Greetings in Jesus and Mary....

I hope you are well....so many still getting sick. Please pray for all these souls and those who may be going on before us!

I found these videos and they are very good at explaining so much of Our Blessed Mother's messages to us to pray and repent and do penance.

I hope you benefit as we continue the prayers of the Novena before February 2nd Feast Day!  

God bless and may Our Lady Queen of Peace, pray for us!

Greetings in Jesus and Mary...

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6th. For those of us who have been living the Old Carmelite Rule as prescribed on this website and who have made a Promise to try with all sincerity to live it, can renew that Promise today. (below) It is written in the Old Rule that our Promise is to be renewed on the Feast of the Epiphany and on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

It is our gift to Jesus and Mary on the day of gift giving by the Magi. We are laypersons and at times can not fulfill all the duties of this Rule because of circumstances that may arise in our day. Our duty in our vocation comes first but we must try to make up for what is lacking. This is also a great time to reflect on how I may better live this Rule. If the morning or evening office is difficult - try to place a copy in an easily accessible place in order to make that happen. I wish we had more time to be contemplatives but this crazy world makes it difficult. We must make time for God especially now when so many people are getting sick and dying.

Another thing that we may be lacking in is our Fatima Reparation Prayers. Place a laminated copy by the bathroom mirror or a reminder in your car so that we get into the habit of saying these ejaculatory prayers throughout our day. 

Give God your first fruits of the day. Have a crucifix on your nightstand so that you can pray the Holy Wounds prayer and your consecration prayer as you pop out of bed in the morning.

If we can not get to Holy Mass, we should have a memorized Spiritual Communion prayer that we can pray in order to invite Jesus into our souls in an intimate way.

Please take time during the beginning days of this new year to review our booklet of Rules and pray to Our Lady to serve Jesus through Her in a very beautiful way this coming new year! God bless!

Greetings in Jesus and Mary....

We are just two days away (Dec 18th) from starting the  last week of Advent and we begin with the "O Antiphons". I have articles of these posted in previous years. This is such a beautiful devotion to practice just before Christmas. If this is not enough info on it - please refer to the article written in 2017 during December on the "O Antiphons". Here is an article written by Professor Plinio Correa de Oliveira found on Tradition in Action:

  Expectation of Our Lady - December 18 
by:  Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

December 18 begins the last week of Advent, which the Church calls the Week of Expectation. We are only one week away from the Birth of Our Lord, and the Church imagines the jubilation and hope of Our Lady in expectation of her parturition: she was waiting to admire the Blessed Face of the Son she was generating in her womb.

Our Lady had begged God to hasten the coming of the Messiah, God heard her omnipotent prayer, and the Incarnation in fact was anticipated. She was invited to be the Mother of the Word. She accepted, and conceived the Incarnate Word in her womb. In this last week of her gestation, she is waiting with expectation to see the Face of her Son so that she might have a more profound knowledge of His soul and His full personality. 

She also awaits the salvation of the world that approaches. She sees the hour coming when the glory of God will cease to be offended by the legacy of original sin. The Devil’s reign that dominated for more than 4,000 years is drawing to its end. She senses that the Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ is near. Only one week is lacking for the birth of the Word that marks the beginning of the end of the reign of the Devil. It was definitely destroyed when Our Lord was immolated on the Cross and the Redemption was consummated. 

These considerations filled the heart of Our Lady with hope. That is why during this period of waiting she is called Our Lady of the Expectation, Our Lady of the Hope or Our Lady of the O!, since on each of the seven days before Christmas there is an antiphon in the liturgy that the Church attributes to her. All of these antiphons begin with the exclamation – O! – and continue with adapted words of the Old Testament that refer to the birth of Our Lord and His Redemption. 

These antiphons, called the "Greater Antiphons" or the "O Antiphons," are the following: 

Antiphon 1: O Wisdom! Thou came forth from the mouth of the Most High and, reaching from beginning to end, Thou ordered all things mightily and sweetly. Come, and teach us the way of prudence. 

Antiphon 2: O Adonai, Ruler of the House of Israel! Thou appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and on Mount Sinai gave him Thy law. Come to redeem us with the strength of Thy arm. 

Antiphon 3: O Root of Jesse! Thou stand as a sign for all peoples; before Thee kings shall keep silence and to Thee all nations shall have recourse. Come, save us, and do not delay. 

Antiphon 4: O Key of David, Scepter of the House of Israel! Thou doth open and no man closes; Thou doth close and no man opens. Come, and deliver from the chains of prison those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. 

Antiphon 5: O Rising Dawn, Radiance of the Light eternal and Sun of Justice! Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. 

Antiphon 6: O King of the Gentile, the Awaited One of all! Thou are the cornerstone that binds two into one. Come, and save man whom Thou fashioned out of clay. 

