God searches for every soul like the Lover searches for his Beloved in the Garden. The soul of the believer is the beautiful daughter, lovely like Jerusalem. As God walked in paradise with Adam, so he now dwells in the believer through grace. Before I entered the Order, I had the privilege of spending an [...]
The Feast of the Annunciation is placed in the midst of Lent as an oasis in the desert. Just as the Lord did not leave the Israelites without food and drink for their forty years in the exodus from Egypt, he does not leave us empty-handed in our fast. Along the way, we are blessed [...]
Today Christians of all stripes are responding in defense of the embattled family, but our eventual success will be enabled by the image of the Madonna, the Mother of God, especially as the "Stabat Mater," the Mother standing beneath the cross of her bruised and broken Son, suffering more than any other human creature has [...]
Today, I recognize every American celebrating December 8 as a Holy Day honoring the faith, humility, and love of Mary, mother of Jesus and one of the greatest figures in the Bible. On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Catholics celebrate what they believe to be Mary’s freedom from original sin as the mother of [...]
Before dawn on a crisp November morning several years ago, I woke up, quickly got dressed, and headed outside. My Dad and I drove a short distance to a nearby field and got out of the car. He told me to walk slowly and quietly through the marsh until we arrived at our destination. We [...]
The shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham attracts 250,000 pilgrims every year. Truly it can be said, in the heavenly light of the shrine’s resurrection, that the Queen has returned. One of the most exciting fruits of the spirit of Walsingham is the new and dynamic Community of Our Lady of Walsingham. Bitter, bitter oh [...]
Our Blessed Mother wants nothing more for us than to have a true relationship with her Son. In the current storm of misinformation, our Lady acts as a shield to protect the orthodoxy of our faith that keeps our eyes and hearts fixed on Christ. After a previous attempt, I wish to promote another title for [...]
[Jesus] went down with [Joseph and Mary] and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. (Luke 2:51) If you ever find yourself walking around the side chapels in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, you may come across various depictions of the four Gospel writers. And [...]
Medieval man gave blue to Our Lady as her color. She rescued it from its barbarian captivity and elevated it for all the world to see. Devotion to her gave rise to a rich civilization full of the vitality and color the ancient pagans lacked. Most people imagine that antiquity was much like our own [...]
The reason for Walsingham’s importance is its association with the Marian apparitions to a pious English noblewoman in 1061. By the middle of the fourteenth century, people considered England to be “Our Lady’s dowry” and that she was, in some special sense, the protectress of the English people. Few people in today’s godless England have [...]
Edvard Grieg composed his "Ave Maris Stella" ("Hail Star of the Sea"), for mixed choir, in 1898. Its lyrics, in Latin and English, are below the embedded video. Ave, maris stella, Dei mater alma, atque semper virgo, felix cœli porta. Sumens illud "Ave" Gabrielis ore, funda nos in pace, mutans Evæ nomen Solve vincla reis, [...]
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is one of the Marian dogmas and mysteries of the rosary that is a mystery in more than a devotional sense. Non-Catholic Christians will declare that it was only invented by the Catholic Church in the twentieth century. To be sure, the dogma was defined by Pope Pius [...]
Scored for a cappella choir, John Tavener's "Hymn for the Dormition of the Mother of God" was composed in 1985 as the second part of a pair of Marian devotions. Its text is taken from the Feast of the Dormition (or slumber) of the Mother of God, celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox Church on August [...]
The right music can have a calming effect on babies. Thus, some have claimed that serene passages of classical music should be played to babies as part of their formation. However, it is not Mozart who affects infants the most. The soothing tone of a loving mother is much more effective. A recent study by [...]