In Praise of the Immaculate Conception

O Mother, how pure you are, you are untouched by sin;
yours was the privilege to carry God within you.
Divine Office

If you wanted to be a great baseball player, what would you need? First and foremost, you need innate talent. You either got it or your don't. But then you would need someone who could help develop your natural talent. Wouldn't you want to be coached and taught by the best? Certainly it is the dream of every wannabe major league baseball player to take the traits of all the best baseball players in history - Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Nolan Ryan, Sandy Koufax, etc. etc. - and roll them all into one person who would be your own personal coach. And to make the pot sweeter, your coach would have access to the Commissioner of Professional Baseball, and just by his connections, your coach would be able to get you onto any team you wished. When you messed up and didn't have such a good day, your coach would be able to smooth it over with all of the powers that be so that they would barely be aware of your weaknesses and failings. In time, all of your failings would actually disappear and you would become that great baseball player you always dreamed of being.

As Christians, we have been given a much loftier and immensely more difficult goal and even higher obstacles to overcome than one aspiring to be a first rate baseball player.

Jesus Christ laid it out as follows: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48). Our Lord requires each one of us to become perfect and sinless sons of God.  And He demands this even though He knows that not one of us has the innate capability or "talent" to do so.  On our own, it is easier for an ant to become an elephant than for a fallen human being to become spiritually perfect.

Of course, Our Lord has given us many ways in which to achieve holiness and spiritual perfection. First are the sacraments - baptism, confession, the Eucharist, etc. We have the Mass in which we present the bloodless sacrifice of Jesus Christ to the Father in atonement for our sins. We have the written Word of God - the Bible. We have the prayers of the angels and saints. We have the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit Himself as our guide and comforter who will never let us down. These are just a few of the many spiritual aids we have been given.

And yet we stumble and fall constantly.  Our sinful nature keeps pulling us down.  It seems like we fail more often than we succeed.

Just as someone aspiring to be a great ball player would want an expertly skilled coach, so we, as Christians, need an expert skilled in following Christ. We need someone to hold our hand, to guide our every step. We need this someone to be compassionate and understanding of our sinful state. And when we do inevitably fall, we need someone who can go to the Lord and ask Him for the grace we are too stupid and ignorant to ask for on our own.

Credit:  www.vismaya-maitreya.pl

And that is exactly what Our Lord gave us as He was dying on the Cross.   This was the meaning behind His words to His Mother and St. John as He was dying on the cross (Matthew 19:26-27):

When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” From that hour the disciple took her into his own household. 

On this day, December 8, we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Mary, declared a dogma by the Church in 1854. This states that Mary was conceived without sin and that she remained in that sinless state for the rest of her life. Mary knew the secret to perfection. Mary lived her life in perfect conformity to God, never once wavering. She was able to live her life untainted by sin of any kind.

Apart from the Holy Trinity, we can find no better teacher and guide than the Blessed Virgin. And that is exactly why Our Lord gave His Most Blessed Mother to us, to be our mother.

St. Louis de Montfort writes ("True Devotion to Mary"):

Poor children of Mary, you are extremely weak and changeable. Your human nature is deeply impaired. It is sadly true that you have been fashioned from the same corrupted nature as the other children of Adam and Eve. But do not let that discourage you. Rejoice and be glad! Here is a secret which I am revealing to you, a secret unknown to most Christians, even the most devout.

St. Louis de Montfort further writes :

As all perfection consists in our being conformed, united and consecrated to Jesus it naturally follows that the most perfect of all devotions is that which conforms, unites, and consecrates us most completely to Jesus. Now of all God's creatures Mary is the most conformed to Jesus. It therefore follows that, of all devotions, devotion to her makes for the most effective consecration and conformity to him. The more one is consecrated to Mary, the more one is consecrated to Jesus.

That is why perfect consecration to Jesus is but a perfect and complete consecration of oneself to the Blessed Virgin, which is the devotion I teach; or in other words, it is the perfect renewal of the vows and promises of holy baptism.

Sinless Virgin, let us follow joyfully in your footsteps;
draw us after you in the fragrance of your holiness.
Divine Office

Mary is our role model. She is what we must all attain to - total spiritual perfection. But she is not only meant to be our role model. Our Lord gave her to us as our own personal coach! Our Lord told St. John to take Mary into his household, and He tells each of us that we must take Mary into our "household" and make her a central part of our lives. As St. Louis de Montfort said, just as Christ came to us through Mary, we must go to Him through her. It is through her that we receive all graces. 

Our Lord said that "among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist."  And how was John the Baptist sanctified?  It was at the moment when the pregnant Mary, carrying the unborn Jesus, came to see her pregnant cousin Elizabeth, who was carrying John the Baptist.  And so Mary has done ever since.  It is her role to bring Jesus Christ to each of us.  As St. Louis de Montfort wrote, Mary "is the safest, easiest, shortest and most perfect way of approaching Jesus."  

The actual tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Credit:  http://holyrosarysite.com/archives/2114

In just a few short days we will be celebrating the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  I find this the most amazing of all the Marian apparitions.  At the time of this appearance, the Aztecs ruled the land and were especially barbaric, performing thousands of human sacrifices every year.  The missionaries were despairing of ever converting them, as the Indians seemed to resist every effort made to bring Christ to them.

