the Confessor explains -

Our Father's name is Hallowed (given glory) through the Son.

His Kingdom comes about through the Actions of the Holy Spirit.

Thus the first three lines of the Our Father

proclaim the not only the origin of all in the Father,

but the saving action of the Son

and the sanctifying actions of the Holy Spirit.

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thanks to
theo6105.blogspot.com/2005/08/introduction-to-spiritual-theology.html

Daniel 11:31-32

2009-05-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

see also Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 Edition online

haydock1859.tripod.com/id320.html

<< Daniel 11 >>
Douay-Rheims Bible

1 And from the first year of Darius the Mede I stood up that he might be strengthened and confirmed.

2 And now I will shew thee the truth. Behold there shall stand yet three kings in Persia, and the fourth shall be enriched exceedingly above them all: and when he shall be grown mighty by his riches, he shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece.

3 But there shall rise up a strong king, and shall rule with great power: and he shall do what he pleaseth.

4 And when he shall come to his height, his kingdom shall be broken, and it shall be divided towards the four winds of the heaven: but not to his posterity, nor according to his power with which he ruled. For his kingdom shall be rent in pieces, even for strangers, beside these.
5 And the king of the south shall be strengthened, and one of his princes shall prevail over him, and he shall rule with great power: for his dominion shall be great.

6 And after the end of years they shall be in league together: and the daughter of the king of the south shall come to the king of the north to make friendship, but she shall not obtain the strength of the arm, neither shall her seed stand: and she shall be given up, and her young men that brought her, and they that strengthened her in these times.

7 And a plant of the bud of her roots, shall stand up: and he shall come with an army, and shall enter into the province of the king of the north: and he shall abuse them, and shall prevail.

8 And he shall also carry away captive into Egypt their gods, and their graven things, and their precious vessels of gold and silver: he shall prevail against the king of the north.

9 And the king of the south shall enter into the kingdom, and shall return to his own land.
10 And his sons shall be provoked, and they shall assemble a multitude of great forces: and he shall come with haste like a flood: and he shall return and be stirred up, and he shall join battle with his forces.

11 And the king of the south being provoked shall go forth, and shall fight against the king of the north, and shall prepare an exceeding great multitude, and a multitude shall be given into his hand. 12 And he shall take a multitude, and his heart shall be lifted up, and he shall cast down many thousands: but he shall not prevail.

13 For the king of the north shall return and shall prepare a multitude much greater than before: and in the end of times and years, be shall come in haste with a great army, and much riches.
14 And in those times many shall rise up against the king of the south, and the children of prevaricators of thy people shall lift up themselves to fulfil the vision, and they shall fall

15 And the king of the north shall come, and shall cast up a mount, and shall take the best fenced cities: and the arms of the south shall not withstand, and his chosen ones shall rise up to resist, and they shall not have strength.

16 And he shall come upon him and do according to his pleasure, and there shall be none to stand against his face: and he shall stand in the glorious land, and it shall be consumed by his hand.

17 And he shall set his face to come to possess all his kingdom, and he shall make upright conditions with him: and he shall give him a daughter of women, to overthrow it: and she shall not stand, neither shall she be for him.

18 And he shall turn his face to the islands, and shall take many: and he shall cause the prince of his reproach to cease, and his reproach shall be turned upon him.

19 And he shall turn his face to the empire of his own land, and he shall stumble, and fall, and shall not be found.
20 And there shall stand up in his place, one most vile, and unworthy of kingly honour: and in a few days he shall be destroyed, not in rage nor in battle.

21 And there shall stand up in his place one despised, and the kingly honour shall not be given him: and he shall come privately, and shall obtain the kingdom by fraud.

22 And the arms of the fighter shall be overcome before his face, and shall be broken; yea also the prince of the covenant.

23 And after friendships, he will deal deceitfully with him: and he shall go up, and shall overcome with a small people.

24 And he shall enter into rich and plentiful cities: and he shall do that which his fathers never did, nor his fathers' fathers: he shall scatter their spoils, and their prey, and their riches, and shall forecast devices against the best fenced places: and this until a time.

25 And his strength and his heart shall be stirred up against the king of the south with a great army: and the king of the south shall be stirred up to battle with many and very strong succours: and they shall not stand, for they shall form designs against him.

26 And they that eat bread with him, shall destroy him, and his army shall be overthrown: and many shall fall down slain.

27 And the heart of the two kings shall be to do evil, and they shall speak lies at one table, and they shall not prosper: because as yet the end is unto another time.

28 And he shall return into his land with much riches: and his heart shall be against the holy covenant, and he shall succeed and shall return into his own land.
29 At the time appointed he shall return, and he shall come to the south, but the latter time shall not be like the former.

30 And the galleys and the Romans shall come upon him, and he shall be struck, and shall return, and shall have indignation against the covenant of the sanctuary, and he shall succeed: and he shall return and shall devise against them that have forsaken the covenant of the sanctuary.

31 And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall defile the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the continual sacrifice, and they shall place there the abomination unto desolation.

32 And such as deal wickedly against the covenant shall deceitfully dissemble: but the people that know their God shall prevail and succeed.

33 And they that are learned among the people shall teach many: and they shall fall by the sword, and by fire, and by captivity, and by spoil for many days.

34 And when they shall have fallen they shall be relieved with a small help: and many shall be joined to them deceitfully.

35 And some of the learned shall fall, that they may be tried, and may be chosen, and made white even to the appointed time, because yet there shall be another time.
36 And the king shall do according to his will, and he shall be lifted up, and shall magnify himself against every god: and he shall speak great things against the God of gods, and shall prosper, till the wrath be accomplished. For the determination is made.

37 And he shall make no account of the God of his fathers: and he shall follow the lust of women, and he shall not regard any gods: for he shall rise up against all things.

38 But he shall worship the god Maozim in his place: and a god whom his fathers knew not, he shall worship with gold, and silver, and precious stones, and things of great price.

39 And he shall do this to fortify Maozim with a strange god, whom he hath acknowledged, and he shall increase glory and shall give them power over many, and shall divide the land gratis.
40 And at the time prefixed the king of the south shall fight against him, and the king of the north shall come against him like a tempest, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with a great navy, and he shall enter into the countries, and shall destroy, and pass through.

41 And he shall enter into the glorious land, and many shall fall: and these only shall be saved out of his hand, Edom, and Moab, and the principality of the children of Ammon.

42 And he shall lay his hand upon the lands: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.

43 And he shall have power over the treasures of gold, and of silver, and all the precious things of Egypt: and he shall pass through Libya, and Ethiopia.

44 And tidings out of the east, and out of the north shall trouble him: and he shall come with a great multitude to destroy and slay many.

45 And he shall fix his tabernacle Apadno between the seas, upon a glorious and holy mountain: and he shall come even to the top thereof, and none shall help him.

