Virgin Mary

ADVENT MEDITATION: In Defense Of Humility by Bernard of Clairvaux

November 28, 2018

From Annunciation Dialogue “Behold,” Mary said, “the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to your word.” The virtue of humility is always found closely associated with divine grace: for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. (James 4:6) Mary replies then with humility, that the dwelling of grace may be prepared. How sublime is this humility, which is incapable of yielding to the weight of honors, or of being rendered proud by them! The mother of God is chosen, and she declares herself his handmaid. It is in truth a mark of no ordinary humility that even when so great an honor is given her, she does not forget to be humble. It is no great thing to be humble when in a low condition; but humility in one [...]

JESUS: Zechariah And Mary, by Mark G. Boyer

April 15, 2017

Scripture:The angel said to Zechariah, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. (Luke 1:19, 13) Reflection: The author of Luke’s gospel likes to narrate a story about a man and balance it with a story about a woman. He begins this literary technique with the twin appearances of the angel Gabriel to a man named Zechariah and, six months later, to a woman named Mary. Zechariah hears the word of God as Gabriel delivers it to him, but he does not believe that he and his aged wife, Elizabeth, can conceive a child. So, because he did not believe Gabriel’s [...]

REFLECTION: The Flight Into Egypt, by Josemaria Escriva

January 10, 2017

From Friends of God Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” (Matthew 2:13-15) The charity of Mary brought about the birth of the faithful into the church, who are members of that head of which she is effectively the mother according to the flesh. Mary teaches us as a mother does, and, being a mother, she [...]

POETRY: Mary’s Girlhood by Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti

December 23, 2016

This is the blessed Mary, pre-elect God’s virgin. Gone is a great while, and she Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee. Unto God’s will she brought devout respect Profound simplicity of intellect. And supreme patience. From her mother’s knee Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity; Strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect. So held she through her girlhood; as it were An angel-watered lily, that near God Grows and is quiet. Till, one dawn at home She woke in her white bed, and had no fear At all—yet wept till sunshine, and felt awed: Because the fullness of the time was come. [...]

ADVENT MEDITATION: She Was The Crowned Queen Of Women by Harriet Beecher Stowe

December 22, 2016

There was one woman whom the voice of a divine messenger, straight from Heaven, pronounced highly favored. In what did this favor consist? Of noble birth, of even royal lineage, she had fallen into poverty and obscurity. The great, brilliant, living world of her day knew her as the rushing equipages and palatial mansions of our great cities know the daughters of poor mechanics in rural towns. There was plenty of splendor, and rank, and fashion in Jerusalem then. Herod the Great was a man of cultivation and letters, and beautified the temple with all sorts of architectural embellishments; and there were high priests, and Levites, and a great religious aristocracy circling about its precincts, all of whom, if they thought of any woman [...]

STATIONS OF THE NATIVITY: Visitation by Raymond Chapman

December 6, 2016

From Stations of the Nativity: Meditations on the Incarnation of Christ Before the Stations Almighty God, whose blessed Son took our human nature so that we might regain our lost innocence and be restored to the divine image that was disfigured by sin, grant that as we meditate on the mystery of his humanity we may share the glory of his divinity, who lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen. A hymn may be sung: the familiar Christmas hymns tell of the wonder of the Incarnation and the following is particularly suitable (click on hymn title to be directed to the YouTube video of its performance): Of the Fathers Heart Begotten 3: Visitation V: We adore thee O Christ and we [...]

THE ADVENT EUCHARIST: Transformation by Johnnette Benkovic

December 5, 2016

From Full of Grace: Women and the Abundant Life Like Mary, our mother, we have been called by God to bring the life of Jesus Christ to the world. And like our mother, we, too, must be impregnated by the spirit of the gospel, imbued by the one whose name is Jesus Christ. We have considered the supreme degree to which our Holy Mother, assimilated to the Word of God, became a reflection of him whom she bore. She models for us the degree of transformation to which each of us is called. Prayer, obedience, and acting with the wisdom of God lead us on the path of transformation. But it is when we receive into our bodies the one whose image we wish to reflect that we are most powerfully transformed. As Mary conceived Jesus in the [...]