Our Blessed Mother appeared to St. Juan Diego in Mexico and told him to tell the bishop that she wanted church built on the site where she appeared. The bishop was, of course, skeptical, and asked St. Juan Diego to bring him a sign. The Blessed Mother appeared again and gave Juan Diego roses to put into his tilma. This was miraculous enough as it was winter time and nothing was blooming. When Juan Diego came to the bishop to give him the roses, the bishop fell back in amazement, not at the roses but at what he saw on the tilma. There was a beautiful portrait of Our Lady. Interestingly, Our Lady was pregnant in this portrait just as she was when she sanctified John the Baptist. 

 

The Church was built and the tilma put in a prominent place.  As a result, the largest conversion in history took place.  Nine million of the 10 million Aztec Indians were converted in just a few short years.  And how was this accomplished?  By great preaching?  By beating people over the head and telling them what rotten sinners they were?  No.  Our Blessed Mother physically brought Jesus to the Indians, just as she did to John the Baptist.  This happened in 1519.  The Tilma is still displayed in Mexico City, and it is estimated that 20 million people see it every year.  

You are the glory of Jerusalem, the joy of Israel;
you are the fairest honor of our race.
Divine Office

Mary is the greatest of all of creation because she is the most fully conformed to the Trinity. She is the daughter of the Father, the mother of the Son and the spouse of the Holy Spirit. As St. Louis de Montfort wrote:

Mary is the supreme masterpiece of Almighty God and he has reserved the knowledge and possession of her for himself. She is the glorious Mother of God the Son who chose to humble and conceal her during her lifetime in order to foster her humility. He called her "Woman" as if she were a stranger, although in his heart he esteemed and loved her above all men and angels. Mary is the sealed fountain and the faithful spouse of the Holy Spirit where only he may enter. She is the sanctuary and resting-place of the Blessed Trinity where God dwells in greater and more divine splendour than anywhere else in the universe, not excluding his dwelling above the cherubim and seraphim. No creature, however pure, may enter there without being specially privileged.

The Lord God said to the serpent: I will make you enemies,
you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring;
she will crush your head, alleluia.
Divine Office

Mary is the supreme enemy of the devil.

Thus the most fearful enemy that God has set up against the devil is Mary, his holy Mother. From the time of the earthly paradise, although she existed then only in his mind, he gave her such a hatred for his accursed enemy, such ingenuity in exposing the wickedness of the ancient serpent and such power to defeat, overthrow and crush this proud rebel, that Satan fears her not only more than angels and men but in a certain sense more than God himself. This does not mean that the anger, hatred and power of God are not infinitely greater than the Blessed Virgin's, since her attributes are limited. It simply means that Satan, being so proud, suffers infinitely more in being vanquished and punished by a lowly and humble servant of God, for her humility humiliates him more than the power of God. Moreover, God has given Mary such great power over the evil spirits that, as they have often been forced unwillingly to admit through the lips of possessed persons, they fear one of her pleadings for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats more than all their other torments.

This "supreme masterpiece", this greatest enemy of the devil, is the one whom Jesus Christ has given to each one of us as our own loving mother and guide to heaven.

Mary never left her Son.  She was there from His conception by the Holy Spirit to the moment He breathed His last breath on the Cross.  She is the most loyal of all His creation.  And she offers that same loyalty to each one of us.  She promises never to let go of us.  We are separated from the Lord when we sin. But just as Mary stayed with the apostles even when they ran away in fear, so she will stay with us when we stumble and fall.  And we can be sure that as long as we stay close to Mary, we are close to the Lord.  

St. Louis de Montfort tells us that unless Mary is our mother, God cannot be our Father:

Since Mary produced the head of the elect, Jesus Christ, she must also produce the members of that head, that is, all true Christians. A mother does not conceive a head without members, nor members without a head. If anyone, then, wishes to become a member of Jesus Christ, and consequently be filled with grace and truth , he must be formed in Mary through the grace of Jesus Christ, which she possesses with a fullness enabling her to communicate it abundantly to true members of Jesus Christ, her true children.

St. Louis de Montfort also tells us that when we take Mary into our lives, she begins immediately to conform our will to Her Son.

Mary is called by St Augustine, and is indeed, the "living mold of God".  In her alone the God-man was formed in his human nature without losing any feature of the Godhead. In her alone, by the grace of Jesus Christ, man is made godlike as far as human nature is capable of it. A sculptor can make a statue or a life-like model in two ways: 

(i) By using his skill, strength, experience and good tools to produce a statue out of hard, shapeless matter; 

(ii) By making a cast of it in a mold. The first way is long and involved and open to all sorts of accidents. It only needs a faulty stroke of the chisel or hammer to ruin the whole work. The second is quick, easy, straightforward, almost effortless and inexpensive, but the mold must be perfect and true to life and the material must be easy to handle and offer no resistance.

No human being has ever been as perfectly conformed to God as was the Blessed Mother.  She is that perfect mold to which all of us need to be conformed.  Just as she was in perfect union with her Son, so we will also be in perfect conformity with Jesus Christ.

Mary is the great mold of God, fashioned by the Holy Spirit to give human nature to a Man who is God by the hypostatic union, and to fashion through grace men who are like to God. No godly feature is missing from this mold. Everyone who casts himself into it and allows himself to be moulded will acquire every feature of Jesus Christ, true God, with little pain or effort, as befits his weak human condition. He will take on a faithful likeness to Jesus with no possibility of distortion, for the devil has never had and never will have any access to Mary, the holy and immaculate Virgin, in whom there is not the least suspicion of a stain of sin.