Antiphon 7: O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Hope and Salvation of the nations! Come and save us, O Lord our God. 

Below is a link to a heart warming Marian Antiphon sung during the Advent Season for the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary.....

Greetings in Jesus and Mary...

The sixth dolor, Jesus Taken Down from the Cross, is the grief Our Lady had to endure after the experience of the Passion and Death of Our Lord. Father Faber states that when the strife is over, then we become conscious of the drain which grief has made upon our strength. It is almost harder to bear than the actual suffering that just occurred. It is like beginning life again at a disadvantage. We seem to be less able to do what it was that we once did.

Let us go to the foot of the cross with Mary, John, Mary Magdalene and start with the moments after the death of Our Lord. It was now time for the persecutors to be sure that the three men were actually dead upon their cross. It was customary to break the legs of the crucified to end the suffering and to ensure death. The executioners approached Calvary armed with a strong heavy bar of iron of such weight to speedily fracture the limbs when they are struck. It was a fearful sound for Mary to hear, the dull crashing of the flesh and bone, and the agonizing cries of the sufferers. But when they came to Jesus, they did not break His bones because they saw that He was dead.  “These things were done, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, You shall not break a bone of Him.”

But there was another Scripture also to be fulfilled, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced.” One of the soldiers drew near, and drove his spear into our Lord’s right side, across His Body, and through His Sacred Heart. Our Lord then shed His last drops of His Most Precious Blood making this one of Mary’s worst sorrows. Life was gone but He was and is the object of Her Love; an unspeakable love of Mary for the Body of Her Son – Who was God. Because this Heart is the Heart that only throbbed with love for all of mankind….the piercing of our Lord with the spear was to our Blessed Mother by far the most awful sacrilege which was in the power of man to perpetrate upon the earth toward its God.
 
Now they fixed the ladder against the Cross and Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, John, Mary Magdalene all participated in this event with Mary. How all of them must have been filled with unspeakable graces to perform such an act. It is claimed that the angels were present and assisted in the complexity of this event. Such as removing the crown from His head which was all so entangled in His hair and embedded into His skull. From the top of the ladder was Joseph who removed it and passed it to Nicodemus and then to John and then to Mary who received it on Her knees and received it with such devotion as no heart but Hers could hold.

Next Joseph loosened the nails and they were each passed to Mary. But a greater grief was yet to come. The Body was detached from the Cross. Mary stretches the clean linen cloth over Her arms and hold them out to receive Her Son. Can She bear the weight? Which weight? The sorrow or the Body? He is tenderly placed upon Her lap and there was not a feature of His Blessed Countenance, not a mark upon His Sacred Flesh, which was not at once a sorrow to Her Most Immaculate Heart. It is claimed that Our Lady told St. Bridget that His arms remained outstretched and that it was difficult to bring them down.  What a meditation for us….His arms remained outstretched for us. Mary spent many moments tending toward each and every wound and anointed His Most Sacred Body for burial. How can we even imagine the thoughts and prayers of reparation made by Our Mother when She cleansed and annointed His every wound which was inflicted upon Her Son for our sins.

Lessons learned… Father Faber states, "The spirit of reparation is a beautiful spirit, a spirt of human beauty fit to wait on the Humanity of our dearest Lord. It is the true Mary’s lap within our souls, in which the Blessed Sacrament should ever lie, the pure white corporal of our most disinterest love!"

Greetings in Jesus and Mary...

The cross reveals man to himself and God to man. When we are experiencing our own sorrows…there is no sight like it. There is something comforting in holding our cross, in kissing our cross, in embracing our cross. And if you are suffering today, as we all are, I advise you to get a good size huggable cross. First have it blessed and each day but especially when you are troubled, pick it up, kiss it and embrace it…maybe even shed tears of joy and sadness. I guarantee you that it is better than paying a therapist a couple hundred dollars! YOU WILL BE COMFORTED!
 
The Cross is the greatest manifestation of the Love of God! Many saints have spent hours before the cross, in contemplation of the love of Jesus. I hate to bring up the great Second Vatican Council again which was perpetrated by the Freemasons upon us; but, since that time, we have THROWN AWAY THE CROSS…REJECTED IT….STOMPED ON IT…DENIED IT.  How many churches took down the crucifix and put up the Resurrected Jesus. Yes, He resurrected but what happened to His demonstration of the most intense love … the Crucifixion?  Look where we are now since this rejection of His Love! No talk of sin, mortifications, penance, suffering….life is just filled with a bunch of happy clappy thoughts and experiences. The rejection of the cross has led to the destruction of the world.  We are now in WW3 and do not even know it because it is a different kind of warfare. We are so satiated with pleasure pleasure pleasure that many will go down in this war probably caught in some kind of act of sin. People will not even understand it. Many are so lost, so misguided, so deceived by the enemy. We belong to God, therefore, it is just to treat Him like our God and give Him our love. We are to love Him with our WHOLE heart, mind and soul.  Some think that is SLAVERY. A holy slavery that leads to peace, joy and love. If one chooses their own will over God’s….it will be a slavery to sin which leads to death, despair and destruction. There is a choice of only two sides.

