Devotions: December 2004 Archives

"You are born on this night, our divine Redeemer, and, in our journey along the paths of time, you become for us the food of eternal life," the Pope said.

The earth is glad, O Lord, and leaps with joy, for that the Word made flesh dwells in the womb of the holy Virgin. At His coming the whole earth is ransomed from captivity, after having been kept, by Adam's sin, in a dark prison. Now let the sea be moved, and all things that are therein; let the mountains leap with joy, and all the trees of the forest; because God, having become man, has deigned to come through the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary, from heaven into this world. By this His coming, therefore, we beseech Thee, O almighty God, that thou loose the weakness of our flesh from the bonds of sin, and come in Thy overflowing mercy, to the assistance of this Thy family here present before Thee.

From the Mozarabic Missal quoted by Michael Davies in an article "Et Incarnatus Est"

Steve sent me this photo he took of the statue of Mary outside the Queen of All Saints chapel at Mary Immaculate Center in Northampton, PA. As he wrote in the comments a few days ago, he is on the Spirituality Year Program offered by St. Charles Seminary. He wrote that he'd sent this photo to RC hoping he would put it up before Dec. 8 but apparently RC doesn't love Mary as he ought! Tsk, tsk, RC !

Anyhow, Steve said he took the photo in the late afternoon when the sun was shining through a grate in the entrance of Mary Immaculate Center. The grate has the "M" associated with the Miraculous Medal devotion, a crown, and a fleur-de-lis in it. In this photo you can clearly see the shadow fo the fleur-de-lis and the M.

Steve also says pray for all seminarians, especially those most in need of God's mercy. I don't know what he meant by that but I am passing it along. It sounds like he's been reading about the visions of Hell from the children at Fatima - scary! So pray for seminarians, especially those most in need of God's mercy!

Origins
The First Saturday Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was first mentioned by Our Lady of Fatima on July 13, 1917. After showing the three children a vision of hell she said, "You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace... I shall come to ask for... the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays..."

Eight years later, on December 10, 1925, Mary and the Child Jesus appeared to Lucia, the sole surviving Fatima visionary, at a convent in Pontevedra, Spain. Our Lady rested her hand on Lucia's shoulder, revealing a heart encircled by thorns.

The Child Jesus said: "Have compassion on the heart of your most holy Mother, covered with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation..."

Conditions
Our Lady spoke next, saying: "Look, my daughter, at my heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me."

Why Five Saturdays?
Christians have always honored the Blessed Virgin on Saturday because of her constant faith in Jesus on that first Holy Saturday before the Resurrection.

Five first Saturdays of reparation were requested to atone for the five ways in which people offend the Immaculate Heart of Mary:

1. Attacks upon Mary's Immaculate Conception
2. Attacks against her Perpetual Virginity
3. Attacks upon her Divine Maternity and the refusal to accept her as the Mother of all mankind
4. For those who try to publicly implant in children's hearts indifference, comtempt and even hatred of this Immaculate Mother
5. For those who insult her directly in her sacred images.

Link via Drudge early this morning.

I doubt Rep. Waxman gives a rip about biased history textbooks or disputed facts in the curriculum of other subjects. The abstinence-only program is being criticised because it is abstinence-only which is so..... 1950? Puritanitical? Dark Ages?

I think the "scared straight" approach with respect to extramarital sex is acceptable. But hey, that's just me.