Consecration to Jesus Christ, King of the Universe - Louisa Picaretta

2009-05-04T08:43:00.000-07:00

Oh Jesus, King of kings, God of Goodness, God of Love, God of Mercy, I adore, I love, I thank, I glorify Your Most Holy Will emanating from Your Omnipotence, guided by Your Wisdom, accompanied by Your Goodness and Love. Everywhere and in every time, be it either in joy or in pain, may Your Most Holy Will, Your Divine Love, be the star that I gaze at, the law that governs me, the air that I breathe, the heartbeat of my heart, the substance or, better, the Life of my life. To such an end, I unite all my prayers and actions to Yours, all my life to Yours, as well as to that of the Virgin Mother, of Saint Joseph and of all the Elect that have been, are now and shall ever be, with all good, past, present and future which is real and possible in Heaven and on earth.I consecrate and give all myself, what I have, what I am, what pertains tome, what is dear to me, my life, my death, my eternity, all that You have created and will create by Your Supreme Volition, by Your Infinite Love. And I pray You, oh Infinite Wisdom, to inscribe me with indelible characters in Your adorable Heart as the ardent and zealous child of Your Divine Volition, of Your pure Love. I make this donation in the Power of the Father, in the Wisdom of the Son, in the Virtue of the Holy Spirit, in my name, and in the name of all creatures to obtain the advent and the expansion of the Kingdom of the Divine Will, of Your Divine Love upon the earth. For pity's sake, oh my Lord, grant that from every lip and from every heart there may continually be raised, as from a sacred altar, the prayer that You, Yourself, as the first, addressed to the Father,

"YOUR KINGDOM COME! YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN."
AMEN.

Reading - Conference on Our Lady by Fr. Chad Ripperger, F.S.S.P., Ph.D.

2009-04-25T06:08:00.000-07:00

Day of Recollection given 12/8/98 at Lincoln

Topics include Our Lady's most intimate relationship to the Blessed Trinity, Our Lady's Service to God and our devotion to the B.V.M.

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Our Lady’s Most Intimate Relation with the Blessed Trinity
Conference Lincoln
December 8th, 1998

I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush
thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. [Gen. 3:17]

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear
a son and his name shall be called Emmanuel. [Isaiah7:15]

From the very beginning, before God created the heavens and the earth, the Second Person
of the Most Holy Trinity beheld in His Heart the vision of His Mother. With an infinite love, He
waited for the day in which He could bestow on her existence and life. So profound is His love for
her, that He could not wait to tell all of mankind of her coming. Immediately after Adam and Eve
had fallen, He predicted her coming in the proto-evangelium, i.e.

the promising of the coming of the Messiah from a woman

who would be Satan’s constant enemy. Throughout the Old Testament,
there are little indications that God was preparing the world

for the coming of a creature who would
be the pinnacle of His creation in the supernatural order.

While this creature being of humble nature,
would, nevertheless, rule the heavens and the earth. So great is God’s love for Our Lady, that He
bestowed on her a holy virginity and by a singular miracle

so deigned that she would not lose that
virginity even though should would bare a Son.
In the Cloisters in New York, there exists a set of tapestries which depicts a Unicorn which
represents the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Who no one could tame. So men in
desperation, called upon the aid of a virgin who would coax the Unicorn into being captured. This
depiction in these tapestries tells us of how man could not

persuade Our Lord to become man until
the Blessed Virgin was born. God so loved Our Lady that in seeing her grace, God decided that
finally there was creature that was a fitting dwelling for Him. He looked upon her with such love
for here was a creature that never possessed any guile or evil will;

who never once violated even the
slightest of His commandments or precepts;

who exhibited such reverence and piety in His eyes that
He was moved to make her His tabernacle.
When we reflect upon how much God loved Our Lady, we begin to see the basis for the most
intimate relationship He chose to have with her. When she was immaculately conceived, God chose 2 to preserve Our Lady from any stain of sin.

While He allowed her to suffer the physical effects of
Original Sin, never once did she suffer the moral effects

of Original Sin. She never once committed
even a venial sin; she never once harbored even

the slightest thought against charity or purity;

she never once had a single inordinate desire or inclination.

Perfection and total beauty were her
companions all the days of her life.

Since sanctifying grace is the created participation in divine
nature and since Our Lady was full of grace,

it is clear that Our Lord wished to bestow on her

“every grace and blessing.”

God Who is Goodness Itself so loved Our Lady

that He wished that she should
be like Him and so He spared her not a single grace.
Throughout the course of her life,

Our Lady was taught by St. Anne the precepts of Our Lord
and how she burned with desire to keep them.

Like the Psalmist, God’s commands and His Laws
became the object of her mediation and joy.

Throughout her life, God moved her to heights of
contemplation and prayer unseen since the time of

Adam and Eve; for she walked and talked in the
presence of her Lord.

Her life of prayer provided a most intimate life with her Lord

until it came time for her marriage.
Our Lord chose a most just man, St. Joseph, to be the earthly spouse of Our Lady.

But God’s intentions were far deeper than even St. Joseph initially knew.

God so loved Our Lady that He
Himself chose to be the heavenly Spouse of Our Lady.

When the angel of the Lord appeared to Mary
and asked her if she would bear the Son of God, God was, in effect, asking her to be His Spouse.
Our Lady at first to not fully grasp that this meant that

God Himself would be the Father of the Child
she would bear and, consequently,

the Holy Ghost and Our Lady would be bound in a mystical
marriage.

We read in St. John of the Cross that those who

reach the highest levels of perfection are
given in a mystical form of marriage in which

God gives Himself to the person. This means that like
all marriage, it can only end in death.

But since God’s mystical marriage is to the soul of the person,
once the person is mystically married to God, then the marriage will last forever.

In theology, we call this conservation in grace.

It means that before the mystical marriage
of Our Lady with God, she was only preserved in grace,

i.e. kept from committing sin.

But once she accepted the mystical marriage of Our Lord,

then the Spouse of Our Lady, i.e. Holy Ghost,

came to dwell with her.

Just as those who marry in this life and cohabitate together,

so the Holy Ghost came to overshadow or live with Our Lady.

It meant that just as in marriage we give bodily rights over
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to our spouse, so too did the Holy Ghost accept absolute bodily rights over Our Lady.

This is why He preserved her virginity.

For her virginity was a sign that Our Lady’s body was to be His alone;
not only because it would be the tabernacle of Christ,

but because only He had rights over her body.
This meant that her virginity would never be compromised.

It also meant that Our Lady was entitled to the name of the Holy Ghost.

It is the teaching of St. Maximilian Kolby that the reason Our Lady

said at Lourdes to St. Bernadette “I am the Immaculate Conception”

rather than “I was immaculately conceived”:

is because the real immaculate conception is the Holy Ghost.

For within the life of the Blessed Trinity,

God the Father and God the Son so loved each other,

that like husband and wife, they spirated a Third Person.

