Quote/s of the Day – 5 September – The Memorial of St Lawrence Justinian (1381-1455) Bishop
“There is no prayer or good work
so great, so pleasing to God,
so useful to us,
as the Holy Mass.”
“The name of Mary
is a tower of strength,
which saves sinners from punishment
and defends the just
from the assaults of hell.”
“By the practice of prayer
we can construct an impregnable citadel,
in which we shall be securely protected
against all the snares of the enemy.”
Madonna della Consolazione / Our Lady of Consolation, or Mary, Consoler of the Afflicted, (from the Latin Consolatrix Afflictorum): (1436) – 4 September
It is found in the Litany of Loreto.
The feast of Our Lady of Consolation is one of the solemnities not inscribed in the General Roman Calendar but which are observed in particular places, regions, churches or religious institutes. Augustinians and many regions, observe today 4 September, the Benedictines 5 July.
St Ammianus the Martyr
St Caletricus of Chartres
St Candida of Naples/St Candida the Elder
St Castus of Ancyra
Blessed Catherine of Racconigi OP (1486-1547) Third Order Dominican, Mystic, Stigmatist.
St Fredaldo of Mende
St Hermione
St Ida of Herzfeld (c 770-825) Laywoman, Widow, Apostle of the poor.
St Irmgard of Süchteln
St Julian the Martyr
St Magnus of Ancyra
St Marcellus of Chalon-sur-Saône
St Marcellus of Treves
St Maximus of Ancyra
St Monessa
St Moses the Prophet
Bl Nicolò Rusca
St Oceanus the Martyr
Bl Peter of Saint James
St Rebecca of Alexandria
St Rhuddlad
St Rosalia (c 1130-c 1160) Virgin, Recluse, known as “La Santuzza” – “The Little Saint.“
St Rose of Viterbo TOSF (c 1233 – 1251) Virgin, Preacher – Member of the Franciscan Third Order, Recluse, Miracle-Worker.
St Rufinus of Ancyra
St Salvinus of Verdun
Bl Scipion-Jérôme Brigeat Lambert
St Silvanus of Ancyra
St Sulpicius of Bayeux
St Thamel
St Theodore the Martyr
St Ultan of Ardbraccan
St Victalicus
—
Blessed Martyrs of Nowogródek:
The Eleven Nuns of Nowogródek or Blessed Mary Stella and her Ten Companions were a group of members of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, a Polish Roman Catholic religious congregation, executed by the Gestapo in August 1943 in occupied Poland (present-day Navahrudak, Belarus).
Our Morning Offering – 4 September – “Month of the Seven Sorrows of Mary” and Mary’s Saturday
To Our Lady of Sorrows
By St Bonaventure (1217-1274)
Seraphic Doctor of the Church
O most holy Virgin,
Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by the overwhelming grief you experienced
when you witnessed the Martyrdom,
the Crucifixion and the Death,
of your Divine Son,
look upon me, with eyes of compassion
and awaken in my heart,
a tender commiseration for those sufferings
and a sincere detestation of my sins,
in order that,
being disengaged from all undue affection
for the passing joys of this earth,
I may sigh after the eternal Jerusalem
and that, henceforward, all my thoughts
and all my actions may be directed
towards this one most desirable object,
the honour, glory and love
of our divine Lord Jesus,
and to you,
the Holy and Immaculate
Mother of God.
Amen
Our Lady of the Founders – The Relic of the Girdle of Our Lady, Constantinople (5th Century) – 31 August:
St Aidan of Lindisfarne (Died 651) Apostle of Northumbria, Bishop, Monk, Missionary, Abbot, Ascetic.
St Raymond Nonnatus O.deM. (1204-1240) Religious Priest, Confessor, Cardinal, Friar of the Mercedarian Order. Beatified on
5 November 1625 by Pope Urban VIII and Canonised in 1657 by Pope Alexander VII. Raymond was delivered by Caesarean operation when his mother died during childbirth – hence the name: non natus = not born.
St Ammi of Caesarea
St Aristides the Philosopher
St Barbolenus of Bobbio
St Bonajuncia OSM Confessor
St Caesidius
St Cuthburga of Wimborne
St Cwenburgh of Wimborne
St Joseph of Arimathea (Died 1st Century) “The Secret Disciple of
Jesus”
St Mark of Milan
St Optatus of Auxerre
St Paulinus of Trier (Died 358) Bishop of Trier, Confessor, Missionary.
St Robustian of Milan
St Rufina of Caesarea
St Theodotus of Caesarea
Bl Bernardo Cembranos Nistal
Bl Dionisio Ullivarri Barajuán
Bl Enrique Vidaurreta Palma
Bl Félix Paco Escartín
Bl Isidro Ordóñez Díez
Bl José María Palacio Montes
Bl Justo Zariquiegui Mendoza
Bl Marciano Herrero Martínez
Bl Miguel Menéndez García
Bl Tomás Alonso Sanjuán
BlVentureta Sauleda Paulís
Our Morning Offering – 31 August – “The Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” On this the last day of this Marian Month, let us consecrate ourselves to her. Immaculate Heart and attempt, to constantly attone, for the endless acts of violence and blasphemy, committed against Jesus, our Lord and our God and His blessed Mother.
Act of Consecration and Reparation
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
O Immaculate Heart of Mary,
Queen of Heaven and Earth
and tender Mother of men,
in accordance with thy ardent wish
made known at Fatima,
I consecrate to thee, myself, my brethren,
my country and the whole human race.
Reign over us and teach us
how to make the Heart of Jesus reign
and triumph in us and around us,
as It has reigned and triumphed in thee.
We wish to atone for the many crimes
committed against Jesus and thee.
We wish to call down upon our country
and the whole world,
the peace of God in justice and charity.
We promise to imitate thy virtues,
by the practice of a Christian life
without regard to human respect.
We resolve to receive Holy Communion
on the first Saturday of every month
and to offer thee five decades
of the Rosary on this day,
together with our sacrifices
in the spirit of reparation and penance.
Amen.
Mercy and justice resemble two sisters, inseparable and holding each other by the hand. Wherever mercy is, there also is justice; where justice goes, mercy follows. Hence King David sang to God: “Mercy and judgment I will sing to thee, O Lord.”
We have studied how divine mercy reigns and triumphs in the gentle Heart of Mary; we shall now contemplate divine justice establishing therein the throne of its glory. “In this perfect Heart,” says Richard of St. Lawrence, “mercy and justice gave each other the kiss of peace.”
In God there are two kinds of justice: the first, is distributive; the second, vindictive justice. “Distributive justice,” says St. Dionysius, “gives to each one what belongs to him, according to his rank and merit. It allots and dispenses to each thing the proportion, beauty, arrangement, good order and all other things proper to it within the bounds and limits that are just and equitable.” The chief characteristic of vindictive justice is infinite hatred of sin and a desire to destroy it in the souls of men, thereby delivering them from its cruel tyranny.
Now these two types of justice have ever held sovereign sway in the most just Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the first place, she always rendered to God and to all God’s creatures, in a most faithful and perfect manner, what she owed to them. To God, she accorded adoration, fear, dependence, gratitude, honor, glory, praise, love and the sacrifice of all she possessed and of her very self. She observed all the Mosaic laws very devotedly and with exact obedience. She exercised respect, veneration and humility towards her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne, towards the persons who had charge of her while she dwelt in the Temple of Jerusalem, and towards St. Joseph, her most worthy spouse. She punctually obeyed even the edicts of Emperor Augustus, though he was a pagan idolator. She held her own self in very low esteem and in great contempt, knowing she was a creature drawn from nothing and a daughter of Adam, who would have come under the curse common to all his children, if God had not preserved her from it. In a word, she faithfully practised the words of the Holy Ghost even before they were spoken by St. Paul: “Render therefore to all men their dues. Tribute, to whom tribute is due; custom, to whom custom: fear, to whom fear: honor, to whom honor. Owe no man anything, but to love one another.” This last is a debt which no one can ever finish paying.
In the second place, divine justice had so completely filled her Heart with such an unfathomable hatred for sin that this holy Virgin was always ready to undergo the sufferings of as many hells as God’s omnipotence could create rather than commit the least venial sin.
What is still more admirable, however, is that, having the same Heart and mind as the Eternal Father, according to the inspired words: “He who is joined to the Lord, is ‘one spirit,” Our Lady united her will to His concerning the Passion of her Son, and gave her consent to the painful death of her dearly Beloved so that He might destroy sin. This sacrifice demonstrates a hatred of sin greater than suffering the torments of all imaginable hells to cooperate in its destruction; for it cannot be doubted that if Our Lady had given her choice, she would have preferred all such sufferings for herself rather than see the treatment inflicted on her beloved Son at the time of His cruel and ignominious Passion.
If the Holy Heart of Mary is filled with such terrible hatred of sin that she consented to the cruel death of her beloved Son, because she saw Him loaded with the sins of men; if she readily sacrificed Him to divine justice in order to crush the mortal enemy of God and men, who can doubt that she still hates the infernal monster wherever she finds it? She hates sin to the point of sometimes uniting herself to divine vengeance in order to destroy it in souls, especially in those souls who are their own enemies to the extent of supporting evil and opposing its destruction.
They force their sweet Mother, as it were, to relinquish the tenderness of her maternal love and to participate in the severity of divine justice in order to punish the obduracy of a rebellious soul hardened in malice. O most holy Virgin, since thou hast but one Heart and one spirit with thy divine Son and since thou hast no other sentiments save His, thou dost love what He loves and thou dost hate what He hates. Hence, as Christ has an infinite hatred for sin, thou also dost hate it beyond all thought and words. Thy hatred for the infernal monster is equal to the love thou hast for God.
O Blessed Mother, thy love of thy Heart for God is infinitely greater than that of all the hearts of the angels and saints. Consequently, there is in thy Heart more hatred against God’s enemy, sin, than in the hearts of all heaven’s citizens. Make us sharers, O Mary, in this love and hatred so that we may love our Creator and Saviour as thou hast loved Him, and that we may hate sin as thou hast hated it.
