FI News #37 – The life and charism of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. ( 04min) >>> Play

Ave Maria!

Here is the short version of our vocations video. The long one (8 min) is to come out in a week or two. Enjoy this video of our charism and life as Franciscan friars totally consecrated to the Immaculate and if you know anyone who is discerning a vocation or you think has a vocation, please forward them the link. And most of all, please pray for vocations. For more information call FI Vocations Director at: 812-825-4742 or go to marymediatrix.com.

Ave Maria!

The post Video – FiNews #37 – FI Vocations Video first appeared on AirMaria.com.

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.

The post Mary Vitamin- Profitable Day first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Mary Vitamin for July 22nd
Feast of St. Mary Magdalen

Topic: Gaining the affection of Mary by practicing courtesy

Quote:
St. Alphonsus di Liguori
Saint Gregory Nazianzen assures us that there is nothing by which we can with
greater certainty gain the affection of Mary then by charity towards our
neighbor.
St. Alphonsus di Liguori, The Glories of Mary, (Tan Books), 479.

Meditation:
The charity and courtesy of St. Mary Magdalen

Why was St. Mary Magdalene unable to recognize the risen Christ? Why did she not
recognize the Messiah after the Resurrection if she was one of the few that
recognized the Messiah when “there was no beauty”? Was the Lord testing St. Mary
Magdalene’s charity? Did He want to leave a testimony of her great love? She
treated someone to whom she thought stole the body of her Lord with great
respect. After she spoke, Jesus revealed His identity to her.

But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into
the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at
the feet where the body of Jesus had been.
And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have
taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.”
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know
it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you
looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you
carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,”
which means Teacher.
John 20:11-17

Resolution:
Today, I will work to win the affection of the Blessed Virgin Mary by speaking
with courtesy.

Marian Vow:
St. Claude de la Colombiere
We have no reason to despise anyone. A humble man sees only his own faults. It
is a sign of little virtue to notice the imperfections of others. A person may
be imperfect today who in a little while, recognizing this, may rise to great
sanctity.
Mother M. Philip, I.B.V.M., arr. & ed. The Spiritual Direction of Saint Claude
de la Colombiere,(

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.

The post St. Mary Magdalen and Courtesy first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Mary Vitamin for July 23rd

Topic: The First Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary
(In honor of the month of the Precious Blood)

Quote:
And there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him. And being in
an agony, he prayed the longer. And his sweat became as drops of blood,
trickling down upon the ground.
Luke 22:43-4

Meditation:
Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich explains that Our Lord in the garden of
Gethsemane “understood not only the consequence of every species of
concupiscence, but also its own peculiar expiatory chastisement, the
significance of all the instruments of torture connected with it; so that not
only the thought of the instrument made Him shudder, but also the sinful rage of
him that invented it, the fury and wickedness of all that had ever used it, and
the impatience of all, whether innocent or guilty, who had been tortured with
it. All these tortures and afflictions Jesus perceived in an interior
contemplation, and the sight filled Him with such horror that a bloody sweat
started from the pores of His sacred Body.”
The Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations, Volume 4, (Tan Books), 89

Does a mother suffer only when she witnesses the suffering of her child? Or does
she suffer over and over again in her heart, anticipating the suffering of her
child? Is Our Lady not aware of the avarice of Judas and the hatred of the
leaders in the Temple towards her Son? A mother in her compassion cannot help
but anticipate the pain and suffering of her child. It is not recorded in Holy
Scripture that Our Lady was present in the Garden, but her heart was always
unwaveringly united with God, and she would share in his agony on the eve of the
great manifestation of God’s passionate love for mankind. She would share, the
way a Mother shares in the suffering of her son: silently, meekly, heart
breaking, full of love, yet accepting.

Resolution:
I will meditate in the Rosary what it cost Our Lady to accept the Will of God in
the Redemption of humanity. Our Lady does not need to be present in
the Garden of Gethsemane to share in the suffering of Her Son.

Marian Vow:
The Immaculate was the universal Mediatrix of redemption, to wit, was the only
Coredemptrix who has shared in person with the Redeemer –“under Him and with
Him” (LG 56) — the work of universal redemption, cooperating actively with her
tears, mixed in the Blood of Her Crucified Son, to rescue sinful mankind, from
Adam to the last man who lives on the earth.
Marian Seraphic Pathways, Statutes #51

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.

