But saints and writers of the Church speak of devotion to you as a sign of perseverance in good and a happy death. You concealed even from your beloved spouse, Saint Joseph, the important fact that you were the chosen Mother of God, and you awaited God's good pleasure to reveal the great mystery to him. The Calendar section will present a particular feast for Our Lady for each day of the year. But many of these straying children are ignorant and not fully responsible. Your heart beat in unison with His Heart. Let me never esteem worldly wisdom so highly as to pay but little attention to the principles of that wisdom which is from heaven and which alone can make me truly wise and happy. But this prophecy did not disturb your peace of mind because your will was one with the will of God. 3. But you are a creature so holy and so perfect that you are superior to all other creatures. 3. Our Lady of Sichem, Belgium (474) 4. You died of no infirmity. Mary, My Mother, to conceal the miraculous conception and birth of His Divine Son, the Eternal Father inspired Joseph to marry you before the annunciation by the archangel Gabriel. Blessed are they who observe his decrees, who seek him with all their heart. 2. To you I entrust my soul for which Jesus died and I beg you to help me to save it. The Holy Spirit, who in virtue of your Son's merits lived in you, made you a living image of Jesus. To the Father you present in your Son, an adorer worthy of Him, and adoration and love of infinite value. He was endowed by God with all a father's tenderness and love for Him who was confided to him as his Child. The power of your intercession has no such limits, for the saints teach me that our Savior can refuse nothing to His Mother. I give you my will by an absolute confidence in you, a confidence founded on your power and your goodness. Mary, My Mother, you and good St. Joseph were married to become the models of family life. The reredos is in gold relief, being copied from work in the chapel of the Duchess of Newcastle. Saints Stories for All Ages Our Lady of Guadalupe Our Lady of Guadalupe Feast Day December 12 Printer Friendly On December 9, 1531, a 57-year-old Aztec, Juan Diego, saw the Blessed Mother on a hill in Mexico City. For that reason you were conceived by your mother, Saint Anne, without even the shadow of sin. ." Mary, My Mother, there is no sin in you; in you there is only God's graceHis light, His splendor, His love, His unspeakable delight. One of your greatest delights is to lavish these treasures upon your faithful children. Mary, Mother of God, because of your influence in obtaining helpful remedies against spiritual and bodily maladies, the Church calls you the "Health of the Sick." Mary, My Mother, I could go directly to God and ask Him for His grace without your help and that of the Saints, but God has not willed it so. At the very beginning of His public ministry, you observed the hatred and jealousy of His enemies and the false accusations which would bring about His death. Mary, Mother of God, help me to understand as clearly as God wishes to let me do so, the value of suffering and sickness. The Divine Son gave you a mother's heart, in which, as in a sanctuary, He wished to dwell. 1. In your heart and life the Eucharist took the place of His former presence in the flesh. Later in the public life of Jesus, you sought no attention. Hence, it is through you that we must go to Christ, almost in the same way as through Christ we approach our Heavenly Father. It is from you alone that Christ took His human nature. To the Son you give His human nature which allows Him to make full reparation to the honor of His Father outraged by our sins. Mary, Mother of God, I thank you for being my companion in suffering. Therefore, with childlike confidence I appeal to your motherly Heart for help. Feast, Saturday before the 3rd Sunday of November (Triduum, Wednesday the 3rd Sunday of before November). Mary, Mother of God, the glorious mysteries of the Holy Rosary remind me of the glory of your Son, Jesus Christ. I also believe that grace is a free gift of God, and I have no claim to it except as a member of His holy Church, which is the mystical body of Christ. I ask this with special earnestness from you who are the Health of the Sick. How generously you offered Jesus, your dearest treasure, as a Victim to the justice of His offended Father! On the appointed day, at nightfall, accompanied by friends, he went in procession to your parents' house, to conduct you to his own home. Our Lady of Sorrows The devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows flourished in the Middle Ages, and the hymn Stabat Mater was composed for it. Augustine.). In you He reposed for nine months, with His whole divinity and humanity. Through your powerful intercession obtain for them the graces they need. 3. The new birth of mankind was completed on Calvary. Mercy proceeds from you as from an abundant, never-failing source. The Feasts of Our Lady Note: Only Universal Feasts have the Month cited with each Feast; Local Feasts, etc., are cited by date within each month, unless the particular Local Feast begins a month. I entrust my cause to you who are the Mother of Mercy, and I wish to offer you day by day my most reverent love. You really had the right to offer Jesus to His Heavenly Father in this mystery. Monday, September 15, 2014. You did not go to a distance, but drew nearer to the crossthe hard bed on which Jesus had to die. You possessed, according to the words of the Archangel, such a fullness of grace that you were worthy to become the Mother of God. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." The seven sorrows are: The prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35) This is what took place at His entrance into the world; and again when He took upon Himself the office of Savior in the mystery of the Circumcision, and received from you the Holy Name of Jesus. ", Your Heart is a shrine of peace, for it is the Heart of the Mother of the Prince of Peace, a Heart never for a moment disturbed by evil passions, a Heart whose gifts to mankind are mercy, love and peace. Your Child, becoming the King of Martyrs, would make you their Queen. The husband whom God has destined for you was a man of faith of character, of purity, "a just man." God would work a miracle so that you might remain a virgin, and yet become the Mother of God. At Nazareth, you knew that by saying Yes or No to Gabriel, you would be giving us life or leaving us in spiritual death. I am grateful to your divine Son for this priceless gift of God, for by His Passion and death He not only reinstated us in the friendship of His heavenly Father, but also purchased for us all the graces we stand in need of to attain eternal life. I believe with the Church that from the great treasury of graces that Jesus has merited for us, nothing comes to us, by the will of God. Mary, Mother of God, when I consider your compassion for mankind and your influence with God, I am urged to give my whole-hearted and unlimited confidence to you, Help of Christians. When the Angel Gabriel came as a messenger from God, it was not only to ask your consent to become the Mother of the Son of God, but also to treat with you of the salvation of the human race, of the birth of the Savior of the world, of the regeneration of mankind and the setting up of an everlasting kingdom. Feast, October 7 (Novena, Sept. 28-Oct. 6). Prophets foretold the coming of the Savior and the manner in which the Redemption would take place. You obtained that grace for me. Give me charity like yours, which recognized in every human being a brother or sister in Jesus Christ, to be treated with respect and tenderness and to be aided according to the measure of my power. Mary, Mother of God, you are our Mediatrix. You expressed this to Saint Bernadette at Lourdes when you said, "I am the Immaculate Conception.". Mary, Mother of God, as Refuge of sinners, you will never turn away those who have recourse to your compassion. When Jesus said, "Woman, behold thy sonBehold thy Mother," He gave you to me to be my Mother for all Christians form one body with Christ, and Saint John represented them all beneath the cross. You are also called the temple of the Holy Spirit because, in virtue of your Immaculate Conception and your fullness of grace, He dwells within you in a most singular manner. Here there was a sacrifice, and Jesus was the Victim. You have given to the world the Savior whom the Apostles have proclaimed. In 1668, the feast in honor of the Seven Sorrows (Dolors) was set for the Sunday after September 14, the feast of the exaltation of the Cross. Help me to imitate your fullness of grace by receiving Holy Communion frequently, where I shall obtain the sanctifying grace that will make my soul holy and pleasing to God, more like your own, and where I shall obtain the actual graces I need to practise virtue and to walk in your footsteps. You love me with a love that is greater than the love of my own mother; you love me with the very love with which you love Jesus, since all your children form but one body with Him. Behold I come to you to show you the wounds sin has inflicted on me. Led by divine inspiration to His house, you prepared yourself for your sublime dignity of Divine Motherhood in silence and solitude with God. Mary, Mother of God, no stain of original sin ever defiled your pure soul. Grant that all these, men and women alike, may be freed from sin, to repose on His Heart of merciful love. The divine light, received from Him, led you deeper into the mystery of the Redemption and its effects in the past and in the future. Your name is the name of the one I love. It was an answer which had scarcely fallen from your lips, before It drew the only-begotten Son of God from the bosom of His Eternal Father, to become Man in your most pure womb! Jesus is the most beautiful of men; you were His mould, His mirror, and He, yours. You add a degree of motherly sweetness to the joy of the angels and saints and to the blessed of the Church triumphant. This is why you were greeted by the angel in the words, "Hail, full of grace." For the small sacrifice of being devoted to you I can obtain a happy death and eternal life. To all of us your Immaculate Heart after that of Jesus is most loving and most merciful. Mary, My Mother, you were to complete the offering of your Son, which you had begun on the day of His presentation in the temple. I am deeply conscious that I am unable to do good. You alone know how to triumph over the old serpentand to crush his head under your heel. I can never fully understand the depth of those sorrows that filled your heart as you begot us to the spiritual life, while standing by the cross on Calvary.