AMDG
Her pilgrim statue
will visit every parish in the diocese during the next 12 months. The diocese originally was consecrated to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary by the first Bishop of Steubenville, John Mussio, when
the diocese was formed in 1945. The
purpose of the reconsecration after 71 years is to renew not only the diocese,
but also our parish and each one of us, especially those who are drifting or
are lapsed Catholics. Her intercession
will be key to that great missionary task.
Our Own Consecration
to Mary. It is hoped that many of us
will consecrate ourselves individually to Mary according to “Total
Consecration”, the method written by St. Louis de Monfort, whose statue
is at the entrance of our church. David
Stapleton and Jaga Sebastian would be more than happy to guide you in making
the consecration to Mary. This visit of
the Pilgrim Statue would be an excellent time to start the 33 day process.
In 1984 St. Pope John Paul II in union with the bishops consecrated
Russia in particular and the World to the Immaculate Heart as Mary had
requested at Fatima (See Blog #96 at paulrsebastianphd.blogspot.com).
St. Louis Church
will receive her statue on Friday August
26 with a special Mass at 6 pm, the day after the feast of St. Louis IX, its
patron and coinciding with its Parish Festival the next day. She will stay with us until Friday September
2. There will be a procession around the
church property in Mary’s honor on Sunday after the special Mass at 10 am. That will be followed by Adoration of the
Blessed Sacrament into the evening and the next morning until the 8 am Mass. There will also be adoration for an hour
before each daily Mass at 7 am and a rosary following it.
The
faithful prayed at daily Mass an octave of Preparation for her stay with us since the
Feast of the Assumption of Mary (the 4th Glorious Mystery of the
Rosary) – her being taken bodily into Heaven upon her death or dormition. To honor His mother, our Lord would not allow
this living tabernacle for nine months to deteriorate or be stained by the
elements. This octave concluded with the
feast of the Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth (the 5th
Glorious Mystery of the Rosary), which is the octave of the Assumption August
22. According to the tradition of the
Old Testament, it was always the Queen Mother who had the special place of great
honor and intercessory influence in the royal court. Mary of course is the Queen Mother of Christ
the King! Mary has the same intercessory
role in the heavenly court for each one of us, her children. Similarly, mothers at times intercede for
their children with an authoritarian father.
MAY WE ALL BE THERE TO WELCOME MARY ON FRIDAY AUGUST 26 at 6 pm and BID
HER FAREWELL THE FOLLOWING FRIDAY!
Why do we say “Immaculate
Heart of Mary”? It comes from the
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception which was defined by Pope Pius IX in
1854. That is, Mary was protected from
any stain of sin from the very moment of her conception. Every other person that God created is born
with what we call Original Sin, a blot upon every member of the human family as
a consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve…….rebelling, distrusting God, and
blatantly disobeying Him. Mary did not
need to be baptized to share in the divine life of sanctifying grace as we
must. After all, the Archangel Gabriel
declared unto Mary at the Annunciation: “Hail full of grace, the Lord is with
thee. Blessed are thou among women”
(Luke 1:28-29).
Certainly,
our Lord would only choose a woman of immaculate purity with not the slightest
stain of sin to carry the Son of God in her womb for nine months. Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant that contained
in her womb the Bread of Life, a high priest, and prophet who speaks for
God. The original Ark contained a sample
of manna, the staff of Aaron, the high priest, and the Ten Commandments given to
Moses the prophet by God.
Where is it in the Bible
that Mary is our Mother? While
suffering and dying on the cross to make reparation for our sins and thus open the
gates of Heaven for us, our Lord gave us His own mother in addition to Himself
in the Eucharist the day before. St.
John, from his position at the foot of the cross, personally reported in his
Gospel: “He said to His mother, “Woman, behold thy son.’ Then he said to the
disciple, ‘Behold thy mother” (John 19: 26-27).
That great gift was for all of us.
Mary
was present in the Upper Room at Pentecost and provided prayers, comfort,
counsel, and encouragement to the first apostles. She does the same to us today as she nurtures
our faith, prays for us, and intercedes for us.
Didn’t Christ give us His life, His all because of His infinite love for
us? And even to this day that includes
His very self, His body and blood in the Eucharist and in addition, His dearest
mother to help us to navigate the long, narrow, and arduously difficult road to
Heaven.
How can we call
Mary, the Mother of God who created her?
Critics forget that Christ has two natures…….human and divine. Mary is the mother of God only in the sense
that she was God’s instrument in giving birth to the human manifestation or
human nature of the Son of God. Through
Mary, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became one of us to teach us how
to live and to save us from our sins.
Mary gave her fiat (yes) to the great mission God asked her
to carry out by saying to the Archangel Gabriel with great humility: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to
me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38).
