I understand that as a loyal Catholic I should honor the Blessed Virgin. Perhaps I should pray to her more frequently. I firmly believe that I ought to give her a more prominent place in my piety. I realize that with her help it would be easier for me to resist certain temptation. If I were more intimate with her, undoubtedly I should also be more intimate with Christ. I am ready to follow the directives of Pius X more faithfully and to seek the Son at the side of the Mother.
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[Jesus] entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary [who] sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.’ The Lord said to her in reply, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her’” (Lk 10:38-42).
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On this feast day of Sts. Joachim and Anne, being a wife and mother myself, I find it quite natural to feel myself being drawn to Saint Anne and the problems she must have encountered after the birth of her daughter, particularly following that world-changing event, the Annunciation (Lk 1:26-38).
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Fresco in the Church of Saint Nicholas in Valencia, of Saint Maria Goretti (1890 - 1902)
If we could have traveled to a poor sharecropping farm in central Italy early in the 20th century, we would have seen a humble building – formerly a cheese factory – sheltering two families of tenant farmers.
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The heart that resembles that of Christ more than any other is without a doubt the Heart of Mary, His Immaculate Mother, and for this very reason the liturgy holds them up together for our veneration” (Pope Benedict XVI).
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Saint Anthony of Padua (1195 – 1231), whose feast we celebrate on June 13th, enjoys popular renown, of course, as the patron saint of finding lost articles. Two lesser-known facts about him, however, are that he was Portuguese and not Italian by birth, and that he began his life in religion as an Augustinian, not as a Franciscan friar.
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When they entered the city, they went to the upper room where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers” (Acts 1:13 – 14).
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by Kathleen Beckman
She, who at the start of the Redemption gave us her Son, now by her most powerful intercession obtained for the newborn Church the prodigious Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit of the Divine Redeemer who had already been given on the Cross. Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, 29 June 1943
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The lovely month of May – Mary’s month, the month of the Mother of God – comes to a close most beautifully with one of the most moving Marian feasts, the Feast of the Visitation. Recounted in the Gospel of Saint Luke (
1:39 – 56), the passage describes Our Lady’s journey from her home in Nazareth to the hill country of Judea to spend time with her kinswoman Elizabeth; but this was no typical visit.
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Where is your resting place? In every home we purchase, I find that God gives me a spot where I can snuggle up and rest in His loving arms. Whether it is a favorite chair, a prayer room, or a place with the perfect view, for me it is the place where I am best able to enter into prayer. I know that my Heavenly Father is waiting there for me to meet with Him each day, so I go.
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