Posted in FATHERS of the Church, MARIAN REFLECTIONS, MATER DOLOROSA - Mother of SORROWS, MOTHER of GOD, ONE Minute REFLECTION, QUOTES on MOTHERHOOD, SEPTEMBER-The SEVEN SORROWS of MARY and The HOLY CROSS, The PASSION, The WORD

One Minute Reflection – 15 September – “Behold, your mother”

One Minute Reflection – 15 September – “Month of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary” and Memorial of the Seven Sorrows of our Mother – Readings: First Timothy 3: 14-16; Psalm 111: 1-6; John 19: 25-27 or Luke 2: 33-35

“Behold, your mother” – John 19:27

REFLECTION “Woman, this is your son. This is your mother.” By what right is the disciple whom Jesus loved, the son of the Lord’s mother? By what right is she his mother? By the fact that, without pain, she brought into the world the salvation of us all, when she gave birth in the flesh to the God-man. But now she is in labour with great pain as she stands at the foot of the Cross.

At the hour of His Passion, the Lord Himself rightly compared the Apostles to a woman in childbirth, when He said: “When a woman is in labour she is in anguish because a child is born into the world” (cf. Jn 16:21). How much more, then, might such a Son compare such a Mother, the Mother standing at the foot of His Cross, to a woman in labour? What am I saying? “Compare?” She is indeed truly a woman and truly a mother and, at this hour, she is truly experiencing the pains of childbirth. When her Son was born she did not experience the anguish of giving birth in pain as other women do; it is now that she is suffering, that she is crucified, that she experiences sorrow like a woman in labour because her hour has come ( Jn 16:21; cf.13:1; 17:1). …

When this hour has passed, when the sword of sorrow has completely pierced her soul in labour (Lk 2:35), then, no more shall she “remember the pain because a child has been born into the world” – the new Man who renews the entire human race and reigns forever over the whole world, truly born, beyond all suffering, immortal, the firstborn from the dead. If the Virgin has thus brought the salvation of us all into the world, in her Son’s Passion, then she is indeed the Mother of us all!Rupert of Deutz (c 1075-1130) Benedictine Monk, Theologian, Exegete and Writer – Commentary on Saint Johns Gospel, 13 ; PL 169, 789.

PRAYER – Our Father, when Jesus Your Son, was raised up on the Cross, it was Your will that Mary, His Mother, should stand there and suffer with Him in her heart. Grant that in union with her, the Church may share in the passion of Christ and so be brought to the glory of His Resurrection. Be our intercessor and our consolation, Our Lady of Sorrows, amen.

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Posted in MARIAN TITLES, MARTYRS, MATER DOLOROSA - Mother of SORROWS, SAINT of the DAY, SEPTEMBER-The SEVEN SORROWS of MARY and The HOLY CROSS

The Octave of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin and The Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin and Memorials of the Saints – 15 September

The Octave of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin and The Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin – Our Lady of Sorrows (Memorial)
About this Sorrowful and Glorious Memorial:

https://anastpaul.wordpress.com/2017/09/15/memorial-of-our-lady-of-sorrows-15-september/
AND here:
https://anastpaul.com/2018/09/15/memorial-of-our-lady-of-sorrows-15-september-2/

St Aichardus
St Albinus of Lyon
Bl Anton Maria Schwartz
St Aprus of Toul
St Bond of Sens

St Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510) Married laywoman, Mystic, Apostle of the sick, the poor and the needy, Writer. Her body is incorrupt and rests in a glass reliquary at the Capuchin Church in Genoa.
Catherine’s writings were examined by the Holy Office and declared to contain doctrine that would alone be enough to prove her sanctity and she was accordingly Beatified in 1675 by Pope Clement X and Canonised in 1737 by Pope Clement XII. Her writings also, became sources of inspiration for other religious leaders such as Robert Bellarmine and Francis de Sales and Cardinal Henry Edward Manning. Pope Pius XII declared her Patroness of the hospitals in Italy.
Her Life:

https://anastpaul.com/2020/09/15/saint-of-the-day-15-september-st-catherine-of-genoa-1447-1510/

Bl Camillus Constanzo
St Emilas of Cordoba
St Eutropa of Auvergne
St Hernan
Bl Jacinto de Los Ángeles and Bl Juan Bautista
St Jeremias of Cordoba
St Joseph Abibos
St Mamillian of Palermo
St Melitina
St Mirin of Bangor
St Nicetas the Goth
St Nicomedes of Rome

