Greetings in Jesus and Mary... As we enter into the season of Lent and begin our studies for The Total Consecration to Jesus Through Mary, we are entering into war. I am not going to ignore that. This seems to be a part of our Lenten sufferings. It was predicted by Our Lady that the entire world would go communist. It is at a moment of total hopelessness that She says Heaven would intervene. Each day we look to Heaven and say...is this it....and we see that things are getting progressively worse even though we think it is at its worst. The below link explains so much as to how we got here and what to expect. I hope you will be able to link into this. I am a subscriber to Epoch Times and get this info. I hope as we pray and continue to grow closer to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary....that we will be alert as to what is happening around us because we need to be aware and know how to prepare and react. Take care and God bless. May we place ourselves into the Hearts of Jesus and Mary..as well as our family members who have walked away from the Faith. Our Faith is getting more and more tried each day. It is ONLY through a true devotion to Mary that we will remain in Faith. Satan is unleashed in the Church and in the world right now. Continue your studies for the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary. Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us!!
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Greetings in Jesus and Mary.... BLESSED LENT!!! Now more than ever do we need a Holy Holy Lent...may God give us the grace to make this a truly penitential Lent! Below is an article from 1PeterFive website on the differences of the Old Rite vs. the New Rite of Blessing Ashes.....everything that happened to change the Church after Vatican II was to lessen the seriousness of sin. YES - I am guilty as charged by Rome to think that the Old Ways are definitely better than the New. Here below is proof. Have a blessed Lent!!! When comparing the two forms side by side, many things leap out:
There are five prayers said in the old rite (four before the imposition of ashes, one afterward), compared with only one in the new (prefaced by a greeting, after which the priest is given an option between two prayers). NOTA BENE: In the new rite, the introduction to the prayer says that the ashes will be blessed, but the first prayer does not even bless them; it asks God to bless those who will use them. The second optional blesses the ashes, as the Church has always done. This difference reflects the confusion of the 1960s over whether we can and should bless objects, or only the people who use them. Obviously, Catholic tradition has a consistent answer to that question: we bless stuff (water, salt, wine, herbs, bread, ashes, palms, etc.), not just the ones who make use of them.The five traditional prayers strongly express the penitential spirit of the observance and the season (“spare those who are penitent”; “those who accuse themselves, deploring their misdeeds”; “demerits of our wickedness”; “the spirit of compunction”; “doing penance in sackcloth and ashes”; etc.). Such robust language is glaringly absent from the new prayers for the blessing of ashes. (Some of this language gets recycled in other texts in the revised Ash Wednesday Mass: for example, “spirit of compunction” shows up in the Prayer over the People at the end. Such rewriting and moving around of texts is typical of the committees that produced the Novus Ordo. For them, tradition was a junkyard for assembling new machines.) Adverbs and adjectives emphasizing the seriousness and urgency of our prayers are abundant in the old rite (“humbly and earnestly beseeching Thy sovereign goodness”; “look down most graciously”; “mercifully pour forth”; “effectually grant what they have justly prayed for”; etc.). The new language — even with its 2011 improvement — is far weaker by comparison. The second option in the N.O. is similar to the second TLM prayer — but with this difference: the old prayer speaks of “the frailty of human nature,” “our lowliness,” “the demerits of our wickedness,” and “the rewards promised to the penitent”; all of this language is omitted from the new version of it There is a spirit of militancy in the old: “Grant us, O Lord, to begin with holy fasts the campaign of our Christian warfare: that, as we do battle with the spirits of evil, we may be protected by the help of self-denial.” That is gone from the new (or rather, it has been “repurposed” into the Collect, and thus bumps the old Collect, but a full analysis would have to go into what was done to the Mass of the day, which is beyond our scope here). The old prayers refer to angels, good, and evil: “vouchsafe to send Thy holy Angel from heaven…”; “do battle with the spirits of evil.” No such references remain in the new. In the old prayers, God is said to be “placated” with “satisfaction”: our works of