Mary - Pentecost

Pentecost mosaic. It represents one of the art works of Marko Ivan Rupnik, Slovenian Jesuit, artist, theologian and presbyter. It is handmade in Italy.

Mary - Fr. Marco Rupnik, SJ

The Virgin stands at the left pondering these things in her heart. In her hands are two balls of yarn, a homely image that suggests the ordinary life of the Lord’s Handmaiden while suggesting the poetic image that she will knit together in her womb the long-awaited Messiah. 

Mary - Mother of the Savior

God the Father gave his only Son to the world only through Mary.

Whatever desires the patriarchs may have cherished, whatever entreaties the prophets and saints of the Old Law may have had for 4,000 years to obtain that treasure, it was Mary alone who merited it and found grace before God by the power of her prayers and the perfection of her virtues.

"The world being unworthy," said Saint Augustine, "to receive the Son of God directly from the hands of the Father, He gave His Son to Mary for the world to receive Him from her."

The Son of God became man for our salvation but only in Mary and through Mary.

God the Holy Spirit formed Jesus Christ in Mary but only after having asked her consent through one of the chief ministers of His court.

St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin

Mary - at Pentecost

Pentecost: John Nava

Trinity Sunday

"It is the mystery of the Trinity, which gives the answer to the quest for our happiness and the meaning of Heaven. Heaven is not a place where there is the mere vocal repetition of alleluias or the monotonous fingering of harps. Heaven is a place where we find the fullness of all the fine things we enjoy on this earth. Heaven is a place where we find, in their plenitude, those things which slake the thirst of hearts, satisfy the hunger of starving minds, and give rest to unrequited love. Heaven is the communion with perfect Life, perfect Truth, and perfect Love, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, to whom be all honor and glory forever and ever. Amen."

Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Mary - Hagia Sofia

Mosaic of Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary in church of Hagia Sofia, Istanbul

Mary - Madonna della Strada

Rome - fresco Madonna della Strada - Our Lady of the Road from 15th century by unknown artist in church Chiesa del Jesu.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe is a Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a venerated image enshrined within the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. The basilica is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage site in the world, and the world's third most-visited sacred site.

 

Mary, Mother of the Church

Prayer to Mary at the conclusion of the Encyclical Lumen Fidei (29 June 2013)

Image of Mary – Our Lady of the Column in St Peter’s Basilica

Mary - Our Lady of Good Counsel

Mary - Our Lady of Good Counsel - Mineola, NY

Mary - Everyday Mary

Mary - Our Lady of Good Counsel

Our Lady of Good Counsel - Our Lady's Court - Chaminade High School - Mineola, NY

Mary - Seat of Wisdom

Virgin & Child - Louvre - 1677 

Mary - Virgin and Child

The Virgin with Child, signed by Louis Raymond Brunel (1818-1882)

Mary - Hagia Sophia

Virgin (Theotokos) and Child Enthroned, Apse Mosaic, Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

Mary - Notre Dame

Paris - Notre-Dame -Virgin Carrying Child

Mary - Morgan Madonna

Virgin and Child (Morgan Madonna) Unknown Artist 2nd half of the 12th century Auvergne FRANCE

Mary - Madonna of the 2nd century

This image of Mary is located in the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome. This catacomb was a quarry in Roman times and was used for Christian burials from the late 2nd century through the 4th century.

 Mary appears to be nursing the infant Jesus on her lap. It is dated to around A.D. 150.

Mary - Cover of Copy of the Gospels – 8th-9th century

This is the ivory cover of a copy of the Gospels created in Germany in the late 8th and early 9th century.

Mary - Agiosoritissa (Mother of God) – 7th century

Originally from Constantinople, this 7th century icon is currently kept at the Santa Maria del Rosario a Monte Mario in Rome.

Mary - A Nativity Icon – 7th century

via pravmir.com

This is another Marian icon found at the monastery at Mt. Sinai, and it is dated to the 7th century.

Mary = Madonna and Child Enthroned Among the Angels and Saints – 6th century

This Marian image can be found at St. Catherine’s Monastery near Mt. Sinai and is dated to the 6th century. Around Mary and Jesus are St. Theodor of Amasea, St. George, and two angels. Notice also the hand at the top of the image (God the Father?).

