Ave Maria!

Fr. Peter and John Primeau of NACEPF discuss Mary as Mediatrix of all Graces in the context of Her involvement in the Eucharist and the Incarnation.

Ave Maria!

Ave Maria!

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Ave Maria!

When the priest says to us at the altar, “The Body of Christ,?? do we really know what (Who) we’re receiving? In this episode, guest Raymond deSouza gives a powerful catechism on the Eucharist in the hopes of reevanglizing baptized Catholics. During His earthly ministry, Christ performed many miracles, then asked for one act of faith: “Believe in the Eucharist because I ask you to.?? Unlike a lot of priests & even bishops today, Christ was not afraid of losing the entire congregation when He taught on the Eucharist. Raymond also gives a fascinating explanation & answer to a question posed by host John Primeau: “Why is the body of the dead incensed during a funeral mass??? Hint: it’s also tied into the reality of the Eucharist.

Ave Maria!

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Ave Maria!

Once a year, the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate take the Good News to the streets, literally as it were, as they process Our Blessed Lord through New Bedford, Massachusetts, on the Feast of Corpus Christi. The procession begins downtown at Our Lady’s Chapel and winds through the city to 3 different churches before finishing again at the friar’s chapel. This year we had wonderful weather and a wonderful turnout of approximately 275 faithful souls.

This video condenses the 3+ hour procession down to 17 minutes and features beautiful music of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration (Mother Angelica’s nuns), the Northern RI Sancte Ceciliae (a homeschool family from Rhode Island), and songs of benediction from the various churches we and Our Lord visited on our journey.

Ave Maria!

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Ave Maria!

In this episode of Standing Fast, Fr. Angelo speaks of the different legends associated with the Holy Grail and how some people are still in search for it. Regardless if these are true or simply literary. Listen to how Fr. explains the spiritual meaning behind this quest, which is none other than a deep yearning – a quest – for Christ truly present in the Holy Eucharist. In this journey, our gaze is turned to the Blessed Virgin, the first tabernacle and the exemplar, on our “life long quest.”

Ave Maria!

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Homily #080320 ( 27min) Play –

[Video Fixed – Problem with the Recording (ended at 12 minutes)?is now fixed.]

We have everything to be grateful. Our Lord keeps His promise. The greatest sign which Our Lord instituted for our salvation is … the Eucharist.
Ave Maria! Mass readings
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Homily #080411 ( 08min) Play – If we really believe in the Eucharist then there is a price for this. We must be prepared to go to the ends of the earth to preach the Good News, to suffer like St Paul and St Stanislaus did.
Ave Maria! Mass readings
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The post Apr 11 – Homily – Fr Angelo: St Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Homily #080412 ( 09min) Play – In John 6, the reading today, Our Lord proclaims that He is the Bread of Life and so announces the future institution of the Eucharist. Fr. explains how the acceptance of this point is linked to belief and even fidelity to Him in general, for it is here that the Gospel mentions that Jesus knew who would betray Him.
Ave Maria! Mass readings
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Homily #080413 ( 13min) Play – Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “Wherever I go in the whole world, the thing that makes me the saddest is watching people receive Communion in the hand.” What is the Church saying today about Communion in the hand?
Ave Maria! Mass readings
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The post Apr 13 – Homily – Fr Ignatius: Re-thinking Communion in the Hand first appeared on AirMaria.com.

OUR LADY OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT

This title was given to our Blessed Mother in May 1868 by Saint Peter Julian Eymard to honor her in her relationship to the Holy Eucharist and to place her before us as a model in our duties and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Our Lady gives witness to being Christian. In her conduct toward the Blessed Sacrament, we learn what ours should be!

She believed in the reality of Christ’s presence in the Holy Eucharist. In other words, the virtue of faith was as necessary for her as it is for us. Great was her faith in her son, the Son of God, our Savior, and in all his teachings and deeds. This faith of hers found its particular exercise in regard to the Blessed Sacrament, the mystery of faith, the denial of which implies the destruction of the whole structure of our belief.