This “conception” if you will, within the Blessed Trinity is nothing else than

the love the Second Person and the First Person of the Trinity

have for each other.

In other words, the Holy Ghost is Pure Love Itself

and this Pure Love would become the Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

So much did God love Our Lady
that He desired that she become the spouse of His Very Own Love.

The Holy Ghost is then in the proper sense THE Immaculate Conception.

But since Our Lady had become the Holy Ghost’s
mystical spouse, that meant she was entitled to His Name.

The Immaculate Conception not only refers to the fact that Our Lady

was conceived without Original Sin, it also refers to her new name
as the spouse of the Holy Ghost.

And what more would be appropriate, for the fact that she was
conceived without Original Sin meant she was conceived

in the state of grace and grace is nothing
other than an indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the soul

So we see that she in whom the Holy Ghost took up His dwelling

by grace should also be she to whom the Holy Ghost would be mystically married.

Just as we engage in courtship before our marriages, so did the Holy Ghost dwell with Our
Lady before His Mystical marriage with her through sanctifying grace.

And just as in this world no greater union can two have than through marriage,

so too can no one have a greater union with Our Lord than Our Lady

to whom the first and greatest mystical marriage occurred.

Moreover, just as in any earthly marriage, children are the proper offspring

of their love, so too when Our Lady was mystically married

to the Holy Ghost did she bear offspring.

But not just any offspring, the Offspring of God,

i.e. Jesus Christ Who is fully God and fully man.

When in earthly marriages the woman is with child,

if her husband be a man of virtue, his joy and love of his
wife increases for there is now a new bond, viz. their new offspring,

so too, is it with Our Lady. For once she became the mother of Our Lord,

the Holy Ghost took even greater pleasure and joy in her.

When a new bride is first married, her joy is very great

and she thinks and reflects often of her new
husband and the little favors he does for her gives her no end of joy.

Our Lady, likewise, thought continually of God and the good things

He had done to her;

for the Magnificat of Our Lady is like
the conversation of an earthly bride

with a friend about her new husband.

She recounts the little things her new husband has done for her

and so too Our Lady recounts to Elizabeth the great things
God has done to her.

But notice that Elizabeth, moved by the Holy Ghost, declares that Our Lady
is the mother of her Lord which is a sign that

St. Elizabeth is declaring the mystical marriage
between Our Lord and Our Lady;

for she knows that for those of virtue as Our Lady is,

are never with child out of wedlock and so

Our Lady must be mystically married to Our Lord.

According to St. John of the Cross, mystical marriage occurs

when the person has reached the highest level of prayer

called the transforming union.

The transforming union is a form of prayer
in which the person has a non-stop mystical experience of God’s presence.

How fitting it is that Our Lady should, upon the mystical marriage

with her Spouse the Holy Ghost, likewise experience this level of prayer.

An earthly husband hates to leave his new wife

and while working he longs to be home keeping his wife company.

So too is it with God; for once He took Mary as His mystical bride,

she remained in His company through the prayer of transforming union.

Never did God leave her.

So great was the intimacy between Our Lord and Our Lady

that neither of them could stand to
be out of the presence of each other.

When an earthly husband takes leave of his wife in order to go away on a business trip or
when he needs to do something which causes him to be away from his wife for a while,

he does not
abandon her. No, he sets about ensuring that everything she needs is provided for and if there is
something which must be done while he is gone and his wife cannot do it, he arranges for another
man to come and tend to the material affairs so that his wife will be provided for.

Here we see the
Blessed Trinity ensuring that the Blessed Virgin would be taken care of by St. Joseph who was a
good and just man, who worked hard to provide well for Our Lord and Our Lady.
Like all virtuous men, he respects the marriage of the woman that he must take care of and
here we see why Our Lord not only appeared to St. Joseph to

tell him that Our Lady was with Child
by the power of the Holy Ghost, but also to indicate to him

that there is a special connection between
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the Holy Ghost and Our Lady. St. Joseph had to have known that his relationship with Our Lady
would not be one of a normal man and wife. Rather, he had to know

that he was the earthly adoptive
father to whom Our Lord would be committed and to whom the wife of the Holy Ghost would be
entrusted. We are not certain of how much St. Joseph knew,

but I suspect that given the perfection
and virtuousness of Our Lady as well as her constant recollection as a result of the transforming
union, that he had some sort of knowledge of the constant

and intimate relationship Our Lord had with Our Lady.

As Jesus grew “in wisdom and grace before God and man” Our Lady’s intimate relationship
with God continued. But aside from a few instances of Mary’s presence in the Gospels, Our Lady
tends to fall into the back ground so that Her Son may

take the place that is rightfully His. But there
comes a time when Our Lady is in the midst of the most important act of all time, i.e. the Passion
and Death of Our Lord. There are several reasons

Our Lady was present; the first and most obvious
is that she represents the Church which St. Paul paints as a bride to Christ, i.e. to God, for she
represents the Church at the foot of the cross from which

the blessings of salvation flow. Moreover,
Our Lord desired that the final sword shall pass indicating that

since she is the co-redemptrix with
Christ the Redeemer, she ought to under go the Passion with her Son. But there is more.
The suffering of Our Lady was so intense, not only because Jesus was her Son, but also, by
virtue of God’s constant presence throughout Her Life, she knew

how serious and grave an act it was
to commit deicide, i.e. the killing of Jesus Christ who was God.

She who experienced the goodness
of God throughout the entire duration of Her Life beheld with

her eyes and, in the end, held with her
arms the Source of all goodness, joy, happiness and end of all men,

i.e. the body which was joined
to God Himself. How could she not suffer in seeing the tremendous beauty of the Son of God
reduced to a scourged, whipped and crucified Body.

How much clearer can the vileness, wickedness
and malice of man be more clearly seen? Indeed.

What a suffering it is to behold such evil and
malice in light of the constant goodness she knew being in

God’s most intimate presence. Yet, what
joy she must have known when Christ resurrected!

And when Our Lord ascended into heaven, she
must have burned with desire to see Our Lord Face to face.

While Christ was gone, Our Lady knew
she must stay behind to give testimony to the fact that Jesus

was Who the Apostles said He was
because she was His Mother.
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We do not know for certain if the Blessed Virgin died or not. If she did die, the Church is
very clear to point out that her body suffered no form of corruption. For how could it? It was the
tabernacle of God Himself! It was joined to the most pure of all the created souls! But the Church
also teaches that whether we believe she died or not,

it is a fact of history that she was assumed, body
and soul, into heaven. At last, she was in the full company of Her Spouse. At last, nothing was
hidden and at last their intimacy was perfect and complete.
It was at this time that God gave her the place which He had destined for her from before the
world began, viz. that of Queen of Heaven and Earth.

It seems to me that by her being the Queen
of heaven this actually has two meanings. The first is that she now rules over all of those present
in heaven and earth save God alone.

