Iron Works: Mary

Showing posts with label Mary. Show all posts

Thousands of Rallies Worldwide

Take a look at the map below. Each of those red dots represents a city or town where a rally was happening on October 15, 2011. The people at these rallies are concerned about where our society is headed and want to make a difference. No, these weren't Occupy Wall Street protests, these were the annual Public Square Rosary Rallies by America Needs Fatima.

This map is from their blog which details the amazing growth of these rallies every year:

As the world situation becomes increasingly bleak, confused and hopeless, the idea of holding a Rosary in a public place has caught on: in 2007, where there were 2,107 rallies. In 2008, 3,500. In 2009, 4,337. In 2010, 5,963.
Today, thanks to the intercession of Our Lady, there were 7,515 Public Square Rosary Rallies held across the United States as well as in 22 other countries across the globe.

Over 7,500 rosary rallies in 23 countries around the globe. That is truly powerful. This is the type of rally that will bring about real change in our world. This is what brings comfort and healing to the poor and marginalized in our culture as opposed to the chaos and and insanity we are seeing by these "occupiers" on Wall Street and elsewhere which only brings more conflict and division.

According to news reports there were protests inspired by "Occupy Wall Street" in 951 cities worldwide on October 15, 2011. This same day there were over 7,515 Rosary Rallies worldwide. I think the message is quite clear as to what this world really needs.

Click here for the America Need Fatima Blog and more information on these amazing Public Square Rosary Rallies.

Why am I Catholic?

Wow! That is the only way I can describe how I feel about this awesome video.

Be Not Afraid

By now, you may have heard about the Marian apparition in Wisconsin being the first in the United States to receive official approval by the local Bishop. The apparition of Our Lady of Good Help was approved as "worthy of belief" by Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay Wisconsin. Click on the headline below for more detail on this apparition.

Wisconsin chapel approved as first US Marian apparition site

When I first read about this, I was really drawn to the simple message that Our Lady gave to Adele Brise in Wisconsin in 1859:

The Virgin Mary also gave her a mission of evangelism and catechesis: “Gather the children in this wild country, and teach them what they should know for salvation … Go and fear nothing. I will help you.”

We have heard a similar message associated with Mary in the past. When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary at the Annunciation, he told her to "Fear not!". The first words Pope John Paul II spoke to the crowd outside the Vatican shortly after he was selected to be the next Pope were "Be Not Afraid." It is a well documented fact that John Paul II had a very strong devotion to our Lady. Our Lady of Guadalupe spoke similar words to Blessed Juan Diego:

Do not fear this nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I, your Mother, not here? Are you not under my protection?

We are living in times of increasing darkness in our world. Secularism and relativism are growing and with them, immorality and an open hostility towards Christianity. Our nation appears to be crumbling economically causing many to fear for the future. This message from Our Lady of Good help could not have come at a more appropriate time. Rather than put our faith in men who promise "hope" and "change", let us focus on our Lady's words : "Go and fear nothing. I will help you.”

With Mary beside us, offering us Her protection as She leads us to Christ, we truly have nothing to fear. This is the real hope our world so desperately needs. During this Christmas season and into the new year, focus on our Lady's message and make an effort to develop a devotion to Her. I have personally seen the difference it can make in a person's life when we place ourselves under the protection of our Mother.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.

Remember, O most loving Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, we turn to you, O Virgins of virgins, our Mother. To you we come, before you we stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, do not despise our petitions, but in your mercy hear us and answer us. Amen.

Fourth Week of Advent: No Room At The Inn

“She wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).

The fact that there was no room for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the inn at Bethlehem on the first Christmas should make us wonder, because the birth of Christ was foreseen and planned by God from all eternity. Hundreds of years before it happened, the prophets announced he would be born of a virgin (Is. 7:14) and that Bethlehem would be his birthplace (Micah 5:2). Many other details of his life and death were also foretold. Did God, then, forget to make room for his only Son? How is it possible that there was no room, when the child born at Christmas owns the inn, and Bethlehem, and the world, and every inch of room in the whole universe?

Obviously, God did this on purpose. There was no room in the inn, because this demonstrates that world has rejected God. The world makes no room for the God who created it. There was no room in the inn because God wanted to show that His Son comes as a Savior, to reconcile a world that is at enmity with God. Being turned away from the inn foreshadows the fact that the Savior himself will be rejected, despised, and ultimately crucified, and that all this was part of God’s plan from all eternity. Ultimately, the lack of room in the inn symbolizes the lack of room we make for him in our hearts. When our hearts are filled with all kinds of other desires than God, we gradually crowd him out altogether.

Click here to read the rest of this meditation by Fr. Frank Pavone.

Hail Mary, Full of Grace - Meditations on the Immaculate Conception

Just suppose that you could have pre-existed your own mother, in much the same way that an artist pre-exists his painting. Furthermore, suppose that you had an infinite power to make your mother anything that you pleased, just as a great artist like Raphael has the power of realizing his artistic ideals. Suppose you had this double power, what kind of mother would you have made for yourself? Would you have made her of such a type that would make you blush because of her unwomanly and unmotherlike actions? Would you have in any way stained and soiled her with the selfishness that would make her unattractive not only to you, but to your fellow-man? Would you have made her exteriorly and interiorly of such a character as to make you ashamed of her, or would you have made her, so far as human beauty goes, the most beautiful woman in the world; and so far as beauty of the soul goes, one who would radiate every virtue, every manner of kindness and charity and loveliness; one who by the purity of her life and her mind and her heart would be an inspiration not only to you, but even to your fellow-men, so that all would look up to her as the very incarnation of what is best in motherhood?

Now if you who are an imperfect being and who have not the most delicate conception of all that is fine in life would have wished for the loveliest of mothers, do you think that our Blessed Lord, who not only pre-existed His own mother but who had an infinite power to make her just what He chose, would in virtue of all the infinite delicacy of His spirit make her any less pure and loving and beautiful than you would have made your own mother? If you who hate selfishness would have made her selfless and you who hate ugliness would have made her beautiful, do you not think that the Son of God, who hates sin, would have made His own mother sinless and He who hates moral ugliness would have made her immaculately beautiful?

-Bishop Fulton Sheen on the Immaculate Conception

Immaculate Warrior Queen

She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for Her heel (Gen 3:15b).

This primordial prophecy of sacred scripture is a word picture that has served over the ages to instill in the hearts of the faithful confidence in the power of the Immaculate Conception. The image of the Woman of Genesis 3:15 with Her foot on the head of the serpent is a source of confidence of countless souls who wear the Miraculous Medal (the Medal of the Immaculate Conception). St. Maximilian called the Medal his Silver Bullet. Indeed it is a visual exorcism over the enemies of faith and charity, because of its reference to Genesis 3:15.

Blessed Pope Pius IX utilized this verse, evincing such a militant and confident spirit, as the principle scriptural text in the bull of definition for the Immaculate Conception, Ineffabilis Deus.

The verse in its entirety reads: (a) I will put enmities between thee and the Woman, and thy seed and Her seed; (b) She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for Her heel. Pius IX, in accord with the received tradition, teaches that enmity exists between the Woman and the serpent only because She is never under His power through sin. The enmity indicates, not only the fact that there is this unbridgeable gulf between the Woman and the serpent, but also that the two are engaged in an unending conflict. In this She is associated with Her Seed, namely, Christ. In fact this association is emphasized in the verse in the way that parts (a) and (b) complete each other. The first part sets up a parallel that is recapitulated in the second.

Click here to read the rest of this meditation on the Immaculate Conception.

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