Mary is truly one of the greatest gifts from Our Lord.  She is the personification of His love and devotion to us.  Nothing in His creation is more precious to Him than His mother, and yet He freely gives her to us.   No saint has ever achieved holiness and perfection apart from her.  As St. Louis de Montfort told us, Our Lord could have chosen another way.  

With the whole Church I acknowledge that Mary, being a mere creature fashioned by the hands of God is, compared to his infinite majesty, less than an atom, or rather is simply nothing, since he alone can say, "I am he who is". Consequently, this great Lord, who is ever independent and self-sufficient, never had and does not now have any absolute need of the Blessed Virgin for the accomplishment of his will and the manifestation of his glory. To do all things he has only to will them.

But the fact remains that Mary is the path given to us by the Trinity, and if we wish to become one with our Creator, she is the path we must choose:

However, I declare that, considering things as they are, because God has decided to begin and accomplish his greatest works through the Blessed Virgin ever since he created her, we can safely believe that he will not change his plan in the time to come, for he is God and therefore does not change in his thoughts or his way of acting.

God the Father gave his only Son to the world only through Mary. Whatever desires the patriarchs may have cherished, whatever entreaties the prophets and saints of the Old Law may have had for 4,000 years to obtain that treasure, it was Mary alone who merited it and found grace before God by the power of her prayers and the perfection of her virtues. "The world being unworthy," said Saint Augustine, "to receive the Son of God directly from the hands of the Father, he gave his Son to Mary for the world to receive him from her."

Do not neglect this greatest of gifts.  Devotion to Mary, this greatest of God's creation, is without doubt the surest way to Jesus Christ.  St. Louis de Montfort said it best:

The saints have said wonderful things of Mary, the holy City of God, and, as they themselves admit, they were never more eloquent and more pleased than when they spoke of her. And yet they maintain that the height of her merits rising up to the throne of the Godhead cannot be perceived; the breadth of her love which is wider than the earth cannot be measured; the greatness of the power which she wields over one who is God cannot be conceived; and the depths of her profound humility and all her virtues and graces cannot be sounded. What incomprehensible height! What indescribable breadth! What immeasurable greatness! What an impenetrable abyss!

You made Mary our mother. Through her intercession grant strength to the weak,
 comfort to the sorrowing, pardon to sinners,
– salvation and peace to all.
Mary, full of grace, intercede for us.
Picture Credit:  proconversioneinfidelium.blogspot.com

Meditation on First Joyful Mystery of the Rosary: Mary's Role In Our Salvation

Yesterday, October 6, was the First Saturday of the Month. The First Saturday Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was first mentioned by Our Lady of Fatima on July 13, 1917. After showing the three children a vision of hell she said, "You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace... I shall come to ask for... the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays..." The First Saturday devotion is as follows:

It consists in going to Confession, receiving Communion, reciting five decades of the Rosary and meditating for a quarter of an hour on the mysteries of the Rosary on the first Saturday of five consecutive months. The Confession may be made during the eight days preceding or following the first Saturday of each month, provided that Holy Communion be received in the state of grace. Should one forget to form the intention of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, it may be formed at the next Confession, occasion to go to confession being taken at the first opportunity.

Battle of Lepanto

Coincidentally, today is the Feast of of the Most Holy Rosary of the BVM.  The reason for this feast is that on October 7, 1571, the Muslim Turks, known as the Ottoman Empire, were defeated by the European Christians, known as the Hapsburg Empire.  It was the time of the Protestant revolt against the Church causing great turmoil in Europe, and the Muslims felt this was a most opportune time to attack. 

The fate of all Europe hung in the balance.  If the Muslims were victorious, Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, would be crushed and Sharia law would be the law of the land.  As Integrated Catholic Life tells us:

This feast day of the Church (October 7) finds its origins in the defeat of the Turkish fleet by Christian naval forces at Lepanto on October 7, 1571. The victory was attributed by Pope Pius V to Mary’s intercession as people all across Europe prayed the Rosary on that day for victory. As a result, he established the Feast of Our Lady of Victory in thanksgiving to God.

This began as a local feast. In 1716, Pope Clement XI made this a feast of the universal Church. The name as we know it today was adopted in 1573. 

Catholic Culture tells us that the Christians were badly outnumbered at the Battle of Lepanto:

The Turks had an estimated 328 ships, of which 208 were galleys, the rest being smaller supporting craft. Aboard them were nearly 77,000 men, including 10,000 Janissaries, but also 50,000 oarsmen, many of them Christian slaves. At Don Juan's command were 206 galleys, along with 40,000 oarsmen and sailors, and more than 28,000 soldiers, knights, and gentleman adventurers. He also had the blessings of the pope and the papal banner; the ministrations of Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Capuchins who accompanied the fleet, the prayers of the faithful; and the rosaries that were pressed into the hands of every Christian oarsman.  

The results of the battle:

Not only was the battle lost for the Turk, but so were 170 of his galleys and 33,000 men killed, wounded, or captured, as well as 12,000 liberated Christian slaves. Lost was a generation of experienced Ottoman bowmen and seamen; and though a mighty fleet could, and indeed was, rebuilt, and though the sultan was committed to renewing the jihad by sea — or if not by sea, then by land — the threat of the Ottoman Turks dominating the Mediterranean was finished.

