My Instant Message to Saints in Heaven

If someone asks me," What do you like to be a Catholic?" My answer to them is "the communion of saints." By this I mean, we, the Catholics, have a direct link with the men and women who went ahead of us to heaven to pray for us. They become our mediators to our Holy Triune God. We believe in their roles as our mediators.

       

As human beings, we seek the blessings of our elders, teachers, parents and religious leaders in times of joy and sorrow. Many a time their prayers bear much fruit, often; we receive much more than what we expect. If the prayers and invocations of these people can bring God's blessings in our lives. Think about those holy persons who are in heaven now, in the presence of God; praising and worshiping the Holy Three Persons with the angels. I personally believe that human beings' hundredth intercession is equal to their once whisper to God. 

This is what  I call sending "Instant Messages" to saints in heaven. 

"Do not weep, for I shall be more useful to you after my death and I shall keep you then more effectively than during my life."
    — Saint Dominic's last words to his brothers

Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Church has celebrated Mary's birth since at least the sixth century. A September birth was chosen because the Eastern Church begins its Church year with September. The September 8 date helped determine the date for the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8 (nine months earlier).
Scripture does not give an account of Mary's birth. However, the apocryphalProtoevangelium of James fills in the gap. This work has no historical value, but it does reflect the development of Christian piety. According to this account, Anna and Joachim are infertile but pray for a child. They receive the promise of a child that will advance God's plan of salvation for the world. Such a story (like many biblical counterparts) stresses the special presence of God in Mary's life from the beginning.
St. Augustine connects Mary's birth with Jesus' saving work. He tells the earth to rejoice and shine forth in the light of her birth. "She is the flower of the field from whom bloomed the precious lily of the valley. Through her birth the nature inherited from our first parents is changed." The opening prayer at Mass speaks of the birth of Mary's Son as the dawn of our salvation and asks for an increase of peace.

http://www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/saint.aspx?id=1132

Prayers to our Mother, O Holy Momma!

Prayers to our Mother, O Holy Momma!

Everyday as my husband drives off to work, I say a little prayer for him. First I say the St. Michael prayer to protect my knight-in-shining-armour from the evils of temptation, and then I ask Mother Mary to keep him under her mantle of prayer and intercession.

How important is it that we make sure our families are well fed, clothed, and happy by our loving hands, how important is it that we make sure our children know that we love them and keep them close to our hearts every minute of our being, and how important is it that our spouses know how desirable and needed they are is the very reason we should turn to our Heavenly Mother for her much needed intercession to her Divine Son.

Our Mother, the very vessel of love and self sacrifice, gives us all her love and support from her holy place with Christ. As we care so deeply for our own families, our Mother cares for us. We are very blessed to be the beneficiaries of such love. Turn to her right now, remember to turn to her tomorrow and everyday. She is waiting for you!

Hail Mary, Full of grace!
The Lord is with thee!
Blessed art thou amongst women!

And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus!

Holy Mary, Mother of God!
Pray for us sinners now
and at the hour of our death!

Amen!

http://beholdyourmotherbook.blogspot.com/

Proud to Be a Catholic

Proud to Be a Catholic

I am proud.

I am proud to be a Catholic after reading Benedict XVI’s homily from the mass he celebrated yesterday. He spoke of the gift of “the hope born of love, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (cf Rom 5:5). He spoke of renewal as a gift of God, of forgiveness as a gift for which we each hunger, of the work of so many in “forming the hearts and minds of the young in knowledge and love of the Lord.” I long for that hope, that love, that faith too. May I have eyes to see it and ears to hear it today and forever.

I am proud to be a Catholic after reading the report of his meeting with President Bush. According to the official release after the meeting, the two spoke of the value of human life, of the importance of marriage, of human rights, of fighting poverty, of fighting disease, of promoting peace. I long for a leader, like Benedict, who believes in all these, not just in one or two. May I have the courage in my own life to pursue them all.

I am proud to be a Catholic after listening to the Pope speak of his shame at the enormous failings of his church in responding to the sexual abuse crisis. Shame is personal, is humiliating, is full of pain. To speak publicly of such feeling is to acknowledge what we cannot explain: how people of the Church, the vast majority of whom set out to do good, found themselves party to unspeakable evil. Shame is real and I feel it. May I have the strength to do what I can to make this church heal the pride and arrogance that created such an abomination.

I am proud to be a Catholic most of all when I think of the life of prayer. I think of all those who prayed the Rosary for the Holy Father, of those who offer prayers at Mass for his mission, for those who look to his office to provide clarity in pursuit of God’s will, not our own. May I have the peace that passes all understanding so that I too might follow in prayer the centuries of holy men and women who have given their lives joyfully in service to the only thing that really matters: the love of God.

I know. It’s been a long road for the Catholic Church in this country. Sure, Catholics were once mocked and ridiculed for their hocus pocus religion and their shocking belief in the real presence of God in sacraments; for their fishy food rules, for their rampant devotions to things of all shapes and sizes: to Saint Anthony’s ability to find the lost, to St. Jude’s ability to save the hopeless, to Our Lady’s ability to appear to the unlikely, to the blessing of throats, the blessing of the fleet, the blessing of the flocks. In our country, these all seemed so clannish and old world, like strange superstitions of an ignorant age.

Those days are gone, and most Catholics have long since entered the American mainstream. Our traditions, though they remain, have become a bit more understated. There are fewer pilgrimages from American churches to Fatima, fewer novenas on Friday night to St. Jude, fewer lengthy theological articles on the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

But for many, this most peculiar papacy still sets Catholics apart. The Pope, of all things, would seem to stand outside our common values as Americans. The Pope is what we’re not: regal, authoritative, indifferent to polling data, able to ask that we follow without giving us a vote on the issue.

Yes, he is all that. But we live in a time hungry for unity, hungry for clarity of purpose, hungry for the presence of God—the real presence of the divine. Americans are a people on pilgrimage, always searching, always willing to reinvent ourselves as we try to find out who we might become.

So maybe just for a few days, we might all pause before this man of God: human he is, on pilgrimage like the rest of us. Sure, I wish he’d make pulpits open to women, I wish he’d eliminate “only” from his love of the church he leads, I wish he’d spend more time with the poor and less with the rich.

But he made me proud nonetheless. He brought a profound reminder of what it means to believe in a faith so grand and so humble too, a faith ultimately in nothing less than God’s love, God’s presence among us, God’s promise to be with us always.

Thank you, Holy Father. Amen.