Santa Maria del Pozzo, Mother and Queen of Mercy / Our Lady of the Well – Capurso, Bari, Italy (1705) – 30 August and 20 May
St Rose of Lima OP (1586-1617) Virgin and Penitent, Mystic, Visionary, Stigmatist (invisible), Apostle of the Poor. Also known as “St Rose of Saint Mary” – her Religious name.
St Adauctus AND St Felix of Rome (Died c303)
St Agilus
St Arsenius the Hermit
St Boniface of Hadrumetum
St Bononius of Lucedio
Bl Bronislava of Poland
Bl Edward Shelley
Bl Ero di Armenteira
Bl Eustáquio van Lieshout
St Fantinus of San Mercurius
Saint Fiacre (Died 670) Priest, Abbot, Monk, Hermit, Apostle of charity, gardener.
St Gaudentia of Rome
Blessed Giovanni Giovenale Ancina CO (1545–1604) Bishop of Saluzzo, member of the Oratory of St Philip Neri, Scholar, Musician and Composer, renowned Preacher Doctor of Medicine. Commonly known as Blessed Juvenal Ancina.
Blessed John Roche (Died 1588) Lay Martyr
St Loarn
Bl Margaret Ward
St Pammachius (c340 – 410) Senator, Monk, Apostle of Charity, friend of St Jerome and he was praised by St Augustine.
St Pelagius the Hermit
St Peter of Trevi
Bl Richard Flower
Bl Richard Leigh
Bl Richard Martin
St Rumon of Tavistock
St Sylvanus the Hermit
St Thecla of Hadrumetum
St Theodosius of Oria
Martyrs of Colonia Suffetulana – 60 Saints: A group of 60 Christians Martyred for destroying a statue of Hermes. They were Martyred in Colonia Suffetulana, Africa.
God’s meekness, patience and clemency are three divine perfections which are joined with mercy to form one and the same perfection, although their effects are different.
Mercy regards the misery of creatures in general, to relieve and to deliver them from its fetters. The first and greatest of miseries, the source of all wretchedness is sin. When man is so unhappy as to offend God mortally, he at once becomes the object of God’s wrath which would crush him the very instant he consents to sin, as he infinitely deserves to be. But divine meekness prevents the destruction and arrests the torrent of God’s just anger, ready to pour upon the sinner. If man perseveres in his crime, he deserves to be cast upon divine vengeance, but divine patience interposes and persuades God to suffer the sinner and await his repentance with admirable goodness. These are the effects of divine meekness and patience. God’s clemency is manifested by remitting entirely or in part the punishment due to sin.
Now these three divine perfections live and reign in the Heart of the Mother of Mercy, communicating their own divine inclinations most excellently. After the Heart of God Himself there never was and never shall be a heart so full of meekness, patience and clemency as the noble Heart of Mary.
While she dwelt on earth, she beheld the world filled with idols and idolators. With the exception of a very small number, men generally were armed against God, trying, if possible, to dethrone Him, to put Him under their feet and annihilate Him. They would set His enemy in His place and sought to procure for the usurper the adoration and honor which belong to God alone. As the Most Blessed Virgin Mary loved God with a love so great that we cannot describe it, she experienced an indescribably great sorrow at the sight of the crimes committed against His Divine Majesty.
But who can appreciate her greater grief over the atrocious torments inflicted on her beloved Son by the perfidy of the Chosen People? She knew Him to be Innocence and Sanctity incarnate; yet she saw Him persecuted and tormented as though He were the greatest of criminals. Now what did she do, the Mother of Sorrows, as she beheld her treasure, her most innocent Lamb torn, flayed and slain? She loved Him with a peerless love. Did she cry out against His pitiless Murderers? Did she lament of the wrong and injustice wreaked upon Him? Did she implore the Eternal Father’s justice? No. She remained silent; not a word was heard from her lips; only her stifled sighs, her tears alone were seen. Her most gentle Heart fought against the entry of any sense of injury or movement of impatience, or aversion or bitterness towards her cruel tormentors. Her Heart abounded with meekness, patience and clemency, so that she imitated her son, Jesus, and sought to excuse the men who with such distorted rage were killing Him, repeating in her Heart the words He uttered with His lips: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” She offered for their salvation the very Blood they shed, the sufferings they inflicted upon Him, the cruel death they perpetrated. She was prepared, if necessary, to sacrifice herself together with her Son, to obtain mercy for those wicked men.
Nor is that all. The glorious Virgin now reigning in heaven can see much more clearly the numberless multitude and frightful enormity of the sins committed against God. She sees this earth of ours which should be a paradise since the God of Heaven honored it with His presence and made it His dwelling place; yet it is filled with sinners and enemies of God, who blaspheme and dishonor Him without ceasing, even more than the devils and the damned in hell.
Our Lady knows that her Son, the Son of God, came into the world to save all men; that salvation cost Him infinite labor, ignominies, tears and blood to deliver mankind from the bondage of the devil and hell, and reconcile them to His Father. And yet she sees men turning their back on God, denying and forsaking Him, to side with Satan and cast themselves headlong into hell. She sees innumerable atheists and blasphemers making every effort to exterminate the Holy Church founded by her Jesus Christ through the shedding of the last drop of His Blood, and to render His sacred name despicable, abominable and odious to the entire’ world: “They have set me an abomination to themselves.”
Our heavenly Mother perceives all these crimes and all the wickedness most clearly, and her inconceivably great love for God and for her Son is wounded beyond anything we can imagine, even though she is glorious and incapable of suffering. She is Queen of Heaven and earth, and God has given her sovereign power over all created things; therefore she would not lack the power, if such were her will, to avenge most justly the many atrocious insults offered by men to their God and Saviour. But far from doing this, she permits herself to be induced by her very patient and gentle Heart to use the power of her merits and intercession in order to halt the just fury of divine vengeance, and to arrest the torrent of God’s wrath ready to burst on the hapless heads of sinners. She obtains from His divine Majesty that He punish them not as enemies but as children, not like a severe judge but as a merciful father, not to exterminate them but to correct and convert them.
True the Blessed Virgin Mary does not entertain the same sentiments for all sinners, nor does she treat them all alike. She distinguishes between those in Hell, whom she knows to be irreconcilable enemies of God, and those on earth, whom she considers still capable of being reconciled to His divine Majesty. Hence her Heart is filled with very great and just indignation towards the wretched creatures in hell, for she is most perfectly united to God, and therefore shares in all His adorable inclinations. She loves what God loves and hates what He hates, approves what He approves, and condemns what He condemns. As the damned will forever be the object of God’s wrath: “They shall be called the people with whom the Lord is angry forever,” so shall they forever be the object of the anger of God’s Mother. Her love and charity for God and the friends of God are greater than the ardor of all angels and saints together, so also is her hatred of God’s irreconcilable enemies greater than that of all the denizens of heaven.
But towards sinners who are still in this world, which is a place of mercy where our all-bountiful Mother has established the throne and empire of her mercy and clemency, her Heart is so filled with sweetness and benignity that the venerable and holy Abbot Blosius declares: “The world does not hold any sinner so detestable that this pious Virgin should not be disposed to open to him the arms of her clemency and her most merciful Heart. Provided he seek her assistance, she will always have the power and the will to reconcile him to her Son.” Blosius says further: “As long as the time of grace endures, this merciful Mother cannot avert her eyes from miserable sinners who invoke her with a sincere desire of conversion. With the Heart of a Mother and a sister, she continually offers up her prayers to God on behalf of men, and takes special care of their salvation. No one who shall invoke this Mother of grace with devotion and perseverance, can possibly perish forever.”
“O sweetest and most holy Virgin, look down with the eyes of thy mercy on all the afflictions and all the afflicted that fill the earth. Behold the many poor people, the many widows and orphans, the sick troubled with so many diseases, the captives and prisoners, the thousands who are cursed and persecuted by the malice of men, the defenceless persons oppressed by the strong and the mighty, the seafarers and pilgrims struggling against perils on sea and land, the missionaries exposed to countless dangers in their task of saving endangered souls. Look down upon the number of afflicted minds, of anguished hearts, of souls tormented by manifold temptations, and of souls suffering the frightful penalties of Purgatory. But above all, have pity on the countless souls that are in the state of sin and perdition and are groaning under the tyranny and the bondage of hell.
“Finally, O gentlest of Virgins, take pity on the great number of wretches who people the universe, whose innumerable miseries are so many voices crying to thee: O Mother of Mercy, comforter of the afflicted, refuge of sinners, open the eyes of thy clemency to see our desolation, the ears of thy bounty to hear our supplications. “To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears,’ Yes, Eve’s miserable children, banished from the house of their heavenly Father, groaning and weeping in this valley of tears, have recourse to thine incomparable benignity. Hear our sighs and our cries; behold our weeping and our tears. “Turn then, O gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us, and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.’
Divine Mercy is a perfection directed towards the miseries of creatures, tending to alleviate them and even to free them from created things when such a liberation enters into the designs of Divine Providence, which does all things with measure, number and weight. This adorable mercy extends, like goodness itself, to all God’s works: “His tender mercies are over all His works.” God’s mercy overshadows the works of nature, the works of grace and the works of glory.
Among the effects of divine Mercy, we must enumerate three principal realities, which in turn embody numberless effects. The first is the Incarnation of the God-Man; the second, His Mystical Body, namely Holy Church; the third is the Mother of the God-Man, namely the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. These constitute three admirable masterpieces of divine mercy.
Beyond this, God not only willed to become man that men might become partakers of the divine nature, but He willed that His only Son should become the Son of Man that men might become sons of God. God willed that His Son come into this world by being born of the seed of Adam and of a daughter of Adam that we might have the God-Man for our brother and the Mother of God for our mother. Thus we have the same father and the same mother as the Son of God Himself. We are His brothers, and as He is our mediator with His Father, so His heavenly Mother is a mediatrix between Himself and us.
