Ave Maria!

This week the friars were invited to Immaculate Conception Parish in Westerly R.I., for their annual procession of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. About 500 people joined in on the march, one of the best attendances in the 79 year history of this great event.

Friar Roderic caught up with Ray Trebisacci for an interview and we are able to post the resulting video on the actual feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. Come watch the great devotion of Rhode Island’s Catholics.

Ave Maria!

The post Video – Roving Reporter #4: Our Lady of Mt Carmel Procession: Westerly R.I. first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Fi News #68 – Bushfire at Perth Friary ! ( 05min) >>> Play

In the afternoon of March 1st, 2010 a bushfire started near the friary in Perth, Australia and grew quickly. It jumped the main road and approached our backyard. We decided to evacuate the friary. We took the Blessed Sacrament, a few liturgical items of worth, a few personal items (passports, etc.) and the computers and loaded up the cars. We turned on the lawn sprinklers on the side facing the fire, closed all windows and doors, placed a statue of Our Lady to watch over the fire and drove down the road to a safe distance to wait it out. Roads were blocked by the police. After noticing that the smoke in the immediate area of the friary had died down and after the police told us the friary was ok, we went to a benefactor’s house for something to eat and drink only to be allowed back onto the property around 10:00pm. Damage was limited to a few sheds in the area, no homes or loss of life but about 47 hectares (115 acres) burned.

The post Video – Fi News #68: Bushfire at Perth Friary ! first appeared on AirMaria.com.

BREEZY POINT, N.Y. — Some came by foot, walking miles in mud-soaked jeans and galoshes from cold shelters and barely inhabitable homes. Others carpooled from far-flung cities and boroughs where they had sought refuge. They came bearing small crosses, candles, hymn books and American flags, and squeezed into pews in one of the few familiar spaces left intact after Hurricane Sandy tore through Breezy Point, a tight-knit oceanside community and one of the city’s most devastated neighborhoods.

via Breezy Point Catholics Meet For Mass After Hurricane Sandy, Taking ‘Strength In Faith’.

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Fi News #138 – Unveiling and blessing of the statue. ( 02min) >>> Play

Ave Maria!

On December 12th, 2012, His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke blessed a newly unveiled statue of Blessed John Dun Scotus in front of the Friary Chapel at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, WI.

Following the ceremony His Eminence gave an account of the Blessed’s life and the great theological contribution he made to the Church, especially in regards to the declaration of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To read the full text of the Cardinal’s talk please click here for the pdf.

Ave Maria!

Audio (MP3)

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Divers from different groups say a prayer and offer flowers at an image of the Virgin Mary 80 feet underwater in Bien Unido, Bohol. The dive was in line with the birthday celebration of the Holy Mother yesterday. FERDINAND EDRALIN

BIEN UNIDO, Bohol, Philippines — Devotees of the Virgin Mary here, as well as divers, commemorated her birthday yesterday with a solemn prayer at an area in Danajon Bank where her 14-foot statue lies about 80 feet underwater.

There was a brief fluvial parade attended by Bien Unido residents, mostly coming from the neighboring small islands. Flowers were offered to the Virgin Mary while the “Happy Birthday” was sung. The divers, meanwhile, went underwater to clean the Virgin Mary’s statue from algae.

This was the second time the town held a similar event. During last year’s celebration, divers from all over the country participated in the underwater pilgrimage.

via Marian devotees visit underwater statue | Cebu News, The Freeman Sections, The Freeman | philstar.com.

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Homily #131126 ( 09min) Play – Father explains from the book of Daniel the golden statue, and how, like St. Leonard of Port Maurice, Franciscan and patron of parish missions who preached and displayed by his example, that we bear the image of Christ in our bodies and souls.
Ave Maria!
Mass: St. Leonard of Port Maurice – Mem – Form: OF
Readings: Tuesday 34th Week of Ordinary Time
1st: dan 2:31-45
Resp: dan 3:57, 58, 59, 60, 61
Gsp: luk 21:5-11

Audio (MP3)

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Fi News #155 – ( 02min) >>> Play

Ave Maria!

Friars and friends watch as the six-foot solid marble statue of the Virgin Mary is finally lifted, as if in another Assumption, forty-five feet in the air to Her final resting place atop the highest point of the Griswold bell tower.

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Ave Maria!  An Italian exorcist has spoken up, linking recent worldwide attacks on the Virgin Mary to the devil’s particular hatred for her.  See also these two articles if you wish; they discuss additional recent attacks.

Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 8, 2018 / 03:25 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Italian priest Sante Babolin said that Satan is behind attacks in various parts of the world against the Virgin Mary, noting that she is a powerful advocate for him during exorcisms.

“In my experience – so far I have performed 2,300 rites of exorcism – I can say that the invocation of the Most Holy Virgin Mary often provokes significant reactions in the person being exorcized,” he told Mexican weekly Desde la Fe.

Fr. Babolin, who also taught at the Gregorian University in Rome, said that “in face of the failure of the onslaught by non-believers, now, in order to offend and confound the Catholic people, the Virgin Mary, whom the devil hates, is being attacked.”

Desde la Fe noted the 2017 events of the Spanish drag queen Borja Casillas, who masqueraded as the Virgin Mary and mocked her in a performance, as well as a woman who dressed up as the Virgin Mary and simulated an abortion during a protest in Argentina.

The Italian exorcist said that “as proof of this hatred” of the devil toward the Mother of God, “while I was insistently invoking the Most Holy Virgin Mary, the devil answered me: ‘I can’t stand That One (Mary) any more and neither can I stand you any more.’”

Source: Why the devil hates Mary – especially during exorcisms

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Ave Maria!  This beautiful story from the New York Times explains how the traditionally acclaimed miraculous statue of Our Mother of Monserrate is serving as a beacon of hope for the people of Ecuador following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake.

The earth shook and the steeple fell, taking most of the bell tower with it. A white facade gave way, leaving the pews open to the street.

But amid the wreckage at the basilica, one object remained untouched: Our Mother of Monserrate, the statue of the Virgin Mary for which the church was named.

Dressed in gold robes and wearing a tiny crown, she is only about three feet tall. But the statue, which landed on these shores from Spain in the 16th century, has long played an outsize role in the history of Montecristi.

She survived bombardment by pirates and became a rallying point for Catholics when a secular government expelled priests generations later. Every November, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims trek from across Ecuador for nine days of festivities in her honor.

Now, after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake upended the nation last weekend, the survival of Our Mother of Monserrate has become a symbol of the persistence of this hillside town.

Source: Virgin Mary Statue, Intact Among Ecuador’s Quake Ruins, Becomes a Beacon of Hope – The New York Times

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