All Hands on Deck

Recently Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke published a novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and it is a long one--9 months, actually. It consists of a one-page prayer, imploring Our Lady to intercede for us in defeating "the growing darkness and sin that envelop the world and menace the Church."

When have we needed her help more? New shocks are being published daily that show the appalling depths to which so many of our fellow men, our leaders, our captains of commerce, our medical providers, our educators, and even our shepherds have descended. The mess has grown so big that many of us cannot imagine that anything short of an act of God will fix it.

To that end, Cardinal Burke asks us all to join in this novena. It is an urgent call to Heaven for help, for illumination, and for widespread conversion as happened in Mexico after the Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Juan Diego in 1531. You'll find the prayer here.

While this daily prayer is only one page long, some of us are so pressed by the duties of our lives that we can scarcely find time to eat meals. So here I humbly offer a condensed version for those in such situations.

Virgin Mother of God, we fly to your protection and beg your intercession against the growing darkness and sin that envelop the world and menace the Church. We humbly implore your intercession for our continuing conversion to Christ, your Divine Son, and the conversion of millions more who do  not yet believe in Him. In our homes and in our nation, lead us to Him Who alone wins the victory over sin and darkness in ourselves and in the world.

May we fully trust God's promise of salvation and His never-failing mercy toward all who turn to Him with a humble and contrite heart. O Virgin of Guadalupe, lead all souls in America and throughout the world to Your Divine Son in Whose name we pray. Amen.

To be prayed daily from March 12 to December 12, 2024. (Don't worry if you're starting late.)
Excerpt from the 9-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe by Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke.

In these chaotic and frightening times, do not succumb to the temptation of despair! Pray to Mother Mary, and keep that flame of hope alive.

The Gift Too Easily Avoided

The famous author Oscar Wilde said this about two years before his death in 1900:

I told you that I was going to write something. I tell everybody that. It is a thing one can repeat each day, meaning to do it the next. But in my heart—that chamber of leaden echoes—I know that I never shall.

As a writer, I certainly know what he means. But here in this Lenten season, I find that his statement describes my feelings about going to the great sacrament of Confession.  "I will go next week," I say, reviewing for the tenth time the listing in the bulletin for what days and times the priest is available. 

What makes some of us hesitate so? Do we have too many sins to admit to, or can we scarcely come up with one in the space since our last Confession, certain therefore that the priest will think we are holding back or maybe place us, mentally, in the same warm space where the Pharisee of the Bible stood when he thanked God that he was not like the rest of men?

Today I finally went, after praying that the Holy Spirit would give me the words to say and the grace to learn from what was said to me. It turned out to be, as usual, a mystically curative experience. 

We pray 53 times with each Rosary, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." How happy, I believe, the Blessed Mother will be with us if we go to that mysterious date having unloaded the burden of our sins all along the road of life, rather than collecting them in a giant sack that we hand to her while pleading, "Dear Mother, can you please do something with this?"

Best wishes for a good Confession.

 

Holding Hands

Father Peter Linh offers a beautiful vision of what happens when we pick up our rosaries to pray:

One day, on my turn as a priest to give a brief homily to [the congregation] on Wednesday, I didn’t know what to share with them. I prayed to our Blessed Mother: Please tell me what you want me to tell them. After a moment of silence, then listening, I had a feeling that she wanted me to tell her children that the Rosary is her very hand. I felt she wanted to say to us: You are my children indeed. Anytime you feel anxious or troubled about anything, hold the Rosary, then pray. When praying the mysteries and holding the Rosary in your hand, that is the moment I am holding your hand and you are holding my hand. Don’t be afraid! I am holding your hand. Again, whenever you need me, hold my hand by praying the Rosary. 

Redemptorist  Rev. Peter Linh, CSsR

Thank you, Blessed Mother, for all your love and care. How do you listen to all the prayers sent up to you, the urgent pleas for help as well as the timid requests from your countless children across the world? We cannot know. But we can believe. As we hold your rosary beads in our hands, let us in some way feel the soft pressure of your own hand in ours. 

(Don't forget that the Feast of the Holy Rosary is coming up on Friday, October 7. Read more about it here.)

Standing by the Cross on Fridays

During Lent, we get to resume the solemn  and tender practice of praying the Stations of the Cross every Friday. Whether at 3 p.m., the hour of Our Lord's death, or 7 p.m., or whatever time you are able, we walk with Jesus through his mighty Passion and take our place with Mary and John at the foot of his cross, in solidarity and sorrow. We, of course, have the relief of knowing what happens three days later.

Whether we use the little booklet containing St. Alphonsus Ligouri's Way of the Cross or a Stations "rosary," whether we join other Catholics at church in a Stations service or pray the 14 stations in a corner of our room, we find ourselves growing closer to Jesus and his mother with each stop we make along the way to Calvary.

And this exercise is a powerful one. The Lord told St. Gertrude, "... Any man, although he feels overwhelmed by the burden of his crimes, must hope for pardon through the offering of my Passion and death. For there does not exist on earth any more efficient remedy against sin than the loving memory of my Passion."*

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*As quoted by Francois Mauriac in Holy Thursday: The Night That Changed the World, p. 85.

Pressed for Time

How many good intentions get pushed off the edges of our days by the press of daily duties! The rosary is often one of these that we reluctantly put off for tomorrow as we see the hour growing late.

On days like this, it's good to remember The Golden Hail Mary, a charming verse that reminds us that even one decade of Our Lady's prayer carries weight when said sincerely:

The Golden Hail Mary

One Hail Mary with love and thought said
Is better than volumes of prayers read.
If time and one's duties prevent a long prayer,
Just say one Hail Mary with fervor and care.

We pray:

Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee:
blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

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Holy card copyright 2020 CatholicStationery.com

Global Rosary During October

French laywomen have started an international project to pray the Rosary by turns in French, then English, then in Spanish during this month of October, the month of the Holy Rosary. Prayers will go up for an answer to the terrible distress of our times, just as they did before the famous Battle of Lepanto to save Christendom back in October of 1571. Read about how to participate here.

A Lesson from Madrid

Centuries ago, when the Moors were driven out of Spain, the Christians in Madrid set to work restoring the church of Santa Maria. But the ancient statue of Mary and Jesus that once decorated the church could not be found. The citizens organized a procession around the city to ask God to help them find the statue. And help them He did. 

At one point as the crowd passed a wall, it began to crumble. Lo and behold, behind it was hidden the statue that they sought. Not only was it intact, but two lamps, installed in the cavity by those who walled in the statue, were still burning. 

Prof. Plinio Correa de Oliveira writes of this miracle:

Notice how they put lighted lamps near the statue before walling her up. This gesture is very beautiful since it shows they did not want to wall up the statue without a tribute. Those lamps represented their hopes that the statue would be venerated once again. Thus, the walled-up place was like a little chapel.

A miracle confirmed their hopes. This most beautiful miracle of confidence consisted of the lamps that burned for 300 years. They continued to burn when the statue was found in the wall. It is a miracle as great as the multiplication of loaves in the Gospel. Its marvelous message is that one can expect such things from Our Lady. Although things may appear defeated and crushed, something irreversibly victorious remains in them.

These are encouraging words for the difficult days we find ourselves in. Trust Mary. She will not be defeated.

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From "The Miracle of Our Lady of Almudena Teaches Us Confidence," at the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property.