penance, done in charity by His grace, win for us His pardon. The similar phrase “rewards of the penitent” points to the Catholic doctrine of merit, which is offensive to Protestants. The Ninevites are expressly mentioned in the fourth prayer. Language of placation, satisfaction, and merit, as well as the Ninevites, is notably absent in the new rite. In like manner, God is addressed twice as “Almighty and everlasting God” in the old rite; in the new, He is just “O God.” The old prayers refer to “health of body and safety of soul,” thus laying bare the totality of human nature in need of healing. This language is (again) absent from the new rite. The old prayers bless and sanctify the ashes (with three signs of the cross) so that they will be “a wholesome remedy to all who humbly implore Thy holy Name.” It is clear that the ashes are being made holy and given to us as a sacramental. While the second of the new prayers blesses the ashes (unlike most of the “blessings” in the postconciliar Book of Blessings), it poorly signifies this aspect in word and gesture. As noted above, the first prayer does not even bless them at all. Add to these textual differences the following ceremonial ones: In the old rite, the priest prays these prayers at the high altar, facing east, wearing a violet cope, before the start of Mass. The old idea, which is far more striking, is to do the special thing first, before Mass begins — whether it be blessing candles, blessing ashes, blessing palms, or exchanging nuptial vows — and then to proceed into the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass bearing in our hands, on our heads, in our hearts, the special grace just given. It has a way of suffusing the entire celebration of Mass with the character of the feast or observance. In the new rite, the special thing pops up midway, after the homily. Instead of being the prism through which the light is shone, it becomes like the creamy center of the candy, which throws the whole liturgy off-balance. In the old rite, the priest sprinkles the ashes with holy water while reciting the Asperges me, and incenses them. The act of blessing the ashes is very clear. In the Novus Ordo, the priest sprinkles the ashes, “without saying anything” (as the rubrics put it, deliberately sticking it to the old practice). In the old rite, the faithful go up and kneel at the edge of the sanctuary, in a posture of humility, to have the ashes imposed on them from above. As with Holy Communion, the posture perfectly suits the meaning of what is being done. It is strange, to say the least, that in the Novus Ordo people can walk up in a queue and receive the ashes standing, in the posture of the resurrection, when the whole point of the ashes — as even the new prayers say — is to remind us that we are dust and shall return to dust. This, of course, is not nearly as bad a cognitive dissonance as queueing up to receive Communion in the hand, standing, as if retrieving pre-ordered tickets. These, ladies and gentlemen, are the kinds of difference you will find everywhere when you compare the two missals. The one is our Catholic inheritance from many centuries of faith; the other was put together by a committee in the 1960s, acting on their own bright (or not so bright) pseudo-scholarly quasi-pastorally motivated ideas. It’s the difference between thick and thin religion. written by Peter Kwasniewski, PhD Greetings in Jesus and Mary... BLESSED FEAST DAY!!! Below are a couple of prayers to share with you! God bless! ACT OF CONSECRATION O Lord Jesus, we believe most firmly in You, we love You. You are the Eternal Son of God and the Son Incarnate of the Blessed Virgin Mary. You are the Lord and Absolute Ruler of all creation. We acknowledge You, therefore, as the Universal Sovereign of all creatures. You are the Lord and Supreme Ruler of all mankind, and we, in acknowledging this Your dominion, consecrate ourselves to You now and forever. Loving Jesus, we place our family under the protection of Your Holy Face, and of Your Virgin Mother, Mary most sorrowful. We promise to be faithful to You for the rest of our lives and to observe with fidelity Your Holy Commandments. We will never deny before men, You and Your Divine rights over us and all mankind. Grant us the grace to never sin again; nevertheless, should we fail, 0 Divine Saviour, have mercy on us and restore us to Your grace. Radiate Your Divine Countenance upon us and bless us now and forever. Embrace us at the hour of death in Your Kingdom for all eternity, through the intercession of Your Blessed Mother, of all Your Saints who behold You in Heaven, and the just who glorify You on earth. O Jesus, be mindful of us forever and never forsake us; protect our family. O Mother of Sorrows, by the eternal glory which you enjoy in Heaven, through the merits of your bitter anguish in the Sacred Passion of your Beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, obtain for us the grace that the Precious Blood shed by Jesus for the redemption of our souls, be not shed for us in vain. We love you, O Mary. Embrace us and bless us, O Mother. Protect us in life and in death. Amen. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. THE GOLDEN ARROW PRAYER May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and ineffable Name of God be forever praised, blessed, loved, adored, and glorified in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen. Greetings in Jesus and Mary... If you are to renew your Consecration to Jesus through Mary or make it for the first time - It begins tomorrow - Feb. 20th - March 25th. This is also a great way to make Lent special as it will run through most of our Lenten days. This is a bit intense and we are busy people....do not be discouraged if you miss a day...just go over the missed material the next day. Please make this more of a mental exercise of keeping company with Mary throughout your day and this will help you to find the time for the studies and prayers that are required each day. Now more than ever do we need to be doing this Consecration for the guidance and protection from Our Lady Who has been appointed to crush the head of Satan. WE NEED HER! Please try to follow this and help encourage others. If they miss March 25 then another Marian feast day can be chosen. I will post the preparation by the week for you to follow if desired. The Feast of the Annunciation is the date that St. Louis DeMontfort recommended to make this Consecration. It is when Jesus became incarnate in the Most Blessed Virgin Mary - therefore - it is a great day to offer ourselves to Jesus through Mary. You will need the book "True Devotion to Mary" by St. Louis deMontfort and the Preparation book. I will post the links below in order for you to find them. You can also find PDF available to make it easy on the computer without a book. During this entire 33 days we are asked to spend some time reading, meditating on a certain passage and praying. This is broken down into four sections: 12 days – Withdrawing from the World 7 days - Knowledge of Self 7 days – Knowledge of Mary 7 days – Knowledge of Jesus The book “Preparation for Total Consecration” is our guide as to what each day proposes. The guide can be found at the back of some "True Devotion to Mary" books as well but I have posted a PDF link below. We can add readings from “True Devotion to Mary” as we are allowed in our daily lives. It is proposed that we not only say the prayers in the book but try to add a Rosary and if possible – Daily Mass (for extra graces). It is also recommended that making a good Confession before we begin the 33 days and just before the Consecration date would afford us a deeper commitment and more grace. There are other methods but I encourage the use of St. Louis deMontfort (and so does the Old Rule of Carmel). It is in the Old Rule that this consecration draws us closer to Jesus through Mary and so it is encouraged. You can find this Old Rule on this website. I will post a link below to help you navigate. The first week starts on Feb. 20 which is this Weds. The first 12 Days is to divest ourselves of the World. This is to understand the conflict that the world gives us. We need to understand the enemies of the Church which are: the devil, the world and the flesh. Contrary to modern ideas - the world is an enemy! This is a new idea for some and it may even be neglected in some forms of Consecration because we have integrated the ways of the world with our religious beliefs causing us to be mediocre which is repulsive to Our Lord. Therefore, St. Louis deMontfort gives us perennial Truth! Times change but the Truth NEVER CHANGES! God's ways yesterday are God's ways today - contrary to popular belief. THE FIRST TWELVE DAYS WITHDRAWING FROM THE SPIRIT OF THE WORLD The meditations should be made in the presence of Our Lady. We should start these 33 days off by asking her to show us each day what it is we are trying to discover on this journey. The spirit of the world is opposed to the Spirit of God. It is critical to be serious about this section because the more room we clear in our souls, the more room the Holy Spirit has to fill it. Begin the daily meditation not only in the company of Mary but with the desire to start a new life with Jesus through her. We must wish to give ourselves entirely to her as He did. Mary is longing to make another Jesus of us. It is by the operation of the Holy Spirit that we will have this new life in Christ. We must draw the resolution from each meditation to desire earnestly to be emptied of the evil spirit, the spirit of the world, and our own selfish spirit, that there may be in us no obstruction to God’s Spirit and to being transformed in Christ. Repeating little prayers throughout the day and keeping the presence of God always before us will be helpful. Throughout the first week, we are to ask Mary to ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten us about what it exactly is that keeps us from her Son. She will expose these things to our mind so that we can renounce them. It is critical that we trust ourselves entirely to God and His grace to accomplish removing the obstacles from our souls. He is more anxious to assist us in overcoming these defects that we are in overcoming them. It is important to understand that everything is God’s grace. We must understand grace and its value if we are to not be of the spirit of the world. Grace is the life of God in our souls – the more grace – the more God dwells within that soul. We should eagerly seek to acquire and preserve this grace. We can acquire it through practicing His presence, prayers, Mass, spiritual reading, acts of love, etc. We can preserve this grace by staying far from sin and going to Confession often. “Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it.” We must have constant recourse to God and not neglect the seemingly smallest grace because the smallest grace is great. We must use all the natural means God has given us in His service but we must remember that it is by God’s grace that we can ever succeed. An example of the spirit of the world would be for one to always look to self or man for the answer or solution instead of God. And even when the answer or solution is given – the world gives the credit NOT to God who is always the giver of all good things. So our goal during these 12 first days is to come to understand the difference of the world vs. God. The spirit of the world is so a part of our lives that sometimes we do not see where the difference lies. The passages in the “Preparation Book” will help us to come to understand this. Praying the Litany of the Holy Spirit will give us enlightenment to see these differences. POINTS FOR THE FIRST WEEK
God bless you in this endeavor. - I will post Knowledge of Self just before this time period begins. PS - I do not recommend using the "33 Days to Morning Glory". It is an excellent book to help encourage one to make this Consecration as it gives the lives of four that have made it. It is missing some critical steps that St. Louis wants in order for this Consecration to be fruitful. Again, one can read it for inspiration but the Traditional means of Consecration should be pursued. God bless you through the prayers and intercession of Our Holy Mother Mary! Greetings in Jesus and Mary... I have just added some videos links below this article that were not there when I first posted this in the morning. The below article is written by Dr. Joseph Mercola from his website. These are trying times and Our Blessed Mother warned that communism would take over the world. It is here! May we pray for God's intervention. We all know the deaths and destruction from these UNTESTED medical injections that they have "freely" given to us with propaganda and small ridiculous bribes. You will probably not be shocked to read the below article but I believe all should be aware and pray. Add this intention to your Holy Face Novena that these plans will be stopped. There are suggestions for us at the bottom....please pass this to as many as you can....ALL MUST BE AWARE! Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us! Written by Dr. Joseph Mercola, Feb. 14, 2023 for the Epoch Times..... "The U.S. government has been secretly tracking those who didn’t get the COVID jab, as well as those who aren’t up to date on their shots. Worse, it is recording the reason why. Now that the program has been widely adopted, know why it’s being done and how you can outsmart it. Story at a Glance
The program was implemented on April 1, 2022,2 but didn’t become universally adopted by most medical clinics and hospitals across the United States until January 2023. Under this program, doctors at clinics and hospitals have been instructed to ask patients about their vaccination status, which is then added to their electronic medical records as a diagnostic code, known as ICD-10 code, without their knowledge or consent so that they can be tracked—not just within the health care system but outside of it as well. Secret Tracking Program Revealed The new International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes were introduced during the Sept. 14–15, 2021, ICD-10 Coordination and Maintenance Committee meeting. The ICD committee includes representatives from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the NCHS.3 Below is a screenshot of page 194 of the agenda4 distributed during that meeting. According to the NCHS, “there is interest in being able to track people who are not immunized or only partially immunized,” and they figured out a way to do just that, by adding new ICD-10 codes. As you can see below, ICD-10 code Z28.310 identifies those who have not received a COVID jab and Z28.311 identifies those who are not up to date on their shots. Tracking Unjabbed