A second point in which Mary conformed to the general body of the faithful was her Sunday attendance at the Eucharist. And still another point in which the Blessed Virgin is our model is in her reception of Holy Communion during her life, and at the moment of her death. By her faith in and her love for our Lord in the Eucharist, Mary is an example for Christians and thereby brings us to fervent devotion to him.

Truly, we can call Mary, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, and follow her faith and love for Jesus in the Eucharist. Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament is the chosen and official patroness of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. Her feast day is celebrated on May 13, the date on which the new Congregation received Archdiocesan approbation in Paris in 1856.

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PRAYER TO OUR LADY OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT

Blessed are you, Mary, exalted Daughter of Sion! You are highly favored and full of grace, for the Spirit of God descended upon you. We magnify the Lord and rejoice with you for the gift of the Word made flesh, our bread of life and cup of joy. Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, our model of prayer in the Cenacle, pray for us that we may become what we receive, the body of Christ your son. Amen.

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In all of Our Lady’s true apparitions, she desires there to be built a church where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass can be offered and where her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, can be adored and worshipped. Just one example of this occurred at Fatima, Portugal on May 13, 1917. It was the Feast of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament?..

Prayers from Fatima

Pardon Prayer
My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love You. I implore Your pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love You. Amen.

Angel’s Prayer
Most Holy Trinity – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – I adore You profoundly and offer You the most precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the earth, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifference by which He Himself is offended. And by the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and those of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of You the conversion of poor sinners. Amen.

Eucharistic Prayer
Most Holy Trinity, I adore you! My God, my God, I love you in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

AT THE SCHOOL OF MARY,
“WOMAN OF THE EUCHARIST”

In addition to her sharing in the Eucharistic banquet [of the first generation of Christians], an indirect picture of Mary’s relationship with the Eucharist can be had, beginning with her interior disposition. Mary is a “woman of the Eucharist” in her whole life. The church, which looks to Mary as a model, is also called to imitate her in her relationship to this most holy mystery.

Pope John Paul II, On the Eucharist in Its Relationship to the Church

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Her motherhood is particularly noted and experienced by the Christian people at the Sacred Banquet, the liturgical celebration of the mystery of the Redemption-at which Christ, his true body born of the Virgin Mary,, becomes present.

The piety of the Christian people has always very rightly sensed a profound link between devotion to the Blessed Virgin and worship of the Eucharist: this is a fact that can be seen in the liturgy of both the West and the East, in the traditions of the Religious Families, in the modern movements of spirituality, including those for youth, and in the pastoral practice of the Marian Shrines. Mary guides the faithful to the Eucharist.

(Pope John Paul II : Redemptoris Mater)

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DEDICATED TO THE WOMAN I LOVE:

The Woman whom even God dreamed of

Before the world was made;

The Woman of whom I was born

At a cost of pain and labor at a Cross;

The Woman who, though no priest,

Could yet on Calvary’s Hill breathe,

“This is my Body; This is my Blood”?

For none save her gave Him human life.

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The Woman who guides my pen,

Which falters so with words

In telling of the Word.

The Woman who, in a world of Reds,

Shows forth the blue of hope.

Accept these dried grapes of thoughts

From this poor author, who has no wine;

And with Cana’s magic and thy Son’s Power

Work a miracle and save a soul?

Forgetting not my own.

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Archbishop Fulton Sheen

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Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament

a meditation from St. Peter Julian Eymard, Founder of the Blessed Sacrament Fathers

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THE MONTH OF OUR LADY OF THE MOST BLESSED SACRAMENT

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The Month of Mary is the month of bless?ings and of grace, for, as St Bernard, in company with all the Saints, assures us, all grace comes to us through Mary. The month of Mary is a continuous festival in honor of the Mother of God, which prepares us well for the beautiful month of the Blessed Sacrament which follows it.

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Because our vocation calls us to give special honor to the Holy Eucharist, we must not for that reason give any the less devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Far from it, he would be guilty of blasphemy who would say, “The Most Blessed Sacrament suffices for me; I have no need of Mary.” Where, then shall we find Jesus on earth if not in Mary’s arms ? Was it not she who gave us the Eucharist? It was her consent to the Incarnation of the Word in her womb that inaugurated the great mystery of repa?ration to God and union with us which Jesus accomplished during His mortal life, and that He continues in the Eucharist.

