A Prayer to Mary

"Note that Mary is not only the Mother of Jesus, Head of all the elect, but is also Mother of all his members. Hence she conceives them, bears them in her womb and brings them forth to the glory of heaven through the graces of God which she imparts to them. This is the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, and among them St. Augustine, who says that the elect are in the womb of Mary until she brings them forth into the glory of heaven." -- from EXCERPTS FROM THE LOVE OF ETERNAL WISDOM by Saint Louis De Montfort

There have been more than 40 million abortions in the United States since 1973. "Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion." - Mother TeresaLet us join in prayer with Father Mark at Vultus Christi ...

HEART OF JESUS, formed by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, have mercy on this nation soaked in the blood of the innocent.

May that vast army of infants slaughtered mercilessly in their mothers' wombs raise their voices and plead before Thy throne in glory for an end to the crime of abortion that has so rightly merited Thy Father's wrath and caused our nation to become an abomination in His sight.

Do what Thou must, O merciful Heart of Jesus, to reveal to all the horror of this sin and to bring us to repentance.

Immaculate Virgin Mary, thou who didst bear Thy Son for nine months in the inviolate sanctuary of Thy womb, intercede for the United States of America, which claim thy maternal protection.
Amen.

A Thing of Beauty & Holiness - Our Calling as Catholics

Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.writes in The Universal Call to Holiness: Jubilee and Eucharist

The teaching that all are called to holiness was one of the most important truths of the faith re-stated during the Second Vatican Council. The Council taught that holiness is the vocation of all the baptized,... All holiness, as the third Eucharistic prayer states, comes from the Father through his son, Jesus Christ, by the working of the Holy Spirit. To be holy is to participate in God’s life through the gift of sanctifying grace.

Extract of Mother Teresa's words in the movie "The Legacy"

"God Speaks in the silence of the heart...and we listen. And then...we speak to God from the fullness of our heart. First we listen...God speaks...and then we speak and God listens. And that connection is prayer...is...oneness with God. A soul of prayer: the fruit of prayer is deepening of Faith, and the fruit of Faith is Love, and the fruit of Love is Service, and the fruit of Service is Peace. That is why we need to pray to have a clean heart...and if we have a clean heart we can see God. And when we can see God naturally we will begin to love one another. That means we see and we look, and then we give our hands to serve and our hearts to love... and that's the beginning of holiness."

Fr Cantalamessa on Mother Teresa

The ‘Atheism’ of Mother Teresa

She became poor to serve the materially poor — did she similarly share the sufferings of the spiritually poor? Read the article.

Mother Teresa and Poverty of the Heart

Porthos post on Mother Teresa reminded of a couple videos that I thought I would share with you.

You can find Calcutta is Everywhere



Poverty of the Heart

Mother Teresa & Barking Dogs

By way of New Advent, a commentary on Mother Teresa's personal letters by Deal Hudson. Mr. Hudson mentions what so many have already noted; namely, that the "dark night of the soul" (St. John of the Cross) is an expected hurdle that spiritual giants of the Church's faith must cross time and again.

But what Mr. Hudson does most admirably is not so much belittle such notorious detractors of Mother Teresa, like Christopher Hitchens, as hit the "reveal code" button of their motives. He quotes Jim Towey, a man who served as legal counsel for Mother Teresa for twelve years:

“People of faith understand the cry uttered by Mother Teresa -- people of no faith find it to be a stumbling cross. They cannot get their minds around the fact that Christ suffered and felt abandoned by the Father.”

He thinks that Christopher Hitchens is nothing but a publicity seeker.
“He’s a provocateur. He uses Mother Teresa to get attention, to feed off her celebrity. Hitchens has to conclude she was a hypocrite, or he has to retract his book and his atheism.”

As much as I like Hitchens' occasional forays into deconstructing a common foe, I wince at the damage he has done, and continues to do, to the souls of those who reach for the newspaper or internet news services for their dose of "reality". Perhaps one day he will receive the grace necessary for him to glimpse for one fleeting second both the grandeur and the darkness in which Mother Teresa of Calcutta lived and moved and had her being.