Blogs
In the News: March 31, 2017
By Michael Duricy
Read recent items about Mary in both Catholic and secular news. Also see International Marian Research Institute news and updates.
Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute Features
Updates
Reciprocal Conference News
One of the ways that We plan to promote this year's Annual Meeting of the Mariological Society of America is via a post on the website for The Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. In return, they have asked that we inform our readers about their Convention on Religion and the Social Sciences, scheduled for late September, 2017. For details, contact Amy Fontecchio by email at registration@catholicscholars.org or visit their website at URL https://www.catholicscholars.org/. Please note that their website includes a Job Announcements section.
TOPMary in Media: Books, Films, Music, etc.
New Book on the Rosary
In How to Pray the Rosary, best-selling author Father Donald Calloway, MIC, teaches you how to pray the rosary well and why it matters, addressing issues such as:
- Why pray the rosary?
- How long should a well-prayed rosary take?
- What are the graces attached to praying the rosary?
- How can I become a champion of the rosary?
This handy little guide is 72 pages long and the author hopes that it becomes something of a standard booklet found in parishes, schools, adoration chapels, etc. It is also perfect for the 100th anniversary of the Fatima apparitions! They are being offered for only $3.99 each! Click here for more information or to order copies online.
From the Marian Treasure Chest
Brother John Samaha sent us the text below with the following comments: "I hope the attached will be useful for your website."
Rosary Guidelines by Brother John Samaha, S.M.
Any expression of Christian spirituality gives prominent place to Mary, Mother of our Redeemer. Praying is at the heart of living the Gospel, and that normally includes praying her rosary. The rosary is a means of summarizing the Gospel. This enables us to live the rosary by entwining its prayers and mysteries into the very fabric of our lives. In praying the rosary we offer our Spiritual Mother a garland of roses, our heartfelt conversation. In the rosary we find a unique synthesis of the entire Gospel, both Scripture and Tradition, in a beautifully Marian format that is easily remembered as we implore God's grace.
Pope St. John Paul II taught that praying the rosary is "a most effective way of fostering among the faithful that commitment to contemplation of the Christian mystery and a genuine training in holiness." He regarded the rosary as "an exquisitely contemplative prayer" and "a treasure to be rediscovered."
More than one hundred official documents of the papal magisterium attest to the efficacy of the rosary as a school of virtue and contemplation and a means of obtaining divine graces. The rosary succeeds in protecting our gift of faith from all kinds of sin because it is a gift from God, the weapon chosen for us by Our Lady. The Servant of God, Frank Duff, reminded us that the rosary is our "prime devotion" because it contains Mary. Barbara Kloss, a twentieth century mystic of Poland, was told by Our Lady, "I am wholly in the rosary. Seek me there.... Find me there."
Archbishop Fulton Sheen once compared the rosary to the Eucharist: "What the Eucharist is in the order of the sacraments, the rosary is in the order of sacramentals." This means, he continues, "the rosary contains Mary."
For Maisie Ward, the noted British writer and publisher, the rosary is a guide to reality. If the rosary contains Mary, then it also contains the Holy Spirit, spouse of Mary and the Spirit of truth (Jn 16:13), the only true guide to reality.
Taking his cue from the Joyful Mysteries, Pope St. John Paul II tells how the rosary transports us to reality. "The rosary mystically transports us to Mary's side as she is busy watching over the human growth of Jesus in the home of Nazareth. This enables her to train us and mold us with the same care until Christ is 'fully formed' in us (Gal 4:19). By immersing us in the Redeemer's life, the rosary insures that what Jesus has done and what the liturgy makes present is profoundly assimilated and shapes our existence."
Since our objective is to live the Gospel, we are called to live the rosary, an epitome of the Gospel, all the time. This requires skillfully entwining its mysteries in our lives. By doing so we become divinized by incorporating the virtues of Jesus and Mary by praying always with Mary. Living the rosary continually requires a deep respect and real love for the rosary by recognizing at its core Jesus, love incarnate--"the way, the truth, and the life." "Abide in me and I in you," says Jesus, because "without me you can do nothing."
Marian Events
Event: ESBVM USA Annual Conference
Date: July 12-15, 2017
Theme: Mary, Disciple of the Lord: Prayer and Holiness
Place: Misericordia University, 301 Lake Street, Dallas, Pennsylvania 18612
The Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary USA (ESBVM USA) will hold its annual conference July 12-15, 2017 at Misericordia University in Dallas, PA. This is an ecumenical society and all Christians from every Christian tradition are invited to attend. For more information, contact the ESBVM USA president, Dr. Maura Hearden Fehlner, at maura.hearden@desales.edu. Please put "ESBVM USA Conference 2017" in the subject line.
Mary in the Catholic Press
Father Cantalamessa's Fourth Lent Homily 2017 (Zenit) March 31, 2017
In the first two Lenten meditations we reflected on the Holy Spirit who leads us into all the truth about the person of Christ, causing him to be proclaimed as "Lord" and "true God." In the last meditation we moved on from the being of Christ to the work of Christ, from his person to his action, and in particular the mystery of his redemptive death. Today, I propose that we meditate on the mystery of His Resurrection and of our resurrection.
St. Paul expressly attributes the resurrection of Jesus from the dead to the work of the Holy Spirit. He says that Christ was "designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead." (Rom 1:4) In Christ is the fulfillment of the great prophecy by Ezekiel about the Spirit who enters into the dry bones, raises them from their graves, and makes of this slain multitude "an exceedingly great host" of people resurrected to life and hope (see Ezek 37:1-14)....
The resurrection, therefore, is known a posteriori, after the fact. It is like the physical presence of the Word in Mary afterward that demonstrates His Incarnation; likewise it is the spiritual presence of Christ in the community afterward, attested by his appearances, that demonstrates he has risen. This explains why no secular historian says a word about his resurrection. Tacitus, who does record the death of a certain "Christus" at the time of Pontius Pilate, is silent about the resurrection. That event had no relevance or meaning except for people who experienced its aftermath within the community....
Mary in the Secular Press
The director and editors of All About Mary under the auspices of the International Marian Research Institute do not necessarily endorse or agree with the events and ideas expressed in this feature. Our sole purpose is to report on items about Mary gleaned from a myriad of papers representing the secular press.
Rwandans pray where Jesus' mother 'appeared' to schoolgirls (The Daily Monitor) December 1, 2016
A service held Monday in the small, isolated town marked the thirty-fifth anniversary of the first reported appearance of the mother of Christ, which was authenticated by the Vatican in 2001. Christian pilgrims gather each year in their thousands in the southern Rwandan hill town of Kibeho, some hopeful of miracles where three schoolgirls said the Virgin Mary came to them. People crowded together in front of the brick church, some seated on the grass, facing a platform surrounded by blue and white flags, to hear the mass said in Kinyarwanda, French and English. "It's the fourth time I've come here. It was a long trip, but that doesn't matter because I come to pray on holy ground," said Alphonse Munyemana, a bicycle-taxi driver of nineteen who arrived on Sunday afternoon after pedaling for ten hours from Nyamagabe to the north....