Catholic losses were 7,500 dead — though many of these were knights and noblemen — and another 22,000 wounded (including Miguel de Cervantes). Pope Pius V, who had commanded the faithful to pray the rosary for victory, was convinced that it was prayer that had turned the tide. The Battle of Lepanto became the feast day of Our Lady of Victory, later of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Our Lady of Victory

Pope Pius V was the Pope who gave us the Tridentine Council and all the wonderful things connected with that council, including the official Tridentine Mass. 

Integrated Catholic Life quotes from an encyclical of Pope Leo XIII regarding this tremendous victory entitled Supremi Apostolatus Officio:

“The efficacy and power of this devotion was also wondrously exhibited in the sixteenth century, when the vast forces of the Turks threatened to impose on nearly the whole of Europe the yoke of superstition and barbarism. At that time the Supreme Pontiff, St. Pius V., after rousing the sentiment of a common defence among all the Christian princes, strove, above all, with the greatest zeal, to obtain for Christendom the favour of the most powerful Mother of God. So noble an example offered to heaven and earth in those times rallied around him all the minds and hearts of the age. And thus Christ’s faithful warriors, prepared to sacrifice their life and blood for the salvation of their faith and their country, proceeded undauntedly to meet their foe near the Gulf of Corinth, while those who were unable to take part formed a pious band of supplicants, who called on Mary, and unitedly saluted her again and again in the words of the Rosary, imploring her to grant the victory to their companions engaged in battle. Our Sovereign Lady did grant her aid; for in the naval battle by the Echinades Islands, the Christian fleet gained a magnificent victory, with no great loss to itself, in which the enemy were routed with great slaughter. And it was to preserve the memory of this great boon thus granted, that the same Most Holy Pontiff desired that a feast in honour of Our Lady of Victories should celebrate the anniversary of so memorable a struggle, the feast which Gregory XIII. dedicated under the title of “The Holy Rosary.” Similarly, important successes were in the last century gained over the Turks at Temeswar, in Pannonia, and at Corfu; and in both cases these engagements coincided with feasts of the Blessed Virgin and with the conclusion of public devotions of the Rosary. And this led our predecessor, Clement XL, in his gratitude, to decree that the Blessed Mother of God should every year be especially honoured in her Rosary by the whole Church.” (Pope Leo XIII; Supremi Apostolatus Officio, 4; September 1, 1883). 

It has become my custom to post my meditation on one of the mysteries of the Rosary on the First Saturday of each month.  I recently did a post on the First Joyful Mystery, which is the annunciation of the angel Gabriel to our Blessed Mother in which the angel Gabriel announces to the young girl Mary that she has been chosen by the  Creator of the Universe to be the Mother of God. Normally I like to vary my meditations among the various mysteries of the Rosary. However, this is October, which is the month of the Rosary, and since this is the Feast of of the Most Holy Rosary of the BVM, I would like to concentrate on the importance of our Blessed Mother's role in the history and salvation of mankind.

So this month I am going back to the First Joyful Mystery, in which our Lady's answer to the Trinity changed not the history of just one country, but of the entire world for all time.  Mary was a young Jewish girl, whose nation had been enslaved by the Romans.  The Jews were a part of the once powerful nation of Israel which had been handpicked by God to be a witness to the world of God's glory.  Approximately 1500 years before this time, the Israelites had been slaves in the land of Egypt.  They were rescued by God, who had rescued them from slavery and made them into a nation.  But they squandered this magnificent blessing through grave sin and disobedience down through the generations and had been enslaved first by the Persians and now by the Romans. 

Mary lived in the forgotten land of Nazareth in a city called Galilee ruled over by the Romans.  Her family had no standing in society at all.  They were poor people in a poor land.  The consensus among people at that time is found in John 1:46 - "Can any thing of good come from Nazareth?"  To use an analogy, Haiti may be the poorest and most downtrodden country in the world.  Would that be where we would expect a Savior to arise? 

Yet, it was to a young and most likely uneducated girl in the forgotten land of Nazareth that the angel Gabriel appeared.  He greeted her in a most unusual way:

Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

This is a simple statement, but one packed with awesome meaning. 

"Hail, full of grace."  This means that Mary had no sin attributed to her.  She was completely filled with God's grace, a perfect human being unstained by the world.  She was like one who lived in a garbage dump and yet no taint of any of the dirty, foul smelling debris with which she was surrounded had attached itself to her.  She was completely pristine and pure.  Not even the original sin of our first parents, inherited by all human beings, tainted Mary.  Never once did she have a vain or selfish thought or action, never once was she angry or harsh with another human being, she never once spoke a cross word.  She was completely filled with the Love of God.  The world had never seen such a human being. 

"The Lord is with thee."  The devil lays claim to each and every human being when they are born.  Unless and until we are baptized and receive the Holy Spirit, we are the property of Satan and completely cut off from God.  But the Blessed Mother was never contaminated by sin at any time in her life.  From the time of her Immaculate Conception, she was at one with the Trinity.  Satan never had any claim to her.  She was completely at one with God.  Where Mary was, there was the Triune God.  They were never separated. 

"Blessed are thou among women."  Through mother Eve, all women received a curse from God.  Gen 3:16:

To the woman also he said: I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband's power, and he shall have dominion over thee.

Mary did not know the sorrow of other women.  The only one who had dominion over Mary was the Creator God.  The children born to all other women were conceived through the sin of this world and born into sin, bringing deep sorrow and pain.  No other woman was pure enough to be the Temple of God, the living Ark of the Covenant, as our Blessed Mother was.  Only she was blessed and able to bear the Son of God.