In order to render His admirable Mother paramountly able to exercise her double office of Mother and Mediatrix, so that she might protect, favor and assist us with greater efficacy in all our needs, Divine Mercy constituted her, first of all, most agreeable and holy. Secondly, Mercy gave her dominion over everything in heaven and on earth. Thirdly, it gave her the mildest, sweetest and most loving heart save that of the God- Man. To the Heart of Mary God communicated in great abundance His merciful inclinations and established in it the throne and reign of His Mercy more gloriously than in the heart of any other creature, save the sacred humanity of Christ. Divine Mercy reigns so perfectly in Mary’s Heart that she bears the name of Queen and Mother of Mercy. And this most loving Mary has so completely won the heart of God’s mercy that He has given her the key to all His treasures and made her absolute mistress of them.
St. Bernard says: “She is called the Queen of Mercy because she opens the abyss and treasure of divine mercy to whom she chooses, when she chooses and as she chooses.” Divine Mercy holds such complete sway over Mary’s Heart and fills it with so much compassion for sinners and for all persons in need that St. Augustine addresses her thus: “Thou art the sinner’s only hope,” after God. “My dearest children,” says St. Bernard, “her heart is the ladder by which sinners go up to heaven; this is my reliance, this the only reason of my hope.” Euthymius, one of the ancient Fathers who lived over seven centuries ago, adds: “O most merciful Virgin, deign to cast thy pitiful eyes on thy poor servants, for, after God, we have placed all our hope in thee who are our life, our glory, and, as it were, our substance and our being.” St. John Damascene tells us that Our Lady is the only relief of the afflicted, the sovereign comforter of anguished hearts; and St. John Chrysostom declares her to be a boundless ocean of mercy.
Would you know in what further manner divine mercy lives and reigns in the Heart of the Mother of Mercy? Listen to St. Bonaventure: “Great was Mary’s mercy towards the wretched while she was living in exile here below; but immeasurably greater still now that she is happily reigning in heaven. She manifests this greater mercy through innumerable benefits, now that she possesses a clearer insight into the numberless woes of mankind. She does not require past merits, but grants the petitions of all men, out of charity, and opens the bosom of her clemency to everyone. She relieves every need and necessity with an incomparable affection and tenderness of heart.”
Her gentle Heart is so filled with mercy that it overflows on all sides and spreads itself in heaven, on earth and even in hell. Let us again listen to St. Bernard proclaiming this truth: “Who can comprehend, O Blessed – Virgin, the length, the width, the height and the depth of thy mercy? Its length extends to the last day in the life of those who invoke thee; its width encompasses the whole world; its height reaches to heaven, there to repair the losses of the heavenly Jerusalem; its depth has penetrated hell to obtain the deliverance of them that sit in the darkness and shadow of death.”
The virginal Heart of the Mother of Grace is filled with such exceeding mercy that she exercises it not only in favor of sinners who wish to be converted, but also towards many persons who never think of their eternal salvation. She implores her Blessed Son to inspire them, to excite in their hearts sentiments of fear of God and terror at the thought of His judgments. She asks Him to chastise them in divers ways, to raise in their midst persons leading holy and exemplary lives, whose example will draw them to Himself, and to use all other means of obtaining their conversion, or at least, if they will not mend their ways, to prevent them from multiplying their sins, that their damnation may be less terrible.
But what is even more, the Heart of Mary is so full of mercy that, using the extraordinary privileges God has granted to her alone, and out of her incomparable goodness, she often saves from eternal perdition souls who in the ordinary course of divine Justice would have been cast into hell. Such is the mind of that ancient and excellent author, Raymund Jourdain, who succeeded in hiding his name, but not the extent of his learning and holiness: “The Mother’s mercy often saves many whom the justice of the Son would have otherwise condemned.”
Hence St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, addresses these beautiful words to Mary: “O purest, best and most merciful Lady, help and relief of the faithful, powerful comforter of the afflicted and assured refuge of sinners, forsake us not, but keep us ever under thy protection. If thou forsake us, to whom shall we have recourse? What would become of us without thee, most holy Mother of God, who are the spirit and life of Christians. Even as respiration is an infallible sign of life in our bodies, so is thy holy name, when it is constantly on the lips of thy servants, on all occasions, at every time and in all places, not only a sign, but a veritable cause of life, happiness and protection.”
Our Lady of Kiev, Russia – 28 August
Saint Hyacinth of Poland, the Apostle of the North, during the Siege of Kiev in 1240 by Mongols, went to save save the Blessed Sacrament from capture and desecration. He had removed the Sacred Host from the Tabernacle and was hurrying down the aisle when he heard a voice call, “Hyacinth, are you going to leave me here at the mercy of the Tartans?” The voice seemed to be coming from the statue of the Blessed Virgin on one of the side altars. Hyacinth stopped and turned his gaze toward the statue which was of alabaster, fairly large in size, and obviously much too weighty for one man to carry.
Then the voice spoke again: “Take me with you, Hyacinth, I will make the burden light.” So, holding the Blessed Sacrament in one hand, he picked up the statue with the other, and, to his surprise, found he could easily carry it. Leaving the church, he fled from the city, and saved the Blessed Sacrament and the statue of Our Lady from harm.
Eighty years later, the statue was returned to Kiev. The city became the center of great devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and people gave the statue the name of Our Lady of Kiev.
The statue was later taken to a Dominican convent in Lwow in Poland. What has happened to it since the Communists took over Poland is unknown. Meanwhile, the icon known as The Virgin of Kyiv (created by a Byzantine artist about the year 1132) and the most famous icon in the world, is housed in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
St Augustine of Hippo (354-430) – Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of Grace and one of the original Four Fathers & Doctors of the Latin Church.
Bl Adelindis of Buchau
St Agnes of Cologne
St Alexander of Constantinople
St Ambrose of Saintes
Blessed Angelo da Pesche d’Isernia TOR (c 1400-1460) Lay Franciscan Tertiary, Holy Beggar, gifted with the charism of levitation, Apostle of the poor, spiritual adviser.
St Anthes of Salerno
St Edmund Arrowsmith SJ (1585 – 1628) Martyr
St Facundinus of Taino
St Felix of Venosa
St Fortunatus of Salerno
St Gaius of Salerno
St Gorman of Schleswig
St Hermes of Rome (Died 120) Martyr
Bl Hugh More
Bl James Claxton
St Januarius of Venosa
St Julian of Auvergne
St Moses the Black (330-405) Priest, Monk, Hermit, Penitent.
St Pelagius of Istria
St Restitutus of Carthage
St Rumwold the Prince
St Septiminus of Venosa
St Vicinius/of Sarsina (Died 330) Bishop, Hermit, Miracle-Worker, healer.
St Vivian of Saintes
Bl William Dean
Sacred theology distinguishes in God three kinds of goodness, which are fundamentally one and the same: natural goodness, moral goodness and goodness of benevolence or bounty, which is sometimes called benignity. Natural goodness is none other than the perfection and beauty of divine nature, containing the infinite excellences of the Godhead. Moral goodness comprises all the moral virtues that God possesses so eminently and in so high a degree that they are infinitely beyond what a created spirit can think or express. The goodness of benevolence or bounty is God’s infinite inclination to communicate Himself and it proceeds from His natural goodness. In the order of glory God communicates Himself most fully and perfectly to all the souls in heavenly bliss, clothing them in His radiant glory, surrounding them with His felicity, enrapturing them with His holy joys, and making them partakers of all the goodness He Himself possesses.
The superlative Goodness communicates Its adorable perfections to the holy Heart of Mary with much greater abundance and plenitude than to all other creatures put together. Next to the Heart of God, there never was and never shall be a heart so good, liberal, benevolent, magnificent and so replete with kindness as the most admirable Heart of Mary.
The Heart of Mary is so full of goodness that St. Bernard thus speaks of her: “Why does human weakness fear to come unto Mary? Nothing in her is austere, nothing frightful, for she is filled with sweetness. Go over the Gospel story with the greatest attention; if you find therein the least mark of harshness or severity on Mary’s part, the least sign of indignation, you may well fear to appear before her. But if, on the contrary, you find (as you surely will) her virginal Heart full of love, piety, sweetness and goodness, then give thanks to Him who in His infinite mercy has provided such a mediatrix for us.”
“Her Heart is so alive with pity that she never rejects any suppliant coming to her with humility and confidence,” says Raymund Jourdain. It is this loving confidence that we express as often as we recite that beautiful prayer, attributed by many annotators to St. Bernard, and by others to St. Augustine: “Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help and sought thine intercession, was left unaided.”
Her Heart is so filled with bounty that she readily grants whatever we ask of her. St. Bernard says: “O blessed Mary, whoever loves thee honors God; who serves thee pleases God; who invokes thy holy name with a pure heart, will infallibly receive the object of his petition.”
“Who has ever invoked Mary without being heard?” says Pope Innocent III. The venerable Abbot Blosius adds: “She rejects no one but lends a favorable ear to the petitions of all.” “Heaven and earth would sooner perish, than Mary refuse her help to such as invoke her seriously and with affection,” reiterates St. Bernard, adding: “Let him be silent in praise of thy mercy, O most Blessed Virgin, who having invoked thee in his necessities, should remember not having received thy help.”
Her Heart is so good and merciful that she extends her kindness not only to the good but also to the wicked, not only to the faithful but to sinners as well. “In this life, thou art a help to the just and unjust,” says Raymund Jourdain. “Thou dost aid the just man and the sinner; the former by keeping him in the state of grace, wherefore the Church calls thee the Mother of Grace; the latter by bringing them back to divine Mercy, for which thou art named the Mother of Mercy.” Our Lady’s Heart is so kind and gentle that she helps not only those who implore her aid, but even the careless souls who neglect to invoke her. Listen again to St. Bernard: “Why should we marvel to see her stretch a helping hand to such as beseech her, if she assist even them who do not pray to her?”
Her Heart is so merciful that she loves even those who hate her. Mary always renders good for evil because she willingly sacrificed her own beloved Son to save the reprobates who crucified Him. Other Fathers of the Church express the same thoughts and assure us that the almost boundless charity of the Heart of Mary extends to all places, times and things in general, through a most abundant communication and eminent participation of God’s infinite goodness and likewise of His divine providence.
