When He changed the water to wine, He did your bidding as God, since as man He could not perform miracles. They then left a small offering of silver required by the Law of Moses. No other has a like understanding of our miseries, or is in a position to render us on all occasions timely and powerful help. I have every reason to rejoice, for as the Mother of Jesus and my Mother you are my hope of salvation. May your name be the last sound that escapes my lips upon this earth and the first I breathe in heaven. How many frail hearts are strengthened by you! 2. You are the channel by which all the favors of Jesus descend upon us, even as it was through you and in union with you that during His mortal life He won for us whatever title we have to His gifts and graces. The corresponding feast, however, did not . Help me to imitate your virtues that I may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Your holiness was due to this Spirit of Love, to Whose guidance you abandoned yourself. The effects of the presence of Jesus and you are still the same. The Calendar section will present a particular feast for Our Lady for each day of the year. 'Teach me that the test of my following of your Divine Son is practical charity. It impels my mind to self-exaltation, because I am proud. He was with you not only with His actual grace, touching your heart and enlightening your understanding. Mary, My Mother, what a truly marvelous privilege is mine! 55. . May looking upon your Immaculate Heart inspire confidence in me which will make me more eager to grow in holiness. Since you are my Mother, I share in the love you have for your Divine Son. He became Sovereign Master of the universe and Supreme Judge of the living and the dead. Mary, My Mother, the Church puts these words of the Canticle on your lips: "I love those who love me." Your holiness was not the result of the privilege of your Immaculate Conception and sanctifying grace alone, but it followed from your gift of yourself to God and your constant cooperation with His graces. Your Child, becoming the King of Martyrs, would make you their Queen. At the marriage feast of Cana He worked His first miracle because you asked Him for this favor. This gift of Your Heart entitles you to be called the Mother of the Holy Eucharist. The holy couple offered you to God by the ministry of the priest in charge, who invoked the blessing of God upon you and your parents. The divine maternity explains everything in you; without this maternity nothing in you can be explained. A woman, the tree, and death symbolize our defeat. In short, the first reason we can rightfully call Mary our "Mother of Mercy" is that by God's special, prevenient grace, He created her soul to be the masterpiece of His Mercy in the world, and this special gift of grace within her was the foundation of His whole work of mercy in the world through Christ. Help me to love God with my whole soulso that all the faculties of my soul may be consecrated to Him, and that I may make use of them only to make Him known, loved and served. The Son will listen to you, His Mother, and the Father will listen to His Son. Mary, Mother of God, you are the Virgin most pure because you are the holiest of God's creatures. You offered Him on the altar of the Crossthe future Eucharistic Christin perfect adoration to the insulted majesty of God, in thanksgiving for all the blessings showered on mankind; in reparation for our sins and in petition for sinners. Take my cold heart; put it into your own and inflame it with a fire of love like your own. Never before did angel greet man with the word "Hail, full of grace." Mary, Mother of God, I firmly believe in the doctrine of Holy Mother Church concerning your Immaculate Conception, namely, that you were, in the first instant of your conception, by the singular grace and privilege of God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. Amen. For my proud nature, humility is most difficult to practise. You are the loving daughter of the Father, because, before all creatures, you were predestined to be His daughter at the same moment that He decreed the Incarnation of His Son. I cannot rise to the heights of your holiness because I cannot grasp the intimacy of your union with Christ when you became His Mother. It is truly the will of God that all graces should come to us through you. As you knelt before the Sacred Species, you truly influenced the First Christians to be ardent lovers of your loving Son in the Blessed Sacrament. I firmly believe that He will hear my prayer also, if this should be the Will of God. You possessed a perfect faith, a firm hope, a burning charity, a deep humility, a purity greater than that of the angels. 1. With no tendency to evil, but with a deep yearning for the highest virtue, you glorified God more than all His other creatures. You were borne aloft to the palace of your Beloved. But your love for God was even greater. When Jesus said to John, "Behold thy Mother," He wanted John to respect and to love you as his Mother. Mother Teresa once laid out a simple path for everyone, leading from silence to peace. I consecrate to you my very being and my whole life: all that I have, all that I love, all that I am. Your ardent faith and intense love pierced that thin veil which separated you from your loving Son. Parting with your dying Son was the height of your sorrow. Grant that following your good counsel, I may avoid sin, practise virtue, save my soul and attain eternal life. The Feast of Our Lady of Palestine was established in 1927 by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, . Crowds reach the entry gate to the basilica grounds for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. 25. You are not only the Mother of the guilty but also Mother of Jesus, their Judge. Because of sanctifying grace infused into your soul, you were from the first moment of your existence most intimately united with God and endowed with the most precious gifts of heaven. 