HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY- Our Queen!

Today, September 8th, is the Birthday of our Queen and Mother! What can we sinners give to such a  beautiful and holy Mother? We can strive to please God - this will please Our Queen. She wants us ALL TO BE HOLY! This is our resolution and our goal! Mary is such a humble servant of God that She will and does help us in this goal! It is the duty that God the Father has asked of Her. It is why He created Her without original sin- to bring us Jesus! Our holiness is what pleases Our Queen most!

We know that we are all called  to strive to be holy. Our lives here are very short and therefore each day is a gift of God to grow closer to Him and to lead others to Him. Our part is to rid ourselves of all sin and to practice virtue. Our Mother was sinless and full of virtue, therefore, we can live in imitation of Her and ask Her for guidance on this road. God, who by His grace, aids man in his efforts through actual and sacramental grace through the hands of Our Queen and Mother. Through prayer and frequenting the Sacraments, we can attain the helps that God wishes to give us in His love and mercy. He wants our perfection and union with Him more than we do. St. Teresa of Avila stressed that many die in spiritual infancy because they do not desire to grow daily in holiness. It is not a common ambition to be a saint. We live in a world of indifference and tolerance. If we have even a tiny desire, it is easily destroyed by the slightest presence of our enemies: the devil, the world and the flesh. So should we desire such a thing? Should we think it is possible? Should we think it is wrong to be different than the average indifferent soul? Aren’t we created to love God above all things?
The answer is – Holiness is for everyone and therefore attainable! Grace is made available by God to those who ask for it. What does it matter what others think or say. We are to live for God alone! We may even encounter a priest who says that our goals are set too high! The reality is that we are caught up in a world of indifference and coldness of heart. The world lacks heroes! Why did God choose St. Joan of Arc to lead the armies when she was only 14 years of age? Why did God make St. Therese of the Child Jesus a Doctor of the Church when she left school at age 15 and died at age 24? God’s ways are not our ways and He chooses the humble souls WHO HAVE CONFIDENCE IN HIS GOODNESS!! This is the key phrase – Jesus I Trust In You! St. Teresa of Avila says that we should have “Determined Determination” to be a saint. God wants it! It is for His glory! We must first seek the humility of Our Lady though – we must know that we are empty vessels without the grace of God to fill it. Everything is grace! Without it – we can do nothing – therefore – all glory belongs to God and we should always give it to Him in imitation of Our Mother who gives Him all glory!
Knowing this about Our Lady, who then can guide us most perfectly on this path to holiness? It is Mary, Our Queen and Mother. Mary never committed a single sin, either mortal or venial, nor any voluntary imperfection, such as resisting an inspiration of grace, nor even any involuntary imperfection, such as acting without reflection. Mary had the constant thought of God before Her. When we sin, we lose sight of God. Mary found pleasure only in God. She never found any pleasure in anything whatsoever outside of Him.  Every sin is the result of an error, the thought of finding good or happiness where it is not. The graces of light made Mary see that true good and true happiness can be found only in God. Even when we know that the error is an error, we act upon it, because of the fickle character of our will. The graces of strength gave Mary’s will an absolute and unshakable direction toward the good. Grace then is evidently the most important factor and it raises the purity of Mary’s soul incomparably above that of man in the state of innocence or that of the most sublime angel before his admission to the Beatific Vision.
Therefore, because of Her purity, let us turn to Mary and ask the Dispenser of all of these graces to show us the way to be holy. May we turn to Her in our daily struggle for sanctity and ask Her to first give us humility and then the determined determination needed to keep battling against the enemy and to beg God for the graces through Her to be the saints that He needs in a world grown cold, indifferent and tolerant of evil.
Let us ask Our Mother for graces on Her Birthday - as this will please Her!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY, WE LOVE YOU AS QUEEN AND MOTHER!!
THANK YOU ETERNAL FATHER FOR GIVING US SUCH A QUEEN AND MOTHER!
Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Graces, pray for us.