The post In honor of the Month of the Precious Blood first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Mary Vitamin for July 28th

Topic: The Second Sorrowful Mystery – Scourging at the Pillar
In honor of the Month of the Precious Blood

Quote:
[Pilate said] “I am innocent of this man’s blood. Look to it yourselves.” And the whole people said in reply, “His blood be upon us and upon our children.” Then he released Barabbas to them, but after he had Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified. MT 27:24-26

Meditation:
Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity
“The Virgin kept all these things in her heart”: her whole history can be summed up in these few words! It was within her heart that she lived, and at such a depth, that no human eye can follow her….This Queen of virgins is also Queen of martyrs; but again it was in her heart that the sword pierced, for with her everything took place within! Oh! How beautiful she is to contemplate during her long martyrdom, so serene, enveloped in a kind of majesty that radiates both strength and gentleness… She learned from the Word Himself how those must suffer whom the Father has chosen as victims, those whom He has decided to associate with Himself in the great work of redemption, those whom He “has foreknown and predestined to be conformed to His Christ,” crucified by love.
The Complete Works, Volume I (ICS Publications) “Last Retreat” #40.

Resolution:
Today, I will embrace one pain in order to imitate Our Lady’s interior dispositions during the scourging at the Pillar. I will say Our Lady of Fatima’s prayer, “For the love of God, the conversion of sinners, and sins against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
(St. Therese says, “For one pain endured with joy, we shall love the good God more forever.”)

Marian Vow:
St. Francis
Brothers, kissing your feet, and with all the charity of which I am capable, I beg all to use daily all possible reverence and honor toward the most Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Letter To The General Chapter).

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.

The post Mary Vitamin – Scourging at the Pillar first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Mary Vitamin for July 29th

Topic: Martha and Mary
Luke 10:38-42

Quote:
St.  Francis de Sales
The two women represent our Lady.
The Sermons of St. Francis de Sales on Our Lady, (Tan Books) 62.
Tan Books

Meditation:
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
John 11:5

Archbishop Alban Goodier, S.J.:
And the name of Martha comes first. He could not blame her zeal; He could not find fault with her self-sacrificing charity. Nevertheless there was something else which, for the sake of all mankind, He must seize this occasion to defend. To work for Him was good, but to love Him was better; to serve Him was a glory, but to live with Him was a greater glory still. It was noble to be His handmaiden, but to be blessed among women was nobler. To seek the means to please Him was holy, but to seek first the  Kingdom  of  God  and His justice was to secure that all the rest would come. Martha stood for much that was best in the world, but Mary represented something more that transcended all the rest; indeed without it all the rest would be of little worth.
The Public Life of Jesus Christ (Burns, Oates & Wasbourne: London,  1930)

Resolution:
Today I will work on “service with love” in order to imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our Lady was able to live an exemplary life which combined the best aspects of the service of St. Martha and the contemplative prayer of St.  Mary.

Marian Vow:
The members of M.I.M., if they live faithfully their consecration, become, in this way, “little mediators”, as St. Maximilian says, at the unconditional service of the universal Mediatrix, ready, as “docile instruments”, to work as missionaries and with the missionary spirit in the Church and in the family, in society and in each field of labor; ready also, according to possibilities and obedience, to go themselves even to the missions “Ad gentes” (To the Nations) to save the souls of brothers who are still living “in the shadow of death” (Lk 1, 79).

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.

The post Mary Vitamin – Martha and Mary first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Mary Vitamin July 30th

Topic: Fourth Sorrowful Mystery – Carrying of the Cross
In honor of the Month of the Precious Blood

Quote:
Then therefore [Pontius Pilate] delivered him to them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him forth. And bearing his own cross, he went forth to that place which is called Calvary, but in Hebrew Golgotha.
John 19:16-17

Meditation:
Father Frederick Faber
It was a dreadful thing for a mother to walk the streets over her own son’s blood. No one cared for it. No heart was touched. None suspected the heavenly mystery, at which angels were gazing in silent stupor. Mary too must tread upon it. It was sorrow almost literally trampling its own heart under foot. She must tread on that which she was worshipping. That which colored the street-mud, which blotched the paving-stones, which clung, half wet and half dry, to the garments of the multitude, was hypostatically united to the Godhead. It merited the plenitude of divine worship. Mary was adoring it at every step.
Father Faber, The Foot of the Cross, (Tan Books), 220.

Resolution:
Today, when about my ordinary activities, I will try to remember the steps taken by Our Lady following Our Lord and Her Worship of the Precious Blood. When I walk up the stairs today, in particular I will remember the Precious Blood and I will make a Spiritual Communion.

Marian Vow:
Let the tertiaries, if possible, participate everyday in the holy sacrifice of the altar, standing at the foot of the cross of Calvary, in union with the Immaculate Coredemptrix, to offer themselves as victims united with the Divine Victim, Jesus Crucified, receiving in their own hearts Holy Communion (or at least spiritual Communion, if it is not possible to receive the Sacrament). Nourished with the Eucharistic Jesus, united to the Immaculate Mediatrix, let the tertiaries each day live faithfully the daily obligations of their state.
Marian Seraphic Pathways, Constitutions #25

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.

