Topic: Our Lady, St. Michael and St. Francis
Quote:
?Even St. Michael, as St. Augustine says, although the prince of the heavenly court, is the most zealous in honoring [the Blessed Virgin Mary] and causing her to be honored, and is always anxiously awaiting the honor of going at her bidding to render service to some one of her servants.? – St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, (Tan Books: 1941), 5.
Meditation:
St. Francis of Assisi was a servant of Our Lady and completely dedicated to her honor. St. Francis was also very devoted to St. Michael the Archangel. Two years before the death of the Seraphic Father, during his customary 40 day fast and time of retreat dedicated to St. Michael, St. Francis received the crowning event of his life: The Stigmata.
St. Bonaventure relates in his biography of St. Francis,
“Early in the morning of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, as [St. Francis] was praying in a secret and solitary place on the mountain, he beheld a seraph, having six wings, all on fire, descending to him from the height of heaven …
When he beheld this, he marvelled greatly, and his heart was filled with mingled joy and sorrow. …
The vision, disappearing, left behind it a marvellous fire in his heart, and a no less wonderful sign impressed on his flesh. For there began immediately to appear in his hands and in his feet the appearance of nails … When the lover of Christ had been transformed by his true love into his own image, having fulfilled the forty days which he had thus spent in solitude before the feast of the Archangel Michael, this angelical man, Francis, descended from the mount, bearing with him the image of the Crucified, engraven, not on tables of wood nor stone by the hand of the artificer, but written on his members of flesh by the finger of the living God.” – St. Bonaventure, The Life of St. Francis of Assisi, (Tan Books: 1998), 123-4.
Resolution:
It is very Marian and Franciscan to be devoted to the Archangel St. Michael. Today, I will pray the chaplet of St. Michael in honor of the Feast day of the Archangels and remember that St. Michael greatly desires the honor of Mary, the Mother of God. (If time is short today, I will only read the nine invocations.)
For the chaplet of St. Michael see below or http://www.miraclerosarymission.org/csm.htm
Marian Vow:
?[A] particular devotion to St. Michael the Archangel and all the Guardian Angels, our celestial and powerful protectors should be cultivated.? – Marian Seraphic Pathways, Constitutions #32
I give this resolution to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Thanks be to God for graces received.
Ave Maria!
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Mary Vitamin is a daily Email support for Marian mental prayer. Each day (Monday through Friday) members will receive a brief Marian quote with a corresponding Marian meditation and resolution. The Mary Vitamin is designed to make mental prayer a little simpler and bring Our Lady into your day in a systematic way.