But it also means that she has a special relationship with God
Himself for she is His Queen as well. Not that she rules over Him in anyway, but that she is the
heavenly consort of the King of Heaven. In heaven, no other person, no angel, no creature has as
intimate relationship with God as Mary. Even the angels marvel at their relationship. There is no
good, no grace, no blessing which God does not give her. In fact, every grace God gives to us He
first gives to her. Just as an earthly husband seeks to please his wife,

so too does Our Lord seek to
please Our Lady by giving her everything and denying her nothing.
What a special grace it is for us to be able to even contemplate the wonder of their most
intimate relationship. How in awe we ought to reflect how God has given Himself so intimately to
Our Lady and how she, like her Divine Spouse, never denied God anything. For how can two who
love each other so perfectly and so intensely ever deny

each other anything. Mary, Queen conceived
without original sin, pray for us.

Mary, Spouse of the Holy Ghost, pray for us.
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Our Lady’s Service to God
Conference Lincoln
December 8th, 1998
In our reflection of the most intimate relationship between Our Lady and Our Lord, we
cannot help but realize what a profound love Our Lord had for Our Lady. But the relationship was
not one sided, for we see through the Gospels that the Blessed Virgin likewise had a profound love
for Our Lord. Our Lord said when He was on this earth that “if you love me, keep my
commandments” (John 14:15) and Mary, as we mentioned before, never once broke a single
commandment of Our Lord. Never once did she even think a thought contrary to justice, charity or
purity and it is in this that we know that Our Lady kept the commandments, not only because God
preserved her from violating them, but because she loved God deeply and abhorred even the thought
of sin. Mary’s love for God, again, as we see in the Gospels, plays itself out over the course of her
life. We know that if someone loves someone, they do everything they can to please that person and
this is the story of Our Lady’s life: to please God in every moment, in every thought and in every
action.
Clearly, sanctifying grace is that which makes us pleasing to Our Lord and at the very
moment she was conceived, God infused in her soul sanctifying grace which made her most pleasing
to Him. We do not know much about Our Lady prior to the angelic salutation but tradition has it that
she was an exemplary child. St. Elizabeth and St. Zachary must have marveled at her wisdom and
demeanor as a child; how she never fought what they asked, how she always submitted to them in
her love for God. We know through tradition that Mary had a particular love and facility of grasp
of the Ten Commandments and that she had studied the Judaic law. Throughout her life, she served
Our Lord in prayer by never neglecting her obligation to pray which is part of the 3rd Commandment
as well as the virtue of religion. She lived an exemplary Jewish life which must have been one of
the things that attracted St. Joseph to her.
They always tell seminarians in protecting their vocation that a beautiful girl is never the one
to worry about, rather it is the virtuous one. For a virtuous man sees the good of her virtue and is
attracted to it. So too must it have been for St. Joseph in seeing not only her uncomparable earthly
beauty but also the magnificence of her moral and spiritual beauty, i.e. her virtuousness and holiness
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of life. We may ask ourselves why other men did not find her attractive. My suspicion is that some
did but I also believe that they had a certain fear of Our Lady. It seems to me that men who do not
lead good lives may find a virtuous woman attractive, but part of a virtuous woman’s make up is that
she tolerates very little nonsense. She loves holiness and virtuousness and will expect the same
desire in her husband. Men would have avoided Our Lady just as the doers of evil avoid the doers
of goodness, just as creatures of darkness avoid the light; so too men who did not lead lives of grace
would have avoided and feared Our Lady. But not so with St. Joseph; for he was a most righteous
and upright man, a man of justice and holiness. Like St. John the Baptist, it is believed that St.
Joseph was conceived in Original Sin but was sanctified in the womb of his mother. He lead a life
of holiness and virtuousness himself and upon the acceptance of Mary as his wife at the command
of Our Lord in his dream, upon that acceptance he was from that moment on preserved in sanctifying
grace. So when St. Joseph beheld the holiness, virtuousness and Mary’s incomparable earthly
beauty, he must have been moved with a profound sense of love for her. Perhaps this is why his
respect for her throughout his life was unimaginable.
Once he knew that That Which was in the womb of Our Lady was conceived by the Holy
Ghost, he could never see her as completely his own. His esteem for her only grew throughout their
life together and in reverence and awe, he must have beheld her. For he knew, that no other creature
had been given over so completely to Our Lord and no other creature had been deigned fit to be
called into the service of Our Lord as the person in whose womb God’s Son would dwell. St. Joseph
must have known that Our Lady’s role in salvation history was pivotal and so, as a faithful and just
Jew, he would respect the mother of all mothers, viz. the mother of the Messiah Himself.
This calling into service of Our Lord which Our Lady accepted was a sign of her perfect
submission to Her Divine spouse. She not only had an intimate relationship with her Divine Spouse,
but she also served her Divine Spouse and never once disobeyed Him. She always sought to know
His Holy Will so that she could set about fulfilling it in her daily life. When the angel of the Lord
was sent to Our Lady and spoke of God’s wondrous plans, she questioned the angel, not because she
disbelieved, but because she was perplexed about how what he said would come about. The angel
then informs her of God’s plan to take her as His Spouse and she, like a perfect slave, submits to the
plan of Her Master. Part of Our Lady’s perplexity has to do with the fact that “she knew no man”
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as Scripture says, which ultimately means that she never had violated the precepts of Our Lord
regarding conjugal relations. Moreover, even though she was espoused to St. Joseph, they had not
married and consequently, she did not know how God’s plan was to come about.
But tradition seems to have provided even more of a back ground. According to Holy
Tradition, it was believed that Our Lady had taken a private vow of celibacy. In recent years, modern
Scripture scholars mocked the idea, pointing to fact that at that time, the Jewish women knew that
the Messiah was due to come. And so no Jewish woman in her right mind would have taken a vow
of celibacy because she would have thereby eliminated herself as a possible mother of the Messiah.
Moreover, they argued that the Jews did not have a rite of celibacy, i.e. they do not take vows of
celibacy. But the findings of Qumran have demonstrated that just before and during the time of
Christ, the Essenes (a group of very conservative Jews) had a vow of celibacy. Consequently, it is
entirely possible that Our Lady would have taken the vow since it is believed that both her and Christ
may have had some contact with the Essenes. Moreover, it was believed that Our Lady took the vow
as a sign of her complete dedication to God. Just as today priests and nuns take a vow of celibacy
so that they can give themselves entirely to God and His Work, so too did Our Lady take a vow so
that she would be able to give herself completely to God and to no one else. What then of St.
Joseph’s betrothal? It is also believed according to pious tradition that St. Joseph was aware of Our
Lady’s vow and had no intention of violating it. We now understand a bit why Our Lady was even
more perplexed because even though she was betrothed to St. Joseph, there was no intention for
conjugal relations.
But in perfect submission to Her Divine Spouse, Our Lady said those most glorious words
every heard since the time of Adam and Eve “be done unto me according to thy word.” Unlike Eve
who had eaten the apple and then sought to convince her husband, i.e she tried to control and
dominate him and God since she had already been infected by sin, Mary never once tried to dominate
Her Divine Spouse. Mary’s submission to her Spouse, as St. Paul, moved by divine inspiration, calls
on all women to do, was perfect. She did not try to make the relationship with her Spouse on her
terms as Eve had done. She did not try to manipulate Him as Eve had done. She knew from the
depths of her soul that her relationship with God must be one HIS terms. Like all religion, like any
creature who will ultimately be saved, the way we worship God, the way we serve God is not ours
