Day 22 Total Consecration Preparation 2013

[Dawn Marie]

DAY 22

Today's Reading

True Devotion To the Blessed Virgin Mary: Nos. 106–110

Marks of authentic devotion to our Lady

106. First, true devotion to our Lady is interior, that is, it comes from within the mind and the heart and follows from the esteem in which we hold her, the high regard we have for her greatness, and the love we bear her.

107. Second, it is trustful, that is to say, it fills us with confidence in the Blessed Virgin, the confidence that a child has for its loving Mother. It prompts us to go to her in every need of body and soul with great simplicity, trust and affection.

108. Third, true devotion to our Lady is holy, that is, it leads us to avoid sin and to imitate the virtues of Mary. Her ten principal virtues are: deep humility, lively faith, blind obedience, unceasing prayer, constant self-denial, surpassing purity, ardent love, heroic patience, angelic kindness, and heavenly wisdom.

109. Fourth, true devotion to our Lady is constant. It strengthens us in our desire to do good and prevents us from giving up our devotional practices too easily. It gives us the courage to oppose the fashions and maxims of the world, the vexations and unruly inclinations of the flesh and the temptations of the devil. Thus a person truly devoted to our Blessed Lady is not changeable, fretful, scrupulous or timid.

110. Fifth, true devotion to Mary is disinterested. It inspires us to seek God alone in his Blessed Mother and not ourselves. The true subject of Mary does not serve his illustrious Queen for selfish gain. He does not serve her for temporal or eternal well-being but simply and solely because she has the right to be served and God alone in her.

Mary Our Mother

 

This will be the first thought in our minds that Mary, though a Virgin is also a Mother---the Mother of God and our Mother too.  We will imprint upon our minds the fact that Mary loves us more, than our natural Mothers could possibly love us---even more then we could love ourselves.  A Mother’s love is the most practical thing in existence.  It is never satisfied with words, but is always pouring itself out on someone.  Motherly love is also capable of the greatest sacrifices; it is born in suffering , and time serves only to increase its generosity and service.

 

If this is true of the Motherly love we have all experienced, what must be said of her, who became the Mother of Sorrows and the Queen of Martyrs for love of us?  When we see her with the sword of Simeon plunged deeply into her heart, how can we ever doubt that her love for mankind is as practical as that of her Divine Son?

 

Since she became the Mother of Men, she has never stopped showing herself a Mother to all who have gone to her for help.  He who is mighty has done great things to her; and she in turn, who is mighty through the power of her divine motherhood, has done great things for those who have sought her intercession.  She has been and will continue to be the cause of our joy until the end of time.

Meditation:

Taken from The Glories of Mary

TO THEE DO WE CRY, POOR BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE  

How Promptly Mary Helps All Who Invoke Her

WE are the poor children of Eve. Inheriting her guilt and condemned to the same penalty, we have to wander about in this valley of tears, exiles from our country, weeping over our many afflictions of body and soul.

But happy are they who, in spite of their sorrows, turn often to the comfortress of the world, to the refuge of the miserable, to the great Mother of God, and devoutly invoke her.

The Church is careful to teach her children with what attention and trust they should pray to this loving protectress. For this purpose she commands them to have special devotion to her.  She has instituted many feasts of Our Lady, and she sets aside one day in the week for her special honor. She recommends that all priests and religious in their daily Office invoke her in the name of the whole Christian body, and she recommends that all the faithful pray to her three times a day at the sound of the Angelus.

See the confidence which the Church places in Mary: in all public calamities she invariably calls upon the faithful to enlist her protection through novenas, through prayers and processions, through visits to her churches and shrines.

Our Lady herself desires this. She wants us to seek her always and invoke her aid. It is not as if she were begging us for these marks of veneration, for they cannot come up to her deserving. She desires them so that our confidence and devotion may be increased by them and move her to answer us with greater help and comfort.