It should be noted that although our Blessed Mother did not suffer from the sorrow that afflicted all other women, her suffering was actually much deeper and more severe in that she sacrificed her Son to save the world. 

The angel Gabriel then made an astounding statement that only the simple and humble could understand.  Those who were highly educated and the elite of this word would never understand this message or accept it.  Luke 1:30-33:

And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.

Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus.

He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever.

And of his kingdom there shall be no end.

This was the most momentous moment in the history of man up to that time.  The entire fate of mankind rested upon the answer of this young girl.  She has been specially prepared and preserved from sin to be the Ark of the New Covenant, the Theotokos, the God Bearer.  She was the one who would give the nature of man to the God of the Universe.  It was this nature that would enable Him to die upon a Cross and through the saving power of his Precious Blood, rescue mankind from Satan and eternal damnation in hell.  But Mary still had free will.  She was as free to say No as our first parents were.  Just as our Lord was forced to cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden and forbid them access to the Tree of Life because they said No to Him, Our Lord could not save mankind without the cooperation and the "Yes" of this young girl.

The young girl answered:

Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.

 It was at her Yes that we are told in John 1:14:

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

Jesus is our Saviour.  It is only through his Sacrifice that we can be saved from our sins.  But he chose to do this through His Blessed Mother, Mary.  Mary was prepared and chosen by God to be the Mother of the One who would rescue all of mankind from our evil adversary, Satan, and from eternal damnation.  Mary was not a robot or an android of some kind.  She was as human as you and I are, with one BIG exception.  She was not stained by sin.  However, our first parents were created without the stain of sin, and that did not keep them from falling. 

All of the saints have realized just how vital Mary is to our salvation.  They all knew that we receive salvation from Christ only through the Blessed Mother.  It was only because of her Yes that he was able to come to earth as a man, and it is only our Yes through her that we can go to Christ.

St. Augustine of Hippo lived from 354 to 430 A.D.  This was before many of the dogmas of the Virgin Mary had been codified by the Church.  At the time of St. Augustine, the only official Marian dogma of the Church was that she was a perpetual virgin.  She had not even been officially acknowledged as the Mother of God, although most held this to be true.  This official dogma was not declared until 431 at the Council of Ephesus, a year after St. Augustine's death.  This was long before she had given us the Rosary through St. Dominic.  Yet, even at the time of St. Augustine, the Church was aware of the magnificent and vital role our Blessed Mother plays in our salvation.  This Prayer of Saint Augustine to the Blessed Virgin shows his profound understanding of Mary's Role in our salvation:

O blessed Virgin Mary, who can worthily repay thee thy just dues of praise and thanksgiving, thou who by the wondrous assent of thy will didst rescue a fallen world? What songs of praise can our weak human nature recite in thy honor, since it is by thy intervention alone that it has found the way to restoration. Accept, then, such poor thanks as we have here to offer, though they be unequal to thy merits; and receiving our vows, obtain by thy prayers the remission of our offenses. Carry thou our prayers within the sanctuary of the heavenly audience, and bring forth from it the antidote of our reconciliation. May the sins we bring before Almighty God through thee, become pardonable through thee; may what we ask for with sure confidence, through thee be granted. Take our offering, grant us our requests, obtain pardon for what we fear, for thou art the sole hope of sinners. Through thee we hope for the remission of our sins, and in thee, O blessed Lady, is our hope of reward. Holy Mary, succour the miserable, help the fainthearted, comfort the sorrowful, pray for thy people, plead for the clergy, intercede for all women consecrated to God; may all who keep thy holy commemoration feel now thy help and protection. Be thou ever ready to assist us when we pray, and bring back to us the answers to our prayers. Make it thy continual care to pray for the people of God, thou who, blessed by God, didst merit to bear the Redeemer of the world, who liveth and reigneth, world without end. Amen.

Our Blessed Lady is always here for us.  She appeared at Guadalupe, Mexico and through her appearance stopped the human slaughter being carried out by the Aztec Indians and brought about the conversion of 9 million Mexicans.  The Mexicans to this day still give our Lady of Guadalupe deep and heartfelt honor and glory.

Our Lady gives the Scapular
to St. Simon Stock

Our Lady gave the rosary to St. Dominic to stop heresies.  The Rosary is still one of our of our most powerful spiritual weapons.  St. Dominic said, "One day, through the rosary and scapular, she will save the world."  The Brown Scapular, given to St. Simon Stock in 1251, is so powerful that our Lady promises that, "Whosoever dies wearing this Scapular shall not suffer eternal fire."

The Brown Scapular

The victory of the Battle of Lepanto through the Rosary is just one example of Our Blessed Mother's constant intercession on our behalf.  If we put our total trust in her, we can never fail.  The devil had no power over Mary, and he will have no power over her trustful and devoted children. 

“When the Holy Spirit finds Mary in a soul, He enters that soul completely and communicates Himself completely to that soul.”

St. Louis de Montfort

Snoopy Dance: Bishop Urges Faithful to Turn to Blessed Mother for Protection

I have tended to be rather critical on this blog of the Catholic bishops, upset with them for not upholding and promoting the teachings of the Church strongly enough. The "Fortnight of Freedom" campaign run by the Bishops was, IMHO, tragic and laughable at the same time.  The Church is up against an administration that basically wants to wipe them out, forcing the Church to go against her own teachings and promote contraception, which the Church denounces as evil.  But the Bishops, instead of coming right out and denouncing the actions of the Obama administration as evil and using it as a tool to teach her plain and clear dogma and why it is dogma of the church, chose instead to make this an issue of "religious freedom", a sure way to lose this battle.

Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC

But I ran across the following  which tells us that Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC of the diocese of Peoria, Illinois, has made a bold move in calling for those in his diocese to increase their devotion to Mary, our Blessed Mother and to consecrate their schools and their parishes to Our Lady.  He makes this request so that his diocese can counter the evil that is rampant all around us.  As His Excellency says, "I feel it very important that we turn to our Lady to help us and our country during these coming months. We can take comfort that her Immaculate Heart will triumph!"  This is a message right out of Fatima, which is the key to all that is happening in our world.  Our Lady is the one whom God has chosen to defeat the devil and the evil he brings upon the world.  The Trinity has chosen to work through Her Immaculate Heart, and unless we go through her, we cannot triumph.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary

Our Lady of Fatima told the three shepherd children that "In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph."  From the website, salvemariaregina.info:

 This is the promise Our Blessed Mother made to us, Her children, at Fatima. This, Her promise of final triumph, is our shining hope; it is the ray of light that penetrates the gathering clouds of darkness hovering over the earth. For it is only by living in union with Mary's Immaculate Heart that we can find sustenance and strength as the powers of Hell spread across the face of the earth, luring men into the "peace and brotherhood" of the kingdom of the Antichrist.

We have found in  Bishop Daniel R. Jenky a good and holy shepherd of the flock.  Let us pray for him as he will no doubt endure much persecution for his decision to follow the message of Fatima, and let us pray that many other bishops will follow his beautiful example.

Our Lady appearing to the three children of Fatima

Here is Bishop Jenky's letter released to his diocese:

Turn to Virgin Mary for protection of nation, urges bishop

Saying “the attacks of the world, the flesh, and the devil seem particularly ferocious in this current moment,” Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC, has called on Catholics of the Diocese of Peoria to increase their devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“We turn to her to protect our country, to guide our leaders, and to turn our hearts to her Son,” said the bishop in a letter released in mid-August.

He specifically suggests that parishes, schools, and families consider a 30-day Marian Consecration as outlined in a book by Father Michael Gaitly, MIC. The book, "33 Days to Morning Glory," is being made available free of charge to parishes and schools while supplies last through the generosity of a donor.

Following is the full text of Bishop Jenky's letter:

-----

To the Priests, Deacons, Religious Educators, Pastoral Leaders and Faithful of the Diocese of Peoria:

My Dear Brothers and Sisters:

"Say the Rosary every day to
bring peace to the world and end the war"
Fatima 6-13-1917

I hope that over my 10 years as your bishop, my love for Our Lady, as has yours, has been abundantly clear: I have convoked a number of Rosary Congresses, declared a Year of the Rosary, dedicated a Festival Letter to our Lady as well as countless homilies and talks, I asked that her image as our Mother of Perpetual Help be enshrined in our parishes and schools, even as I re-consecrated our entire diocese to her patronage when I solemnly enthroned her icon in our Cathedral.  [God bless this holy bishop!]

I again turn to her and I ask you to do the same.

It has never been easy to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. In fact, our Savior warns that the world will hate us if we love Him. The attacks of this world, the flesh and devil seem particularly ferocious in this current moment. Several months ago, I asked that we not lose sight of the spiritual nature of this battle when I directed that the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel should be invoked at every Sunday Mass for the protection of the Catholic Church in America.  [Is there any way that we can clone this wonderful bishop?]

I now ask us to re-double our spiritual efforts through devotion to the Blessed Virgin.  [This is the answer to all of the problems in the Church and the entire world.  If we would all do this, we would see wonderful miracles happen throughout the world and much of the evil that surrounds us would be wiped out.]

The Immaculate Mother of God is the Patroness of the United States and our own Local Church. The Pope has personally consecrated the world to her protection [Our Lady requested that the Holy Father and the Bishops consecrate Russia, not the world, to her Immaculate Heart.  This holy bishop, by his careful choice of words, is confirming that this has not been done], and that invocation has been renewed by the bishops of our country, as I have done as well for our diocese following the example of Archbishop Schlarman. I encourage each of our parishes, schools, and families to consider a similar devotion to Our Lady. We turn to her to protect our country, to guide our leaders, and to turn our hearts to her Son.

There are many ways to grow in devotion to our Lady. The scriptural meditation of the Rosary is perhaps the finest. [Snoopy is dancing up a storm at these wonderful, wonderful words!]

Likewise, there are many methods of Marian Consecration. Through a generous donor [God bless this person!], I am happy to make available copies of “33 Days to Morning Glory” [Get it on Amazon by clicking on the link] by Father Michael Gaitly, MIC, to our parishes, schools, CCD and adult education programs. These books are free but supplies are limited and are available “first come.” I have asked the sisters in the diocesan museum and the Sheen Foundation to coordinate distribution. You may pick up the books anytime during office hours after Aug. 16. The traditional 30-day consecration could very appropriately begin in our schools and families in early September in order to culminate on the Feast of the Holy Rosary on Oct. 5.  [If you would prefer, you can always do the 33-day Consecration by St. Louis de Montfort.  You can go here to do the de Montfort consecration.]

But no matter what book or formula may be used, I feel it very important that we turn to our Lady to help us and our country during these coming months. We can take comfort that her Immaculate Heart will triumph!  [Again, this message is right out of Fatima.]