Blessed Paolo Manna PIME (1872-1952) “A Burning Soul” Priest, Missionary in Burma (Myanmar), Superior General of the P.I.M.E., Founder of the Pontifical Missionary Union, Evangeliser, Founder of various Newspapers and Movements to promote the missions.
His Life:

https://anastpaul.com/2019/09/15/saint-of-the-day-15-september-blessed-paolo-manna-pime-1872-1952-a-burning-soul/

St Porphyrius the Martyr
St Ribert
St Ritbert of Varennes
Bl Rolando de Medici
Bl Tommasuccio of Foligno
St Valerian of Châlon-sur-Saône
St Valerian of Noviodunum
St Vitus of Bergamo
Bl Wladyslaw Miegon

Martyrs of Adrianopolis – 3 saints: Three Christian men martyred together in the persecutions of Maximian – Asclepiodotus, Maximus and Theodore. They were martyred in 310 at Adrianopolis (Adrianople), a location in modern Bulgaria.

Martyrs of Noviodunum – 4 saints: Three Christian men martyred together, date unknown – Gordian, Macrinus, Stratone and Valerian.
They were martyred in Noviodunum, Lower Moesia (near modern Isaccea, Romania).

Mercedarian Martyrs of Morocco – 6 beati: A group of six Mercedarians who were captured by Moors near Valencia, Spain and taken to Morocco. Though enslaved, they refused to stop preaching Christianity. Martyrs. – Dionisio, Francis, Ildefonso, James, John and Sancho. They were crucified in 1437 in Morocco.

Martyred in the Spanish Civil War:
Bl Antonio Sierra Leyva
Bl Pascual Penades Jornet

Posted in CATHOLIC DEVOTIONS of the Month, MORNING Prayers, The BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

September: Month of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary

September: Month of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Seven Sorrows of
the Blessed Virgin Mary
1. The prophecy of Simeon
2. The Flight to Egypt
3. Loss of Child Jesus for 3 days
4. Meeting Jesus carrying His Cross
5. The Crucifixion of Jesus
6. The Pieta – receiving Jesus’ Body
7. The Burial of Jesus

The month of September is dedicated to the Seven Sorrows of Mary.
Devotion to the sorrows of the Virgin Mary dates from the twelfth century, when it made its appearance in monastic circles under the influence of St Anselm and St Bernard.
The Cistercians and then the Servites undertook to propagate it.
The Devotion became widespread in the fourteenth and especially the fifteenth centuries, particularly in the Rhineland and Flanders, where Confraternities of the Sorrowful Mother sprang up. It was in this context that the first liturgical formularies in her honour were composed. A provincial council of Mainz in 1423 made use of these in establishing a “Feast of the Sorrows of Mary” in reparation for Hussite profanations of her images.

In 1494 the feast appeared in Bruges, where the Precious Blood of Christ was venerated; later on it made its way into France. It did not, however, become widespread in France before Benedict XIII included it in the Roman Calendar in 1727.

God vouchsafed to select the very things about Him which are most incommunicable and in a most mysteriously real way communicate them to her.   See how He had already mixed her up with the eternal designs of creation, making her almost a partial cause and partial model of it.   Our Lady’s co-operation in the redemption of the world gives us a fresh view of her magnificence.   Neither the Immaculate Conception nor the Assumption will give us a higher idea of Mary’s exaltation than the title of co-redemptress.   Her sorrows were not necessary for the redemption of the world but in the counsels of God they were inseparable from it.   They belong to the integrity of the divine plan.   Are not Mary’s mysteries Jesus’ mysteries and His mysteries hers?   The truth appears to be that all the mysteries of Jesus and Mary were in God’s design as one mystery.   Jesus Himself was Mary’s sorrow, seven times repeated, aggravated sevenfold.   During the hours of the Passion, the offering of Jesus and the offering of Mary were tied in one.   They kept pace together;  they were made of the same materials;  they were perfumed with kindred fragrance;  they were lighted with the same fire;  they were offered with kindred dispositions.   The two things were one simultaneous oblation, interwoven each moment through the thickly crowded mysteries of that dread time, unto the eternal Father, out of two sinless hearts, that were the hearts of Son and Mother, for the sins of a guilty world which fell on them contrary to their merits but according to their own free will.

— Fr. Frederick Faber, The Foot of the Cross.

Mater Dolorosa, please pray for us!mater dolorosa pray for us