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to determine but God’s. Perhaps this is why religion has taken such a beating in the last few decades
because man thinks he can serve God the way he wants rather than the way God wants. And perhaps
this is why there is little love for Our Lady these days because she, above all other creatures,
demonstrated by her entire life that service to God is on God’s terms. It is God’s place to determine
how and when we will serve Him. This is why Mary is the anti-type of Eve, for Eve thought she
would determine her relationship with God, whereas Mary knew and submitted to the fact that her
relationship with God was on God’s terms. Why else would she say “I am the Handmaid of the
Lord.” In other words, I am God’s servant, I know my place, and any service He asks of me, in
perfect humility, I submit to.
In one act of submission to God, she entered into the most perfect form of service of God and
man the world had ever seen. But her service was not over, it was merely raised to a new level. For
nine months she carried Our Lord in Her womb. Her very body, her very self was the instrument of
her service to Him. And unlike all of us, as soon as Mary submits and then knows that she is the
Mother of God, she does not go around blabbing it like an old hen in a gossip session. No what does
she do? She tells no one and she immediately rises to go to St. Elisabeth for two reasons. The first
is to confirm that St. Elisabeth is pregnant but more so, as the Scripture tell us, to stay and help her.
Remember, St. Elizabeth is of advanced years and so her pregnancy must have been more difficult
than normal since she would not have the energy to take care of the household duties while she is
getting close to term. Consequently, Our Lady stays with St. Elizabeth as an act of service.
Imagine that! The woman who has God in her womb comes and cleans your house! We
should feel shame at such a thought of Our Lady cleaning our house because we know that we are
completely unworthy of such a thing. St. Elizabeth should have been cleaning Mary’s house! But
that was not God’s Will; for it was necessary for all to see that Mary’s truthfulness about what God
had done to her as we see in the Magnificat was in fact attested to by Our Lady’s perfect humility.
If she, as the mother of God, was asked by Our Lord to clean St. Elizabeth’s house, then that is what
God will get. For humility, that virtue by which we willingly live in accordance with the truth, gave
testimony to God’s presence. For God does not work among the proud but the humble alone, and
so it was a testimony to God’s working in Mary that she would submit to such humble work.
Which should be a moment of joy and hope on our part. For often we are beset by the
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temptation of the evil one who tries to get us not to ask Our Lady for certain things, especially small
things, because we feel that we are not worthy of it and that we cannot ask Our Lady to tend to such
menial things. But this is completely false, for we see that Our Lady wants to take care of our every
need regardless of how small, just as she did for St. Elizabeth. Granted we are completely unworthy,
but Our Lady, from the very beginning of her motherhood, was prepared and become accustomed
to serving man for the sake of God in ways which are, at times, on the scale of things rather
insignificant and unimportant. Moreover, she knew that we must always serve even those who are
unworthy of our services, for it is what God desires.
After St. Elizabeth has St. John, Mary returns home and now there is a problem. Because
Mary behaves in an opposite fashion to Eve, she does not avoid certain problems. But then again,
because she does not behave like Eve, God takes care of her. In other words, when Eve first ate the
apple, what was the first thing she did? She started talking and blabbing to Adam. She sweet talks
her husband into doing something he should not do and all of which is driven out of her new found
pride resulting from her sin. Eve was asked not to eat of the tree and disobeyed, Mary was asked to
bring the Man who would hang upon the Tree and she obeyed. Mary did not, like Eve, get puffed
up with pride and go blabbing, rather she submitted in humility and silence to the will of Our Lord.
Consequently, she did not tell St. Joseph before she left to see St. Elizabeth and so when she returns
St. Joseph is unaware of the circumstances and thinks he must put her away quietly since she is with
child. Had Adam put his wife away quietly, we would not be in the mess were are in. But St. Joseph
was not to do what Adam was supposed to, rather he was to accept his betrothed and her new
condition. Mary said nothing and was willing to accept the humiliation.. But deep down the words
of the Angel echoed in her ears that the power of the Most High will overshadow her and so she
knew God would take care of the situation. So indeed He did, He made sure that St. Joseph knew
what His Will was and what had happened. The story of Adam and Eve and St. Joseph and Mary
are complete opposites, for Eve fell and talked to Adam and he listened to her rather than God. Mary
became with child, St. Joseph thought of putting her away but accepted her not because of what she
said, for she said nothing, but because he listened to God.
Mary is then betrothed to St. Joseph and she carries Her Son to term. She gives birth to Her
Son and for the first twelve years we do not know too much of what happened. We know that they
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had to flee and that Our Lady acted in perfect submission to St. Joseph by doing as he asked. She
later returned with St. Joseph at his behest. Notice, that God knows that Our Lady will do what St.
Joseph asks. Our Lord does not appear to Our Lady and tell her to return, he tells St. Joseph because
He knows that Mary will follow the right order set up by the Natural Law and do what her husband
asks of Her. Again in a spirit of perfect submission and service, she does what she is asked. She
does not argue with St. Joseph but sets about doing what God has asked through her husband. And
God Himself is following the order which He set up, by informing the head of the household, viz.
the husband, so that the household will do His Will.
Our Lady then serves God by raising His Son. She feeds Him, clothes Him, does everything
necessary to bring Him to the age in which He shall leave her to do His Father’s Will. The next time
we see Our Lady’s service is in her search for Jesus when she and St. Joseph think He is lost but He
is actually in the temple. We see this is a sign of Our Lady’s commitment to being a good parent and
to be a good parent you must put the needs of your child before your own needs and wants, and so
she does that. The Gospel writers do not tell us much about Our Lady until it comes time for the
wedding at Cana.
At Cana, the bride and groom miscalculate how much wine to have around and so Our Lady
driven out of compassion for them, goes to Christ knowing that He is capable of straightening the
situation out. Our Lady tells Christ of the needs of the couple which tells us a great deal about the
relationship between Mary and Jesus. First, Mary seems to be in the habit of merely indicating what
must be done. She does not really put it in the form of a question, not because she is demanding, but
because she knows that her Son will never deny her anything. So as Jesus grew up, she merely had
to tell Him what was to be done and like an obedient child, He would do it. This also tells us
something about Her service to us. In other words, Mary is the intercessor between man and God.
We see that this is the case by the very fact that she goes to intercede for the married couple at Cana;
we also know that God will never deny her anything.
Christ says in return “woman, what is it to me and thee?” Not because He is telling her “no,”
but because it is a sign that some times things which God would not bother with or which He
normally would not grant, He will grant them, if Our Lady asks. This gives support to St. Louis De
Montfort’s teaching that a single sigh from Our Lady is more powerful than all the martyrdoms,
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prayers, sacrifices and good works of all the saints combined. For God may deny all the saints a
request, but He will never deny Our Lady anything. So what happens, Our Lady then turns to the
stewards and tells them the principle of her entire life and being, “do what ever He tells you.” For
the entire duration of her existence, she has done nothing but what God has told her to do.
Consequently, if we are to be like Our Lady, we must do as she does, viz. whatever God tells us.
Moreover, we must recognize that if we are going to press Our Lady into service for us by asking
for something from God, we must be prepared to do whatever God asks in return. Very often we will
ask Our Lord and Our Lady for something and we beg and beg for it and finally they give it to us and
