As Is Our Tradition,
you and your loved ones are being remembered in our Christmas Novena now through December 24th.
One Of Our Favorite Christmas Traditions
God’s masterful plan for His mother
The feast of the Immaculate Conception demonstrates God’s relentless intent to unite Himself with humanity. But whose conception are we commemorating on December 8?
Is it Jesus’ conception in the womb of Mary or is it Mary’s conception in the womb of St. Anne?
We invite you to meditate on the astonishing gift of the Immaculate Conception as you listen to our recording of “Mother of Fair Love” on our digital album of the same title.
The feast of the Annunciation is celebrated on March 25 each year. This is when the Angel Gabriel visited Mary in Nazareth and announced to her God’s invitation to become the mother of Jesus through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. Mary’s word of acceptance is the moment the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (Luke 1:26). It was the moment Jesus was conceived in Mary’s womb.
Jesus’ conception at the Annunciation was made possible by the Immaculate Conception of Mary, celebrated December 8. Mary was kept sinless by God from the first moment of her conception in the womb of St. Anne. She was untouched by Original Sin.
How can this be? In His masterful foreknowledge, God applied the merits of Christ’s Redemption to Mary, His mother-to-be, before the Incarnation and Redemption took place in time. She was the first to be redeemed!
Why? God’s plan was for his Son to truly become man in the womb of a mother, to be born of a woman, to live and suffer, and to die as a holocaust of love for sinful mankind, thereby opening the gates of Heaven to them. How could the Holy of Holies dwell as a Child in the womb of a tainted vessel? Mary was the chosen vessel and God prepared her beforehand for her unique role through the Immaculate Conception.
The gift of sinlessness allowed Mary to be brought into a tremendous union with Jesus. Her union is a sign to us; it beckons us onward to dare for union with God ourselves. We can see in her life God’s will to stop at nothing to draw us into making our own free “yes” to Him.
In the song, “Mother of Fair Love” the opening lyrics are a dialogue between Mary and Jesus: “Jesu,” she says to Him and He responds: “Mater Maria.” Then comes a description of their union of hearts so close as to make them practically inseparable. So inseparable, in fact, as to deem Mary’s role critical in God’s plan of Redemption:
| Mary can never be mistaken for the Bridegroom, the King, or the Diamond. She joyfully accepts the position of receptive vessel. But Mary’s humble yet exalted role of receptivity is not for her alone. God deigns for us to take Mary as our model and mother, that we too may be vessels wherein God’s gaze rests contentedly. |
Watch the “Marian Moments” on the Immaculate Conception
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God Bless America!
The lyrics of the familiar song “America the Beautiful” hearken back to our passionate American spirit of faith, liberty, and nobility.
The first verse expresses our country’s varied and splendid physical beauty stretching forth “from sea to shining sea”. Above and beyond the spacious skies and alabaster cities, our country is crowned by the higher, lasting gifts of faith and charity. We recognize everything as gift coming from the generous hand of God who has granted them to us despite our unworthiness.
The spirit of Christianity on which our country was founded puts generosity and eagerness to do good into the American heart. We ask God for the preservation of these higher gifts that we may seek the good not for ourselves alone but for others too. We sing:
O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!
Enjoy their rendition of “America the Beautiful” starting at 22:10
Christ is Triumphant
We see Christ triumphant on the feast of All Saints! We see the Catholic faith triumphant! We see concrete holiness! Thousands of saintly souls are in Heaven right now celebrating with us and praying for us!
The saints we celebrate today are individuals who made it to Heaven by the grace Jesus obtained for them through His Incarnation, life, Cross, death and Resurrection. They are living proof that He is present in our midst, transforming us one step at a time as we seek to carry our Cross with Him. Following Him makes us holy. His grace is efficacious! The culture tells us otherwise and bombards us with noise and distraction. But today’s feast teaches us to see through the lies because Christ’s triumph reigns in our Heavenly brothers and sisters!