Mary - Protectress of the Roman People – 5th century

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

The oldest and most important image of Our Lady in Rome, legend has it that it was one of the many icons painted by St. Luke, though historians date its original composition to the 5th century.

Mary - Madonna and Child With the Magi Bringing Him Gifts – 3rd century

Giovanni Dall’Orto / Wikimedia Commons

This is a picture of a cast of a sarcophagus that is in the Vatican museums. It shows the scene of the magi adoring the Christ child, who is held by his mother Mary. It is dated to the 3rd century.

Marianist Monday

May, 2018

My dear graduates of Chaminade, Kellenberg Memorial, and St. Martin de Porres Marianist School,

The Holy Spirit shatters all our illusions of a domesticated faith!

I like my faith domesticated. Don’t you? If I follow the Commandments and practice the Beatitudes, if I adhere to the teachings of Jesus and the precepts of the Church, if I pray at set intervals throughout the day and attend Sunday Mass, then I’m doing everything I should. Right? If I live an orderly, upright life – and if I don’t rock the boat – then I have the kind of faith that might not make me a saint but that will surely get me into Heaven. What more do I really need?

“Everything,” I suspect the Holy Spirit might answer. For the Holy Spirit seeks not just to tidy up our lives, but to transform them. He’s less interested, I suspect, in taming our desires than in setting them free; letting them loose; turning them upside down so that we would desire God with our whole mind, our whole heart, and our whole soul. He wants us to live passionately for God, as if we were on fire.

Remember that video we showed you in high school every year, just before the feast of Pentecost? The twelve apostles are all gathered in a dark, shuttered room, when suddenly they hear what sounds like a powerful wind form Heaven, filling the entire house. Then, tongues of flame descend upon each of the twelve, and they join hands; dance in a large circle; and chant, “Hallel, Hallel,” “Halleluiah.” The video might have been a little corny, but it was certainly memorable, and it certainly got the point across: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

Dancing and chanting, “Hallel, Hallel.” Now that’sthe work of the Spirit! What if our singing at Mass were that spirited!

Remember the years that Blessed Chaminade spent exiled from France in Saragossa, Spain, praying before the statue of Our Lady of the Pillar. It was there that Blessed Chaminade was inspired to found the Society of Mary. Years later, he told a gathering of new Marianists, “I saw you then as I see you now.” Now that’s the work of the Spirit! Whenever we allow God to change the course of our lives, whenever He emboldens us to embrace some enormous new undertaking, that’s the work of the Spirit.

All in. Totally committed! Willing to take on something big, bold, and dynamic for the sake of the Lord. That’sthe work of the Spirit.

“Totus Tuus” was Saint John Paul II’s apostolic motto. “Totally yours.” Now that’sthe work of the Spirit! Nothing half-hearted. Nothing tamed or domesticated. Totally yours!

In our own time, Pope Francis has repeatedly challenged the Church to listen to the promptings of the Sprit, so that we don’t end up like a neat and tidy “museum,” but instead resemble a “field hospital,” ready to care for those who have strayed from the Church; those who have lost any sense of meaning or direction in their lives; and those who, like all of us, have sinned. In language that is hardly tame or tidy, Pope Francis has told young Catholics, “I want to tell you something. . . . I want a mess. . . . I want to see the Church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools, or structures.”

Could we put up with “a mess” in our lives if it meant helping someone who is in need? Could we move beyond our comfort zones in order to make ourselves “totally Yours,” totally Christ’s? Do our lives look more like a museum – filled with things to admire and preserve – or more like a field hospital – ready to get a little dirty and endure perhaps no small degree of stress in order to help someone desperately in need?

Look, most of us like what is routine and predictable, neat and tidy, sensible and safe. I know I do! But maybe, just maybe, the Holy Spirit is calling us to set out in a different direction, on a different course of action. In this month when we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost and when many of us will attend the Confirmation of a friend or family member, we might ask ourselves where the Spirit is leading us.