Well…lets get to the dolor. The above paragraph was not in vain. We will now mention some of the horrors that Jesus endured for those sins and so many more.
The thoughts of Mary at His feet as He was nailed to the cross is mind-blowing. How can anyone call themselves “Christian” and not understand what that Mother endured…. and then to think She is not deserving of our love? Only God knew and knows what was in the Heart of Mary at the time of the blows and how each blow was a fresh martyrdom. To see the many atrocities especially as they sat upon His chest to pull the left arm out of place to fit where the hole was on the cross. The thoughts of Our Queen and Mother had to be on the past expressions of His love…of the healings He did with those hands, the places where His feet had trodden to be with the sick, deaf, and mute. And when they finally nailed Him, the cross was brought up and dropped into the hole for all to see their Lord and Master. Blessed be the Most Holy Trinity for the miracles of grace wrought in Mary at that time to see such suffering!

Most of us do not know what crosses we will meet today; sometimes we cannot guess. But we know that if we meet Jesus we will meet a cross. Some men meet Him and turn away. Some see Him far off, and turn down another road. Some come close up, and leap out of the way as if He were going to harm them. Some pass by and pretend they do not know Him. During these past centuries, He has had very few honest greetings. Some follow Him and in sullenness of servile obedience, they dray their cross. Few kneel down and take the cross off His back and shoulder it with love and walk by His side, singing psalms with Him, saying, stay with us, because it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.  We can only carry our crosses one way…heavenward. They keep our faces in that direction. As Father Faber says, “They push us uphill like the needle on the compass always pointing up.”
 
Lesson to learn from the Fifth Dolor – The Crucifixion  
​ Jesus and Mary are going one way…the road to Heaven. Yet, the road that they were traveling led to Calvary. No one’s face is toward Heaven when it is not toward Calvary. At the next turn of the road in life…there is usually a sorrow. How are we to look at that sorrow? Will we unite it to the cross of Christ or will we drag it….or worse…reject it.  Let us do now what Mary did then…look at Him who is on the road before us, and see how the beauty of the Sacred Heart is the burning furnace of Eternal Love drawing us ever closer to Him until we are finally Home!

Greetings in Jesus and Mary...

We now come to the sorrows in the Immaculate Heart which She had pondered upon since the prophecy of St. Simeon. We are now here. Her life has been an endless heavenward ascent as She always unites her Will to God’s. She is always increasing in holiness because she is always increasing in love. Stronger sanctity can carry heavier crosses…because we become united to God Who can supply all our needs and make our burdens light.

It is this meeting of Jesus and Mary as He carries His Cross on the Way to Calvary that we meditate upon here. This was a difficult sorrow – different from the previous. She saw Him now in the hands of others who could touch Him and come near Him, while She was kept far off. How She longed to wipe the blood from His face with Her veil, to part His tangled hair, to remove that cruel crown, to lift the Cross off His shoulders and see whether her broken heart would not give her superhuman strength to carry it for Him! Oh how Her motherly Heart was so moved, stirred and broken at this present position.
 
When we meditate upon these sufferings of our Good Mother and Queen and upon the love that Jesus had in carrying that Cross for our sins, we cannot shrink from the contemplation of those real realities which the Son of God condescended to undergo for us, and into the horrors of which our own sins drove Him. Many saints claim that this type of contemplation is essential for truly penitent love.  Think of just the one thought of how Mary was to walk the streets over Her own Son’s Precious Blood. That thought alone could make a two hour meditation of prayers and lamentations. No heart but Hers was touched at seeing this Precious Blood, all over the streets, splashed on the steps, under people’s sandals, even on the legs of the horses. SUCH SACRILEGE – SUCH HORROR! It is written in the City of God by Mother Mary Agreda that the angels, after the Crucifixion, went through the streets and collected all the Precious Blood from the stones, sand, streets and deposited it in a holy place. We can only imagine at the request of Our Lady….but again….Her Will was perfectly united to the Will of God....therefore …it was the Will of the Father for this to be done and rightly so!
 
As we remember in the Passion movie, the holy woman Mary Magdalene and Our Lady wiped up the blood of Jesus at the pillar after the scourging. This was a great gesture of Mel Gibson to put this in the movie for it had to be so -- it was the most tender moment for me to shed tears....Oh Precious Blood of my Saviour!
 