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Most Reverend Daniel R. Jenky, CSC
Bishop of Peoria

Knowing that there are such good and holy men as Bishop Jenky in the leadership of the Church reminds me that we must never despair, no matter how bleak things may look.  Yes, we are surrounded by evil on every side, and even evil within the church herself.  We are in tumultuous times that are only destined to become much worse.  But Our Lady assures us that her Immaculate Heart will triumph.  Our goal is to make sure that we are on the right side, on the side that will triumph in the end.  As long as we stay close to our Lady using the methods given to us by Bishop Jenky, we will triumph as well.

(St. Louis De Montfort's Consecration)

I, (Name), a faithless sinner - renew and ratify today in thy hands, O Immaculate Mother, the vows of my Baptism;

I renounce forever Satan, his pomps and works; and I give myself entirely to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom, to carry my cross after Him all the days of my life, and to be more faithful to Him than I have ever been before.

In the presence of all the heavenly court I choose thee this day, for my Mother and Mistress. I deliver and consecrate to thee, as thy slave, my body and soul, my goods, both interior and exterior, and even the value of all my good actions, past, present and future; leaving to thee the entire and full right of disposing of me, and all that belongs to me, without exception, according to thy good pleasure, for the greater glory of God, in time and in eternity. Amen.

The Feast of the Annunication

Hail Mary, Full of Grace,

The Lord is With Thee,

Blessed Art Thou Among Women
And Blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus 

Today is the magnificent Feast of the Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to our Blessed Mother Mary.  This is the day that we bow down in gratitude not just to the Trinity, who chose Mary as the ark of salvation, the virgin who would give birth to her own Creator.  We also honor the Virgin herself for saying "Yes" to the incarnation.  She was and is an intricate part of our salvation.  As St. Louis de Montfort said, "Christ came into the world through Mary, and through Mary he must reign in the world." 

This is especially galling to the enemy, Satan.  It was through a woman that Satan brought sin and death into the world, and it is through a woman, through her seed, that God brought salvation to mankind.  Mary, that most beautiful and most perfect creation of God, crushes the head of Satan, as prophesied in Genesis 3:15 - "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."  And it all starts with her "yes" to the angel Gabriel, as told in the first chapter of Luke:

26 And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth,

27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.

28 And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

29 Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be.

30 And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.

31 Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus.

32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever.

33 And of his kingdom there shall be no end.

34 And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man?

35 And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

36 And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren:

37 Because no word shall be impossible with God.

38 And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

Here is a wonderful explanation of the meaning of true devotion to Mary from Father John Hardon, S.J. 

St. Louis de Montfort
Apostle of Mary for Today

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Great Catholic Books Newsletter
Volume I, Number 6

On the occasion of the second millennium of Mary's birth, Pope John Paul II emphasized the importance of a true devotion to the Blessed Virgin. He singled out St. Louis de Montfort as a prime example of what this means.

He proposes consecration to Christ through the hands of Mary, as an effective means for Christians to live faithfully their baptismal commitments. I am pleased to note that in our own time, too, many manifestations of this spirituality and devotion are not lacking.

If there is one feature of the present Pope's pontificate, it is his emphasis on the need for devotion to the Blessed Virgin to stem the tide of global secularism in the modern world. It is easy to dismiss the Pope's Marian spirituality as a pious eccentricity. But Pope John Paul II is too intelligent and too experienced not to know that only supernatural means can halt the advance of unbelief in what he calls "the materially super-developed nations" in Western society. In one conference after another, in one document after another, the Pope insists: only a renaissance of Mariology in thought and practice can restore once Christian nations to their original commitment to the Son of Mary.

It is in this context that we should look more closely at the Marian teaching of St. Louis de Montfort. What needs to be underlined is what de Montfort calls the True Devotion to Mary.

There is no lack of Marian piety among Catholics today. There is no lack of books, periodicals, pamphlets and brochures on the Blessed Virgin. What Louis de Montfort emphasized 200 years ago needs to be clarified more than ever in our day.

In his treatise on the True Devotion, St. Louis identifies seven forms of false devotions to the Blessed Virgin and the false devotees of Our Lady. I would single out two kinds of spurious devotion to Mary to which, our modern age is especially prone. Says St. Louis de Montfort:

External devotees are persons who make all devotion to our Blessed Lady consist in outward practices. They have no taste except for the exterior of this devotion, because they have no interior spirit of their own. We have still to mention the false devotees of our Blessed Lady who are the hypocritical devotees. They cloak their sins and sinful habits with her mantle in order to be taken by men for what they are not.

Suppose we look at these two forms of Marian devotion which de Montfort called erroneous. They deserve all the attention we can give them if we are to hope for the transformation of the modern world, through Mary, which the present Holy Father is so earnestly advancing.

Interior Devotion

St. Louis warns Catholics against identifying devotion to Mary with outward Marian forms of piety. 

Of course we human beings are a composite of body and soul. We are to externalize our practice of prayer. We are to use our hands and our lips and move our bodies when we engage in the Liturgy and in personal acts of piety. The problem, de Montfort would say, is that devotion to the Blessed Virgin consists in much more than these externals.

Interior devotion to our Lady means many things, but it means especially the imitation of her virtues, and among these especially her unshaken faith, her absolute confidence in God and her utterly selfless charity toward others.

UNSHAKABLE FAITH.  Mary's faith was immovable from the Annunciation to the Crucifixion. She never doubted for a moment that the Child she conceived was her God. Elizabeth's greeting to her as, "Mother of My Lord" was an expression of Mary's own deep faith in the Divinity of her Son.

