Pray for more lay apostles, who in every walk of life will defend the rights of God, proclaim His Truth and preach His holy Will by word and example. Solemnity of Mary Mother of God 2. Through your prayers, may Jesus make me live of His life through sanctifying and actual grace. Bishop Robert J. McClory. For if I have any ability, any worth or goodness, the glory is not mine, but God's. I want to be devoted to you by giving myself entirely to you and through you to God. You are our Mother, the Mother of all the living. Give my heart sentiments like His and your own so that, through frequent Holy Communion and prayer, I may become a worthy co-victim with Jesus, holy and pleasing to God, and so that all the actions, sufferings, tears and disappointments of my life may be thus consecrated to God as a sacrifice for His glory and the salvation of souls, especially my own. The crucifixion was not only the sacrifice for sin, it was also the new birth of mankind to the spiritual life, lost by the sin of Adam. We praise your virginity and admire your humility; but because we are poor sinners, your mercy attracts us more and we embrace it more lovingly. Help me to share actively in Holy Mass by sharing in your spirit. Here I will demonstrate, I will exhibit, I will give all my love, my compassion, my help and my protection to the people. The degree of childlike humility I have attained in life will be the degree of my greatness in heaven. But with the same humility with which you had conceived Him, you consented to the supreme loss of your God. 67, 36). I have saved my soul.". He made you immaculate in view of the fact that Jesus Christ, the God-man, was to take His Flesh and Blood from you. The words of Simeon were then fulfilled. Dec. 12: OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE MASS PRAYERS AND PROPER READINGS. Mary, My Mother, your intercession is all-powerful. I am the vine, you are the branches" (John 15, 4). Jesus could give meafter the gift of Himselfnothing more precious than you. She told Juan to have a church built in her honor. Foundation of the Abbey of Dunes, Flanders, in honor of the Blessed Virgin (1128) 3. Everyday you renew your Gift generously, because to each Sacrifice of your Son, you give your consent, each Consecration is your gift to us. Mary, My Mother, help me to imitate your holiness to some degree. By granting them these graces you have performed a work of the apostolate. You were beautiful when you stood as the brave Queen of Martyrs beneath the cross of your dying Son; in the supper room beneath the fiery tongues of the Divine Spirit; beautiful, above all, in the glory in which you reign with Jesus. Help me to perform all my actions with youto look upon you as a model and helper. This is a great time for us to reflect on the sorrows and the sufferings that Our Blessed Mother went through. The holy couple offered you to God by the ministry of the priest in charge, who invoked the blessing of God upon you and your parents. What untold merit you must have laid up for eternity during the nine months that preceded your Nativity. At the same time you had to offer the most intense human suffering, in union with the Passion of your Son. You were concerned in both, and on each occasion you were present as Mother of the human race. The prayers of the saints avail only in a limited way. In Jesus there was wrapped up the double love of a mother for her only Child and of the holiest creature for her God. God looks for gratitude and humility which draw down upon us His favor and His gifts. Feast, January 23 (Triduum, January 20-22). Therefore, with childlike confidence I appeal to your motherly Heart for help. You possessed, according to the words of the Archangel, such a fullness of grace that you were worthy to become the Mother of God. It is impossible for any one to perish who sincerely and humbly cultivates devotion to you. Your Heart is also the most affectionate of hearts after that of Jesus. The Eternal Father unfolded His Omnipotence in order to form in you a heart full of sweetness and obedience to your Creator. You are the spotless tabernacle, the earthly resting-place prepared for the Son of God, hence the Church pays loving respect to your Immaculate Heart. You "found grace with God" to restore salvation to all men. This introduction into the new home in which you were to live was your official marriage ceremony. It is still . You thought only of praising Him as your greatest Benefactor when you exclaimed, "My soul praises the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my SaviorFor He who is mighty has done great things for me." Make me Eucharist-minded to the extent that my very life may be the Eucharistin union with you, Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament. You are truly the Seat of Wisdom because you were the living Tabernacle of the God of Infinite Wisdom. I know that much will be required from those to whom much is given. But I see the relation between you and the Blessed Sacrament above all in your life after Good Friday when you began your new motherhood at the feet of Jesus in the Eucharist. Everything that God may send me, or permit in my life, whether favorable or unfavorable, sweet or bittereven illness, is acceptable to me, for I have resolved, after your example to conform myself to the Divine Will in all things. SEE AS WELL: At the mention of it, the angels rejoice and the devils tremble; through the invocation of your name, sinners obtain grace and pardon. "And, therefore, the Holy One to be born shall be called the Son of God." The sacrifice of the cross began at Bethlehem. Only you could love God as your Son; only you could love your Son as God. Scarcely had you greeted your aged cousin, when mother and son felt at once the sanctifying effects of your loving presence. Having once given us Jesus Christ by you, God does not change His way of helping us. The God of holiness, having come upon the earth to take away the sins of the world, chose to appear among us as a sinner. He was preparing you for your final separation from Him at the foot of the cross. With a "fiat" God created light, heaven, earth, but