PREPARATION FOR CONSECRATION DAY 20

[Dawn Marie]

PREPARATION FOR CONSECRATION DAY 20

Prayers for the Preparatory Period (Days 1-33) to be said daily.

To see the prayers in their entirety click the links below...

Theme: Knowledge Of The Blessed Virgin
Acts of love, pious affection for the Blessed Virgin, imitation of her virtues, especially her profound humility, her lively faith, her blind obedience, her continual mental prayer, her mortification in all things, her surpassing purity, her ardent charity, her heroic patience, her angelic sweetness, and her divine wisdom: "there being," as St. Louis De Montfort says, "the ten principal virtues of the Blessed Virgin."

We must unite ourselves to Jesus through Mary - this is the characteristic of our devotion; therefore, Saint Louis De Montfort asks that we employ ourselves in acquiring a knowledge of the Blessed Virgin.

Mary is our sovereign and our mediatrix, our Mother and our Mistress. Let us then endeavor to know the effects of this royalty, of this mediation, and of this maternity, as well as the grandeurs and prerogatives which are the foundation or consequences thereof. Our Mother is also a perfect mold wherein we are to be molded in order to make her intentions and dispositions ours. This we cannot achieve without studying the interior life of Mary; namely, her virtues, her sentiments, her actions, her participation in the mysteries of Christ and her union with Him.

 

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Meditation: 1

Luke 2:16-21, 45-52

And they came with haste; and they found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. And seeing, they understood of the word that had been spoken to them concerning this child. And all that heard, wondered; and at those things that were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God, for all the things they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. And after eight days were accomplished, that the child should be circumcised, his name was called JESUS, which was called by the angel, before he was conceived in the womb...

...And not finding him, they returned into Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, that, after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his wisdom and his answers. And seeing him, they wondered. And his mother said to him: Son, why hast thou done so to us? behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said to them: How is it that you sought me? did you not know, that I must be about my father's business? And they understood not the word that he spoke unto them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them. And his mother kept all these words in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men.

 
Meditation: 2

Getting to Know Mary

This week is devoted to meditating upon Mary and humbly asking God to grant us the grace to know Mary better.  We are about to attempt a difficult and serious thing.  We are to penetrate into a secret and hidden world of beauty, to discover its wondrous charms, so as to love it and dwell in it---just like God.  Who finds in it joy, contentment and where He reigns with all power and majesty.

We shall seek to know Mary.  We the sin-stained wretches of the earth, the rebels of creation, we shall seek to know her whom the angels do not sufficiently know.  We shall seek to uncover the secret that Mary is---a secret known only fully to God.  For He alone knows Mary and delights in Mary.  If we wish to know Mary then we must earnestly beg Him for this grace and privilege, and besides praying for it, we should also perform some penance, make some pilgrimage, or go to visit some Church named after her.

We must offer up some little acts of mortification, denial of our own will, our desires and tastes etc.  We must use every means possible to induce God to look favorably upon us and to grant our request.  We will turn to the angels and seek their intercession. We will beg the saints to plead with God for us.  We will pray for the souls in Purgatory and ask them in return, to pray to God that He might share His secret with us.

When we have done all this, when we have confessed our unworthiness, and heard or said Mass and received Our Divine Lord in her honor, we will then ask Him to grant this special favor of which we are so unworthy.

TAKEN FROM THE GLORIES OF MARY

BY ST. ALPHONSUS

4. Of the Birth of Mary

(Celebrated ninth months after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 8 December)

Mary was born a Saint, and a great Saint; for the grace with which God enriched her from the beginning was great, and the fidelity with which she immediately corresponded with it was great.