She leads all created things to the last end for which God made them, namely the glory of His Divine Majesty. But her special care is the guidance of rational beings, above all, of Christians, and most particularly of her own devout children, who strive faithfully to honor, serve and imitate her.
Her maternal Heart protects and cherishes her devotees in a unique manner, having her eyes ever intently fixed upon them. She preserves and guards them as the apple of her eye, and assumes the guidance and conduct of their entire life and actions. She leads them by the hand in all their ways, removing from their path the obstacles and hindrances which might make them stumble, or retard their progress. She obtains the assistance and the means whereby they will receive strength and advance more rapidly. She bears their soul in her arms and on her virginal breast through the dangerous crises where their peril is greatest. She assists them most lovingly in the dark passage from this life into the next world, protecting them valiantly from the efforts and snares of the enemies of salvation, She receives their souls in her sweet and gentle hands at the moment of death, and lovingly folds them in her most charitable Heart. She finally bears them upward to Heaven with unutterable joy and presents them with all-surpassing kindness to her beloved Son.
If such is the miraculous goodness of Mary to those who love and venerate her, how can there possibly be any Christians who hold back from devotion to the center and principle of her benignity, her Admirable Heart?
Praise, honour and glory be forever to the Most High, who has thus caused the Heart of this incomparable Mother to reflect to mankind the perfect image of His goodness and all-merciful providence!
Our Morning Offering – 27 August – “The Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” and Feast of Our Lady Health of the Sick and Mary’s Day
Virgin Full of Goodness,
Mother of Mercy
By St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
Doctor angelicus
Doctor communis
Virgin full of goodness,
Mother of mercy,
I entrust to you my body and my soul,
my thoughts and my actions,
my life and my death.
My Queen,
come to my aid
and deliver me from the snares of the devil.
Obtain for me the grace of loving
my Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
with a true and perfect love,
and after Him,
O Mary,
of loving you with all my heart
and above all things.
Amen.
The Seven Joys of Our Lady – 27 August
St Joseph Calasanz Sch.P. (1557-1648) Spanish Confessor, Priest, Teacher, Lawyer, Founder of the Pious Schools. Patron of all Schools, Colleges, all study institutions and of all students.
St Caesarius of Arles (470-543) Archbishop and Church Father, Theologian, Preacher, Apostle of charity, Legislator, Administrator, Writer, Reformer.
St Carpophorus
St David Lewis
St Decuman
St Ebbo of Sens
St Etherius of Lyons
St Euthalia of Leontini
St Fortunatus of Potenza
Bl Gabriel Mary
St Gebhard of Constance
St Giovanni of Pavia
St Honoratus of Potenza
St John of Pavia
St Licerius of Couserans
St Malrubius of Merns
St Narnus of Bergamo
St Phanurius
St Poemen
Bl Roger Cadwallador
St Rufus of Capua
St Sabinian of Potenza
St Syagrius of Autun
Martyrs of Tomi – 5 Saints: A group of 17 Christians imprisoned and executed for their faith during the persecutions of Diocletian. They miraculously were unburned by fire and untouched by wild animals. We know the names and a few details on five of them – John, Mannea, Marcellinus, Peter and Serapion. They were tied to stakes and burned alive; they emerged unharmed – thrown to wild animals in the amphitheatre; the animals ignored them; they were beheaded in 304 in Tomi, Mesia (modern Costanza, Romania).
Martyrs of Nagasaki – 14 Beati: A group of fourteen missionaries and Japanese native Christians, who were Martyred together for their faith. They died on 16 August 1627 in Nagasaki, Japan and were Beatified on 7 May 1867 by Pope Pius IX.
• Blessed Antonius of Saint Francis
• Blessed Bartolomé Díaz Laurel
• Blessed Caius Akashi Jiemon
• Blessed Francisca Pinzokere
• Blessed Francisco of Saint Mary
• Blessed Franciscus Kuhyoe
• Blessed Leo Kurobyoe Nakamura
• Blessed Lucas Tsuji Kyuemon
• Blessed Ludovicus Matsuo Soyemon
• Blessed Magdalena Kiyota
• Blessed Maria Shobyoe
• Blessed Michaël Koga Kizayemon
• Blessed Thomas Sato Shin’emon
• Blessed Tsuji Shobyoe
The principal and most common appellations given to God in Sacred Scripture are the words strong and mighty. He says of Himself: “I am the most mighty God? and “I am God Almighty.” If you should ask how these two attributes differ from each other, I would answer that in God power and strength are one and the same perfection; yet there is some difference between their effects. It belongs to all-powerfulness to work great and admirable wonders and the characteristic of strength is to accomplish all things easily, without pain or fatigue.
Let us now see the strength and power operate in the Heart of our august Queen. I visualize their image engraved on her pure Heart most perfectly. Consider the power which the Heart of the Mother of the Almighty exerts over Him Who has chosen to obey her as His Mother: “And he was subject to them.” The maternal authority and power God has given Mary over Himself will never be separated from her divine maternity, for the Son of Mary will never relinquish the nature He assumed in His Beloved Mother’s womb and never will He withdraw the privileges He once conferred upon her.
If the heart of the faithful Christian, who believes in Jesus Christ, finds everything possible according to His holy word: “All things are possible to him that believeth,” what can be impossible for the maternal Heart of Mary who conceived the Son of God in her sacred womb, gave Him birth, nourished Him, took care of Him in childhood, accompanied Him in all labors and sufferings, and loved Him more than all the hearts of Heaven and earth put together?
“If all things are possible to him who believes, how much more must this be true of her who loves Him?” says Gerson. “And of her who bore Him,” adds St. Bernardine of Siena.
Hers is the Heart of the valiant woman spoken of by Solomon, always inspired with vigorous and manly virtue, through which she accomplished all things with sovereign perfection and without the least defect. This valiant woman’s Heart bore the sharpest pain and the most violent anguish with marvellous constancy and unshakeable fortitude. Her intrepid Heart crushed the infernal dragon’s head, that is, sin, prefigured by Holofernes, and the powers of hell fear the Immaculate Heart even as an army in battle array’ because Our Lady fought courageously against all God’s enemies and obtained a glorious Victory.
But what is more, she vanquished, so to speak, the Almighty Himself, for I hear an angel saying to Jacob: “Thou shalt no longer be called Jacob, but thy name shall be Israel,” which means according to St. Jerome and the Septuagint “strong against God.” This interpretation agrees with the Angel’s own explanation, for after having said: “Thy name shall be Israel,” he adds; “for if thou hast been strong against God, how much more shalt thou prevail against men?” Jacob had overcome only an angel, but that angel represented God; hence he was told he had overcome God Himself,
Jacob’s holy daughter, the worthy Mother of Christ, has, in a way really overcome God Himself. How often has she not, through the efficacy of her prayers and merits, and by the power of her love, disarmed the anger of God and arrested the torrent of His indignation, which would otherwise have flooded and destroyed the world because of its innumerable crimes? How many times has Our Lady besought divine vengeance to lay aside the thunderbolts ready to be hurled against criminal mankind? How often has her Heart’s incomparable charity clasped the hands of God’s terrible justice and stopped Him from punishing men as they deserve? “How powerful is her love,” says Richard of St. Victor, “since it overcomes the Almighty.” Yes, the love and charity of Mary’s Heart are powerful, and have as it were vanquished God Himself!
History is filled with instances where Our Lady has shown her incomparable power on behalf of those who invoke her protection, manifesting publicly to armies and nations the strength that she also extends to each Christian in his own inner struggle against sin. But her strength is for those who invoke, love, honor and venerate her heart. O Glorious Queen of the World, make us sharers in the divine power which fills thy holy Heart and give us strength against the enemies of thy Divine Son, who is all and does all in thee!
August 25: Our Lady of Rossano, Calabria, Italy
In the year 981 Saracens came ashore with a raiding party near the Italian town of Rossano. Seeking to surprise the slumbering inhabitants of the town, they snuck up to the walls and silently placed their ladders against them and began to climb. When the first of them reached the top, they were met and repulsed by Our Lady, who appeared attired in purple, while holding in her hand a lighted torch. The sight of the glory of the heavenly Queen so terrified the invaders that they advanced no further and took to flight. Thus, the Muslims were driven from the walls by Our Lady of Rossano, who appeared to save the people of this town located in southern Italy in the province of Calabria.
Rossano, or Roscianum as it was known in Roman times when it was an outpost of the budding empire, was thought to have actually been founded well over a millennium before the time of Christ. The town experienced attacks from the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Lombards when the Roman Empire fell in the west, although it was never subjugated by any enemy. The town reached its peak of wealth and influence during the 6th through the 11th century when it was ruled by Byzantium. Located near the Gulf of Taranto, and being close to the water, Rossano was subject to Muslim raids over the following centuries.
St Louis IX (1214-1270) King of France Confessor, King, Reformer, Apostle of Charity.
St Alessandro Dordi
St Andreas Gim Gwang-Ok
St Aredius of Limoges
St Ebbe the Elder
St Eusbius of Rome
St Genesius of Arles
St Genesius of Brescello
St Genesius of Rome
St Gennadius of Constantinople
St Geruntius of Italica
St Ginés de la Jara
St Gregory of Utrecht
St Gurloes of Sainte Croix
St Hermes of Eretum
St Hunegund of Homblieres
St Julian of Syria
St Julius of Eretum
Bl Ludovicus Baba
Bl Ludovicus Sasada
Bl Luis Cabrera Sotelo
St Maginus
St Marcian of Saignon
St Maria Micaela of the Blessed Sacrament (1809-1865) “Mother Sacramento” was a Spanish professed Religious and the Founder of the Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament, Apostle and martyr of charity. In 1922, Pope Pius XI, proclaimed Mother Sacramento’s heroic virtues. On 25 July 1925, he Beatified her and on 4 March 1934, he Canonised her.