Is Part of the Biosecurity Agenda Why do they want to track the unvaccinated? For what purpose? The short answer: to facilitate the implementation of vaccine passports. As noted by Malone:5 “Code Number Z28.310 listed above is not a code for an illness or diagnosis, but rather for noncompliance of a medical procedure … Once a person’s vaccination status is coded and uploaded into [a] large data base, it can be accessed by government and private health insurers alike. “The administrative state officers at the CDC have not made immunization status a reportable disease (yet) but immunization status is listed as one of the reasons for mandatory reporting.6 They are just one step away from being able to collect this information without your permission. Ergo: Vaccine passports made easy. In this country, not having your vaccine records ‘up to date’ might mean: “• The government will not restrict your travel, airlines will. “• The government will not restrict your travel, other nations will. “• The government will not restrict your travel, auto rental companies will. “• The government will not restrict your travel, public transport will. “• The government will not restrict your travel, private companies will.” World Health Organization Signed Off on Tracking Codes The ICD codes were created by the World Health Organization (WHO), and doctors—except those in private practice who don’t accept insurance—are required to use these codes to describe a patient’s condition and the care they received during their visit. As noted by Malone,7 the fact that the ICD system is run by the WHO is an important detail, as this means the WHO had to authorize the CDC to add these new codes. The implication is that these codes may be in use internationally and we just don’t know it yet. The codes are entered into your electronic health record and used by insurance companies for billing purposes. They’re also used by statisticians who track and analyze national and global disease trends such as cancer and heart disease rates over time. Over the past decade, these statistical analyses have gotten easier to do, thanks to the transition into electronic record keeping. In the United States, the ICD coding system has been fully integrated into the electronic health record system since 2012. Within the ICD-10 codes, there’s a category called ICD-10-CM,8,9 and this is the category the CDC is now using to track the unvaccinated with specific codes for “Unvaccinated for COVID-19”10 and “Partially Vaccinated for COVID-19.”11 Gross Violation of Medical Privacy Rights Since there’s no billing or payment involved with being unvaccinated, and since being unvaccinated is extremely unlikely to be part of your disease profile, there’s no valid reason to record anyone’s vaccine refusal. It’s also a violation of medical privacy, as the records can be accessed by a variety of individuals and not just your personal doctors. As noted by Malone, a person’s decision to get a vaccine or not is a private matter, and your privacy rights are enshrined in the Privacy Act of 1974. However, during the COVID pandemic, medical privacy rights have been repeatedly violated and broken. Children’s vaccination statuses were shared with schools, and employers were granted the “right” to know the jab status of their employees. Private venues were even permitted to demand proof of vaccination status—all this without a single word of the law having been revoked or amended. They’re Tracking Reasons for Jab Refusal, Too If you need proof that these codes will be used for reasons unrelated to your health, consider this: These institutions also using codes to describe WHY you didn’t get the primary series or stopped getting boosters. Those codes are listed in the screenshot below, under Z28.3 Underimmunization Status.12 The use of “delinquent immunization status” under code Z28.39 also tells us something about where this is all headed. “Delinquent” means being “neglectful of a duty” or being “guilty of an offense.” Is refusing boosters a criminal offense? Perhaps not today, but someday, it probably will be. All Missed Vaccinations Will Be Tracked Another tip-off that these codes are part and parcel of the biosecurity control grid is the fact that code Z28.39—”Other underimmunization status”13—is to be used “when a patient is not current on other, non-COVID vaccines.” As detailed on the American Academy of Family Physicians website:14 “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have announced three new diagnosis codes, including two for COVID-19 immunization status … “According to ICD-10-CM guidelines,15 clinicians may assign code Z28.310, ‘Unvaccinated for COVID-19,’ when the patient has not received a dose of any COVID-19 vaccine. “Clinicians may assign code Z28.311, ‘Partially vaccinated for COVID-19,’ when the patient has received at least one dose of a multidose COVID-19 vaccine regimen, but has not received the doses