Before the 13th departs (almost 11pm here on the East Coast), I want to offer up my love and thanks to Holy Mary under her title, Our Lady of Fatima. How marvelous it must have been 93 years ago to have watched THE miracle of the sun. Yes, there was holy fear and a great panaroma of color. But there was the maternal touch of rain-drenched clothes instantaneously drying. Sceptics were silenced before the mighty power of God while bodies and hearts were healed. Thank you, Dear Lady, for the constancy of your care. Thank you for spearheading my Mom's conversion to the Catholic Faith. Thank you for never ceasing to call us back to your Son! We await the fulfillment of all your prophecies, especially the Era of Peace. But also, I look forward to that moment in eternity when I shall receive your loving embrace. I love you! All praise to Triune God from whom all good things come!
Thank you Mary, for your intercession and for your unconditional love. We are so NOT worthy of you, yet you never stop praying and pleading for us. You implore the help of the angels and saints on our bahalf, and you weep for our sins, and you radiate joy for our accomplishments. You are indeed the Mother of all mothers! And you even make the sun dance for your little children! Oh how blessed we are to have you - please don't give up on us!
I didn't know your mother was a convert, Terry? If you've time I'd love to hear a little about it. I always took from your posts, for they are so Catholic you had all been Catholics from Jesus founded the Church!! I am watching, some episodes of, 'The Journey Home' on utube from EWTN with great enjoyment at the moment. I love stories of conversion because I think each one is a real miracle of Faith and grace. Especially in some cases like Minsiters being converted. I think the guy who presents, 'The Jounrney Home' was a Presbyterian Minister. I was watching one the other night of a Pentecostal Southern Baptist Minister who joined the Church and is now a prominent Catholic Lay Evngelist. I found is just so very funny and touching; I'll see if I can find it. Ah here he is here, Michael CUmbie, wonderful funny man. Looking in hsi eyes he seems so vulerable, a wonderful quality in a man we see so seldom, but one which always touches me; a sign of a very good and prayerful heart: Such energy! Mike is planning on going to Seminary to be a priest!! Here is his website: http://www.mikecumbie.org/ Connie I had a really wonderful answer to prayer at work through the intercession of the Holy Angels the weekend before last. I had been given a very hard job at work and was having to come in very early go home late and miss tea breaks, in addition the job was just hard heavy work and I was getting very tired and irritable and was thinking I was going to loose my job from not being able to keep up!! I had approached my boss but got curt very disagreeable answers. But the Monday befor e last after praying to the angels over the weekend I went to work on Monday morning my bss said with a smile, padraig I 've been thinking I've been far too hard on you '. She changed my work to something much easier and I can go home when I finnish, when I want and have full breaks. Its like being on holiday. In addition the poor girl who got saddled with my job, I have hurt cursing and puffing and know has been making numerous mistakes so it kinda underlines to the powers that be that it was maybe a two person job. God does answer prayers. I must remeber to thank my angels most specially at Mass this morning, to do this I always ask Our Lady the Queen of angels to give them a special blessing to thnak them. They like nothing better than this. We much always remeber to thank folks upstairs who help us out. Many folks forget this. It is snowing outside, big thick white flakes and I am off work for a couple of days. Big drifty white flakes are falling down and I am so happy, for I am getting ready for mass and confession at our local Passionist Monastery, Holy Cross. How happy I am to be going. Thank God for our Faith!! They say that this, so far has been the coldest November in a hundred years here in Ireland!! May Mary Queen of the Snows, pray for us and keep us safe and warm!! Our Lady's Sign.... A Snowfall. This is the history of Our Lady of the Snows. The time was the year 352, so soon after the birth of Jesus that many did not know about Him, and many "dared" not know, for fear of persecution. The city of Rome, Italy, was fast becoming a Catholic center, and there resided Pope Liberius, the Holy Father, Successor of the Holy Apostle, St. Peter. Among his loyal subjects were a noble patrician, John, and his wife. This couple was very holy and devout. They were not blessed with children, so it was their desire that their worldly goods should be given to the Mother of God. They discussed this with Pope Liberius and he counseled them to commend this holy intention to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Fervently, they