The Search for Truth, Beauty, and Healing.
"If then, we establish solid devotion to our Blessed Lady, it is only to establish more perfectly devotion to Jesus Christ and to find an easy and secure means for finding Jesus Christ!"
St. Louis Marie DeMontfort
Totus Tuus Prayer
Prayer by Saint Pope John Paul II
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Totus Tuus means: {Totally yours}
Immaculate Conception, Mary my Mother,
Live in me, Act in me
Speak in me and through me,
Think your thoughts in my mind,
Love through my heart,
Give me your dispositions and feelings,
Teach, lead and guide me to Jesus,
Correct, enlighten and expand my thoughts and behavior,
Possess my soul,
Take over my entire personality and life,
replace it with Yourself,
Incline me to constant adoration,
Pray in me and through me,
Let me live in you, and keep me in this union with you always.
Amen
Suffering with Mary
Why Suffering?
Come and See....
In a world where suffering is inevitable, why is it that we avoid it at all costs. We have lived out "Instant Gratification" of every kind, but the moment a suffering enters in, we run to the next nearest comfort.
...Have we ever thought about what we are avoiding?
1. Conversion
Suffering helps us to a conversion of heart. It sets things in a right order before our eyes, it begs us to fix a wrong/make things right again. It helps us to examine our life. It gives to us a feeling of sorrow and regret and moves us to begin again. A little child recoils at the thought of touching a hot stove that burned them. God in his great mercy allows suffering to help us in the same way.
2. Compassion
When we suffer we keep a memory of it inside of us. When we encounter another who is suffering we are then able to relate, and have compassion on them. Compassion means: "to suffer with"...
Without suffering how could we help others understand and feel comforted through their own pain?
3. Growth
Suffering gives great growth. A body builder lifts weights to gain muscle, but this is not without pain and discomfort. From the pain the growth is made visible. If a tree is left to overgrow in the garden, it will not bear as much fruit. It must be pruned. Whole limbs must be removed so that the tree will thrive. Gold is tried by fire and afterwards the beauty and glimmer. Sometimes we have to come out of our comfort, and as Pope Benedict XVI said, "we were not made for comfort, we were made for greatness!"
4. Prayer
Suffering can be used as a prayer to help others as well as ourselves. When we unite our suffering with Christ's and choose to think of him during our suffering, this becomes a most powerful prayer! The Saints continuously tell us to meditate on the Lords passion and death. You may have heard a Parent or Grandparent at one time say.. "offer it up!" (There is great wisdom in this). When we offer our suffering up in union with Jesus' suffering, we can greatly help others in dire need as well as our own souls.
The Hail Mary
The simplest and most beautiful of all prayers to our Lady
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among 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
God the Father gathered all the waters together and called them the seas (maria). He gathered all His graces together and called them Mary (Maria).
St. Louis Marie Demontfort
Have you strayed from the path leading to heaven? Then call on Mary, for her name means"Star of the Sea," the North Star which guides the ship of our souls during this voyage of life," and she will guide you to the harbor of eternal salvation.
St. Louis Marie Demontfort
"She is not the sun, which by the brightness of its rays blinds us because of our weakness; but she is fair and gentle as the moon, (Cant.6:9) which receives the light of the sun and tempers it to make it more suitable to our capacity."
St. Louis Marie DeMontfort
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