STATIONS OF THE NATIVITY: Annunciation by Raymond Chapman

December 2, 2016

From Stations of the Nativity: Meditations on the Incarnation of Christ Before the Stations Almighty God, whose blessed Son took our human nature so that we might regain our lost innocence and be restored to the divine image that was disfigured by sin, grant that as we meditate on the mystery of his humanity we may share the glory of his divinity, who lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen. A hymn may be sung: the familiar Christmas hymns tell of the wonder of the Incarnation and the following is particularly suitable (click on hymn title to be directed to the YouTube video of its performance): In The Bleak Midwinter 2: Annunciation V: We adore thee O Christ and we bless [...]

POETRY: Footnote to John ii.4, by R. A. K. Mason

September 9, 2016

Don’t throw your arms around me in that way: I know that what you tell me is the truth— yes I suppose I loved you in my youth as boys do love their mothers, so they say, but all that’s gone from me this many a day: I am a merciless cactus an uncouth wild goat a jagged old spear with grim tooth of a lone crag… Woman I cannot stay. Each one of us must do his work of doom and I shall do it even in despite of her who brought me in pain from her womb, whose blood made me, who used to bring the light and sit on the bed up in my little room and tell me stories and tuck me up at [...]

POETRY: Magnificat, by Eleanor Wilner

August 5, 2016

When he had suckled there, he began to grow: first, he was an infant in her arms, but soon, drinking and drinking at the sweet milk she could not keep from filling her, from pouring into his ravenous mouth, and filling again, miraculous pitcher, mercy feeding its own extinction . . . soon he was huge, towering above her, the landscape, his shadow stealing the color from the fields, even the flowers going gray. And they came like ants, one behind the next, to worship him—huge as he was, and hungry; it was his hunger they admired most of all. So they brought him slaughtered beasts: goats, oxen, bulls, and finally, their own kin whose hunger was a kind of shame to them, a shrinkage; even as his was beautiful to them, magnified, magnificent. [...]

POETRY: The Annunciation by Edwin Muir

August 3, 2016

The angel and the girl are met. Earth was the only meeting place. For the embodied never yet Traveled beyond the shore of space. The eternal spirits in freedom go. See, they have come together, see, While the destroying minutes flow, Each reflects the other’s face Till Heaven in hers and Earth in his Shine steady there. He’s come to her From far beyond the farthest star, Feathered through time. Immediacy Of strangest strangeness is the bliss That from their limbs all movement takes. Yet the increasing rapture brings So great a wonder that it makes Each feather tremble on his wings. Outside the window footsteps fall Into the ordinary day And with the sun along the wall Pursue their unreturning way That was ordained in eternity. [...]

POETRY: Christmas Carol by May Probyn

December 30, 2015

Lacking samite and sable, Lacking silver and gold, The Prince Jesus in the poor stable Slept, and was three hours old. As doves by the fair water, Mary, not touched of sin, Sat by Him,—the King’s daughter, All glorious within. A lily without one stain, a Star where no spot hath room— Ave gratia plena— Virgo Virginum. Clad not in pearl-sewn vesture, Clad not in cramoisie, She hath hushed, she hath cradled to rest, her God the first time on her knee. Where is one to adore Him? The ox hath dumbly confessed, With the ass, meek kneeling before Him. “Et homo factus est.” Not throned on ivory or cedar, Not crowned with a Queen’s crown, At her breast it is Mary shall feed her Maker, from Heaven come down. The trees [...]

MEDITATION: Heart Of Jesus, Our Life And Resurrection, by John Paul II

May 18, 2015

From Angelus Meditations on the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus One This invocation from the Litany of the Sacred Heart, strong and persuasive as an act of faith, contains the entire mystery of Christ the Redeemer in a terse phrase. It recalls the words of Jesus addressed to Martha, crushed by the death of her brother, Lazarus: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, shall live,” (John 11:25). Jesus is the life which spring eternally from the divine wellspring of the Father: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In him was life, and the life was the light of men,” (John 1:1-4). Jesus in himself is life: “For just as the [...]