besought her to show them her desire by some sign. During the night of August 5th, the Virgin Mary appeared to John and his wife, and also to Pope Liberius, telling them to construct a church in her honor on the crest of the Esquiline Hill. As a sign of her will, she told them, they would find it covered with snow. Snow is rare in Rome. When it falls, it is a day of rejoicing, and the populace delights in the beautiful sight of trees and shrubs blanketed with a soft mantle of white. Many winters pass without the least trace of a snowfall. Imagine the great excitement of a snowfall during the first days of the hot month of August. That is exactly what happened on the night of August 5th, 352. In the morning, almost all of Rome thronged to the Esquiline Hill as the news spread that snow had fallen there during the sultry night, outlining the precise shape of the church requested by Our Lady. John, his wife, and Pope Liberius, told the crowd the snow was a favor from the Immaculate Queen of Heaven. When the people learned this, they shouted over and over again, "Our Lady of the Snows!" The crest of the Esquiline hill, therefore, became the site of a church dedicated to the Mother of God, just as she wished. This was ancient Rome, early in Christianity, only 352 a.d. - almost sixteen hundred and fifty years ago! This was the origin of the title: Our Lady of the Snows. The church built in her honor is known today as the Basilica of Saint Mary Major (Santa Maria Maggiore), because it is the Mother of all churches throughout the world dedicated to our Heavenly Queen. This church in Rome is the original Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows. In honor of Pope St. Liberius (who suffered exile during the Arian heresy), it is also called the "Liberian Basilica." PS, I have a feeling they will be moving us to the new server today, at last..at least I pray so. there have been many difficulties.
Padraig, My Mom grew up in central Pennsylvania in a French/German family of two boys and four girls whose roots were from Alsace Lorraine. My Mom, born in 1912, was the baby of the family. They belonged to a church that was an offshoot of Methodism: The Evangelical and Reformed Church. I possess a few letters she wrote while away at school which highlight a regular prayer life and love for her family. Now when she and my Dad started dating, my Grandma O'Loughlin was not happy. After all, my mom-to-be was 1) not Catholic, 2) not Irish, and 3) obviously older than my Dad. Then again, the Soule family was uncomfortable about Christine dating a Catholic. As it was, my parents were married in 1948 and moved to New York State in 1949. At that time, my Mom had no intention of becoming Catholic. However, the early 1950s were years of ascendancy for the Blue Army and Marian Devotion as the message of Fatima spread rapidly in the States. My family belonged to Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Syracuse, NY. Our pastor, Msgr. Watley, was a godly man who loved Mary and took a liking to my Mom. My Mother willingly read up on the Fatima message and fell in love with Our Lady. I believe that was the main impetus for her conversion which took place between the births of my older brothers, Mike and Tim. For my Mom, the Rosary was never mechanical. When she taught us about the mysteries there was always a stress on the relationship between Jesus and Mary- that was what was important. We, too, could join in that relationship. My Mom died in 1975. Now mind you, in the first few years following my conversion back to Christ and the Faith (1977) I was not warm toward Our Lady at all. In fact, I remember even burning some copies of Louis De Monfort books! So my mother must have been praying something fierce up there in Heaven. Anyway, I had a startling turn around and consecrated my life to the Immaculate Heart on Pentecost Sunday in 1982, about a year before my own marriage. We certainly do keep Mary busy! :mrgreen: Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
Again and again and again we see Our LAdy being the guiding hand behind conversions, Terry. I was just listening to Father Calloway telling the amazing story of his conversion and how it was a book on Marian Apparitions that was seminal to his conversion..on Medugorje. PAdre Pio said a wonderful thing. He said that he had been promised that no one who ever turned to him would ever be lost!! But even Padre Pio was like a little candle beside Our Lady she blazes through Salvation History like the sun itself. Any time I hear of anyone having devotion to her I am confident they will be saved. For how could they not be. I have always been deeply reassured at the thought that when my own time to face the judgement seat comes, I wil lturn to Mary not only as a friend but as a true mother whose hand I have helld tightly to in the short walk through life.......and our walk through this life is very,very,very short indeed..like a dream....