with your "fiat" God became Man. You are the channel by which all the favors of Jesus descend upon us, even as it was through you and in union with you that during His mortal life He won for us whatever title we have to His gifts and graces. In you He reposed for nine months, with His whole divinity and humanity. Neither your long absence from home, nor the inconvenience of a difficult and dangerous journey to the mountain country kept you from making this mission of love. Why do we call Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows"? For days before the feast, people crowd around the basilica for blessings of the religious images they have brought, and . I find faith in its light, hope in its help. Not only were you full of grace, but you also bore the Author of grace. Tuesday, December 12, 2023 - 12:00am. You brought me forth spiritually to a new life of grace. After the triumph of your Divine Son on the day of His Ascension, there never was, and there never will be, a triumph like that which you enjoyed on this day. You stood there silently fulfilling a part assigned you by Providence. Interestingly, in 1482, the feast was officially placed in the Roman Missal under the title of "Our Lady of Compassion," highlighting the great love our Blessed Mother displayed in suffering with her Son. In you I behold the charm of the purest of virgins, the majesty of the noblest of mothers. She heard the voices of Archangel Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret - they are on the banner over her left shoulder! All that God could give, He bestowed on you. As the Mother of the Incarnate Son you were so preserved from inheriting original sin that never for a moment was as much as a shadow cast by sin upon your spotless soul. 2. He has given me. I am afflicted with many sorrows in body and soul, and I take refuge, like a child, in the embrace of your motherly protection. Your soul filled with love and sorrow, you embraced your Son now pale in death, a victim for the sins of mankind. May He who makes little ones to speak divine wisdom, direct my tongue and pour out upon my soul the grace I need ever to follow His and your example in my state of life. In your heart and life the Eucharist took the place of His former presence in the flesh. On the appointed day, at nightfall, accompanied by friends, he went in procession to your parents' house, to conduct you to his own home. Your directions to the waiters: "Do whatever He tells you" (John 2, 5), show that you regarded your Son's answer as a striking sign of His special love for you. 2. It is through you that I am able to eat the Bread of Heaven even every day. It was you who nourished and prepared the holy Victim who was offered to the Eternal Father in expiation of our sins. 25. Because you were full of God's grace and a Virgin most pure, Gabriel could exclaim, "You have found grace with God." Therefore, I offer Jesus to the Father through your hands, and in Holy Communion I ask for graces through you. Mary, My Mother, as I cannot grasp the depth of your sanctity, I cannot understand the measure of your grace. He was with you not only by His sanctifying grace, making you pleasing in His sight, as He is present with all the just. Jesus gave me your own dear self, His dearest possession, whom He loved so much that He, in a sense, exhausted His power to exalt you above all other creatures. You were indeed two of one heart and one soul. I believe the teaching of the Church concerning the union of the human and divine natures in Christ: that Jesus Christ is God and man, perfect God and perfect man and that this divinity and humanity are united in only one person so that the actions of the divine nature or the human nature are the actions of one person, the divine Person. Elizabeth proclaimed that you were the Mother of Christ and declared you blessed among women because you were the most holy dwelling of the Eternal God. Responsorial Psalm Ps 119:1-2, 4-5, 7-8. You are truly our immaculate Mother for it is to you, after Jesus, that we are indebted for the supernatural life of grace and the hope of eternal life. After the prophecy of Simeon, the Scriptures mention that "His father and mother" were wondering at those things which were spoken concerning Him. It was a life of closest union with Jesusa union of body as well as of soul. 11, 29). To single nations, to private families, to individual persons, you have always provided help, given solace and rekindled hope, especially when they turned to you with Rosary in hand. I need virtues, especially charity and humility and purity. Mary, My Mother, you and good St. Joseph were married to become the models of family life. Your fullness of grace brought you to a most intimate union with the Author of grace. Mary, My Mother, God raised you so high in Himself that He never has created and never will create a holier person more worthy of Himself, of His greatness, of His love, than you, O Virgin most pure. I can easily picture Saint John, the Apostle of love, saying Mass each day in his own home and daily giving you the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist. Through you my own goal becomes more real, more attainable, for the lessons of your life are the doors to eternal peace and happiness. Whatever of sanctity, of dignity, of merit, of grace and of glory, that we can imagine, all is in you. Aside from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, no human heart ever loved mankind as deeply as your Heart. Mary, I beg you to lead me to my Sacramental Jesus! Let me find consolation and strength in your favorite devotionthe rosary. As the dawn precedes and announces the coming of the sun, makes the darkness of the night disappear, consoles the sick and rejoices all nature, so you went before and announced Jesus, "The Sun of Justice," who made the darkness of the world disappear by the light of His Gospel, consoled and cured the sick in soul and body and brought an abundance of graces and blessings to the whole world. 2. Each time Jesus becomes present in the hands of the priest, the Life given to us by the words of consecration comes originally from.