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Without Mary, we shall never find Jesus, for she possesses Him in her heart. There He takes His delight, and those who wish to know His inmost virtues, to experience the privilege of His intimate love, must seek these in Mary. They who love that good Mother find Jesus in her pure heart. We must never separate Jesus from Mary; we can go to Him only through her.

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I maintain, moreover, that the more we love the Eucharist, the more we must love Mary. We love all that our friend loves; now, was ever a creature better loved by God, a mother more tenderly cherished by her Son, than was Mary by Jesus? Oh yes, our Lord would be much pained if we, the servants of the Eucharist, did not greatly honor Mary, because she is His Mother, Our Lord owes everything to her in the order of His Incarnation, His human nature. It is by the flesh that she gave Him that He has so glorified His Father, that He has saved us, and that He continues to nourish and save the world by the Blessed Sacrament.

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Let us, then, honor the Blessed Virgin by a daily sacrifice. Let us go to our Lord through her; shelter ourselves behind her, take refuge beneath her protecting mantle; clothe ourselves in her virtues. Let us be, in short, but Mary’s shadow. Let us offer all her actions, all her merits, all her virtues to our Lord. We have only to have recourse to Mary and to say to Jesus: “I offer Thee the riches that my good Mother has acquired for me” and our Lord will be very much pleased with us.

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Sacramentum Caritatis, Part One, #28

From Pope Benedict XVI?s apostolic exhortatation Sacramentum Caritatis, Part One:

The Eucharist and the Virgin Mary

33. From the relationship between the Eucharist and the individual sacraments, and from the eschatological significance of the sacred mysteries, the overall shape of the Christian life emerges, a life called at all times to be an act of spiritual worship, a self-offering pleasing to God. Although we are all still journeying towards the complete fulfilment of our hope, this does not mean that we cannot already gratefully acknowledge that God?s gifts to us have found their perfect fulfilment in the Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our Mother. Mary?s Assumption body and soul into heaven is for us a sign of sure hope, for it shows us, on our pilgrimage through time, the eschatological goal of which the sacrament of the Eucharist enables us even now to have a foretaste.

In Mary most holy, we also see perfectly fulfilled the ?sacramental? way that God comes down to meet his creatures and involves them in his saving work. From the Annunciation to Pentecost, Mary of Nazareth appears as someone whose freedom is completely open to God?s will. Her immaculate conception is revealed precisely in her unconditional docility to God?s word. Obedient faith in response to God?s work shapes her life at every moment. A virgin attentive to God?s word, she lives in complete harmony with his will; she treasures in her heart the words that come to her from God and, piecing them together like a mosaic, she learns to understand them more deeply (cf. Lk 2:19, 51); Mary is the great Believer who places herself confidently in God?s hands, abandoning herself to his will. (102)

This mystery deepens as she becomes completely involved in the redemptive mission of Jesus. In the words of the Second Vatican Council, ?the blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son until she stood at the Cross, in keeping with the divine plan (cf. Jn 19:25), suffering deeply with her only-begotten Son, associating herself with his sacrifice in her mother?s heart, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of the victim who was born of her.

Finally, she was given by the same Christ Jesus, dying on the Cross, as a mother to his disciple, with these words: ?Woman, behold your Son.?? (103) From the Annunciation to the Cross, Mary is the one who received the Word, made flesh within her and then silenced in death. It is she, lastly, who took into her arms the lifeless body of the one who truly loved his own ?to the end? (Jn 13:1).

Consequently, every time we approach the Body and Blood of Christ in the eucharistic liturgy, we also turn to her who, by her complete fidelity, received Christ?s sacrifice for the whole Church. The Synod Fathers rightly declared that ?Mary inaugurates the Church?s participation in the sacrifice of the Redeemer.? (104) She is the Immaculata, who receives God?s gift unconditionally and is thus associated with his work of salvation. Mary of Nazareth, icon of the nascent Church, is the model for each of us, called to receive the gift that Jesus makes of himself in the Eucharist.