W watched an interesting documentary on Dave Brubeck a fantastic Jazz pianist. The man is a genius and so in love with his craft. He became a Catholic because of his music!! http://www.unifr.ch/tmf/Jazz-goes-back-to-Church I think the arts in particular music/art etc when people search for beauty in these things if they are true to their calling and seek the truth can find God and the Church in these. For where there is beauty there is God. Our Lady said at Medjugorje that we would even be able to see God in a small flower. How great is our God, how great is His name!!
Did you ever get the feeling when you read or hear about someone who is broght to a living faith that it was somehow MEANT to happen...that it the way its supposed to be? Rom 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined , he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. Eph 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— Eph 1:11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession — to the praise of his glory. Not that there's such a thing as predestination of course but that God knows the beginning , the middle and the end of all our stories.... Sometimes, on the other hand when I read the stories of truly evil people, who apparently never converted there is a sense of them going to the place they are supposed to go to. When I hear of conversions I am inclined to look to two great causes ..the prayers of a mother and the intervention of Our Bessed Mother... There's a story from Venerable Mary of Agreda, which I believe; she says that when St Paul was presecuting the Early Christians, so sure of Paul as their instrument that they encouraged him to eat and live a lifestyle that would ensure a long life so he would have a long life to keep on persecuting!! What a shock it must be to Satan to find a soul suddenly snatched from his clutches. He must have nearly taken a heart attck when Saint Paul converted!! :lol: One prayer always gives me goosepimples when I say it, that of Our Lady of Fatima 'Oh my Jesus forgive us our sins, save all souls especially those in most need of your help' I had forgotten until I reread it the other day that Our Lady had warned that of all sins it was sins against purity that led most souls to hell at the minute. Also she urgently and specifically urged women to dress chastely. If this was true back when the Fatima Apparitions occured how much more so noow... soft and hard pornography are so universal that they have become almost like a wall paper of our culture in things like advertising. These sexual sins are just so seductive, so soft so pervasive, we absorb their temptations without hardly even noticing. Their results are pervasive too, I noticed a report a few months back that something like 6 women in every ten reported they had been sexually assaulted in some manner during their lives... terrible. The Tabloid press is especially awful.
How true Padraig, Today on the feast of the Immaculate Conception let us turn to our Lady and her Immaculate Heart. The word Immaculate keeps resonating with me - she is so pure and beautiful - we too need to have our hearts converted completely and restored to original innocence so that we can imitate her and become immaculate too. Only Immaculate souls will enter straight into heaven - any sin or stain of sin is purified in purgatory - but how difficult it is to be pure these days! Many struggle with sins of impurity but I am convinced our Lady is the remedy for this generation -she is both the messanger and the message - God has sent her into this time of great Impurity for a reason - Mary Immaculate is proof that humans can live pure lives in every way through God's grace! So Marian devotion needs, no MUST be promoted by the Catholic Church from top to bottom as she is the remedy for all our ills - she can prepare us all to meet her returning Son. The sure and shortest root to holiness is through she who is blessed amongst women and pure of heart, Theotokos. Surely our Lady must be God's greatest miracle?
There is a little daily reminder type book that I'm giving my sons for Christmas. It's called Purity 365 by Jason Evert. We need to remind our young of it's importance. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Purity-365/Jason-Evert/e/9780867169362
Yes, sexual sins are the flower strwn road to the fires of hell; to mistake love for lust and self will for romance....its like being tied up with chains of roses. I was reading there of several cases were Padre Pio ROARED at people in confession and even in a few cases struck people. I notice how often these events were connected to bad liasons. He used shock tactics. People who fall into these things...its a bit like an eternal sleep.