necessary to meet the CDC definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ at the time of the encounter … New code Z28.39 is for reporting when a patient is not current on other, non-COVID vaccines.” In other words, they have already begun tracking ALL of your vaccinations, not just the COVID shot, and they can use the Z28.3 sub-codes to identify why you refused a given vaccine. Vaccine Passports Are a Fait Accompli—Unless We Act Now As noted by Dr. Malone.... “The administrative state is busy building a vaccine passport system that will be active before most Americans are aware of what is being done to them. No one is going to knock on your door asking for your vaccine status because they already know … “They don’t need approval from Congress or the courts because we have given them the information through our health care providers. The CDC is the governmental organization tasked with tracking vaccine status on individuals. “They already have the records, as well as updated booster information. They just need to tweak a definition here and there, or get President Biden to keep the COVID-19 public health emergency in place indefinitely and the vaccine passports will be a fait accompli.” You Can Now Be Billed for Immunization Safety Counseling As if all of that weren’t tyrannical enough, they’ve also added a billable ICD-10 code for “immunization safety counseling.” That’s right. If you’ve decided you’re not willing to partake in the mRNA experiment, or you just don’t think you need some other vaccine that’s recommended, your doctor can bill your insurance for regurgitating the WHO’s vaccine propaganda. They have codes identifying whether you declined the COVID jab and/or any other vaccine, and for each vaccine refusal, there’s a code detailing why you declined it. ‘Belief or group pressure’ is one of those, and you can bet that code will automatically qualify you for immunization safety counseling, whether you want it or not. This may become more or less automatic because, again, they have codes identifying whether you declined the COVID jab and/or any other vaccine, and for each vaccine refusal, there’s a code detailing why you declined it. “Belief or group pressure” is one of those, and you can bet that code, Z.28.1, will automatically qualify you for immunization safety counseling, whether you want it or not. They also intend to indoctrinate your children and make you pay for it. The immunization safety counseling code, Z71.85, was described in the September 2021 issue of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Pediatric Coding Newsletter. You have to be a member to read the entire article, but here’s the publicly available preview:17 “Reporting Encounters for Immunization Safety Counseling. “As physicians and other qualified health care professionals field increasing numbers of concerns about immunization safety, International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) offers a new code, Z71.85, for identifying immunization safety counseling as a reason for an encounter provided on or after Oct. 1, 2021. “Use this code when reporting counseling provided to patients and caregivers who are vaccine hesitant, wish to follow an alternative immunization schedule, or otherwise require time spent in counseling at lengths beyond that typical of routine immunization counseling. “Code Z71.85 may be reported to indicate the principal or first-listed reason for an encounter or as a secondary reason. “Documentation of time spent in preventive medicine counseling and separate time spent in immunization administration counseling should be explicit in the encounter note to support that the preventive medicine counseling was significant and separately identifiable.” Unjabbed Teachers Flagged In related news, in early February 2023, it was revealed that New York City teachers who did not get the jab were “flagged” with a “problem code” in their personnel files, triggering their fingerprints to be sent to the FBI and the New York Criminal Justice Services.18 The purpose of this is unclear, but former public school teacher Michael Kane, founder of Teachers for Choice, believes “that unvaccinated NYC educators were being set up to be viewed as ‘right-wing extremists’ or even ‘terrorists.'” Kane was among those who got fired for refusing the COVID jab. The revelation that teachers’ fingerprints were illegally entered into not just one, but two, criminal databases is “certain to open up a new round of lawsuits,” Kane writes. Call to Action Knowing all of this, what can you do about it? How do we stop this madness? Here are a few suggestions:
Originally published February 14, 2023, on Mercola.com. ◇ References