Men usually celebrate the birth of their children with great feasts and rejoicings; but they should rather pity them, and show signs of mourning, and grief on reflecting that they are born, not only deprived of grace and reason, but worse than this they are infected with sin and children of wrath, and therefore condemned to misery and death. It is indeed right, however, to celebrate with festivity and universal joy the birth of our infant Mary; for she first saw the light of this world a baby, it is true, in point of age, but great in merit and virtue. Mary was born a Saint, and a great Saint. But to form an idea of the greatness of her sanctity, even at this early period, we must consider:

First, the greatness of the first grace with which God enriched her; and Secondly, the greatness of her fidelity in immediately corresponding with it.

First point. To begin with the first point, it is certain that Mary's soul was the most beautiful that God had ever created; nay more, after the work of the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, this was the greatest and most worthy of Himself that an omnipotent God ever did in the world. Saint Peter Damian calls it "a work only surpassed by God." Hence it follows that Divine grace did not come into Mary by drops, as in other Saints, "but like rain on the fleece," as it was foretold by David. The soul of Mary was like fleece, and imbibed the whole shower of grace, without losing a drop. Saint Basil of Seleucia says, "that the holy Virgin was full of grace, because she was elected and pre-elected by God, and the Holy Spirit was about to take full possession of her." Hence she said, by the lips of Ecclesiastes, "My abode is in the full assembly of saints;" that is, as Saint Bonaventure explains it, "I hold in plenitude all that other Saints have held in part." And Saint Vincent Ferrer, speaking particularly of the sanctity of Mary before her birth, says "that the Blessed Virgin was sanctified" (surpassed in sanctity) "in her mother's womb above all Saints and angels."

 

The second argument by which it is proved that Mary was more holy in the first moment of her existence than all the Saints together, is founded on the great office of Mediatress of men, with which she was charged from the beginning; and which made it necessary that she should possess a greater treasure of grace from the beginning than all other men together.

It is well known with what unanimity theologians and holy fathers give Mary this title of Mediatress, on account of her having obtained salvation for all, by her powerful intercession and merit, so called of congruity, thereby procuring the great benefit of redemption for the lost world. By her merit of congruity, I say; for Jesus Christ alone is our Mediator by way of justice and by merit, 'de condigno' as the Scholastics say, He having offered His merits to the Eternal Father, Who accepted them for our salvation. Mary, on the other hand, is a Mediatress of grace, by way of simple intercession and merit of congruity, she having offered to God, as theologians say, with Saint Bonaventure, her merits, for the salvation of all men; and God, as a favor, accepted them "with" the merits of Jesus Christ. On this account Arnold of Chartres says that "she effected our salvation in common with Christ." And Richard of Saint Victor says that "Mary desired, sought, and obtained the salvation of all; nay, even she effected the salvation of all." So that everything good, and every gift in the order of grace, which each of the Saints received from God, Mary obtained for them.

And the Holy Church wishes us to understand this, when she honors the Divine Mother by applying the  following verses of Ecclesiastes to her:

"In me is all grace of the way and the truth." "Of the way," because by Mary all graces are dispensed to wayfarers. " Of the truth," because the light of truth is imparted by her.

"In me is all hope of life and of virtue." "Of life," for by Mary we hope to obtain the life of grace in this world, and that of glory in heaven; "And of virtue," for through her we acquire virtues, and especially the theological virtues, which are the principal virtues of the Saints.

"I am the Mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope." Mary, by her intercession, obtains for her servants the gifts of Divine love, holy fear, heavenly light, and holy perseverance.

From which Saint Bernard concludes that it is a doctrine of the Church, that Mary is the Universal Mediatress of our salvation. He says: "Magnify the finder of grace, the mediatress of salvation, the restorer of ages. This I am taught by the Church proclaiming it; and thus also she teaches me to proclaim the same thing to others."

[Susan Grace]

Amen

[Flavia Talladen Schott]

Amen 

[bernadette szczepkowski]

Amen +

[Michael]

Amen.

[Everett Thomas Kettler]

Amen

[Traci]

Amen

[Margie]

Amen.

[Joseph]

Amen.

[Karen Kim]

Amen 

[bernadette szczepkowski]

In me is all grace of the way and the truth. In me is all hope of life and of virtue.