then we complain because what they gave entails work, sacrifice, tribulations and difficulties. The
stewards, then, act the way Our Lady did at the Annunciation. The minute God asked Our Lady to
do something, she said yes and she did it. Moreover, she immediately got up and went to be of
service to St. Elizabeth. The stewards listen to the words of Christ and do what they are asked and
as a result the miracle takes place. We do not hear too much about Our Lady again until it comes
time for the Passion.
If Mary is to continue to serve man even after her Assumption into heaven, it is most fitting
that she be present for the Passion and Death of Our Lord. In other words, one of the reasons God
will deny nothing to Our Lady now is the fact that she stood by Him during His darkest hour. God
would never turn to Mary and say, why should I give you what you ask, you abandoned Me at My
darkest hour. No, if she was to be the Queen of Heaven and Earth, if Mary was to be the Mediatrix
of All Grace, i.e. the one standing between God and man, then she must stand at the foot of the Cross
next to the Mediator Himself, Jesus Christ the Eternal High Priest. She can lay claim to the title of
the Mediatrix between man and God because she participated in the suffering and death of Christ
the Mediator.
By standing at the foot of the Cross, she suffered tremendously. But she stood their willingly,
again, because it was something God asked her to do. Perhaps one of the reasons I have a particular
fondness for the Pieta by Michelangelo, is because of the expression on the face of Our Lady. It is
not the expression of uncontrollable blubbering as some depict her. It is not an indifference as others
have depicted her. No, it is the depiction of Our Lady the way it should be; for Our Lady was a
woman of tremendous virtue who wept the tears of a mother who has lost her Son. The statue
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depicts Our Lady as having completed all of the suffering, by her surrendering everything she is and
everything she has to God. Her face is the face of someone who can cry no more because she has
already lamented in the depths of her soul. No the statue depicts Our Lady as someone who is
completely emotionally exhausted. Our Lady served God so perfectly that she, like the Body of
Christ placed in her arms, could give no more. Just as we who after hard work become exhausted
or after the death of a loved one reach a point in which we are an emotionally exhausted, so too Our
Lady stood their, holding the Body of the Only Begotten Son of God the Father, in complete and
absolute desolation.
Man had killed God! Like Adam and Eve before them who killed the indwelling of God in
their soul by mortal sin, these men had ended the dwelling of God among men. Like all murderous
generations after Adam and Eve, man had laid waste to the work of God. Not only was Our Lady
emotional exhausted because her Son was dead, but also because she experienced the profound evil
deep in the heart of man affected by Original Sin. She who once held Goodness Itself in her arms,
now held a lifeless Body. There is a certain acceptance by those mothers whose sons are killed
because they have committed evil. But to Mary, she experienced what it meant to see Her Son killed
for doing what was right. Her Son was killed Who never committed a sin, who was Justice Itself,
and yet, He was to undergo an act of injustice. We would tend to get angry and seek vengeance, but
not Our Lady. She held the Lifeless Body of Her Son in her arms in total surrender. For as they have
killed her Son, they have, in a way, killed her. The whole reason for her existence, her life, the joy
of her life, the source of all the truth she knew, everything she held dear, lay lifeless in her arms. It
is as if the entire book of Lamentations by Jeremiah was written as he gazed upon the sight of Our
Lady holding Jesus’ lifeless Body: “Weeping she hath wept in the night, and her tears are on her
cheeks: there is none to comfort her among all them that were dear to her” (Lam.1:2). “And from the
daughter of Sion all her beauty is departed” (Lam. 1:6). “Therefore do I weep, and my eyes run down
with water: because the comforter, the relief of my soul, is far from me” (Lam.1:16). “My eyes have
failed with weeping, my bowels are poured out upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter
of my people” (Lam. 2:11) “Their heart cried to the Lord upon the walls of the daughter of Sion: Let
tears run down like a torrent day and night: give thyself no rest” (Lam.2:18).
With psychological, emotional and physical exhaustion and agony, Our Lady accompanies
15
the men to the tomb. As an act of charity, St. Joseph of Arimathaea places Christ’s Body in the tomb
he had intended for himself. As Christ was wrapped in the burial shroud, many thought that this
would be the last time Our Lady would gaze upon the Body of Her Son. She departs with the rest;
it is over, it is done. Her own death to self is complete and with Christ in spirit, she lays in the tomb
with His Body.
For three days she suffers interior death but upon the rising of Our Lord, her joy knows no
bounds. We do not hear much again about Our Lady. Pius tradition tells us that she was present at
the decent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles. It also tells us that afterwards she lived with St.
John until it came time for her to take her Role as Queen of Heaven and Earth. Once she became
Our Beloved Queen, her service grew to such an extent that she became the Mediatrix of All Graces.
Every grace you have ever received or will receive will come from the hands of Our Lady. No
greater service can any mere creature render to Her God. Our Lady of Jesus Christ Crucified, pray
for us. Queen of Heaven and Earth, pray for us.
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Our Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary
Conference Lincoln
December 8th, 1998
In reflecting on the most intimate relationship Our Lady has with Our Lord and considering
the most perfect response of Our Lady in the service to God, we ought to be moved to a profound
devotion to her. We must always remember, however, that devotion is not based on emotion, even
though some emotions may accompany it. Rather, “devotion consists...essentially in the promptness
of the will to serve God, namely, to subordinate our whole life to His Glory and desires” (Parente,
Dictionary of Dogmate Theology, p. 76). Our devotion to Our Lady must first and foremost be an
imitation of her devotion to God. We have already mentioned Mary’s perfect service and complete
willingness to do anything that God asked whatsoever. We also mentioned the fact that when Our
Lady intervened on behalf of those at the Wedding at Cana, she told the steward to “do whatever He
tells you” which is an incitement of the steward to devotion to Our Lord. This willingness to always
do the Holy Will of God is a disposition most pleasing to Our Lord and He tends to bestow great
graces on those who foster this disposition.
A proud man is not capable of devotion, because a proud man has his own concerns at the
foremost of his mind and heart. Whereas, the humble man, the person who imitates the profound
humility of Our Lady, recognizes his place as a creature totally dependent on God for everything and
consequently, he will do whatever God asks. This is why it is very important for us to study the life
of Mary because by doing so we see those virtues and dispositions which we are capable of imitating
them and therefore advance in holiness. The more we become like Our Lady, the more we are made
over into her image, the more God will be pleased with us. And is this not the way it should be?
For the reason Our Lady is most pleasing to Our Lord is because she is a most perfect image of Her
Son who is justice itself. Justice is not only the virtue by which we render to someone his due, it is
also that thing which makes us “right” or “good” in the eyes of God. One of Mary’s titles is “Mirror
of Justice” because Christ who is Justice Itself since He is God, is perfectly reflected in Our Lady.
Devotion to Our Lady ought to be of such a sort that it never stops with her. Just as we do not look
at a mirror for the sake of inspecting or looking at the mirror itself but to see what is reflected, so too
is devotion to Our Lady like a spiritual mirror, if you will, in which we look to see all the glory and
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wonders of God as it is reflected through her. Her only choice of words at the Magnificat indicate
to us that she is something which the divine image somehow passes through. She said “my soul
magnifies the Lord,” and the reason she said it was because God’s Own Intrinsic Glory is perfect and
complete in itself and God needs no creature for His Own Glory. But by creating, God’s Glory was
extended outside of Himself and Mary who is the vessel of all virtues, perfections and graces reflects
and focuses, like a magnify glass, the perfection, grace and virtues of God Himself. Those who try
