Mary Mother of God

The Catholic Church celebrates today the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary on its traditional fixed date of September 8, nine months after the December 8 celebration of her Immaculate Conception as the child of Saints Joachim and Anne. The circumstances of the Virgin Mary's infancy and early life are not directly recorded in the Bible, but other documents and traditions describing the circumstances of her birth are cited by some of the earliest Christian writers from the first centuries of the Church. These accounts, although not considered authoritative in the same manner as the Bible, outline some of the Church's traditional beliefs about the birth of Mary. The “Protoevangelium of James,” which was probably put into its final written form in the early second century, describes Mary's father Joachim as a wealthy member of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Joachim was deeply grieved, along with his wife Anne, by their childlessness. “He called to mind Abraham,” the early C...

THE LITANY OF OUR LADY OF HOPE. Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy, Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy. Our Lady of hope, pray for us. Our Lady of the way, pray for us. Our Lady of light, pray for us. Fullness of Israel, pray for us. Prophecy of the new age, pray for us. Dawn of the new world, pray for us. Mother of God, pray for us. Mother of the liberating Messiah, pray for us. Mother of the redeemed, pray for us. Mother of all people, Pray for us. Our Lady of hope,  light up our way.  Virgin of silence, pray for us. Virgin who listens, pray for us. Virgin who sings, pray for us. Servant of the Lord, pray for us. Servant of the Word, pray for us. Servant of the redemption, pray for us. Servant of the kingdom, pray for us. Our Lady of hope,  light up our way.  Disciple of Christ, pray for us. Witness of the gospel, pray for us. Sister of humanity, pray for us. Beginning of the Church, pray for us. Mother of the Church, pray fo...

Mary is truly our Mother of tender compassion, our "Mother of Mercy." If we look at the life and writings of St. Maria Faustina, we can find at least four ways in which Mary can be truly called the merciful Mother of Christians, and of every soul searching for God. I. First of all, Mary is Mother of Mercy because, through her Immaculate Conception, God fashioned her to be the created masterpiece of his mercy in the world. After all, what is Divine Mercy? It is God's undeserved, unmerited, often even unsought for divine grace — the grace that our compassionate God pours out upon us to help us overcome our miseries and meet our true needs. Theologians call one form of that mercy God's "prevenient" grace, from the Latin  prae-venire , which means "to come before." In other words, even before we ask for it, and quite apart from the fact that we do not deserve it, and have not earned it in the least, God graciously takes the initiative and comes to our ...