Again, we must always remember that the greatest sorrow of Our Lady was not so much that He suffered for our sins in this horrific manner BUT --- THAT MANY SOULS WOULD NEVER CARE---OR WORSE---MOCK HIM OR EVEN HATE HIM.  This brought the most intense sorrow and we must remember that because She was united in the most perfect way to God….it WAS THE SORROW OF JESUS AS WELL. His very sufferings were Her sufferings and seeing Her suffer made Him suffer all the more! They were exchanging Hearts always but especially at this dolor…each looked into the other’s eyes and wept! Wept not for this suffering but more for the reason I just mentioned. Can we deny that She is the Co-Remptorix?  She did not suffer in the same way but in a different way and neither was less intense. This is what makes this dolor so sorrowful. She had to walk and stand and listen to the jeers side by side with those who are perpetrating this evil upon Her Son. Yet, as hard as that is, She has the love of God in Her soul for these poor wretched sinners and would also say….Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
 
Lesson for us to learn in this dolor….We ourselves are a part of our Mother’s dolors, because we were an actual part of our Savior’s Passion. Yet, we must always know that the Love of the Sacred Heart which burns for each one of us is burning also in the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She, as a good Mother, wants us to repent and sin no more. She wants us to contemplate the Passion of Our Lord to appreciate and give thanksgiving to Him for all that He endured for each one of us. If we die without doing that…God have mercy on us!

Greetings in Jesus and Mary...

The Mother without the Child! This is one of the greatest mysteries of the entire life of Jesus. Five years had passed since the return from Egypt and Jesus was 12 years old. In that year, as the Gospel narrative tells us, He went up to Jerusalem at the Pasch, with Mary and Joseph, and according to the tradition, He went on foot. Even though His Calvary was far off in years, it was keen to the Heart of Mary. Each moment with Jesus was to Her so infinitely more precious than the moment before, which caused Her love for Him to grow and intensify. As a child grows, all the things that become more apparent such as His mannerisms, His character, His gait when He walks, etc., all become noticed and valued by the Mother. Who can doubt that there was a spiritual beauty shining in all that He did; a heavenly beauty over everything which would take place every hour and how daily they would bring new surprises to the Mother’s Heart.

Now they reached Jerusalem before the beginning of the seven days of unleavened bread; and during that time, they made their devotions in the temple, visited the poor and the sick, and performed the other customary works of mercy. When Mary and Joseph knelt together in the temple, all created sanctity, such as had shone in the angels and saints, was pale in comparison to the prayers of Mary and Joseph. How the mystery deepens when we think of the Child Jesus at the age of twelve kneeling in their midst. A Son of David, “greater than Solomon” older than the day of Abraham, was among the crowds, One who could destroy the temple and build it up again in three days --- a Boy of twelve.
 
When it finally came time to leave, the women to whose caravan Mary belonged were mustered at their proper gate, Jesus was not there. But children might go either with the father or the mother. Jesus was not with Her but it filled her Heart with joy to think that He was filling Joseph’s heart with love and joy. Two evenings had gone before the bands of men and women had met at the accustomed halting-place. Joseph was waiting for Mary but Jesus was not with him and Mary’s Heart sank within Her. They felt suddenly alone, alone amidst the crowd. What could it mean? Jesus was gone. There were many sorrows on earth that night, but there were none like Hers. In the silent dark night, Mary and Joseph were treading the road again to the Holy City. Their feet were sore and wary. Their hearts were sorer and more weary. The darkness in Mary’s spirit was deeper than the darkness on the hills.

It had been a weary day and neither Joseph nor Mary had broken their fast all day. They were hungry to find Jesus. A broken heart does not think of sleep or food. They finally came to the eastern gate of the Temple and went in. Close to this gate was a spacious room, a sort of Academy, in which the interpreters of the law sat, and answered questions, and resolved doubts, and moderated in disputations. Mary’s ear caught the sound of Jesus' voice in which it was impossible to be mistaken. She came forward and said to Him,  "Son, why hast Thou done so to us? Behold Thy father and I have sought Thee, sorrowing". …He saw Her sorrow but He had never been away from Her. He had been lying in Her Heart the whole while giving Her the strength and graces She needed. He said to them, “How is it that you sought Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business? Poor Mother! Could She have done otherwise? His look and tone would always be in Her Heart to ponder. Yet, “They understood not the word that He had spoken unto them.” “And He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them; and His Mother kept all these words in Her Heart.”
​
In this third dolor, She had lost Jesus, and She knew not why, nor where He was, nor what He might be suffering. She was plunged into a dense spiritual darkness, and God seemed altogether to have abandoned Her. Hence, the torture of Her Heart never was worse, not even at the burial because at the burial – He was to suffer no more. We must have Mary’s Heart to feel Mary’s sorrow.
 
The lesson learned in this dolor is: The greatest joy we can experience on this earth is to find Jesus. If anything else should console us outside of Jesus it would be the saddest of things for He is our Lord and Saviour.