Blessed Virgin Mary: September 2009 Archives

I invite the kind readers of Vultus Christi to join me in praying this novena in preparation for the arrival of CJ and Diego who will present themselves as postulants for the Monastery of Our Lady of the Cenacle on the eve of the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Immaculate Virgin Mary,
Our Lady of the Rosary,
Queen of the Cenacle,
and Mother of all who unite themselves
to your Immaculate Heart
in a prayer that is persevering and full of confidence,
look graciously upon the beginnings of this little monastery
dedicated to you,
and set apart for the adoration of your Divine Son,
hidden in the Sacrament of His Love.

Intercede for the men whom you have chosen
to live in the radiance of the Eucharistic Face of Jesus,
and to abide close to His Open Heart
together with you and with Saint John the Beloved Disciple.
Let nothing discourage them
as, day by day, they seek the Face of your Son,
and through Him offer themselves to the Father,
by the grace of the Holy Spirit,
for the healing and sanctification of priests.

Keep them humble and joyful in fidelity to the wisdom of Saint Benedict
and to the teachings of his Holy Rule.
Fill their dwelling with the sweet fragrance of your virginizing presence
so that all who enter there
may experience the happiness of the pure in heart
and the joy of those whose sins have been blotted out
in the Blood of the Lamb.

Be to them a Mother of Perpetual Help,
ready at every moment to assist them in their needs,
both spiritual and material,
so that with you, they may magnify the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
Whose mercy is from age to age on those who fear Him,
and Who, even in our day, does wonders for His lowly servants. Amen.

Three Hail Marys.

Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for them.
Our Lady of the Cenacle, pray for them.
Mediatrix of all graces, pray for them.

Saint Michael and all Angels, pray for them.
Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, pray for them.
Blessed Columba Marmion, pray for them.

The Rosary of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a way of holding in one's heart the mystery/events of the Childhood and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Compassion of His Virgin Mother.

The fruits of this particular prayer are well known to those who pray it habitually: compunction of heart, detachment from the occasions of sin, chastity, humility, reparation, compassion, intimacy with the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, and desire to contemplate the Face of Christ.

The power of this prayer -- something that many have experienced -- comes from allowing one's own heart to be irrigated and purified by the tears of the Mother of God. The tears of the Sorrowful Mother bring purity and healing wherever they fall. Appearing in Kibeho, Rwanda in 1982 and 1983, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Word, asked that the prayer of the Rosary of the Seven Dolours be renewed and promoted in the Church.

Here is a method I prepared for saying the Rosary of the Seven Dolours:

+ Incline, unto my aid, O God.
O Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen. Alleluia.
(In place of Alleluia, from Ash Wednesday until Easter is said:
Praise be to thee, O Lord, King of eternal glory.)

1. The prophecy of Simeon.

“And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother,
'Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against, and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed” (Lk 2:34-35).

Holy Mother of God, I remember the sorrow of your heart upon hearing Simeon’s prophecy, and I desire to contemplate with you the Face of Jesus, “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to God’s people Israel” (cf. Lk 2:32).

One Our Father and seven Hail Marys.

Holy Mother, this impart,
Deeply print within my heart,
All the wounds my Saviour bore.

Sirach 24:17-21
Luke 1:46-48, 49-50, 53-54
Luke1:26-38

Victory in the Name of Mary

In 1683 Pope Innocent XI extended the existing Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary to the universal Church to thank Our Lady for the victory of John Sobieski, king of Poland, over the forces of militant Islam. On September 11th, 1683, Muslim Turks attacked Vienna, threatening the Christian West. The next day, Sobieski, invoking the Blessed Virgin Mary and placing his forces under her protection, emerged victorious. Pope John Paul II restored the feast of the Holy Name of Mary with the publication of the Third Typical Edition of the Roman Missal in 2002, one year after the attacks of September 11th, 2001.

The Invocation of the Name of Mary

The Holy Mother of God is no stranger to the struggles of her children in this valley of tears. She is attentive to every situation that threatens this world of ours, to every assault against the Church and, when we invoke her Holy Name, she is quick to intervene. When it comes to calling upon the Name of Mary, there is no struggle too global and too enormous, and no struggle too personal or too little. In the Bible, the name wields a mysterious power. Names are not to be pronounced casually or lightly. Names are not to be taken in vain. The invocation of the name renders present the one who is named. So often as you pronounce the sweet Name of Mary with devotion and confidence, Mary is present to you, ready to help. So often as you pronounce the sweet Name of Mary, you have her full and undivided attention.