3. Mary, My Mother, you did acknowledge having received greater graces from God than had any other creature, for a humble heart always acknowledges the special favors of God that it may humble itself the more. Through Joseph your descent from David would be known. In heaven all your subjects are crowned by the King of kings, and they pay homage to you. Let me feel some of the sentiments of loving expectation that you felt while waiting for the birth of your Child, so that I may prepare myself for His coming and the graces of the mystery of His Nativity may bear fruit in my soul. She holds a lamp for the fires of Imbolc, is known. Latest news Portuguese bishops announce steps to end sexual abuse in the Church St. Brigid of Kildare Feast Day February 1st. Mary, Mother of God, at Pentecost you were with the Apostles, preparing for the Holy Spirit the promised Gift of your Son. He promised that my prayers would be heard when He said, "Ask, and it shall be given you" (Matt. You are kind and loving for you have a mother's heart, full of pity for the erring. 2. I give you my whole being by copying as far as possible all your virtues by performing each of my actions through you, with you and in you This is the most pleasing homage I can render you. Mary, Mother of God, you reign in splendor for all eternity with your Divine Son. There you stood bravely, your eyes fastened on your Divine Son. Of course, you never thought of yourself as a sinner for humility is truth, and you knew that you had never offended God. I know that He wants you ever to be my Mother of Perpetual Help so that the graces He has merited for me may effect the salvation of my soul. Furthermore, Jesus made the revelation of His divinity and the strengthening of the faith of His disciples the effect of your intercession. Mary, My Mother, your apparition at Guadalupe as the Immaculate Conception is your only recorded appearance in North America. From all eternity God chose you to be His Mother that those who could not be saved according to the rigor of divine justice, might be saved with the help of your sweet mercy and powerful intercession. You fulfill the duties and enjoy the rights of a true mother. Your dying Son declared this in His words to you from the cross, "Woman, behold thy Son." As Eve induced Adam to eat of the forbidden fruit which brought death upon us, so you prompt us to eat the Bread which gives us life. You will obtain for me grace to be faithful to God during the rest of my life. R. Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord! He has reconciled us to God. By this title I understand: (1) upon your mediation and intercession depends the distribution of the riches of the treasury which Jesus acquired for the salvation of men; (2) consequently, no grace comes to all of us as a body or to any of us in particular which you have not asked for in our behalf; (3) according to the order of things established by God, you have become, under Jesus Christ, after Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christfrom whom you can never be separatedthe source and principle for us of all supernatural life. I want to turn to you in all my pressing needs and difficulties as to a most sure refuge, imploring the help of your protection, choosing you as my advocate, whole-heartedly entrusting my cause to you who are the Consoler of the Afflicted. Save me, a poor sinner who confidently invokes your intercession, through the graces merited for me on the cross by the precious Blood of your Son. You have become all things to all men; you have opened your Heart to all that all may receive of your generosity: the imprisoned, freedom, the sick, health, the afflicted, consolation; the sinner, pardon; and God, glory. When the hands and feet of Jesus were pierced with nails, the sound of each blow of the hammer inflicted a wound in your Heart. You could not accompany the Apostles while they fulfilled the duties of their ministry, but in silence and solitude, by the power of your prayers and the fervor of your charity, you were the master-missionary of them all. I need not see you appear, as you did to so many others. No apostolic act bears fruit without grace. The more fully you are Queen in a soul, the more does Jesus reign there as King. Our Lady of Perpetual Help Feast day: June 27 Patroness of the Republic of Haiti and Almoradi, Spain Our Lady of Perpetual Help, also known as Our Lady of Perpetual Succour and Our Mother of Perpetual Help is the title given to a 15th-century icon that originated in the Keras Kardiotissas Monastery and has been in Rome since 1499. Prayer was the soul of your preparation, and the Apostles were inspired by your example. Teach me to utter your most holy name that it may fill my heart with hope and burning love for you and that loving you I might reach the Light of the World. Preserve their faith, assailed at every hour by the forces opposed to Christ. But I want to be loved by you even more; hence, give me an ever growing love for you. The feast is like an octave for the birthday of Our Lady on September 8th. According to earthly standards, nothing could be added to your fullness of grace. You are a Mediatrix because since your Assumption, with Christ you obtain all graces for men. Mary, Mother of God, your Heart is a shrine of holiness, into which the demon of sin has never entered; whose sanctuary was never once defiled by the least touch of evil, whose altar was the chosen resting place of the Holy Spirit. Coming from the Latin words cum and patior, compassion means to suffer. 1. You will be inspired by the overflow of love for Our Lady. 1. Mary, Mother of God, how sacred was the life of Jesus in your womb while you awaited His coming! But, because you surpass all other creatures in holiness and in the closeness of your union with Jesus and. Mary, Mother of God, I choose you as my model of Eucharistic devotion. Yet no selfish thought, no bitter resentment has marred your beauty. Your great lover, Saint Bernard, along with many other saints and writers, reminds me: "Through you, Mary, heaven has been filled; through you hell has beheld itself robbed of an army of souls, in a word, through you eternal life was imparted to multitudes of wretched ones, who had made themselves unworthy of it." In your greater sorrow may my own be lost, and in calm resignation may my anguished soul find peace and strength. Turin Our Lady of Consolation, Turin This icon was presented to the city of Turin. All good things come to us through your hands.