The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Mother – Discerning Hearts

I LOVE it…the birthday of the mother of all “moms”!  Happy Birthday to the dearest Mother of  all.  The Church celebrates 3 birthdays on the calendar…Jesus, John the Baptist, and the great Mother of God, Mary Most Holy.  We celebrate the day the Immaculate Conception was brought through birth into the world.   

From The Catholic News Agency
“The Catholic Church will soon celebrate the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary on its traditional fixed date of September 8, nine months after the December 8 celebration of her Immaculate Conception as the child of Saints Joachim and Anna.

The circumstances of the Virgin Mary’s infancy and early life are not directly recorded in the Bible, but other documents and traditions describing the circumstances of her birth are cited by some of the earliest Christian writers from the first centuries of the Church.

These accounts, although not considered authoritative in the same manner as the Bible, outline some of the Church’s traditional beliefs about the birth of Mary.

The “Protoevangelium of James,” which was probably put into its final written form in the early second century, describes Mary’s father Joachim as a wealthy member of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Joachim was deeply grieved, along with his wife Anna, by their childlessness. “He called to mind Abraham,” the early Christian writing says, “that in the last day God gave him a son Isaac.”

Joachim and Anna began to devote themselves extensively and rigorously to prayer and fasting, initially wondering whether their inability to conceive a child might signify God’s displeasure with them.

As it turned out, however, the couple were to be blessed even more abundantly than Abraham and Sarah, as an angel revealed to Anna when he appeared to her and prophesied that all generations would honor their future child: “The Lord has heard your prayer, and you shall conceive, and shall bring forth; and your seed shall be spoken of in all the world.”

After Mary’s birth, according to the Protoevangelium of James, Anna “made a sanctuary” in the infant girl’s room, and “allowed nothing common or unclean” on account of the special holiness of the child. The same writing records that when she was one year old, her father “made a great feast, and invited the priests, and the scribes, and the elders, and all the people of Israel.”

“And Joachim brought the child to the priests,” the account continues, “and they blessed her, saying: ‘O God of our fathers, bless this child, and give her an everlasting name to be named in all generations’ . . . And he brought her to the chief priests; and they blessed her, saying: ‘O God most high, look upon this child, and bless her with the utmost blessing, which shall be for ever.’”

The protoevangelium goes on to describe how Mary’s parents, along with the temple priests, subsequently decided that she would be offered to God as a consecrated Virgin for the rest of her life, and enter a chaste marriage with the carpenter Joseph.

Saint Augustine described the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary as an event of cosmic and historic significance, and an appropriate prelude to the birth of Jesus Christ. “She is the flower of the field from whom bloomed the precious lily of the valley,” he said.

The fourth-century bishop, whose theology profoundly shaped the Western Church’s understanding of sin and human nature, affirmed that “through her birth, the nature inherited from our first parents is changed.” – CNA

Mother Teresa, On Love, Prayer and Our Lady, and Forgiveness

On this the feast day of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta:

The Fruit of Prayer
The fruit of silence is prayer
the fruit of prayer is faith
the fruit of faith is love
the fruit of love is service
the fruit of service is peace.

If We Pray
If we pray, we will believe;
If we believe, we will love
If we love, we will serve.

Love to pray
Feel often during the day the need for prayer and pray.
Prayer opens the heart, till it is capable of containing God himself.
Ask and seek and your heart will be big enough to receive Him
and keep Him as Your Own.


The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary – The Conquest of Death! – Discerning Hearts

Msgr. Esseff reflects on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and it’s meaning for our lives and destiny.  He brings forth from the liturgy of the day the Sacred Scripture a teaching which begins with fall of man, but the redemption brought about by Jesus Christ.  And because of His Resurrection, death has no power over us.  He explains this by sharing the death of his own sister and the prayer of his mother.  Msgr. Esseff explains Mary sinlessness as the Immaculate Conception and the purpose of the Assumption.  He discusses Chap. 12 of the Book of Revelation, as well as Our Lady of Guadalupe and Fatima and the message for us today.  Msgr. Esseff talks about our struggles with death, not only our own, but also those of our loved ones.  How we hold on sometimes to tightly to those we should let go to the Father, because of our own fears and desires…and possibly our selfishness.  We need to remember  the joys of Eternal Life and the role of Mary, our Mother, who helps us with the transition.  Be not afraid!

ST16 – Seeking Truth with Sharon Doran – The Virginity of The Blessed Virgin Mary

Episode 16 – Seeking Truth with Sharon Doran, hosted by Bruce McGregor on his KVSS  program “The Ninth Hour”.   Ep 16 – The Virginity of the The Blessed Virgin Mary,

 

Sharon Doran serves as the teaching director of “Seeking Truth.” An experienced Bible Study teacher, Sharon has a passion forscripture that will motivate and challenge you to immerse yourself in God’s Word and apply His message to your every day life.

 

Episode 16 – Sharon and Bruce discuss the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  How is this possible? What is the significance of Mary’s silence after the annunciation? Why is the Virgin Birth so important?What do the Church Fathers have to say about this?  Where is all this found in Sacred Scripture?

 

“Seeking Truth” is an in depth Catholic Bible Study, commissioned by the Archdiocese of Omaha in response to John Paul II’s call to the New Evangelization as well as Pope Benedict XVI’s exhortation for all Catholics to study scripture. To learn more go to:www.seekingtruth.net

Prayer of St. Bernadette and the miracles of Lourdes

Prayer of Saint Bernadette

“Let the crucifix be not only in my eyes and on my breast, but in my heart.O Jesus! Release all my affections and draw them upwards. Let my crucified heart sink forever into Thine and bury itself in the mysterious wound made by the entry of the lance.”