The post Mary Vitamin – Carrying of the Cross first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Mary Vitamin for August 5th

Topic: The Woman of the Bible and Our Mother

Quote:

Father Stefano Manelli, FI, All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed, (Academy of the Immaculate: 1989), 356.

Meditation:

Fr. Stefano Manelli, FI

On this subject, a passage interesting and rich in insight, accurate as it is delicate, has been written by I. de La Potterie:

A very important insight of modern exegesis has brought to light how the mystery of Mary in some way forms a synthesis of all of the preceding revelation about the people of God, about all that which God, through his salvific action, wishes to realize for his people. In Mary are accomplished all of the important aspects of the promises of the Old Testament to the Daughter of Sion, and in her concrete person is anticipated that which will be realized for the new people of God, which is the Church. Now, the history of revelation regarding the theme of the Woman Sion concretized in the person of Mary, and extended to the Church, constitutes a doctrinal bastion, an unshakeable, well-structured ensemble for understanding the history of salvation, from its origins to the last times.

Father Stefano Manelli, FI, All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed, (Academy of the Immaculate: 1989), 361.

Resolution:

The simple devotion to the Mother of God opens the mysteries of the Old Testament, is a symbol of the church, encourages appreciation of the True God/True Man reality of the Messiah, sheds light on the profound mystery of the Blessed Trinity and finally provides one with a greater and more profound desire to worship the Blessed Sacrament, the Son of God who is also the Son of Mary.

I will try to cultivate a deeper love for my Heavenly Mother, the Queen of Heaven. The more childlike I become in her presence the more the mysteries of heaven and God will be revealed.

Today I will call upon the Queen of Heaven with the word "mother" and realize so much is contained in this one simple word.

Marian Vow:

St. Maximilian Kolbe

She is queen also of earth because she is the Mother of God himself, but she both desires and has a right to be freely acknowledged by every heart, be loved as the Queen of every heart, so that through her that heart might become immaculate, similar to her heart and more worthy of union with God, with the love of God, with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Will to Love, (Marytown Press: 1998), 138.

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.

The post Mary Vitamin – The Woman of the Bible and Our Mother first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Mary Vitamin for August 23rd

Topic: Our Lady’s Joy in the Resurrection of Her Son

(The sixth mystery in the Franciscan Crown — Feast August 26)

Quote:

St. Teresa of Avila

One day after receiving Communion, it seemed most clear to me that Our Lord sat beside me; He told me that immediately after His resurrection He went to see our Lady because she then had great need and that the pain she experienced so absorbed and transpierced her soul that she did not return immediately to herself to rejoice in that joy. By this I understood how different was this other transpiercing, the one of my soul. But what must have been that transpiercing of the blessed Virgin’s soul! He also said that He had remained a long time with her because it was necessary in order to console her.

St. Teresa of Avila, Spiritual Testimonies, (ICS Publications: 1985), 390-91.

Quote used in Mary Vitamin #153

Meditation:

Imagine after days of painfully placing herself in God’s presence in prayer, with the agony of the Cross fresh before her mind’s eye, what a joy it was for our Lady to see the Lord in glory, alive and well and to speak with Him with no effort on her part.

I Peter 1:6-9

There is cause for rejoicing here. You may for a time have to suffer the distress of many trials; but this is so that your faith, which is more precious than the passing splendor of fire-tried gold, may by its genuineness lead t0 praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ appears.

When Our Lord appeared to Our Lady and “remained a long time with her because it was necessary to console her” did Our Lady ask about her holy spouse and parents? Did she receive “news” from the Lord about the happiness experienced by her beloved family members? Was this a part of Our Lady’s joy in the Resurrection? She saw her Son’s victory over death and the consequences for those she loved.

Resolution:

Today before beginning my usual prayers, I will call to mind the visit of Our Lord to Our Lady after the Resurrection. I will try to enter prayer with the joy of Our Lady and remember that it took her a long time with the Lord before she experienced the joy of the Resurrection.

Marian Vow:

Father Gabriel Allegra, O.F.M.

Precisely here is the essence of consecration: always to look carefully at the Immaculate Mother. Her mere look will indicate her wishes, will help one to put them into practice. And thus we will generously and easily do the will of the Father.

Mary’s Immaculate Heart, A Way to God, (Franciscan Herald Press: 1985), 76.

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.

The post Mary Vitamin – Sixth Joy of Our Lady first appeared on AirMaria.com.