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July 30^th: St. Leopoldo Mandic

A Saint of the Confessional and a Saint for the Cause of Unity

The august Mother of God is in truth co?redemptress of the human race and source of all grace. In fact on the one hand we have in her the most perfect obedience to God?s laws and, after her Son, the most perfect innocence: He impeccable by His nature, she impeccable by grace. On the other hand we see her as Our Lady of Sorrows, as He was the Man of Sorrows. If, therefore, by eternal decree of God, the Immaculate Virgin was the moral victim of sorrow as her Son was the physical victim, and if God?s avenging justice found no shadow of fault in them, it follows inevit?ably that they were paying the price of the sins of others, that is of mankind.

St. Leopoldo had a great love of Our Lady, a love that sustained him though his life of suffering, was light to his mind and warmth and comfort to his heart. Not even those who lived with him could describe accurately the extent and depth of this love. The tone of when he spoke of her, his expression when he looked at a picture or statue of her, cannot be described: one had to experience them to the ardor of his love

?Fr. Leopoldo,? someone once remarked to him, ?you have heard so much that noth?ing can surprise you now.? ?On the contrary, my son, I am con?stantly astonished by the way people put their immortal souls in jeopardy for the most frivolous and futile reasons,?

Fr. Leopoldo lived the Mass and always tried to instill into others a vivid faith in what he rightly considered to be the source of all grace and blessings. Probably every priest who came to him to confession was frequently exhorted to celebrate Mass well and to make central point of his spiritual life.

?I recommend daily Communion?, he wrote to a penitent, ?You?ll see what a marvelous effect it has.?

Jesus told the Jews that if they kept His commandments they would know the truth, and the truth would set them free. This truth is none other than the grace of the Holy Ghost, the grace promised by Christ to the Samaritan woman under the simile of the living water. Let us therefore approach God, Who is Truth and Light, and we shall be illuminated. Before the splendor of this Light, satan, who is darkness, will be put to flight, and the kingdom of Gad and the Gospel of Christ will be safe within us.

Great was the mystic joy with which Fr. Leopoldo held the Sacred Host in his hands and consumed It. But this did not last long. After Mass he folded his arms across his breast as though trying to retain the treasure of which he had partaken, but before long the Sacramental Species lost their identity and the Real Presence dissolved with them. Jesus, truly present in Body and Blood was, however, not far off: He was always still there in the tabernacle, and it was to the tabernacle that Fr. Leopoldo now turned his attention, never turning it away. Whatever he did during the day, wherever he might go, his heart remained in adoration before God. He was constantly aware of call of the tabernacle and the necessity of it in the spiritual life.

At any time when he was free of other duties, he went immediately to, the Blessed Sacrament altar and plunged into adoration. In spite of acute arthritic pains in his legs, he always knelt upright without the support of the bench, and very often on the bare floor. He remained completely immobile, like a statue, and his face, turned to the tabernacle

Even in his genuflections when passing before the altar, one could see that here was no routine gesture, no everyday acknowledgement of a belief however firmly held, but a genuine, almost spontaneous act of adoration. From his great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament stemmed a desire to ensure that, as far as he was concerned, everything to do with the tabernacle should be perfect.

Aware that in the Holy Eucharist was the inexhaustible source of all good, Fr. Leopoldo, moved .by his ardent charity, did everything in his power to persuade others to approach the Blessed Sacrament. He often included a visit to the Blessed Sacrament in the penances he gave, and was always recommending frequent Communion as a sov?ereign aid to perfection.

As Christ our Redeemer redeemed mankind through His sufferings and cross and death, so He wishes his followers to apply His merits to redeemed mankind by use of the same means of suffering, sorrow and sacrifice, united with and sanctified by His sufferings as priest and eternal victim. Every member of the faithful is called upon to cooperate with the divine plan in this manner for the benefit of mankind, for to all of them was given the command to pray one for another and to be a cause of salva?tion one to another.

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