St Menas of Constantinople
Bl Miguel Carvalho
St Nemesius of Rome
St Patricia of Naples
Bl Pedro de Calidis
Bl Pedro Vázquez
St Peregrinus of Rome
St Petrus Gim Jeong-Duk
St Pontian of Rome
Mary’s Heart bears a striking resemblance to divine purity and sanctity. The most pure and holy Heart of Our Lady is a living image of those two adorable perfections, which are one and the same, for St. Dionysius tells us that sanctity is perfect purity, purity meaning freedom from the slightest imperfection.
The most holy Heart of Mary is indeed an excellent image of divine purity and holiness. Not only was her most pure and holy Heart always far removed from every kind of sin, but it was entirely free from attachment to created things, and intimately united to God by its pure and holy love for Him together with the eminent practice of all the other virtues which Mary’s Heart possessed in so high a degree. The Queen of Virtues is called by St. John Damascene “the abode and the sanctuary of all virtues.” Even though Our Lady dwelt for years in this world full of filth and abomination, poisoned by the venom of sin, and among wicked and perfidious Jews, her most holy Heart never contracted the least stain or blemish, was never attached by an inordinate affection to any creature nor even to God’s gifts and graces. The Blessed Virgin remained intimately united to God, as though nothing else existed save God and herself.
The most holy Heart of the Queen of all Saints remained forever immaculate, preserved in eminent purity and holiness, and entirely filled with the purity and sanctity of God Himself. Her being was transformed and submerged in divine purity and holiness, to the surpassing extent that her Heart merited to obtain the world’s salvation. As St. Anselm expresses it: “The pure sanctity and holy purity of Mary’s devout Heart, surpassing by far the purity and sanctity of all other creatures, merited for her the sublime dignity of becoming the Restorer of the world wrapped in perdition.”
If you would find a place in the sanctuary of Mary’s admirable Heart, which so perfectly mirrors the purity and sanctity of the Most High, you must purify your heart and realize the meaning of the words: “This is the will of God, your sanctification.” These words are not meant just for souls specially consecrated and set apart. You must apply them to yourself, you who bear the name and imprint of Christ and membership in His mystical Body. The sanctification of your spirit, heart and body is more than a commandment; it is a privilege, a participation, granted to you through the purity and sanctity of the heart of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer and your own Mother.
In the first place, His divine Love most perfectly draws its own image in His Mother’s amiable Heart. Next to the infinite love burning in the immense furnace of the adorable Heart of Jesus, there never was and never shall be a love so strong, exalted, extensive, ardent and pure, as the love which always possessed, filled and inflamed the virginal Heart of His Mother. This all compassing love in turn stamps upon her a perfect image of all the other divine attributes.
Her admirable Heart is, first of all, a living image of divine Unity. God is alone and unique in the infinite eminence of all His grandeurs. He is the only mighty, the only good, the only wise,’ merciful, just, immortal and blessed Being, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.’ Likewise there is in the whole universe only one Heart of the one Mother of God, unique in dignity, excellence and perfections. It surpasses in power, wisdom, goodness, mercy, piety, love, charity and every other virtue and eminent quality the most perfect heart of any angel or saint. The unique Heart of Our Lady never knew any love other than the purest love of God. It never suffered from the multiplicity of superfluous thoughts, aimless desires and vain affections which usually fill and divide the miserable hearts of the children of Adam. Her heart held one thought, one purpose, one will, one intention, one single affection and one desire only: to please God and to fulfil in all things and everywhere His adorable will.
The admirable Heart of our great Queen bears a true resemblance to divine Simplicity. Duplicity, disguise, deceit, falsehood, curiosity, singularity, worldly wisdom, mundane prudence, the self-love which prompts so many faulty thoughts and reflections concerning ourselves and our actions, these and all other things contrary to holy simplicity never had the least part in the Heart of the heavenly Dove. She was always filled, possessed and animated by the spirit of truth, sincerity, candor and simplicity, that her Son bade us follow when He said: “Be ye . . . as simple as doves.”
The incomparable Heart of the Mother of God enjoys marvellous participation in and resemblance to the Infinity and Incomprehensibility of God Himself, because the almost infinite dignity of the Mother of God ennobles and raises to the highest degree even the smallest details concerning her. Mary’s admirable Heart also received an abundant communication of the immensity of God, a singular faculty to express His immeasurability. Let us listen to St. Bonaventure. “O Mary,” says the Seraphic Doctor, “I behold in thee an immense grandeur and capacity. Tu Maria immensissima. | see in thee three kinds of immensity. The first is the immensity of thy blessed womb, which enclosed Him who is immense and infinite, whom the Heavens and the entire universe cannot contain. The second is the immensity of thy mind and heart, for thy virginal Heart is more vastly immense than thy sacred womb. The third is the immensity of thy grace and charity, because thy Heart being immense, replete with grace and charity, the charity and grace that fill it must necessarily be immense.”
Yes, Mother of Fair Love, thy charity knows no bounds or measure; it not only reaches all ages, all places and everything that God has made, but it is so vast and great that it would encompass a countless number of worlds!
The most constant Heart of the Queen of Angels is likewise an excellent representation of divine Stability and Immutability. It remained always steadfast, firm, unalterable and resolute in its perfect love of God and all the holy dispositions which render a heart entirely pleasing to God. The holy Heart of our great Princess is a beautiful representation of the eternity of God, not only because her affections were always entirely free from temporal attachments and securely fixed upon eternal things, but also because Mary was filled with the spirit of prophecy, which is a participation in the Eternity that renders all things present in the sight of the divine Majesty of God.
The blessed Heart of the Queen of Heaven displays a perfect imitation of the Plenitude and Self-sufficiency of God, who bears the name of Saddai, meaning precisely self-sufficient. Almighty God has need of nothing, being filled with every good. The Son of God, speaking to His Father, exclaims: “Thou art my God, for thou hast no need of my goods.” In like manner, the virginal Heart of the Mother of God, loving God alone, being always free and empty of every alien affection, was constantly filled with God much more perfectly than the Ephesians, to whom St. Paul wrote that he bowed his knees to the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ to obtain for them the grace that they might “be filled unto all the fulness of God.”
The blessed Heart of Our Lady never desired, sought or found any delight or satisfaction outside of God. Her Heart always enjoyed imperturbable rest and peace because being filled to capacity with the plenitude of God, it remained always fully satisfied and incomparably happier and content than the heart of a man possessing a million possible worlds.
Consider well, dear reader, how perfectly the Admirable Heart of your Queen fulfils the mandate to “seek but one thing” and to make God her portion and her heritage for ever. To be happy, give and offer your heart constantly, exclaiming with Mary, St. Thomas and St. Francis: “My God and my All.”
Our Morning Offering – 23 August – – “The Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary”
Mary, I Beg You
By St Anselm (1033-1109)
Magnificent Doctor
Marian Doctor
Mary, I beg you,
by that grace through which
the Lord is with you
and you will to be with Him,
let your mercy be with me.
Let love for you always be with me,
and the care for me be always with you.
Let the cry of my need,
as long as it persists,
be with you,
and the care of your goodness,
as long as I need it,
be with me.
Let joy in your blessedness
be always with me,
and compassion for my wretchedness,
where I need it,
be with you.
Amen.
I have bestowed upon you the royal Heart of your great Queen to be regent of your hearts, to rule and govern them according to the most adorable will of my heavenly Father that you may be entirely fashioned according to His Heart.
I have likewise given you the admirable Heart of my most worthy Mother, which is identified with my own Heart, that it may be your true Heart as well; that my children may possess only one Heart with their Mother, and my members the same Heart as their Head. Thus you may serve, adore and love God with a Heart worthy of His infinite goodness: Corde magno et animo volenti, that is, with an immense and measureless Heart, with a Heart all pure and holy, so that you may sing His divine praises and accomplish all your actions in the spirit, love, humility and all the holy dispositions of her admirable Heart. But in order to make this come true, you must renounce entirely your own heart, that is, your mind, your will and your love of self. Strive, therefore, to rid yourself of your earthly heart that is depraved and wicked, and you shall receive an entirely heavenly, holy and divine Heart.
I have finally given this marvellous Heart as an inestimable treasure containing every possible blessing. It is for you, beloved children, to engrave in your hearts a high esteem, a profound respect and a particular affection for so rich a treasure, and to preserve it jealously by the continuation and increase of your veneration for a Heart so holy and amiable.
It is to encourage you to do so that I have said these things, Set down my words in your hearts and practise them faithfully. In this way, you will become the true children of my holy Mother’s Heart, and you will live according to my own. My eyes and my Heart shall ever watch over your necessities. I will carry you in my innermost Heart. You will yourselves be my Heart, my joy and my delight. I will love you as my own Heart, and I will prepare a glorious habitation for you throughout eternity in my Heart and in the Heart of my blessed Mother, which is one with my own. You shall abide forever in our Hearts, and live by their life, you shall possess all the treasures enclosed in our Hearts, and be immersed and buried in their joys. Our Hearts shall be your paradise, the life of your life, the Heart of your heart.
In the love of these Hearts, or rather, this one Heart, you will eternally love, bless and glorify my holy Mother and the sovereign monarch of all hearts, which is the adorable Heart of the most Holy Trinity. May It be forever praised, adored, and loved by all the hearts of angels and of men!
After listening to the divine words of Our Divine Saviour encouraging us to love and honor the most amiable Heart of His Blessed Mother, we shall now contemplate the operations of His adorable Heart towards the maternal Heart of Mary, whereby He teaches us even more effectively than by His eloquent words. Oh, who could worthily describe the least spark of the Divine Heart of Jesus, that furnace of love, towards the Heart of His admirable Mother?
Our Lord has so loved and honored her maternal Heart that He has exalted it above all the hearts of the universe, and made it the most august empire of His glory and the glorious triumph of His love. He has so loved and honored her Heart as to constitute it a Heaven higher and more brilliant than all the heavens in which He is glorified and loved more ardently than in the empyrean heaven.
God has loved and honored His Mother to such an extent that from the first instant in which He gave her blessed Heart its being, He worked in it countless great miracles, imparting the most abundant communication of His own divine perfections, and rendering it most worthy, noble, perfect, mighty, wise, holy, just, merciful, kind, liberal; He has made it the richest, happiest, most glorious, most amiable and most admirable of all hearts.
