"Hail Mary Prayer" by David Burke
"His Light Upon My Rosary"
Copyright: David Burke
– With Permission –
May 13th, - Anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady to three children in Fatima, Portugal (1917).
"The heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary,
the word of her heart, has changed the history of the world, because
it brought the Savior into the world – because, thanks to her Yes, God could become man in our world and remains so for all
time.
The Evil One has power in this world, as we see and experience continually. He has power because our freedom continually lets
itself be led away from God. But since God, Himself, took a human heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good,
the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word.
From that time forth, the word that prevails is this: In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome
the world (Jn 16:33). The message of Fatima invites us to trust in this promise."
An Ordinary Women and Mother of God
by: Catherine Doherty
Her cause for canonization as a saint is under consideration by the Catholic Church.
(August 15, 1896 – December 14, 1985)
Consider Mary as she really is. Everybody glorifies Our Lady. Of course she is to be glorified. She is the Mother of God.
But I would like to tell of her ordinary life. There are many women like me who feel that she is so high up that nobody can
touch her. It is true that she is high up, but she is also very ordinary.
What did she do all day? I imagine she washed and scrubbed and cleaned. She was married to a carpenter. She wasn't a big
shot in Nazareth. Nazareth was a small town. Joseph wasn't a big shot, just a carpenter. She tended to her husband and Son,
especially when he was small. She cooked, she scrubbed and she washed and wove and attended to the garden and did the laundry.
Our Lady was the first person who really knew how to do the will of God in its minute details.
I revel in her normality because she is ordinary and at the same time extraordinary. It was an ordinary household and that
is a most fantastic thing. Our Lord chose for his mother a working woman; that's what she was, a working woman.
She got up in the morning, and on some days of the week carried the laundry to the pool. The women of Nazareth must have
come to her constantly because she was who she was. She must have kept, not a cookie jar, but the Eastern sweets that all
the Eastern people love, and children must have come to her.
I think of her in realistic terms, but I also think of her as the woman with the power to stand silently under the cross
of her Son, and in some sort of an incredible way, I understand that at that moment she became the mother of all humanity,
for whom he died.
She's the woman of speech and she's the woman of silence. She's stronger than an army in battle array and as weak with
God as only a woman can be. She dusted and she cleaned. And she cooked and she knew how to weave. She wove his seamless
garment. Her life was a sea of small things so infinitely small that they're almost not worth mentioning. The corn had to
be ground, her house swept, the meals prepared; day after day the Mother of God did those things.
From her we can learn the quality of listening, and of taking up the words of others as well as the words of God, holding
them in our hearts until the Holy Spirit cracks them wide open and gives us the answer as he did to her as her Spouse.
You asked me to explain who Our Lady is. You could say that she's the gate. She's the gate to the way to the Father,
because it is through her that Christ came to us and it is through her that we return to him.
Who is Our Lady? A woman like you and me. She is someone to whom my heart goes out all day and who is with me as a friend,
and with whom I can talk.
We all should talk about her Son. For you see, she changed his diapers and he drank her milk, and she kissed his boo-boos away
like any woman does to a toddler. He scratched himself, so she kissed it away. He went, and he fell and he got up and he grew up,
and she probably said, "Eat your porridge," and she probably said, "Don't forget your sandals. It's wet."
Who has lived with God as Mary has lived with him? To whom can we go and find out that he is really a man? From whom shall we
know the Incarnation better than from the woman who carried him in her womb nine months?
How can anyone talk about throwing out devotions to Our Lady? Do you want to throw out the woman who was pregnant with God and
who will never lead you away from him but always to him?
We think of her as the queen of the angels, and queen of the universe, which she is. But you see, God was a carpenter and she
was a house-wife. And God is in heaven and he still has calloused hands in his glorified body. And she, who also has been
assumed into heaven and has a glorified body, still has hands that show she was just a working woman. She is all things to
all people because she is the mother of mankind.
How can we not love her? How can we not go to her, run to her? She has the secret of everything, now that she is where she
is. And when we worry about some kind of a mystery or have a hang-up on something or other in spiritual matters, why don't
we go to her? She'll say, "Oh relax, kiddo. Let us sit down and talk."
What a strange thing it is that God chose her. Because she is the gate through which he came to us, she is the gate wide
open for us to go through to him.
Adapted from Bogoroditza by Catherine Doherty
Copyright: Madonna House Publications – With Permission under a Creative Commons License.
Copyright © 2009 by St. Denis Parish