Prayer to St. Bernadette

O Saint Bernadette, who, as a meek and pure child, did eighteen times at Lourdes contemplate the beauty of the Immaculate Mother of God and received her messages, and who afterwards wished to hide yourself from the world in the convent of Nevers, and to offer thyself there as a victim for the conversion of sinners, obtain for us the grace of purity, simplicity and mortification that we also may attain to the vision of God and of Mary in Heaven. Amen.

 

The Life of St. Bernadette and the miracle of Lourdes

Prayer of St. Bernadette and the miracles of Lourdes

Prayer of Saint Bernadette

“Let the crucifix be not only in my eyes and on my breast, but in my heart.O Jesus! Release all my affections and draw them upwards. Let my crucified heart sink forever into Thine and bury itself in the mysterious wound made by the entry of the lance.”

Prayer to St. Bernadette

O Saint Bernadette, who, as a meek and pure child, did eighteen times at Lourdes contemplate the beauty of the Immaculate Mother of God and received her messages, and who afterwards wished to hide yourself from the world in the convent of Nevers, and to offer thyself there as a victim for the conversion of sinners, obtain for us the grace of purity, simplicity and mortification that we also may attain to the vision of God and of Mary in Heaven. Amen.

 

The Life of St. Bernadette and the miracle of Lourdes

The Annunciation – Our Blessed Mother’s Assent to the Will of God – “I am the Handmaid of the Lord”

“As a sheaf of grain is tied together in the middle and spreads out at either end, so Mary’s life is bound together by her assent” – from the beginning of “The Handmaid of the Lord” by the great 20th century wife, mother, physician and mystic Adrienne von Spyer.  It has become my absolute favorite book on the Blessed Virgin Mary.  It has transformed my understanding and deepened my love and appreciation for Mary, the Mother of God…Our Blessed Mother.

Mary’s assent to the Lord binds the whole of her life such that “From this assent her life receives its meaning and form and unfolds toward past and future”.  This assent, the great “Yes” to the will of God is the moment.

“This single, all-encompassing act accompanies her at every moment of her existence, illuminates every turning point of her life, bestows upon every situation its own particular meaning and in all situations gives May herself the grace of renewed understanding.  Her assent gives full meaning to every breath, every movement, every prayer of the Mother of God

Everything that we understand Mary to be, do, and say finds her assent at its source.  But, the assent must be understood as one of freedom, “This is the nature of an assent: it binds the one who gives it, yet it allows him complete freedom in shaping its expression”.  Her assent binds her to the Lord, yet it frees her to express herself dramatically much like the sheaf is bound by the cord around its middle but the sheaf bursts freely outward from the binding cord.

“Mary’s meeting with the angel is like the summation of her entire preceding life of contemplation. It is the first thing we learn about her.  We do not know who she is, we do not know her past.  But when we learn that she saw the angel, the whole composition of her soul becomes visible.  The angel which appears is the fulfillment of her prayer – not in the sense that she had prayed for the appearance or prepared herself for it, but rather in the sense that she has held herself in readiness for a mission still unknown to her.  She has lived in an attitude of prayer, and in virtue of this life she is capable in the crucial moment of seeing and obeying the angel who comes to her.  Both vision and obedience flow from the same source in her; from the openness toward the mission which God may give her, when and in whatever way he likes.  Her obedience is the prototype of every future instance of Christian obedience, which draws its whole meaning from the life of prayer and the perception of God’s will.” [Adrienne von Speyr: Handmaid of the Lord. From the Chapter, “Mary and the Angel“, pg. 27]

Take a look at an excerpt from “Handmaid of the Lord”  you can purchase it from Ignatius Press as a book or you may like to download the mp3 reading.  Check it out….

The Angelus – Discerning Hearts


The Angel of the Lord declared to Mary:

And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of
our death. Amen.

Behold the handmaid of the Lord: Be it done unto me according to Thy word.
And the Word was made Flesh: And dwelt among us. Hail Mary . . .

Hail Mary . . .

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray:

Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts; that we, to whom the incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection, through the same Christ Our Lord.

Amen.

“Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28)

“Blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb”
(Lk 1:42).

 

IP#141 Fr. Michael Gaitley, MIC – 33 Days to Morning Glory on Inside the Pages

What is Marian Consecration?  What is the role the Blessed Virgin Mary in our lives?  How can this bring us even more fully into the heart of Divine Mercy? What a joy to talk with Fr. Michael Gaitley, who serves as director of the Association of Marian Helpers, about   “33 Days to Morning Glory: A Do-It-Yourself Retreat in Preparation for Marian Consecration”.  He answers the above the questions above and so much more.

The goal of the retreat contained in the book is to learn how to ponder more deeply in our hearts what it means to enter into Marian consecration.  With the help of not only St. Louis de Montfort, but also St. Maximilian Kolbe, Bl. John Paul II, and Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Fr. Gaitley reveals to us the great connection between the heart of Mary and beautiful depth of Divine Mercy…and the key to it all is…TRUST.

 

Find the book here

 

To learn more about the “All Hearts A Fire” parish programs that Fr. Michael spoke of  click here