Our Morning Offering – 22 August – Month and Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Octave Day of the Assumption)
O Immaculate Heart of Mary
By St Gertrude the Great (1256-1302)
O Immaculate Heart of Mary,
I have nothing in myself to offer thee
which is worthy of thee
but what thankgiving I ought I to pay thee,
for all the favours
which thou hast obtained for me
from the Heart of Jesus!
What reparation ought I to make thee
for all my tepidity, in thy service!
I desire to return thee love for love,
the only good which I possess,
is the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
which thou, thyself hast given me.
I offer thee this Treasure of Infinite Price,
I cannot do more
and thou dost not deserve less, at my hand
but, receiving from me,
this Gift most Precious in thy sight,
be pleased, I beseech thee,
to accept too, my poor heart,
which I here offer to thee
and I shall be forever blessed.
Amen.
One Minute Reflection – 22 August – Month and Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Octave Day of the Assumption) – Readings: Heb 4:16, Ps 44:2, Sir 24:23-31, John 19:25-27
At that time, there were standing by the Cross of Jesus, His Mother, and His Mother’s sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen. When Jesus, therefore, saw His Mother and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He said to His Mother, Woman, behold your son. Then He said to the disciple, Behold, your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.
John 19:25-27
REFLECTION – There are two martyrdom species: one manifest, the other secret; One visible, the other hidden; One in the flesh, the other in the heart. The martyrdom of the heart goes beyond the torments of the flesh.
So the glorious virgin triumphed in this kind of suffering, all the more glorious as it was closer when, attached to the adorable cross of the Lord's passion, she drew from the chalice, she drinks of His passion, watered in the torrent of pain, she could endure a pain forever unparalleled. She runs following Jesus not only with the smell of her perfumes, but in the abundance of her pain; Not only in the joy of consolations, but also in the overflow of suffering. Mother, she saw her son, the real Solomon, with the tiara of which she had crowned him and, herself crowned with a crown of affliction, she was following Him.
She was standing with the cross to consider the very soft head of her son, anoint of oil with her companions, struck with a reed and crowned with thorns. She saw the most beautiful of the children of men who no longer had neither radiance or beauty. She saw despised and restored to the last rank He who is exalted above all peoples. She saw the saint of saints crucified with the scoundrels and the impious. She saw the eyes of this sublime man lowering himself, and the head of the one who supports the universe to lean, tilted on his shoulders, the very serene face of God wither, and vanish the beauty of his face.
St Amadeus of Lausanne
PRAYER – Almighty, everlasting God, Who in the Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, prepared a dwelling place worthy of the Holy Spirit, graciously grant, that we, who are devoutly keeping the Feast of her Immaculate Heart, may be able to live according to Thy Heart.Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord, Who lives and reigns with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen
Quote/s of the Day – 22 August – Month and Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Octave Day of the Assumption)
“In the end,
my Immaculate Heart
will triumph.”
“Let us decide to become one,
with all the faithful,
in offering the prayers and actions
and sufferings of each day
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
through the Immaculate Heart of His Mother Mary.
We shall certainly receive showers of graces,
both for ourselves
and for the salvation of the souls of our neighbours.”
Antonio Cardinal Bacci (1881-1971)
Prayer to the Two Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary
O Heart of Jesus pierced for our sins
and giving us Your Mother on Calvary!
O Heart of Mary pierced by sorrow
and sharing in the sufferings of your divine Son
for our redemption!
O sacred union of these Two Hearts!
Praised be the God of Love who united them together!
May we unite our hearts and every heart
so that all hearts may live in unity and in imitation
of that sacred unity which exists in these Two Hearts.
Triumph, O Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary!
Reign, O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus!
– in our hearts, in our homes and families,
in the hearts of those who as yet do not know You
and in all nations of the world.
Establish in the hearts of all mankind the sovereign triumph
and reign of your Two Hearts so that the earth may resound
from pole to pole with one cry:
Blessed forever be the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
and the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary!
Obtain for me a greater purity of heart
and a fervent love of the spiritual life.
May all my actions be done for the greater glory of God
in unions with the divine heart of Jesus
and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Hear and answer our prayers and intentions
according to Your most merciful will.
Amen
WE HAVE every reason to consider the adorable Heart of Jesus as the second foundation of the devotion to the admirable Heart of Mary. The supremely ardent love for the Heart of His dearest Mother, burning in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, makes Him the herald of this devotion, which He teaches to us both by word and example.
Would you know how the Only-begotten Son of God, who is also the Son of Mary, exhorts us to venerate His glorious Mother’s loving Heart? Listen to what He revealed in 1300 to St. Mechtilde, one of the most glorious daughters of St. Benedict, whose writings have been approved by learned and devout doctors. One day during Advent, as the Saint sought to salute the Mother of God in a most pleasing manner, Our Lord Himself deigned to instruct her as follows:
“Thou shalt salute my holy Mother’s virginal Heart as an ocean replete with heavenly grace and a treasure filled with myriad blessings for mankind.
“Thou shalt honor it as the purest Heart after mine own because she was the first to take the vow of chastity.
“Thou shalt hail it as the humblest Heart of any simple creature, for her humility drew me from my Father’s bosom and rendered her worthy to conceive me in her chaste womb by the power of the Holy Ghost.
“Thou shalt reverence her Heart as supremely devout and most ardent in its desire for my Incarnation and birth on earth, because the fervor of her desires and of her longing attracted me to her and became the cause of man’s salvation.
“Thou shalt honor her Heart as most glowingly inflamed with love for God and man. Thou shalt salute it as the wisest and most prudent, for she kept in her Heart the memory of each event of my childhood, youth and adult life and made a most holy use of this remembrance.
“Thou shalt greet her Heart as the most faithful, for she not only consented to permit me, her only Son, to be sacrificed, but she also offered me to my Eternal Father as a sacrifice for the redemption of the world.
“Thou shalt salute her Heart as the most vigilant and most zealous for the interests of the nascent Church, for the care she took to pray unceasingly could not be disregarded.
“Thou shalt glorify her Heart as raised to the highest degree of uninterrupted contemplation, for no tongue can worthily speak of the graces and favors that men owe to the power of her intercession.”
I have always been and shall forever be the most singular object of all the affections of her Holy Heart, as she herself has always been and will forever be, after my Eternal Father, the first object of my love. All who truly love me must, therefore, be particularly zealous in honoring and teaching others to honor the Heart that I love more and that gives me greater glory and love than the hearts of all the angels and men together.
I have given my Mother’s Heart to you as a divine Sun to enlighten you through the darkness of the world, to warm you in the frosts of mortal life, to gladden and to comfort you in the sorrows, pains and miseries of earth, and to vivify and strengthen you against the decline and weakness of human frailty. I have given her Heart to you as a beautiful mirror, into which you should often gaze in order to see the stains that tarnish your souls, so that you may cleanse them. With the aid of this celestial mirror, you should array your souls with becoming ornaments that they may become pleasing in the sight of my divine majesty.
I have given her Heart to you as a heavenly chronicle and book of life, that you may study its pages unceasingly, and learn to know perfectly and to love ardently the ravishing beauty of those Christian virtues whose faithful practice gives eternal life. But what you should learn above all from this book are the marvellous merits of holy humility and the means to practice it, so as to crush in your hearts the cursed serpent of pride and vanity that wreaks such havoc, not only in the souls of children of perdition, but in my own children’s hearts as well.
I have given the Heart of my incomparable Mother to you as a holy Rule that will enable you to become saints, if you faithfully observe it.
I have given her Heart to you as a precious vessel, filled with manna from heaven and the nectar of paradise, to nourish your hearts with the meat of the angels, even in this world, and so to inebriate them with heavenly wine, that the things of the earth and time may be forgotten entirely and the sole delight of your hearts rest in those things which are heavenly and eternal.
Last in my series of symbolic pictures of the holy Heart of the spotless Virgin I show you Calvary, as it reveals the sorrows of the crucified Heart of Mary at the time of her Son’s Passion.
What is Calvary? It is a mountain, the most important and notable mountain of the Holy Land. What is the Heart of the Mother of God? Is it not also a mountain, the most illustrious mountain of that blessed land referred to in these words of Sacred Scripture: “Lord, thou has blessed the land.” This land is the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her Heart is the noblest and highest peak of her body and of her soul.
What is Calvary? It is Mount Moriah on which God commanded Abraham to slay his son, Isaac. The Hebrew rendition of the twenty second chapter of Genesis reads: “Go into the land of Moriah,” instead of the usual version: “Go into the land of vision.” ? It is the place where King David raised an altar and offered sacrifice that God might stop the plague that ravaged his people, and also the site on which Solomon erected the Temple of Jerusalem, for Mount Sion is the same as Mount Moriah, and Calvary is part of the same chain of hills.
What is Calvary? It is the place where the Cross of Jesus was raised. And was the Cross of Salvation not raised first of all in Mary’s holy Heart? What is Calvary? It is the place stained with the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ. But Mary’s Heart was bathed with It through love and compassion and the Precious Blood of her beloved Son penetrated and impregnated His Mother far more than it soaked the soil of Calvary.
On Calvary, we behold the thorns that wounded the adorable head of our Saviour, the nails that pierced His hands and feet, the lance that opened His Heart, the ropes that bound Him, the gall and vinegar He was given to drink, and the wounds which covered His body from head to foot. We can see the same wounds in the maternal Heart of His saintly Mother. “The Cross and the nails which crucified the Son’s body, crucified the Mother’s Heart as well.” St. Jerome quotes St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, as saying: “All the wounds which covered the body of Jesus, had their counterpart in Mary’s Heart. The whips, the thorns, the nails which pierced and tore the Saviour’s body, ran through His holy Mother’s Heart and shattered it. Every blow rending the body of the Son had its cruel echo in the Heart of His Mother.”