St. Bonaventure observes that Ruth, whose name means "seeing and hastening," was a figure of Mary; "for Mary, seeing our miseries, mercifully hastens to help us."

Novarinus adds that "Mary, in her intense desire to help us, can brook no delay, for she is not at all an avaricious hoarder of the graces at her disposal, but a Mother of Mercy, and instantly showers down the treasures of her liberality on her servants."

Richard of St. Lawrence assures us that Mary pours out her compassion on everyone who prays for it, even if the prayer be only a simple Hail Mary.

How quickly this good Mother helps all who pray to her! She not only runs, but flies, to our assistance.  God has wings when He comes to His own; Mary too has wings. Hers are the wings of an eagle; she flies with the love of God.  With speed more than that of the seraphim she goes everywhere to aid her children.  When she went into the hill country to Elizabeth, bringing grace with her, she went, we are told, in haste (Lk. 1:39).

Remember what Bernardine de Bustis says: She is more eager to grant us graces than we can be to receive them.  Nor should the multitude of our sins diminish our confidence. Mary is the Mother of Mercy. But there would be no reason for mercy if there were no one who needed it. No good mother shrinks from applying a remedy to her children when they are infected with some disgusting skin disease, however nauseating the sight may be. Neither does our good Mother shrink from us when we come to her to heal the wounds of sin, no matter how loathsome they are.

So great is this good Mother's compassion, and her love so urgent, that she does not even wait for our prayers --- she anticipates them. She hastens to make herself known in anticipation of people's desire (Wis. 6:14).  Her heart is full of pity for poor sinners, and scarcely has she noticed our miseries when she lavishes her tender mercies on us.

For any who doubt whether Mary will help them when they come to her, Innocent III has this encouraging reminder: "Who ever called upon her and was not heard by her?"  If there are any, O most Blessed Virgin Mary, who can recall having been refused by you when they came to you in their hour of need, let them no more speak in praise of your mercy!

Sooner would Heaven and earth be destroyed than Mary would fail to assist anyone who turned to her with the right dispositions to ask her help.

St. Anselm, to increase our confidence, says this: "When we pray to the Mother of God we are heard more quickly than when we call directly on the name of Jesus --- for her Son is not only our Lord but our Judge. But when we call on the name of His Mother, though our own merits will not insure an answer, yet her merits intercede for us and we are answered."

This does not mean that Mary is more powerful than her Son to save us. We know that Jesus is our only Savior, and that he alone by His merits has obtained and will obtain salvation for us.

However, when we have recourse to Jesus, we regard Him at the same time as our Judge, whose business it is to chastise ungrateful souls. Therefore the confidence necessary before we can be heard may fail us.  When we go to Mary, however, she has no other office but to show compassion as Mother of Mercy, and to defend us as our advocate. Hence our confidence is more easily aroused and is often greater than when we go directly to Jesus.

Many things are asked of God and are not granted; they are asked of Mary and are obtained not because she is more powerful than God, but simply because God decrees to honor her in this way.

Once St. Bridget heard our Lord make a most sweet and consoling promise: "You shall bring Me no petition," He said to His Mother, "that will be denied. Ask what you will; I will never refuse you anything. " And remember --- I promise to give grace to those who ask it in your name, even though they be sinners, if they re solve to change their lives."

"Remember, O most holy Virgin Mary, that never was it heard of in any age that anyone having recourse to your protection was abandoned!" Forgive me therefore, O Mary, if I say that I do not care to be that first unfortunate creature to have recourse to you and be abandoned.

Prayers

Litany of the Holy Ghost

Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary

 

 

[Alley]

With love!

[bernadette szczepkowski]

"You shall bring Me no petition that shall be denied."

[Alan]

See the confidence which the Church places in Mary: in all public calamities she invariably calls upon the faithful to enlist her protection through novenas, through prayers and processions, through visits to her churches and shrines.

[Cathleen]

+Amen