8/5/2020 Post:
With Mother's Day ... our thoughts might be reminiscent of times enjoyed with our mothers, our spiritual mothers, or mother figures in our lives. The month of May can also draw our attention to our dear Mother in heaven.
We can all understand the universal care of our Mother in Heaven for us or, at the very least, the longing for that spiritual motherly care in our lives. The Blessed Mother’s love and care is especially healing for those whose own biological mothers were unwilling or unable to provide authentic self-giving love. We can go to Mary with our own concerns. We can sit on her lap and pour out our hearts to her like a child would sit on his or her mother’s lap. She will listen. She’s our Mother. Mother Mary loves us all with a pure, selfless, and steadfast motherly love. She tirelessly calls to our hearts and souls. Her utmost aim is to bring us to her Son.
21.05.18 Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle—Franciscan Spirit
The mother figure most central to the Catholic tradition is Mary. We do her a great disservice by pretending that her life was idyllic. Some statues suggest that she did nothing but gaze piously at the sky or look vapidly at the lilies. Instead, she suffered the same push-pull all mothers do, delighting in her child’s growth yet knowing that every day brought her closer to his departure. Mary’s tension was magnified by knowing that her son’s integrity would surely set him in conflict with both political and religious authorities. Because Mary was fully human, she endured bewilderment, confusion, disappointment and pain. No stranger to excruciating loss, she embraces those to whom Mother’s Day brings only nightmares. We can turn to her when we’re waiting tensely in the principal’s office, theERorthejail. ...............
FranciscanMedia
Let us run to her, and, as her little children, cast ourselves into her arms with a perfect confidence.
Saint Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church
If you ever feel distressed during your day — call upon our Lady — just say this simple prayer:
'Mary, Mother of Jesus, please be a mother to me now.'
Blessed Mother Teresa
Pope Francis, is encouraging households and individuals to pray the Rosary each day throughout May. He has written two prayers (see last week’s attachments) to be offered at the conclusion of the Rosary. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of the Church and therefore the example, as well as the guide and inspiration, of everyone who, in and through the Church, seeks to be the servant of God and man and the obedient agent of the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
2/5/2020 Post:
It has been a long-standing Catholic tradition to honour the Blessed Virgin Mary in May. In the early Church there is evidence of a major feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary celebrated on the 15th of May each year, but it wasn’t until the 18th century that May received a particular association with the Virgin Mary. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “The May devotion in its present form originated at Rome where Father Latomia of the Roman College of the Society of Jesus, to counteract infidelity and immorality among the students, made a vow at the end of the eighteenth century to devote the month of May to Mary. From Rome the practice spread to the other Jesuit colleges and thence to nearly every Catholic church of the Latin rite.” In 1945, Pope Pius XII solidified May as a Marian month. Give Mary a special spot in your prayer corner, this May. It can be a statue or picture, but place there some representation of our Blessed Mother. Pope Francis is encouraging households and individuals to pray the Rosary each day throughout May. He has written two prayers (see attachments) to be offered at the conclusion of the Rosary.
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