Greetings in Jesus and Mary.... Sunday, February 12 started the Novena. I am sorry I did not post this earlier. We were out of town and came back late. This is how we begin our Lent each year with the Novena to the Holy Face of Jesus whose Feast Day is February 21, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. It is a moveable feast because Ash Wednesday is moveable. This is highly recommended as the best means of reparation for the crimes committed today....especially communism! We all need to foster a devotion to the Most Holy Face of Jesus to repair for the crimes committed against His Most Holy Countenance! May we offer Him consolation and reparation! Here is a bit of history on it and a pdf link below to help you in your daily prayers. May we have a very fruitful Lent!! Some history... THE NOVENA..... Greetings in Jesus and Mary... This article was used in 2018 on this website. I am repeating it here for this feast day. The feast day of February 11th which celebrates the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes is tomorrow and we have the Traditional Feast day of St. Bernadette which is February 18th coming up as well. Therefore, we can put the two together and present the beautiful story of Lourdes in this article. Lourdes is justly regarded as the most important place of Catholic pilgrimage in the world after the Holy Land and Rome. It comprises four magnificent basilicas and the grotto marking the exact spot where Our Lady appeared to Saint Bernadette. In 1858, in the grotto of Massabielle, near Lourdes in southern France, Our Lady appeared 18 times to Bernadette Soubirous, a young peasant girl, starting on Feb. 11 through July 16th. She began by praying the Rosary with Bernadette (only Bernadette prayed the Hail Marys). She asked that penance be done and told Bernadette that She did not promise her happiness in this life – only in the next. She told her to drink from a fountain in the grotto, where we now have a spring of miraculous water for all the Church to benefit. She revealed Herself as the Immaculate Conception on March 25th and asked that a chapel be built on the site of the vision. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception had just been given to the Church by Pope Pius IX just four years prior in 1854. We may conclude that this apparition helped the faithful to accept the True Teachings of Mother Church. In 1866 the first Mass was offered at the grotto, and on the Feast of the Assumption in 1871 the newly built Church of the Immaculate Conception was blessed. The following year was the first national pilgrimage, with flags and banners and a torchlight procession. In 1873 the Assumption Fathers organized a much larger pilgrimage and a year later the first visitors came from abroad, particularly from Belgium and the USA. The statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was crowned in 1876 and the second of four great basilicas, the Church of the Rosary, was opened in 1889. On March 25, 1958, the centenary of the apparitions, the Basilica of St. Pius X was consecrated. There have been over five thousand cures which have taken place. Sixty-five of these cures have been officially designated 'miraculous' by the Church. St. Bernadette’s life was one of penance and prayer. She endured sufferings in body, mind and soul. Our Lady warned her that this would be, but that she would be rewarded in Heaven. Bernadette’s life is an example for us. We must understand that to live in imitation of Jesus and Mary, we too must take up our cross. It is difficult in a world of comfort and pleasures to seek penance and prayer. We ask ourselves – for what? We may reply, that is just for saints such as St. Bernadette. This is not true. We are all called to be great saints. Do we not want to comfort the Hearts of Jesus and Mary with our diligent attentiveness to the needs of the world? Do we not want peace and holiness to reign in the hearts of all men? Then, we are all called to do our part. This message is not just for Bernadette. If we truly love Jesus and Mary, we will kneel before them and offer our prayers of love and self-sacrifice. Of course, living in this world, we all have our sufferings but we must learn to accept them as little crosses to gain great merit. We must offer them to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary as Bernadette did in order to make reparation for the many sins that are being committed today. Do we have members in our family that have fallen away from the Faith? Do we have members in our family that are persisting in sin? The answer is prayer and there are many promises to those who pray the Rosary. Below are the promises given to St. Dominic for those who pray the Rosary.
Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us. St. Bernadette, pray for us.
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AuthorBernadette Porter is a Traditional Catholic, a wife of 42 years with 6 adult home-schooled children and 6 grandchildren. A sincere devotion to Mary, the Mother of God leads me to want to share "The Church's best kept secret" - Mary! Archives
August 2024
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