How many Catholics who say their rosaries and recite their Hail Marys realize that their most fundamental devotion to Mary is an absolute and unqualified faith that Jesus Christ is literally the Incarnate Son of God.

Reread the letters of St. John the Apostle who took care of Christ's mother after His Ascension. In one verse after another John tells us who belongs to Christ and who belongs to the devil. The one who belongs to Christ is the one who believes that Jesus, the Son of Mary is the Son of the living God. The one who belongs to the devil is the antichrist; he denies the Incarnation and rejects the Divinity of Mary's Son.

As we look at the modern world, we see that this is the heart of the crisis in so many dechristianized countries. Lip service may still be given to the Apostle's Creed. But, in practice, the Christ of the Gospels has been demythologized and become just another religious leader alongside Buddha, Mohammed and Mahatma Ghandi.

ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE IN GOD. Building on her unshakable faith, Mary trusted in God as no human had ever done before or since. Our boundless confidence in God is an essential part of our imitation of Mary.

She never wavered in her confidence that Christ would overcome the bodily death inflicted by His enemies. Since the first century, Saturday has been commemorated as Mary's Day. She alone among the followers of Christ was absolutely sure, during the first Holy Saturday, that there would be an Easter Sunday.

During the fifteen years that Mary remained on earth after her Son's Ascension, she saw the young Church persecuted, rejected and martyred. It was part of God's providence that she should literally mother the infant Mystical Body of Christ by strengthening the early Christians as they shared in the Passion of her Son.

How we need this Marian inspiration today! We are living in the Age of Martyrs with millions dying for their Christian faith, more than ever in the Church's 2000 years of history. Bishops and priests, religious and the laity, the married and the single, the young and the old must either practice something of the heroic trust in God that Mary had or become further casualties in the Christless cultures of the 20th Century.

UTTERLY SELFLESS CHARITY. It is not for nothing that Mary has been presented as the perfect model, after Christ, of selfless generosity to others. This generosity was deeply interior and was shown especially in her patient cooperation with Jesus in His Redemption of a sinful world.

Charity has many meanings. It has also been cheapened almost to no meaning among people who have made an idol of self. But one meaning of Marian charity had better be understood in our self-idolizing times. If we love someone we are willing to suffer for the one we love and with the one we claim to love. Christ's sufferings were brought on by the envy and malice of His enemies. This, in fact, is the principal meaning of the Passion. It is pain endured from hostile persons, whose hostility is the main source of suffering. What Christ experienced was not only or mainly the physical experience in His Body. His worst agony was rejection by those He loved and hatred by those for whom He was willing to die.

Mary shared in Christ's Passion. This was her compassion, suffering interiorly as only the loving heart of a Mother could participate in the sufferings of her Child.We hear so much nowadays about love. It has become almost a cliché for authenticity and even in Christian circles, a substitute for faith. But love on Marian terms is nothing if not patient endurance at the hands and eyes and lips and thoughts of persons whom we love but do not love us correspondingly in return.

Here especially, True Devotion to Mary is the imitation of Mary's loving patience with the persecutors of her Son. They are persecuting Him still in the person of His followers. And it is our privilege to follow Mary's example of utterly selfless charity in the practice of utterly patient love.

VIRTUOUS SINCERITY. St. Louis de Montfort stigmatizes certain devotees of Mary with hypocrisy. He says they cloak their sins with her mantle in order to be taken for what they are not. A great apostle of Mary, Padre Pio, claimed that the single most devastating sin of modern man is hypocrisy.

True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin dare not be a mask for sinful habits that are covered by a veneer of piety.

As we read the True Devotion to Mary we may be shocked by the strong language that the author uses to describe what he calls hypocrisy. However, we begin to see what he means when we read what Christ said to the Scribes and Pharisees of His day. He was merciless in denouncing their lives of pretense and their sham observance of the externals of the Mosaic Law.

All of this we can apply, with humility, to ourselves. Authentic devotion to the Blessed Virgin must be the expression of a life of virtue. In essence, devotion is dedicated love. Our love of Christ, following the example of Mary, must be real. This means it must be lived in obedience to His teaching and in the observance of His commands. Otherwise, it becomes a substitute for true devotion to Mary which means the true following of Christ.

Marian Synthesis 

To understand the True Devotion, we must see it as devotion to the Incarnate God. Even de Montfort's idea of becoming a slave of Mary becomes intelligible only if it is understood as an expression of one's total consecration to Mary's Son. Our Christian dedication must be lived by "performing all one's actions through Mary, with Mary, in Mary and for Mary, so as to perform them more perfectly through Jesus Christ, with Jesus Christ, in Jesus, and for Jesus" (True Devotion, 258). Thus, the act of consecration composed by St. Louis is addressed to the Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom.

The bedrock of the True Devotion is the following of Christ after the example of Mary, as inspired by Mary and made possible by the graces she receives through the intercession of her Divine Son.

There is no surer path to Christ than through His Blessed Virgin Mother, the one who never left his side and never wavered in her faith.  To honor Mary is to honor her Son.  She is the one who intercedes for us before his throne.  She is the one who stays at our side as we carry our cross just as she stayed at the side of her Beloved Son. 

It is impossible to honor Mary too highly, for every honor and devotion we give to her goes directly to her Son. 

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

Pray for us sinners,

Now and at the hour of our death.  Amen

Mary will walk with us
just as she walked with her Son