As Oil Poured Out

The saints, drawing on a verse from the Song of Songs, compare the Name of Mary to a healing oil. "Thy Name is as oil poured out" (Ct 1:2). Oil heals the sick, gives off a sweet fragrance, and nourishes fire. In the same way the Name of Mary is like a balm on the wounds of the soul; there is no disease of the soul, however malignant, that does not yield to the power of the Name of Mary. The sound of Mary's Name causes joy to spring up; the repetition of Mary's Name warms the heart. If you would touch the Heart of the Father, pronounce the Name of Jesus; if you would touch the Heart of Jesus, pronounce the Name of Mary.

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Romans 8:28-30
Psalm 12:5, 6 (R. Is 61:10a)
Matthew 1:1-16, 18-23

Maria Bambina

Unto us a little girl is born; unto us a daughter is given. “The Holy Spirit will come upon her, and the power of the Most High will overshadow her” (Cf. Lk 1:35). The Word will take flesh in her virginal womb and suckle at her breast. And her name shall be called Full of Grace, Glory of Jerusalem, Joy of Israel, and Mother of God. In Italy she has another name, one that the people love to give her; she is their Maria Bambina, the little Infant Mary.

The Story of an Image

It was in Rome, many years ago, that I encountered the image of Maria Bambina for the first time. I didn’t know quite what to make of it. She looked rather like a doll, all dressed up in lace and satin, resting on her pillow. I knew only that all sorts of people, and especially children, came to pray before her. I saw that that Maria Bambina had stolen their hearts. She attracted the most extraordinary outpouring of tender devotion, and does to this day.

The image of Maria Bambina originated in Milan where the cathedral is dedicated to the Infant Mary. A Poor Clare nun fashioned the image out of wax in 1735. Maria Bambina suffered the vicissitudes of the times under Napoleon. The convent that kept the image was suppressed. Maria Bambina was passed from one “foster home” to another until, in 1885, she found a permanent home in the motherhouse of Milan’s Sisters of Charity. Beginning in 1884 various miracles were attributed to the image of the Infant Mary. She was dressed in new clothes and placed in a new crib in the chapel of the Sisters. Devotion to Maria Bambina spread throughout Italy and then elsewhere in the world.

A Child for Children

The learned and the clever, the theologically sophisticated and those who think that holiness has no need of warmth and no time for tenderness, are baffled by Maria Bambina. But children understand her. Raïssa Maritain understood the Child Mary perfectly; “The Blessed Virgin is the spoiled child of the Blessed Trinity,” she wrote. “She knows no law. Everything yields to her in heaven and on earth. The whole of heaven gazes on her with delight. She plays before the ravished eyes of God himself.”

The image is a detail from Dürer's Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (1519). I especially like Saint Anne's motherly hand resting on Our Lady's shoulder.

For some years now, especially around the Marian feasts of September 8th, September 12th, November 21st, and December 8th, I have "told my beads" while dwelling on five mysteries of the first part of Our Lady's life. These five mysteries of the Blessed Virgin Mary are:

-- the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the womb of her mother, Saint Anne (feast December 8th);
-- the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (feast September 8th);
-- the Most Holy Name of Mary (feast September 12th);
-- the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple (feast November 21st);
-- the Betrothal of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Saint Joseph (feast January 23rd);

There is a particular sweetness in dwelling on these mysteries of Maria Bambina, the Infant Mary, the Child Mary. They distill graces of purity, of childlike simplicity, and of littleness.

All five mysteries are commemorated in the Sacred Liturgy. The liturgical books are rich in texts to nourish the meditation of each one. It is enough to take an antiphon, a verse, a single phrase, and to hold it in the heart while telling one's beads. The Rosary corresponds to the meditatio and the oratio of monastic prayer; it begins necessarily in lectio divina, the hearing of the Word, and then, gently, almost imperceptibly, draws the soul into contemplatio.

The Rosary is, I am convinced, the surest and easiest school of contemplative prayer. The Rosary decapitates pride, the single greatest obstacle to union with God. The repetition of the Aves, like a stream of pure water, cleanses the heart.