Mary

The Joyful Invitation of Our Lady’s Birth

September 8, 2022November 18, 2022 Articles, Mary

When celebrating the saints, the Church most often commemorates them with one feast day. Naturally, for the Blessed Mother, we celebrate many more. We recall her Immaculate Conception on December 8th, her Assumption into Heaven in August, and today, Mary’s birthday. Today, the Church invites us to renewed joy and anticipation in Mary’s birth, as […]

The Resilience of Our Lady of Częstochowa

August 26, 2022November 18, 2022 Articles, Mary

In August 1384, Władysław Opolczyk, an advisor to the King of Poland and Hungary, passed by the town of Częstochowa with a Hodegetria Marian icon in his possession. His horses suddenly stopped, refusing to go any further, and it took a night and a divinely inspired dream for Opolczyk to figure out that the icon […]

Queenship and the New Eve

August 22, 2022November 18, 2022 Articles, Mary

“Crowned in glory – as she appears in the last Glorious Mystery – Mary shines forth as Queen of the Angels and Saints, the anticipation and the supreme realization of the eschatological state of the Church.” Pope Saint John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae Hymns, ancient prayers, and historic liturgical documents have revered Mary as […]

Am I Not Your Mother?

August 18, 2022August 17, 2022 Articles, Mary

In 1531, in a small village near Mexico City lived a peasant man, Juan Diego. He was a simple farmer and laborer with no education. His wife had died two years earlier and he lived with his elderly uncle. He was on his way to Mass in the early morning on December 9 when Our […]

What does the Assumption of Mary teach us?

August 15, 2022November 18, 2022 Articles, Mary

The Assumption of Mary is the fourth and most recently declared Marian dogma – Church teachings about Mary that are considered essential for all practicing Catholics to believe. Proclaimed in 1950, this feast and dogma has been celebrated within early Christian circles as early as the fifth century – but some of the traditional stories […]

Snow… in August?

August 5, 2022December 16, 2022 Articles, Mary

The site of today’s Marian celebration is a must-visit for any world-traveling Catholics. Santa Maria Maggiore (St. Mary Major) is not only a papal basilica (alongside its neighbor, St. John Lateran, and St. Peter in Vatican City), it’s the largest church dedicated to Mary in Rome. It attracts millions of visitors annually with its spectacular […]

Models to Mary: The Feast of Saints Joachim and Anne

July 26, 2022July 25, 2022 Articles, Mary

This summer, you may be using some of your vacation to visit relatives—your parents, perhaps, or your grandparents, if they’re still living. July 26th is the Feast of Saints Joachim and Anne — the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the grandparents of Jesus. And they weren’t too far away for the Holy […]

Mountainous Sanctity and Our Lady

July 16, 2022November 18, 2022 Articles, Mary

Promises and striving to keep them are essential parts of our lives. When we love something – even when we simply want something – it’s engrained in us to set goals, make sacrifices, persevere, and (ideally) obtain our sought-after reward. If we’re very dedicated, we grow in the process as well. On today’s feast of […]

Waiting for Peace with Ave Regina Pacis

July 12, 2022December 16, 2022 Articles, Mary, News and Culture

Amid World War I, Pope Benedict XV called upon Our Lady, Queen of Peace as a place for all to rest in times of unrest. The devotion welled up from the everyday people and communities, was perfectly timed for the conflict of the 1910s, and is one invocation we regularly return to, even today. Most […]

The Iconic Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

June 27, 2022December 16, 2022 Articles, Mary

The origins of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (or Our Lady of Perpetual Succor) are about as varied as the countries in which she is venerated. Some believe that the walnut-wood icon was written sometime between 1325 and 1480 in Crete; others believe Saint Lazarus the Iconographer wrote it sometime in the ninth century; still […]

A Mother’s Perfect Love: the Immaculate Heart of Mary

June 25, 2022November 18, 2022 Articles, Mary

The Immaculate Heart of Mary, celebrated the day after the feast of the Sacred Heart, has been the subject of prayerful study and fervent veneration since the early years of Christianity. Its popularity surges where it’s clear she interceded in human history, events such as the appearance of the Miraculous Medal in 1832; the apparitions […]

The Visitation, a Feast of Service

May 31, 2022May 31, 2022 Articles, Mary

“During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.” (Luke 1:39-40) When I was in college, I regularly participated in Alternative Breaks – spring trips that brought me to new communities and made me a […]

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