Showing posts with label Blessed Virgin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blessed Virgin. Show all posts

09 March 2007

So Vincent, do you pray the Rosary?


Absolutely! It is one of the greatest gifts to us and a most powerful weapon in overcoming evil motions within one's heart as well as in the world. But chiefly it draws us to behold the Lord Jesus Christ through His Mother's eyes. There has never been a more perfect human vision of Jesus than through Mary's sinless eyes and with Mary's immaculate heart.
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My method in praying the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary is to pray the traditional fifteen mysteries. If I cannot do this at one time without interruption, I apportion them out through the course of the day. I often use the Rosary Meditations in the Anglo-Catholic St. Augustine's Prayer Book, a true treasure.

I pray the Luminous Mysteries of Pope John Paul II (followed by the Walsingham Litany of Our Lady) at various times and especially when travelling.


On days that are exceedingly busy, it is important to pray more not less.


I always use the Fatima Prayer and the traditional English versions of the prayers I learnt as an Anglo-Catholic child. Sometimes I pray the Rosary in Latin - especially when I feel distracted by my own stray thoughts. I continue to pray for the conversion of Russia through the Immaculate Heart of Mary when offering the Holy Rosary.


In seeking the Face of Christ whilst praying, I say the Jesus Prayer before each Hail Mary in this fashion: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour, have mercy upon me, a sinner.

I hope that answers my kind anonymous Reader's question. God bless.

21 February 2007

The Humility and Modesty of Mary

Mary’s Modesty Exerts a Gentle Sway

When first He went out to preach, she kept apart from Him; she interfered not with His work; and, even when He was gone up on high, yet she, a woman, went not out to preach or teach, she seated not herself in the Apostolic chair, she took no part in the priest's office; she did but humbly seek her Son in the Holy Mass of those, who, though her ministers in heaven, were her superiors in the Church on earth.

Nor, when she and they had left this lower scene, and she was a Queen upon her Son's right hand, not even then did she ask of Him to publish her name to the ends of the world, or to hold her up to the world's gaze, but she remained waiting for the time, when her own glory should be necessary for His. (…)

When dispute arose about her among her children, she hushed it; when objections were urged against her, she waived her claims and waited; till now, in this very day, should God so will, she will win at length her most radiant crown, and, without opposing voice, and amid the jubilation of the whole Church, she will be hailed as immaculate in her conception.

John Henry Newman Discourses Addressed to Congregations
Discourse17. The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son (1849)

Today is the Birthday
of the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman.

15 January 2007

It was she




Within her virginal womb Christ our Lord already bore the exalted title of Head of the Church; in a marvelous birth she brought Him forth as the source of all supernatural life, and presented Him newly born, as Prophet, King and Priest to those who, from among Jews and Gentiles, were the first to come to adore Him. Furthermore, her only Son, condescending to His mother's prayer in “Cana of Galilee” performed the miracle by which “His disciples believed in Him.”

It was she, the Second Eve, who, free from all sin, original or personal, and always more intimately united with her Son, offered Him on Golgotha to the Eternal Father for all the children of Adam, sin-stained by his unhappy fall, and her mother's rights and her mother's love were included in the holocaust. Thus she who, according to the flesh, was the mother of our Head, through the added title of pain and glory became, according to the Spirit, the mother of all His members.

It was she who, through her powerful prayers, obtained that the spirit of our Divine Redeemer, already given on the Cross, should be bestowed, accompanied by miraculous gifts, on the newly founded Church at Pentecost; and finally, bearing with courage and confidence the tremendous burden of her sorrows and desolation, she, truly the Queen of Martyrs, more than all the faithful “filled up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ...for His Body, which is the Church”; and she continues to have for the Mystical Body of Christ, born of the pierced Heart of the Savior, the same motherly care and ardent love with which she cherished and fed the Infant Jesus in the manger.


Excerpt from Mystici Corporis Encyclical Letter
Pope Pius XII, June 29, 1943

10 January 2007

"The Incarnation of the Human Values Necessary to My Life"


A German Catholic priest told that one day he saw a painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary hanging in place of honor in the cabinet of Field Marshal Hindenburg. As the priest did not hide his surprise, Hindenburg (who was a Lutheran) said, "I see in the Blessed Virgin the incarnation of the human values necessary to my life."

It is possible to dream of a better definition of what Mary has brought to the world? To a world completely abandoned to proud egoism, Mary teaches the humility of Bethlehem. To a world dominated by money and greed, she recalls the poverty of Nazareth. To a twisted, dishonest world, she brings truth and simplicity. To a world that gets more and more hardened by hatred every day, she repeats her lessons of gentleness. To an impure and vain world, she offers the testimony of her fertile virginity. To an aged world, she brings her eternal youth.


H. Engelmann
Excerpt from his book I Lost the Faith (J’ai perdu la foi, p.91)