“O my Queen,” exclaims St. Bonaventure, “Thou art not only standing near the Cross, but thou art with Thy Son on the Cross; Thou dost suffer, thou art crucified with Him, the only difference being that while He suffers in His body, thou dost suffer in thy loving Heart. All the wounds scattered over His body are united in thy Heart, because the sword of sorrow has pierced thy very soul. Thy virginal Heart, O my sovereign Lady, is wounded by the lance, pierced by the nails and thorns, heaped with opprobrium, ignominy and imprecations, saturated with vinegar and gall. Why wouldst thou, most honored Lady, be immolated for us? Is not our Saviour’s Passion sufficient for our salvation? Must the mother also be crucified with her Son? O sweetest Heart, so full of love, must thou then be changed into bitter sorrow? I seek to behold thy loving Heart, my dearest Mistress, but it seems to have vanished and in its place I find only the bitterness of gall, myrrh and absinth. I seek the Mother of God and I find only thorns, nails, a lance, a sponge and vinegar. I look for Mary on the Cross, and I see only spittle, insults, lashes and wounds, so truly has she been overwhelmed by outrages.” I see my Redeemer crucified, suffering, agonizing, dying and finally dead on Calvary. I also behold His sorrows, suffering, agony and death in His Blessed Mother’s Heart. “She had lived of her Son’s life, and when He died on the Cross, she died with Him,” says a holy Premonstratensian Abbot.
“Both Mother and Son were nailed to the Cross, the Son in the body, the Mother in her Heart,” exclaims St. Lawrence Justinian,’ the sainted Patriarch of Venice. “Could not Mary die in her Heart, as Jesus died in His body?” asks St. Bernard.
On Calvary, the only Son of Mary gave us an inestimable gift, when in the excess of His incomprehensible goodness He addressed Himself to each one of us in the person of St. John and speaking of His holy Mother, said to us: “Behold thy Mother.” And from Calvary, the Mother of Jesus, whose sentiments and will are one with those of her beloved Son, gives herself to us to be our Mother with the same Heart and with an equal love. Having enshrined the words of her Son in her maternal Heart, she echoes them again, and adopts each one of us in particular. Thus both Jesus and Mary say to us: “Behold thy Mother.”
Our Morning Offering – 20 August – “The Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” and the Memorial of St Bernard (1090-1153) Confessor, “The Bard of Mary”
To Thee We Cry,
O Queen of Mercy!
By St Bernard (1090-1153)
Mellifluous Doctor of the Church
To thee we cry,
O Queen of Mercy!
Return, that we may behold
thee, dispensing favours,
bestowing remedies,
giving strength.
Ah, tender Mother!
Tell thy All-powerful Son
that we have no more wine.
We are thirsty after the wine of His Love,
of that marvellous wine,
which fills souls with a holy inebriation,
inflames them
and gives them the strength
to despise the things of this world
and to seek, with ardour,
Heavenly goods.
Amen.
Another symbolic picture of the admirable Heart of the most Holy Mother of God is the miraculous furnace described in the third chapter of the Prophet Daniel. St. John Damascene and many other holy Doctors affirm that the fiery furnace was a figure of the sinless Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary and its burning fire a reflection of the heavenly fire in the holy breast of the Mother of Fair Love. Here are St. John Damascene’s words: “Is it not true,” he says addressing Our Lady, “that this furnace, filled with a fire at once burning and refreshing, was a faithful image of thee and an excellent picture of the divine and eternal fire dwelling within thee?”
But you may well ask how anything so noble and holy as the Heart of the Queen of Heaven could be represented by the furnace of Babylon, an instrument of torture designed by the wickedness and cruelty of King Nabuchodonosor? Remember that the three young men, Sidrach, Misach and Abdenago, thrown into the furnace to be burnt to ashes, belonged to the people of Israel, and everything that happened to the Israelites was a figure and a foreshadowing of the great miracles that were to be fulfilled in Christianity, and in the Father and Mother of Christians. “All these things happened to them in figure.” Remember also that St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great tell us that Sacred Scripture mentions many objects which though profane and wicked in themselves, are nevertheless a representation of good and holy thoughts.
Certainly that furnace was the product of Nabuchodonosor’s impious rage, but divine Providence, without whose order and permission nothing can happen, designated it to show the extent of the power of God and the marvels of His goodness, through the miraculous protection given to His faithful friends.
In the furnace of Babylon we behold many marvels wrought by God’s omnipotence. Consider that in the midst of the furnace filled with fire and flame, there should be a refreshing wind, likened to fragrant dew. “The angel made the midst of the furnace like the blowing of a wind bringing dew.” What a marvel it is to behold a burning furnace whose flames protect those inside its crucible, while they destroy those who remain outside! What a miracle to see fire comforting and refreshing those cast into the sevenfold heat of its flames, while burning to death those standing at a safe distance! How miraculous for three young men to survive in a furnace whose flames leapt to a height of forty-nine cubits, not suffering injury but walking about with joy as in a place of delight! The three gladly sang the praises of Almighty God and emerged from their ordeal with greater strength and vigor than before while the fire could not so much as singe a single fibre of their clothing. Great indeed are the marvels to be found in Babylon’s furnace; yet they merely foreshadow the miracles which we find in the furnace of the glowing Heart of the Queen of Angels.
It is a great miracle to witness fire and water subsisting side by side in the furnace of Nabuchodonosor. The fire did not turn the cooling water into steam nor did the water quench the burning heat of the fire. What manner of fire is this? It is the fire of divine love burning in the Virginal Heart of Mary. What is the cooling dew? It is the water of tribulation, which so often flooded the holy Heart of the Mother of Sorrows. The fire of love did not dry up the waters of affliction; and the waters of tribulation were unable, I shall not say to extinguish, but even to diminish in the least degree the divine ardor of that heavenly fire.
Love has the virtue of fire, that it may unceasingly inflame the Virgin Mother’s purest Heart with its sacred ardour, and also the properties of water, as it extinguishes entirely the fire of self-love and of attachment to vain and perishable things. Is it not a great miracle to behold a fire refreshing, consoling and filling with joy the children of the Mother of God, while it pursues, burns, devours its enemies? Her virginal Heart, which is ablaze with love for her true children, directs the fire and flame of its anger against those who injure or scandalize her loved ones.
Three Hebrew children walked safely in the first furnace; yet the prophet saw there four, and the fourth was like the Son of God. “The form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” Actually it was an angel, representing the Only-begotten Son of God in the Babylonian furnace, but this same Son of God resides and dwells in person in the glowing Heart of His most holy Mother. He is all fire and flame of love and charity. “The Lord thy God is a consuming fire.”
We also notice that the three young men were bound hand and foot when thrown into the furnace, but immediately their bonds were consumed by the fire and they were freed within the furnace. Come, come, poor slaves of sin and of the world! Come, slaves of passion, of self-love and self-will, chained in the irons and fetters of Babylon! Fear not to plunge into our sacred furnace! These flames will not harm you; instead they will destroy your fetters and establish you in the holy liberty of the children of God and of His loving Mother. They will inflame your hearts with the fire of heavenly love, they will transform them into divine fire itself.
Your hearts must become furnaces of eternal love, if they would avoid being ranked with the miserable hearts of the wicked against whom the terrible sentence was uttered: “Thou shalt make them as an oven of fire, in the time of thy anger.” What dost Thou will to do, O Lord, with the ungrateful wretches, whom Thou didst create to love Thee, whose obligations to love Thee are boundless, yet who have loved everything but Thee, and have even kindled fires of insult and heaped outrages upon Thee? Thou shalt make of them furnaces of wrath, in the time of Thy terrible vengeance. Thou shalt hurl them into the eternal fire prepared for Satan and his minions, where they will be swallowed, burned and penetrated by the infernal fire. In life these souls would not permit the sweet and radiant flames of Thy holy love to burn within them, so they shall be yielded to the eternal torments of devouring fire in endless hell.
Would you avoid this tragedy, the greatest of all misfortunes? Then give your hearts to your admirable Queen, imploring her to offer them to her beloved Son with the prayer that He may kindle in them the fire He came to spread on earth, the fire He so greatly desires should be lighted. On your part, correspond by removing every obstacle from your hearts, and if this sacred flame is already burning there, make every effort to increase it more and more, by the practice of Christian virtues, the meditation of the gospel and especially the exercise of divine love and charity.
Quote/s of the Day – 20 August – “The Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” and the Memorial of St Bernard (1090-1153) Abbot, Confessor, “Doctor Mellifluus” of the Church and the Last Father of the Church,“The Bard of Mary”
With good reason is Mary called the center of the earth, for all the inhabitants of Heaven, and those of hell, those who come before us, and those who will come after us, their children’s children and their entire posterity look to her as to the midst and the center of the earth. She is, in fact, next to her divine Son, the mediator between God and Man, between the Head and the members of the Mystical Body, the Church, between the Old and New Testament, between Heaven and earth, between justice and mercy. They look to her as to the Ark of God, Ark of the Covenant and of peace between God and His people, as the cause of all that is good and the masterpiece of all ages, past and to come.
Very desirable is the virtue of virginity, yet humility is more necessary. We are counselled to embrace the former, but the latter is a matter of precept. To the one we are invited, to the other we are constrained. Concerning virginity the Saviour only says, ‘He that can take it, let him take it’, whereas He speaks thus of humility: ‘Unless you be converted and become as little children you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ The first, therefore, is commended with the promise of a special reward, whilst the second is exacted as a debt.
Virginity is a virtue that is found with few, but far fewer are they who combine it with humility. If therefore thou be one who can only admire the virginity of Mary, apply thyself with zeal to copy her humility, and that will be enough for thee. But if thou art both a virgin and a humble virgin, thou hast attained to true greatness, whosoever thou mayest be.
Nevertheless, there is something further for thee to admire in Mary, something even more wonderful than this union of humility with virginity. I refer to that prerogative by which she unites integrity with fruitfulness. For ‘from the beginning of the world it hath not been heard that any” woman was at one and the same time a mother and a virgin. And oh! If thou remeberest Whose Mother she was, what bounds shalt thou set to thy admiration of her incomparable grandeur? Shalt thou not be brought to understand that thou canst never admire her as much as she deserves?