to argue against St. Louis Mary De Montfort who says that in having a total consecration to Our
Lady is ultimately a complete surrendering to God of everything that we are, do not recognize that
Our Lady is a mirror. We do not stop at her just as we do not look at the mirror itself, but in her we
see God focused, as it were, so that we can see Him more perfectly. If our devotion to God becomes
perfect, we will by like Our Lady, i.e. a mirror reflecting God’s glory. But like all mirrors, if the
glass is not perfect or damaged, then it does not reflect the image well and so we too must strive to
be perfect like Our Lady so that we may reflect God perfectly without the corruption of sin which
damages that reflection.
Devotion, then, to Our Lady, is ultimately devotion to God, for again, we do not stop with
Our Lady but instead she directs and focuses our attention on God Himself of Whom she is the
perfect image. In our devotion we must be totally disposed to the service of God, for Our Lady
would have it no other way. If you are to have a strong devotion to Mary, she will not allow it unless
your devotion to God is striving for perfection. Devotion to Our Lady, like devotion to God and to
the saints, has two parts, viz. interior and exterior.
The interior aspect to our devotion involves two things, viz. our intellect and will. We must
strive for a perfect knowledge of God and Mary, which demands exercising humility by which we
are able to live in accordance with the truth. Our commitment to truth must exceed even our own
life to live; Our Lady herself gives testimony to this by the very fact that when she agreed to be the
mother of Our Lord, she placed her life on the lines since she did not know what would happen to
her life. But her willingness to live in accordance with Truth Itself, i.e. God, was perfect. We must
therefore always try and foster a right disposition towards all of the teachings regarding Our Lady
taught to us by the Church and in that process our devotion will increase.
Our knowledge of Mary will provide a great deal of material for reflection. For example, if
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we accept and love the holy doctrine of Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception, we cannot but help to
love Mary herself. What kind of person cannot have a deep admiration, awe, respect and love for
something as good and as perfect as Our Lady? The only part of creation that does not love her is
that which is under the sway of or part of the demonic. For if one is cold, indifferent or hostile to
Our Lady, then you are part of the seed as mentioned in Genesis which has enmity with Our Lady.
Yet I cannot help but think that regardless of how hardened a soul is in this life, that if God was to
show him the wonder and grandeur of Our Lady that person would be moved to a profound love and
affection for her. After all, one of the titles of Our Lady is Mother most amiable. In order for us to
love Our Lady we ought to learn about her and reflect on her.
Moreover, out of a proper devotion to all of the teachings of the Church we should always
avoid scepticism about those teachings which the Church has formally taught about Our Lady. For
example, today, it is common practice to snicker and jest about Our Lady’s perpetual virginity. But
we must be very clear about the fact that the Church so loved and respected the teaching of Our
Lady’s perpetual virginity, that it formally defined it; in a word, if you do not believe that Our Lady’s
virginity remained in tact before, during and after she gave birth to Our Lord, then you are not a
Catholic. The sign of a vibrant Catholic faith in an individual is a sign that he is willing to defend
the teachings of the Church regarding Our Lady, that he loves those teachings greatly and finds great
joy in them. We must always remember that Our God is a God of honor and he will defend the
honor of Our Lady. Therefore, there is a great punishment and chastisement for those who speak ill
of Mary and their suffering will be great if they do not have a change of heart.
The second aspect of the interior part of our devotion to Our Lady corresponds to the will,
i.e. we must love Our Lady. We must be very careful to be clear that love is not an emotion or
appetite and that if we truly love Our Lady, it will not be based on our emotions or moods. Those
whose devotion is based on emotion tend to have short fits of devotion to her but when the emotion
wanes so does their devotion. Moreover, their devotion to Our Lady is governed by the appetite of
curiositas, i.e. curiosity. Consequently, they go around apparition chasing because they have a desire
not to love Our Lady more, but to gratify their desire to see supernatural phenomena. Consequently,
they believe everything that is told to them regardless of how fantastic it is and they do not act
reasonably. True devotion to Our Lady strives to act out of real love and not out of appetite,
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consequently it will guard against curiosity. As a result, the person will curb their appetites by being
sure they only give full assent to those apparitions approved by the Church. But if the person really
loves Our Lady, once they Church has given approval, the person will set out learning about the
apparition to come to know the will of Our Lady which is in perfect accord with the Will of God.
The person does not seek after the apparition to sate some inordinate desire to see miracles, but
rather will appreciate the miraculous work that God has done through Our Lady.
Yet, love is never satisfied with itself, i.e. it always seeks to go outside of itself and this
brings us to the second part of devotion, viz. the exterior part. If we truly love Our Lady, we will
express that love in proper ways by performing acts which are in accordance with that love. Those
who say they have a strong devotion to Our Lady but never do anything for her, are not telling you
the truth. If you really love someone, you want to do whatever you can for that person because you
want to please that person. The best way to love Our Lady and to please her is to make the total
consecration to her according to the teachings and mind of St. Louis De Montfort.
In his book on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Louis observes that since Mary
is the Queen of heaven and earth, we are, in effect, her property. For it is a matter of fact that God
will deny her nothing, and so with respect to us, she can have anything she wants since God will give
it to her. Therefore, we are totally at her whim and we call this in common parlance “owning a
thing.” Since we are Mary’s property and if we are humble, then we will recognize that and act
accordingly. Consequently, since everything we have and are is hers already, then it is best that we
recognize that and offer everything that we have, everything that we are, all our prayers sufferings
and good works up to her.
We do this for two reasons. The first is for our own purification; for it is fact that we are all
in need of purification and if we surrender to Our Lady everything, our house, our family, our very
lives, we are placing in her hands those things which we hold most dear. Therefore, by doing so we
are on the way to perfect detachment which is necessary to advance in holiness. This surrendering
of everything that we are and have to her, by being a form of detachment, purifies our intentions and
lives. The second is that what we offer to God is always tainted with self will and imperfections and
so it is best if we first give it to Our Lady who will purify, sanctify and strip from our offering any
imperfections and unholiness. Since Our Lady by the act of her fiat, i.e. “let it be done to me
20
according to thy word,” at the time of the Incarnation surrendered everything she has to God,
whatever we give her, she in turn gives it to God. But just as her offering of her immaculate self to
God at the incarnation was a perfect offering, so too does she make perfect and offer up perfectly
what little we have given her. If you want your prayers, sufferings and good work to be more
efficacious, you need to give them to Our Lady who can make it a worthy offering.
In addition to giving Our Lady everything, we will also do exterior acts of devotion towards
her. We will decorate her statues with flowers as a sign of love and reverence. We will say her
Rosary so that through it she can conquer heresy and evil and overcome Satan and his minions. We
will make acts of reparation for the sins committed against her and the holy doctrines taught by the
Church regarding her. We will turn to her in our every need, thank her for every gift, praise her for
her magnificence and ask mercy for our wrong doings. By asking her, as the Mirror of Justice, we
are in effect asking God and so He will grant us everything through her. We will do all those things
which show our love and devotion to her and by doing so we shall win her favor and in that alone
we can have perfect hope in our salvation.