Our hearts must enter into this feast and let it soothe our despondency and invigorate our sluggishness. The path our saintly brothers and sisters took – every one of them – is the path we are on. Be encouraged by their triumph today because the constant battle to persevere day by day did not defeat them or hold them back. On the contrary, our Lord turned each of their struggles, temptations, familial dysfunctions, cultural pressures, evils experienced (sound familiar?) into good for their souls. He is doing the same for us and the stronger our faith, the more we see it. They walked one day at a time with Him in faith; we are called to do the same. He never gives up on us until the day we arrive at the personal holiness He intended for us from the day of our creation.
November 2, All Souls Day, Holy Mother Church asks us to pray for the holy souls in Purgatory.
Purgatory? Have you ever splattered tomato sauce on your shirt? Now imagine finding yourself on national television. Intense desire to escape notice! Such extreme discomfort is like standing before God with a stain of sin on the soul. His gaze of love and forgiveness in no way diminishes our desire to HIDE THAT SPOT. Purgatory is a gift of our merciful God. Instead of cutting our sinful selves off from His all-holy presence eternally into Hell, we can voluntarily place ourselves in the “washing machine” called Purgatory knowing that, although we will never be worthy of His presence by our own merits, it is His desire to welcome us into His embrace.
We cannot forget to pray for the dear souls in Purgatory whose most intense torment is having seen God but are yet unable to be in His presence. The Church takes on their plight in a special way each November and intensifies her intercession for them. As Dominicans, we hold dear an age-old tradition of praying daily and in various ways throughout each week for all the holy souls currently being purified of sin in Purgatory. Please join us in praying for them!
November 1st (All Saints) celebrates the triumph of every soul presently in Heaven
CANONIZED SAINTS
Souls we know to be in Heaven now by scientifically unexplained after-death miracles
NON-CANONIZED SAINTS
• By-passers of Purgatory (no stain of sin, straight to Heaven after death)
• Graduates of Purgatory (stains have been washed away and they have gone to Heaven)
November 2nd (All Souls)
Holy souls currently being purified of sin after death in Purgatory
Prayers of the Church increased from November 1-8
We, the Dominican Sisters of Mary pray the De Profundis daily, the Libera every Monday, offer Mass & Holy Communion every Monday, as well as several other prayers throughout the week.
Indulgence Requirements (USCCB)
I fell down at the angel’s feet
John the Apostle describes himself in Revelation 19:10 as being ecstatic in the presence of the angel and couldn’t help but fall before him. Prostration before the glory of angels is seen often in Sacred Scripture. What are these astounding spiritual beings so majestic and beautiful that they can be mistaken for God Himself?
These are God’s most intelligent and powerful spiritual creatures who “surpass in perfection all visible creatures” (CCC 330). There is no beauty on earth that can compare to the magnificence of the angels.
Created in the beginning through Christ and for Christ, they belong to Him (CCC 331). He sends these pure spirits forth to guide and serve us in our sin-laden frailty caused by the rupture of our relationship with God in the Garden of Eden. Man’s choice of self against God caused our present condition of disharmony with God, with others, and within our very selves. But with heavenly wonder, the angels contemplate God’s great love for man which drew Him personally down from heaven in the Incarnation to redeem him. Now that man has been saved by Christ’s passion, death and Resurrection, the angels rejoice that we can join in their heavenly praises here on earth through participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Angels and man praise God in gratitude for the Redemption while at the same time man continues to struggle against the propensity to sin and selfishness leftover from the rupture, in the same way that weakness remains after recovery from substance abuse. And so the angels clearly intuit the eternal importance of man’s individual choices.
They have been commanded to watch carefully over us and intercede on our behalf (CCC 336), which they will not hesitate to do the more we invite them to do so. Ask! Take advantage of the immense gift of these extraordinarily powerful and formidable yet generous spirits. Each one of us has an angel gazing on God’s very face in heaven on our behalf! (Mt. 18:10) As they gaze, these benevolent spirits rejoice to see us reconcile with God and grow ever more faithful to Him in all our thoughts, words and actions.
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