Is not the God of the universe and the Lord of the angels called Son by Mary, who, as the Evangelist St Luke, tells us, once said to Him, “Son, why hast Thou done so to us?” Which of the celestial princes would dare to use such language? Mary, remembering that she is His Mother, gives with confidence the name of Son to that awful Majesty Whom angels are happy to serve with lowly reverence.
The inhabitants of Heaven, that is, the angels, look to her as to the one through whom the losses inflicted on them by sin will be repaired; those who are in the fiery torment, which here means purgatory, look to her as to the one through whose mediation they will be delivered, those who came before us see in her the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies, those who shall follow us consider her as the means whereby they will one day be crowned with immortal glory.
Quote/s of the Day – 19 August – “The Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” – and the Memorial of St John Eudes (1601-1680) Confessor, “The Apostle of Two Hearts”
“The crosses with which our path
through life is strewn,
associate us with Jesus
in the Mystery of His Crucifixion.”
“No-one who shall invoke
this Mother of Grace,
with devotion and perseverance,
can possibly perish forever.”
“Let infidels and heretics,
let the relatives and the friends
of bad Catholics,
weep without consolation
and weep unceasingly,
for the death of their departed ones!”
Thy royal heart is our pure light, our refuge safe. Why should I fear? Her goodness is firm support of our lives, Nothing can trouble our hearts.
Consider how strange it is! The world offers nothing but crumbs and dregs of feasting, empty fame, wealth and fleeting pleasure, but it sells you these stale crumbs and dregs at the costly price of worry, pain, bitterness, restlessness, anguish, often even at the price of your very life. On the other hand, the Divine Son of God and of Mary offers you the refreshment and rapture of the fountain of the fulness of the House of God, of which you are free to drink forever. O what blind, blind folly it is to choose the goblet of sin instead of the chalice of Our Saviour!
Blessed indeed are the hearts of the true children of Mary, who strive to live in conformity with the most holy Heart of their Mother most admirable!
St. Epiphanius and St. John Damascene, together with several other Doctors, tell us that the golden candlestick is a figure of the Holy Mother of God. Next to Jesus, her beloved Son, Mary is the most luminous torch and the brightest light of the House of God. “O virginal candlestick,” says St. Epiphanius,” which enlightened those who sat in the shadow of death! O virginal torch, which dissipated the gloom of hell, and caused the brilliance of heaven to shine in our souls! O radiant lamp, ever filled with the oil of grace and light, with the fire of divine love, lighting our minds and inflaming our hearts! This virginal light has spread its splendour throughout the world!”
The remarkable table in Solomon’s temple, described in the twenty fifth chapter of Exodus, was made by divine command from the wood of Setim, not a common variety of cedar, but according to the Septuagint, a most rare and altogether incorruptible wood. The table was completely covered with gold-plate and edged with a gold-plated cornice or border surrounding it like a crown while two additional golden crowns embellished it. It was designed to hold the loaves of proposition that were offered to God daily by the priests, and were thus named because they lay in the temple as a perpetual sacrifice proposed or exposed to the Divine Majesty. Afterwards they were consumed by the priests.
The Fathers of the Church all agree that the loaves of proposition were a figure of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the royal bread that came down from Heaven. Christ is the bread of the angels, the bread of God, the bread of the children of God, a bread which is the nourishment and life of the Christian soul, and all Christians are called priests in Sacred Scripture: Fecisti nos Deo nostro sacerdotes. Some are priests by office and bear the special character of consecrated priesthood; others share it by participation. What is the table bearing this divine bread, prefigured by the table carrying the loaves of proposition? St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, answers that it was the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Epiphanius confirms his words.
Is not the table designed to receive the bread and food laid on it? Is it not true that the Heart of the Mother of God was the first to receive Our Lord as He came forth from the bosom of the Eternal Father? Did she not receive Him in order to give Him to us? Is it not true that the Eternal Father carries His Beloved Son in His all-glorious Heart from all eternity and that the Blessed Virgin will carry her Son in her Heart for all eternity? Hence we hear the words which the Holy Ghost puts on Mary’s lips: “I was with him,” that is, with the Eternal Father, “forming all things.” In the Hebrew version this passage reads: “I was with Him and near Him as a nurse,” which reveals Mary’s role as the Mother who gives nourishment to mankind.
Several learned interpreters of Sacred Scripture teach us that the altar of perfumes of the Mosaic temple represents the hearts of the faithful, which are symbolized as altars on which each one should offer a perpetual sacrifice of prayer and praise to God. Now if the hearts of the children of God were figured by this altar, how much more truly does it symbolize the Heart of the Mother of God, which is after the Heart of Jesus, the first and holiest of all altars? It is “the golden altar, which is before the throne of God,” mentioned in the eighth chapter of the Apocalypse. On this altar the Mother of the Saviour offered to God a sacrifice of love, adoration, praise, thanksgiving and prayer far more to His Divine Majesty than all the sacrifices that ever were or ever shall be offered on all other altars.
If we consult the Fathers of the Church we learn particularly from St. Ambrose that the Ark of the Covenant was a figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and therefore of her most holy Heart, the holy Heart, the first and noblest part of her person. “Yes,” exclaims the seraphic St. Bonaventure “the Ark of Moses was merely a reflection of the Virgin’s Heart. Her Heart is the true ark containing within itself the secrets of the divine Word and the treasure of the law of God.” A holy Abbot of the Cistercian Order calls Mary the Ark of Sanctification, containing revelations written by the hand of God. She is the holy Ark of the Covenant, the Covenant by which God reconciled us with Himself and pledged His alliance with us forever. Next to God, Mary’s Heart should be the first object to which we look up when we pray.
But let us remember that the Heart of Mary is a tower of ivory, zurris eburnea, which does not suffer within its precincts anything defiled and unclean. It is the tower of David, open only to those who follow the meekness of Jesus Christ, the true David.
St. Gregory of Nyssa states that the Tables of the Mosaic Law kept in the temple of Solomon were a figure symbolic of the hearts of the Saints. Now, if the hearts of the Saints are real tables of the evangelical law, what shall we say of the holy Heart of the Queen of Saints, who is the Mother of the Saint of saints? Her glorious Heart is the first and holiest table of the Christian law. It is not made of stone, but of gold, or better still, of diamond; it is not dead but living; not breakable like the tables of Moses but indestructible. On it the Holy Ghost, the finger of God, has written and engraved in golden letters, not merely the will of God and His laws, but all the counsels, maxims and-truths of the gospel as well. They are so deeply engraved that the united forces of hell and of earth could more easily snatch the sun from the sky and-destroy the world than remove a single iota or tarnish a single letter of this sacred writing.
The Propitiatory is regarded as another figure symbolic of the glorious Virgin because by her intercession the flame of God’s wrath was extinguished, His Divine Majesty was turned to look upon mankind with favor and His infinite mercy moved Him to compassion for our infirmities. For this reason St. Ildephonsus calls the Mother of Grace; Propitiatio humanae salutis. “The propitiation of man’s salvation.” St. Andrew of Crete styles Mary: Universi mundi commune propitiatorium. “The universal propitiatory of the entire world.”
St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, and several other Fathers say that the Altar of Holocausts also symbolized the hearts of all the Saints, who are the real altars on which God is honored by the spiritual sacrifices offered day and night to His Divine Majesty. Yet much more truly can this be said of the Holy Heart of Mary. “Her Heart is the true altar of holocaust,” says the illustrious John Gerson, “and on it the sacred fire of divine love blazed day and night.” The Mother of the Sovereign Priest constantly offered to God sacrifices of love, praise, thanksgiving, expiation for the sins of the world and every possible sacrifice. On the altar of her Heart Mary sacrificed to God all the things of the world and every creature of the universe as so many different victims. She sacrificed her being, life, body, soul, all her thoughts, words and actions, the employment of her senses and faculties, and in general, all that she was, all that she possessed and every power of her soul. She offered to the Divine Majesty the very sacrifice that her Son Jesus Christ offered on Calvary. Our adorable Saviour offered Himself to the Eternal Father only once on the altar of the Cross, but His holy Mother immolated Him ten thousand times on the altar of her pure Heart.
What veneration is then due to this sacred altar! Be thou blessed, O God of my heart, for having consecrated this most worthy altar to the glory of thy most adorable majesty. Deign to transform our cold hearts into glowing altars on which we may offer Thee an unremitting sacrifice of praise and love.
One Minute Reflection – 18 August – “The Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” – Within the Octave of the Assumption – Readings: Ps 69:2-3, Ps 69:4, 2 Cor. 3:4-9, Luke 10:23-37
‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I, on my way back, will repay you.’
Luke 10:23-37
REFLECTION – As God created man to his own image and likeness, so did he appoint for man a love after the image and resemblance of the love which is due to His own divinity. He said: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart; this is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Why do we love God? “The cause for which we love God,” says S. Bernard, “is God Himself;” as though he had said: we love God because He is the most sovereign and infinite goodness. And why do we love ourselves in charity? Surely because we are the image and likeness of God; and whereas all men are endowed with the same dignity, we love them also as ourselves, that is, as being holy and living images of the divinity.
For it is on that account that He makes no difficulty about calling Himself our father and us His children; it is on that account that we are capable of being united to His divine essence by the fruition of His sovereign goodness and felicity; it is on that account that we receive His grace, that our spirits are associated to His most Holy Spirit and made, after a fashion, a participant of His divine nature. And therefore the same charity which produces the acts of the love of God produces at the same time those of the love of our neighbour. And even as Jacob saw that one same ladder which touched heaven and earth serving the angels both for descending and ascending, so we know that one same charity extends itself to both the love of God and our neighbour.
Saint Francis de Sales
PRAYER – O Lord, we beseech Thee, forgive the transgressions of Thy servant, and, forasmuch as by our own deeds we cannot please Thee, may we find safety through the prayers of, the Mother of Thy Son and our Lord. Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord, Who lives and reigns with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen
AnaStpaul 
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