As we’ve seen in the past few issues, three major figures in Catholic history represent a Mariology that draws the faithful through Mary to Jesus: Saint Louis de Montfort, Blessed James Alberione, and Saint Pope John Paul II. These three figures are the influences on Guiseppe Forlai’s new book, Mary Mother of Apostles, and we looked at both de Montfort and Alberione in previous articles: Mary as Mother and Teacher Today How to Live Marian Devotion to Proclaim ChristPope John Paul II ...

You are busy. Life happens. You can barely keep up. You know that you could be thinking about more important things, but you don't have the time to stop and consider what they would be, much less do them.And then something happens. You are stopped in your tracks. A spouse leaves. A friend dies. A job is lost. Opportunities pass you by. A child makes decisions that break your heart. As you absorb the pain of what is happening, the important things begin to surface. What was hidden, suddenly s...

Did you grow up saying prayers to Our Lady at bedtime? Is there a special image or icon of the Mother of God that is dear to you? And did you then become an adult with a special devotion to Mary?If this sounds like you, then you’ve probably spent the last couple of years wondering how to renew our understanding of Our Lady’s role in the Church today in giving Jesus to the world, especially in the light of the New Evangelization. It’s normal to be perplexed: the 21st century so ...

"To consecrate oneself to Mary is not a passing fashion, a spiritual hobby, but a ready response to the gift of the dying Jesus: “Here is your mother” (Jn 19:27). We don’t need to distrust the gifts of God, for he knows what we need before we even ask him (see Mt 6:8). Perhaps no one has seen this act of Jesus in a theological and symbolic framework as well as Saint Louis de Montfort. For this great French apostle, baptized persons must cast themselves like raw clay into t...

Getting older, we discover, is not for the faint of heart.It’s not just our physical bodies that are betraying us with aches and pains; it’s the whole process of changing expectations for the future and looking back to a past we cannot change. Neither of these activities is pleasant or easy.And we don’t have much choice in the matter. As we move from our forties into our fifties and beyond, the nights we spend staring at the ceiling in the dark become more frequent, and often m...

We all bless ourselves “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” And most of us are pretty clear about God and Jesus. But what about the Holy Spirit?The Holy Spirit can often feel like the “hidden” part of the Trinity. So let’s enter into an understanding of it in the same way that we enter the life of the Church: through a consideration of baptism.The Catholic sacrament of Baptism brings a person—usually a child or even a baby&mdash...

Welcome to the month of May, Our Lady’s special month! It’s a month of hope, of starting new gardens—and maybe even new habits. We all seem to do the same things, over and over again, even in our prayer lives; why not, this month, adopt a special devotion to Mary under one of her many titles? This could become an annual tradition for you and your family: learn about a new Marian devotion each May. May is a wonderful time to reconnect with your rosary beads. Yes, the ones t...

It’s our standard blessing: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” And most of us have a pretty good grasp of God the Father and of Jesus Christ. But the Holy Spirit? That’s a lot trickier.We think about the Holy Spirit more in the springtime, as the liturgical year moves toward Pentecost and many parishes offer the sacrament of Confirmation. But there are some very good reasons to care about getting to know the Holy Spirit all year long!&nbs...

Imagine if God granted you visions… and then nobody believed that you had them!That was what happened to a French nun in the 1600s. Margaret Mary (Marguerite-Marie) Alacoque had promised herself to Jesus when she was a child, but she set aside this promise as a young woman in order to participate in social life. Jesus appeared to her again one night as she returned late from Carnival, reproaching her for forgetting him, and so she entered the local Visitation convent.She had a series...

“Lord, your poor little girl, your poor image is here before you, yearning for you with all the strength of her being.”The woman writing these words in 1945 was named Gabrielle Bossis. She wasn’t, in fact, a little girl: she was 71 years old. But that image, the image of a child coming—in trust and love—to listen to the words that would eventually become the spiritual classic He and I, is indicative of the heart and soul of this mystic who discerned and followed the...