Fr. Chad Ripperger, F.S.S.P., Ph.D.

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www.sensustraditionis.org/

St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen,Capuchin,Priest,Martyr

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Friday, April 24, 2009 St. Fidelis Roy of Sigmaringen, Capuchin, Priest, Martyr (Feast)

Revelation 3: 7 - 8, 10 - 12
7
"And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: `The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens.
8
"`I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut; I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
10
Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial which is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell upon the earth.
11
I am coming soon; hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.
12
He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God; never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.

2 Timothy 2: 8 - 13
8
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descended from David, as preached in my gospel,
9
the gospel for which I am suffering and wearing fetters like a criminal. But the word of God is not fettered.
10
Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain salvation in Christ Jesus with its eternal glory.
11
The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we shall also live with him;
12
if we endure, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;
13
if we are faithless, he remains faithful -- for he cannot deny himself.

2 Timothy 3: 10 - 12
10
Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness,
11
my persecutions, my sufferings, what befell me at Antioch, at Ico'nium, and at Lystra, what persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me.
12
Indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

Psalms 119: 137 - 144
137
Righteous art thou, O LORD, and right are thy judgments.
138
Thou hast appointed thy testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness.
139
My zeal consumes me, because my foes forget thy words.
140
Thy promise is well tried, and thy servant loves it.
141
I am small and despised, yet I do not forget thy precepts.
142
Thy righteousness is righteous for ever, and thy law is true.
143
Trouble and anguish have come upon me, but thy commandments are my delight.
144
Thy testimonies are righteous for ever; give me understanding that I may live.

John 10: 11 - 16
11
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
12
He who is a hireling and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
13
He flees because he is a hireling and cares nothing for the sheep.
14
I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me,
15
as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
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And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.

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Inward Silence

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Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity: "In heaven, my mission will be to attract souls, helping them to adhere to God by an all simple and all loving movement, and to keep them in this great inward silence that allows God to imprint Himself in them, to transform them into Himself....I would like to be all silent, totally adoring, in order to penetrate always further into Him, and to be so full of Him that I am able to give Him by prayer to the poor souls ignorant of the gift of God."

Vigilant humility of heart - Padre Pio

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Always be vigilant and do not raise yourself up,
esteeming yourself to be good for something,
nor above the others,
by believing yourself to be better
or at least equal to them;
but esteem everyone better than you.
The enemy defeats the presumptuous,
not the humble of heart.
-St Padre Pio

Video: La Festa di Santa Margherita: Patron Saint of Cortona

2009-04-24T06:49:00.000-07:00

La Festa di Santa Margherita: Patron Saint of Cortona from Stephen Simrill on Vimeo.

On February 22, 2009, the town of Cortona celebrated the life of its patron saint, Santa Margharita.

She is the patron saint of the falsely accused; hoboes; homeless; insane; orphaned; mentally ill; midwives; penitents; single mothers; reformed prostitutes; third children; tramps .

At the age of seven, Margaret's mother died and her father remarried. Little love was shared between stepmother and stepdaughter. At the age of 17 she met a young man, according to some accounts a man named Arsenio, the son of Gugliemo di Pecora, lord of Valiano. She ran away with him. For ten years she lived with him in his house near Montepulciano and bore him a son. She wanted to marry him as promised, but he refused. When Arsenio failed to return home from a journey one day, Margaret became worried. The unaccompanied return of his favourite hound alarmed Margaret, and the hound led her to his murdered body which was located deep in a forest. This crime shocked Margaret into a life of prayer and penance, and Margaret returned all the gifts he had given her and left his home. With her child, she returned to her father's house but her stepmother would not have her. Margaret and son then went to the Friars at Cortona where she put herself in their care at the church of San Francesco in the city. She fasted, avoided meat, and subsisted on bread and vegetables. After three years, St. Margaret joined the Third Order of St. Francis and chose to live in poverty. Following the example of St. Francis of Assisi, she begged for sustenance and bread. She became a Franciscan tertiary.

In 1277, while in prayer, she heard the words: "What is your wish, poverella (little poor one)?" and she replied: "I neither seek nor wish for anything but You, my Lord Jesus."

She began regular communications with God. She asked the city of Cortona to found a hospital for the sick, homeless and impoverished. To secure nurses for the hospital, she instituted a congregation of Tertiary Sisters, known as "le poverelle". She also established a link to Our Lady of Mercy and the members bound themselves to support the hospital and to help the needy. St. Margaret moved to the ruined Church of St. Basil and spent her remaining years there. She is buried there. After her death, the Church was rebuilt in her honor.

St. Margaret was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII on May 16, 1728

Catholic Mysticism - p. 86f The Conversion of Bl. Angela

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Her 18 Spiritual Steps of conversion
Download book free at Internet Archive
.archive.org/details/essayinaidofbett00thoruoft
Begin on p. 90