Thus Mary heroically trusted in God and took on the awesome
responsibility to give birth to the Son of God and raise Him to adulthood. Christ received His genetic makeup from both
Mary and the Holy Spirit who overshadowed her, the ever virgin. Thus we say in the Apostles Creed and the
Nicene Creed “and she conceived by the Holy Spirit”. In the Upper Room years later, the Holy Spirit
overshadowed the apostles and Mary again on the first Pentecost. We receive many of the same graces in the
sacrament of Confirmation.
 |
An
image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary…….the Queen
Mother and her son, Christ the King. Note that both hearts emit flames of intense
love for us and thirst for sinners to return to Christ and His Church. Note
also the sword piercing her heart. The
Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus are united as one. Thus her role is to carry out the will of her
son and to lead souls to God as the great evangelizer.
The Union of Two
Hearts. We do not adore Mary, nor do
we use her as an intermediary. Yes, we
honor her as the perfect model of woman and mother. Even all Muslims recognize that as
demonstrated by an entire chapter in the Qur’an (Chap 19 & see my Blog
#4). Furthermore, we ask Mary to pray
for us as I would ask you to pray for me.
Her Immaculate Heart and her son’s Sacred Heart are so intimately united
that Mary’s will is completely subservient to God’s will. The great Polish St. Maximillian Kolbe, the
founder of the “Knights of the Imaculada” and writer of the Imaculada Magazine
which prepared Poland for six years of Nazi subjugation, beautifully described
that fact:
“Mary is a faithful
image of God’s perfection and sanctity.
Our soul’s degree of perfection depends on the union of our will with
that of God. Because the most blessed
Virgin surpasses in perfection all the angels and saints, her will is united
with and made one in the closest manner with the will of God. She lives and acts solely in God and through
God. Hence, by accomplishing the will of
the Immaculate, we accomplish by that very fact the will of God.”
Thus Mary uses any power that God gives her to carry out
the will of her son. Her role in the
Church (Blog #83) is to protect it, to nurture the faith of its members, and to
evangelize, bringing souls to her son. Thus
we have the saying: “To Jesus through Mary”.
Remember Mary’s first public act of intercession at Cana when she told
the servants: “Do as He tells you” (John 2:5).
She wants us to do likewise. Mary
has a key role in the Evangelization of Latin America (Blogs #104 – 106) and
the world (Blogs #95 & 96), in healing (#133), and saving Europe from
conquest by radical Islam in 1456 at Belgrade, 1571 at the Battle of Lepanto, and
1683 at the Battle of Vienna (Blog #125).
She
gave us the most beautiful prayer after the Mass…….the Rosary (#50, 73, 78,
& 84), as we relive and meditate on different mysteries of the Bible with
repetitive prayer as background music.
Mary, has given us many messages to help us along on the journey to
Heaven in many apparitions, some vigorously authenticated by the Church and
many not. Interesting is that every
Catholic country and many others have shrines to Mary where she can nurture in
a special way the faith of those who visit her.
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| The Pilgrim Statue of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Patroness of the Diocese of Steubenville (http://www.diosteub.org/Reconsecration). In no way do we adore this or any statue; we honor who it represents. We adore only God and God alone, but we honor and emulate Mary and the saints who belong to our Hall of Fame for heroic virtue and unusual holiness. Even the Qur’an of Islam recognizes her as the perfect woman, a great model of a mother and woman. For example, we honor historical figures with statues and great baseball players with their statues in front of stadiums. You won’t find any statue or image in most Protestant churches. With the exception of the Orthodox, the Catholic Church is the only religion that gives a woman a prominent role in the liturgy and daily practice of the faith. |
Simeon prophesized to Mary that a sword would pierce her
heart (Luke 2:35). From this comes the
“Seven Sorrows of Mary”: 1) Simeon’s
prophesy; 2) the slaughter of the innocents & flight to Egypt; 3) the loss
of the child Jesus in the temple; 4) meeting her son on the way up to Mt.
Calvary; 5) the Crucifixion; 6) taking Christ down from the cross; and 7) the
laying of the body of Christ in the sepulcher.
Our blessed mother endured each sorrow with grace, with faith, courage,
and above all, TRUST that God would make good come out of it and His will would
ultimately prevail.
Because the
Immaculate Heart and the Sacred Heart are so united, Mary must have intensely
suffered with her son for us on Good Friday.
Some theologians even call her a co-redeemer or “Co-redemptrix”. This of course would have to be studied
thoroughly by the theologians and marianologists with much prayer before the
Pope could infallibly declare that concept a dogma. According to one theory, at the moment that
the centurion pierced the heart of the dead savior, Mary’s heart was pierced in
some way as she felt intense pain there.
St. Pope John Paul II had such a devotion to Mary that he
put on his papal coat of arms, the words in Latin, “Totus tuus” or “All
yours”. The Apostolate of Family
Consecration (Catholic Familyland), the family retreat center, promotes the
concept that Mary will magnify any prayer, good example, sacrifice, or action
we offer to God through her.
In
sum Mary’s Immaculate Heart and her son’s Sacred Heart are so intimately united
that her will is completely subservient to God’s will. Thus her role is to carry out the will of her
son and to lead souls to God as the great evangelizer……to Jesus through Mary.
Be sure to attend
Adoration on Sunday to worship Jesus Christ, who is mercy & love, and honor
His mother and our mother of mercy in this Year of Mercy. Perhaps you can begin the Total Consecration
to Mary according to St. Louis de Monfort.
It will be SPECIAL.
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