Mary Vitamin for July 21st
Topic: Prayer makes for a profitable day
Quote:
Father Stefano Manelli, FI
When we entrust everything to our sweet Mother, nothing but profit comes of
it — in virtue, in grace, in love.
Devotion to Our Lady, (Academy of the Immaculate), 103.
Meditation:
Fr. Charles M. Mangan,
A deep interior life is very “practical” because it gives the person a real
clarity and calm when making decisions. Those who pray frequently and desire to
love and serve God above all else are blest with the ability to understand the
most important realities and to choose well with tranquility and peace.
Catechism on Redemptoris Custos, (Eternal Life: 2003), 11. [ q#43]
Resolution:
Persevering with my prayer life not only helps with the problems of today but
will lead to good choices in the future. Today when I say my usual prayers I
will remember that I am laying a path of gold for my future and my family.
Nothing but profit comes from praying to God through Our Lady.
Marian Vow:
The final entry of the Marian Seraphic Pathways, handbook to the MIM, includes
the blessing of Holy Father St. Francis.
And may anyone observing these things be filled in heaven with the blessings of
the most High Father, and on earth be filled with the blessings of the most
beloved Son with the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, and with all the powers of
heaven and with all the Saints. And I, Brother Francis, least of the brethren,
your servant, as much as I can, confirm for you, inwardly and outwardly, this
most holy blessing. Amen. (SFT).
Marian Seraphic Pathways, #72
I give this resolution to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Thanks be to God for graces received.
Related sites: Castle of the Immaculate
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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.
I’ve been praying to God through Our Lady for years now, and as of this month, my wife is taking our two girls, 8 and 11, and separating from me. I have struggled for a few years with disability and illness, and am in possibly the toughest struggle right now that I’ve ever had with illness.
It seems that many think that somehow this is all my own fault. Not sure how struggling with health for years fits that judgment, but anyway, I’m still praying to Our Lady and still know that the Holy and Apostolic Church is the place to be. Even though there are priests here who encourage, or rubber stamp, my wife’s desire to abandon me. More importantly, our two girls are learning quite a lesson over the past year or more — that their Papa is disposable and that we help the sick only if their sickness and our helping them doesn’t interfere too much with our own desire for fun and pleasure.
I’m trying to learn not to be bitter about all of this, and it’s not easy for me, as you might guess from this post. The fact that many of the people involved in and supporting this hypocrisy are connected to the diocese in some official capacity (teachers, high school principal, priest) does not make forgiving any easier. My wife herself is a teacher at the diocesan high school. And then there is the question of forgiving, but not condoning, sin and hypocrisy. I’ve got a lot to learn.
I am certain that staying as close as I can to Our Lady is still the best path. But I wonder sometimes, in spite of truly wanting, I hope, to do my best, if I am somehow failing her and Jesus? And in particular, how is it that by maintaining a relationship with Jesus through Mary has it all come to this for myself and my girls? The aforementioned people involved in the diocese seem only interested in appearances and worldly success. I just don’t fit into the picture once people have chosen that path. And quite honestly, none of them have ever talked to me about the whole situation, or ever tried to reach out to me and help me in any way. They are all quite eager, it seems, to toss me on the heap. But I believe, I hope, Jesus and Mary have other plans for me.
Little wonder a great majority of the kids in the high school here think the Church is wrong about homosexual activity, premarital sex, and could care less what the Church teaches about anything, unless it suits their selfish tastes. This is, in essence, the example they get from those in authority.
I need a lot of help in learning, and practicing, forgiveness and love. Our examples of Jesus and Mary are so wonderful, but I am not like them very much. Please, pray for me that I learn how to live like Jesus and Mary, and what it is that I need to do to most help my children now. I pray a lot, and I try to love. But it hasn’t been enough. I need to be successful and healthy in this world, or accept from those in positions of authority, and I might add, those in the diocese who live in temporal luxury, the stigma of being a failure and and unworthy individual.
Thank you.
Praying … I keep hoping the Holy Father picks for this year, now that the Year of the Priest has come to completion, the Year of Holy Matrimony. Perhaps he’s announced it already. Either way, I am praying for Holy Matrimony which doesn’t seem so holy anymore. sigh. I sometimes picture Jesus’ Crowning with Thorns in the Sorrowful Mysteries and how we are many times mocked in spite of the good we try to do, mocked for our Faith, mocked for our love, just as He was.
Thanks Jen. I was listening to one of the homilies here the other day and Father said that Jesus told St. Gertrude to “pray for those who stain themselves to purify you.”
The Church in the western world is in a bad way these days, and no where is it much worse than here in Canada. Maybe parts of Europe, but really, we have a whole lot of money-lovers and status seekers pretty much running things in most dioceses here.
Well , I guess there are plenty enough good reasons to “offer it up”, all this that is happening now. Still, our kids are being taught that what the Church teaches regarding the “grave harm” and “immorality” of divorce is pretty much just all a lot of antiquated drivel from the past. These are our Catholic children, but in reality they are being given over to this secular culture of death and divorce and the love of money.
But the truth concerning the “grave harm” and “immorality” of homes broken apart for the sake of the parents’ pride and ego still remains. And the children continue to suffer, and become hardened, and selfish, and indifferent to what Holy Mother Church has to give to them.
Better a millstone be hung around our necks.