“The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

To consider these and other questions, the Province of Meribah is sponsoring, “Slain by the Spirit,” a College-Age Alumni Men’s Evening of Recollection. We will hold this Evening of Recollection on Pentecost Sunday, Sunday, May 20, at the Saragossa Retreat Center, 267 Marcellus Road, Mineola. The Evening of Recollection will run from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and will include the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for that day. This is the same day as the Open House for the new Dolan Family Science, Technology, and Research Center, so you can tour the new facility and then make your way over to Saragossa to discover what the Holy Spirit is doing in your life.

To register for “Slain by the Spirit,” follow the link below. We hope to see many of you there, open to the Spirit of God, which blows where it will!

www.provinceofmeribah.com/register

On behalf of all my Marianist Brothers,

Bro. Stephen           

Mary - Madonna and Child Icon – 9th century

This icon is currently kept in the Art Museum of Georgia (the country), and is dated to the 9th century.

Mary - Our Lady of Victory

In 1571, Pope St. Pius V organized a coalition of forces from Spain and smaller Christian kingdoms, republics and military orders, to rescue Christian outposts in Cyprus, particularly the Venetian outpost at Famagusta which, however, surrendered after a long siege on August 1 before the Christian forces set sail. 

On October 7, 1571, the Holy League, a coalition of southern European Catholic maritime states, sailed from Messina, Sicily, and met a powerful Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Lepanto. Knowing that the Christian forces were at a distinct materiel disadvantage, the holy pontiff, Pope Pius V, called for all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory, and led a rosary procession in Rome.

After about five hours of fighting on the northern edge of the Gulf of Corinth, off western Greece, the combined navies of the Papal States, Venice and Spain managed to stop the Ottoman navy, slowing the Ottoman advance to the west and denying them access to the Atlantic Ocean and the Americas.

If the Ottomans had won then there was a real possibility that an invasion of Italy could have followed so that the Ottoman sultan, already claiming to be emperor of the Romans, would have been in possession of both New and Old Rome. Combined with the unfolding events in Morocco where the Sa’adids successfully spurned the Ottoman advances, it confined Turkish naval power to the eastern Mediterranean.

Although the Ottoman Empire was able to build more ships, it never fully recovered from the loss of trained sailors and marines, and was never again the Mediterranean naval power it had become the century before when Constantinople fell.

Mary - Our Lady of Mercy

Our Lady of Mercy is a subject in Christian Art, showing a group of people sheltering for protection under the outspread cloak, or pallium of the Virgin Mary. It was especially popular in Italy from the 13th to 16th centuries, often as a specialised form of a votive portrait, and is also found in other countries .

Mary - Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary in her role as patroness of the Carmelite Order. The first Carmelites were Christian hermits living on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land during the late 12th and early to mid-13th century. They built in the midst of their hermitages a chapel which they dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, whom they conceived of in chivalric terms as the "Lady of the place." 

Since the 15th century, popular devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel has centered on the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, also known as the Brown Scapular, a sacramental associated with promises of Mary's special aid for the salvation of the devoted wearer. Traditionally, Mary is said to have given the Scapular to an early Carmelite named Saint Simon Stock. The liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is celebrated on 16 July

Mary - Our Lady of Fatima

Our Lady of Fátima, is a Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary based on the famed Marian apparitions reported in 1917 by three shepherd children at the Cova da Iria, in Fátima, Portugal. The three children were Lúcia Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto.

Mary - Our Lady of Lourdes

Our Lady of Lourdes is a Roman Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary venerated in honor of the Marian apparitions that reportedly occurred in 1858 in the vicinity of Lourdes in France. The first of these is the apparition of February 11, 1858, when 14-year old Bernadette Soubirous told her mother that a "lady" spoke to her in the cave of Massabielle while she was gathering firewood with her sister and a friend. Similar apparitions of the alleged "Lady" were reported on seventeen occasions that year, until the climax revelation of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception took place.

Mary - Our Lady of Good Counsel

Our Lady of Good Counsel is a title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary, after a painting said to be miraculous, now found in the thirteenth century Augustinian church at Genazzano, near Rome, Italy. Measuring 40 by 45 centimeters the image is a fresco executed on a thin layer of plaster no thicker than an egg shell. Over the centuries, devotions to Our Lady of the Good Counsel grew among saints and Popes, to the extent that a reference to it was added to the Litany of Loreto and the devotion spread throughout the world. Her feast day is April 26.