It has been two years since I first addressed you in the August 2005 Newsletter as President of Our Lady’s Association. It’s difficult to believe that yet another year has passed. I continue to be overwhelmed by your devotion to our Lady and your zeal in spreading the good news of her great care for us all.
You’ll find part one of a three-part article entitled “Praying With Mary and Like Mary” from the Association of the Miraculous Medal in the Dominican Republic at the bottom of this column.
Special Marian Pilgrimage This Fall
I am very pleased to be able to invite you to join me on a 13-day pilgrimage to Portugal, Spain, and France from November 9-21. The highlights of our journey will be visits to Fatima, Lourdes, and the Chapel of the Apparitions in Paris.
Time is running out, so if you are interested in joining me on our Marian pilgrimage, simply click on the link for more details and an itinerary. Or you may simply drop me a line or give us a call.
Solemnity of the Assumption
The great solemnity of the Assumption we celebrate every August is such a joyful, hopeful feast. Mary, as model of the Church, is for us an example of how to live our life here on earth. The solemnity of the Assumption reminds us of what God has in store for each one of us if we, like his Son’s mother, continue to strive to be open to God’s plan in our lives. It is God’s plan that we will join him in heaven one day. It is up to us to cooperate in his wondrous plan.
A New Monthly Giving Program
It is a pleasure for me to introduce a new and easier way for you to send your offerings to our Lady‘s Association. As a supporter of our Lady’s Association, you have the opportunity to become a member of the Miraculous Medal Monthly Giving Club. The Miraculous Medal Monthly Giving Club allows you to help our Lady's Association in still another way.
Online Gift Shop
We are offering two distinctive gifts this month: a fascinating Blue Cat's-Eye Rosary and a lovely Aqua Rosary. Just click on the link to visit our online Gift Shop to order other these and other fine religious articles.
Praying with Mary and Like Mary
from the Association of the Miraculous Medal, Dominican Republic
translated from Spanish by Father Henry Grodecki, C.M.
This article summarizes a monthly catechesis for the International Association of the Miraculous Medal. This is part one of a three-part article.—Father Grodecki
Here is a simple definition of prayer—
To pray is to open the heart, the mind, and all our being to a relationship of friendship and a dialogue of love with God who is made present, is near, and brought forth by his gift, making us capable of knowing him and loving him in all the circumstances of daily life.
Our prayer, first of all, ought to follow the example of Christ Jesus who would frequently go away by himself to pray, lived in the presence of his Father, and made his obedience to the will of God his nourishment. At the request of his apostles, he left us the Our Father as a model of Christian prayer.
A Gift of God
Although, as we know, prayer is a gift of God through the Holy Spirit, there are certain conditions that we have to take into account in order to live in dialogue with God—
- An attitude of faith: to know God as Father,
- Openness, listening to the Word,
- Humility and obedience to God’s Plan for us,
- Silence, recollection, and an ability to interiorize, to reread the circumstances of life in the light of the Word,
- Capacity for amazement at and knowledge of the works and marvels of God in Creation and in our personal history and in that of humanity,
- Acclamation and spontaneous blessing of God,
- Sensitivity to the poor, human needs, and situations of injustice that strike at and impoverish the poor more and more,
- To know how to discover God in the events of our lives and to take these moments to our prayer,
- Full confidence in God who directs our life and all of history,
- Silence and humility before the Mystery of God,
- To know how to persevere in prayer before the senselessness of life and the seeming absence of God.
How Can Mary Teach Us To Pray?
Chosen and cherished by God as mother of all believers, Mary lived these attitudes that we have just pointed out and, as the first disciple of Christ, she learned from him how to be in relationship with God the Father. Mary, as Paul VI says in his apostolic exhortation Marialis Cultus, is: “teacher of the spiritual life for every Christian. The faithful at a very early date began to look to Mary and to imitate her in making their lives an act of worship of God and making their worship a commitment of their lives.” (MC.21)
Let Us Pray As Mary Teaches Us
- In an attitude of listening, in order to be able to know and follow the Will of the Father,
- Hearing the Word, treasuring it in our heart,
- Recognizing our poverty and living in total dependence on God,
- Praying alone. Our personal prayer, as Mary’s, has to be of praise, glory, thanksgiving, petition, and meditation on the moments of our life in order to discover in them the action and the call of God,
- Praying in common, asking for light and strength together with our brothers and sisters in the faith,
- Making of prayer not only a sporadic and superficial act, but an attitude of life
- Remaining docile to the action of the Spirit,
- Blessing God in various moments of the day,
- Remaining united to the mystery of Christ and trusting in moments of trial.
Part two. |
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