Category Archives: Virgin Mary

Our Lady of Fatima and the Rosary – October 2, 2022

One overlooked aspect of Our Lady of Fatima is in the final October 1917 apparition is a trifold vision of the three mysteries of the rosary.  As most of the tens of thousands of onlookers witnessed the “dancing of the sun,” the three children Lucia, Francisco, and Marta witnessed visions of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  More precisely, Lucia saw a mystical triptych in the sky of the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries of the rosary.  Lucia describes the vision of the first scene of the Joyful Mysteries and the Holy Family:

“We beheld St. Joseph with the Child Jesus and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun.  St. Joseph and the Child Jesus appeared to bless the world, for they traced the Sign of the Cross with their hands.”  

In the next scene, Lucia alone saw the Sorrowful Mysteries represented by Our Lady of Dolors:

“I saw Our Lord and Our Lady; it seemed to me that it was Our Lady of Sorrows.  Our Lord appeared to bless the world in the same manner as St. Joseph had done.” 

In the final scene, Lucia witnessed the Glorious Mysteries represented by Our Lady of Mt. Carmel:

“and I saw Our Lady once more this time resembling Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.”

The Blessed Virgin Mary had foretold to the shepherd children a month before in September that they would see this threefold vision of mysteries of the rosary:  “In October, Our Lord will also come, as well as Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and Saint Joseph with the Child Jesus, to bless the world.”  

Joyful Mysteries

In the first vision of the Joyful Mysteries, Mary and Joseph are present with the Christ Child—the Holy Family.  Heaven is emphasizing the dignity of marriage and family life.  Family life is one of the central messages of Fatima.  Heaven calls us to sanctify marriage and our families.  St. Joseph is present as the father figure and husband who blesses the world.  This shows the critical importance of the role of fathers and the family as a whole, especially in our age of endemic broken families and absentee fathers.    

Sorrowful Mysteries

In the second vision of the Sorrowful Mysteries, Lucia sees Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows.  Heaven shows that we must be willing to take up our daily Cross and follow after Christ.  This involves daily penance and reparation for our sins and the sins of others.  The Blessed Virgin Mary told the shepherd children in the August 13 apparition to: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them.”  The central message of Fatima is prayer, penance, and reparation for sin in order to save souls.  

Glorious Mysteries

In the third and final vision of the Glorious Mysteries, Lucia sees Our Lady of Mt. Carmel—Mary as the Queen of Heaven.  Our earthly lives of struggle and death are not the end of us.  We have the glorious hope of attaining salvation and the heavenly crown of eternal life.  Sister Lucia described Our Lady of Mt. Carmel as emblematic of total consecration to God.  As Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Mary came bearing the brown scapular offering it to us to wear it as a sign of our consecration to her Immaculate Heart.      

Sister Lucia would later affirm, according to Carmelite priest Fr. Howard Rafferty in an interview on August 15, 1950 that: “The rosary and brown scapular are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other.” 

It was not by accident that in each monthly apparition at Fatima, the Blessed Virgin Mary asked the children to pray the rosary every day. This daily recitation is part of our path to Heaven.  In the October apparition, she also described herself as: “I am the Lady of the Rosary.”

Years later, in Pontevedra, Spain on December 10, 1925, Jesus and Mary again appeared to now Sister Lucia.  The Blessed Virgin Mary showed Sister Lucia her Immaculate Heart covered with thorns “which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment.”  She asked Lucia to make reparation for these offenses by fulfilling the Five First Saturdays devotion.  The Blessed Virgin Mary promised her:

“I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess [their sins], receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”  

This is an amazing promise!  October is a time to re-consecrate ourselves to the Blessed Virgin Mary through daily prayer of the mysteries of the rosary, wearing the brown scapular, and making the first Five Saturdays devotion. Heaven deemed these practices of eminent importance for the salvation of souls to have emphasized these truths in one of the most miraculous apparitions in Church history.  Surely, these holy practices are beneficial for our salvation.   

Our path to Heaven is through prayer, penance, sacrifice, conversion, Confession, and worthily receiving Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.  The mysteries of the rosary are our daily help to bring us step-by-step, and bead-by-bead, to our Heavenly home.  Our Lady of Fatima promised us.    

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Our Lady of Fatima and Communism – August 15, 2021

In 1917, it seems the woman crushing the head of the serpent and the serpent lying in wait of her heel played out in real time.  

The Mother of God came to Portugal in 1917 just as the seed of the serpent was unleashed in Mother Russia. 

MARCH-APRIL: In March 1917, the Russian Tsar Nicholas II abdicated his throne, and Lenin returned from exile in Switzerland in April.  Lenin came back to Russia to solidify the Bolshevik Revolution that was exploding across the country.  The errors of Russia were happening in real time.  The Russian monarchy was falling quickly and the Communists were taking over the country.  

MAY:  It was at the very same time that the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared from Heaven to three simple peasant children in Fatima.  She came to warn the world about “the errors of Russia.”  Mary first appeared to Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta on May 13, 1917.  

JUNE-JULY:  In July, there was a failed uprising in Russia against the Communists, as the Mother of God appeared again to the children showing them a glimpse of hell.  

AUGUST: In August, Russia continued its descent.  While on August 13th, the Blessed Virgin Mary again appeared to the shepherd children in Portugal telling them, 

“Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and to pray for them.”  

In September, there was a failed coup, again, in attempt to stop the Russian Revolution.  While on September 13th the vision of the Mother of God came to the shepherd children urging them to pray the Rosary daily and to prepare for a miracle the next month.  

Finally, in October 1917, the Bolsheviks took over control of the government of Russia.  It was the red “October Revolution.”  Socialism and Communism had arrived upon the world scene.  At this very same time, the Blessed Virgin Mary came in her final dramatic appearance at Fatima on October 13, 1917 with the “Miracle of the Sun.”  The battle between the woman and the serpent, heaven and hell, was revealed plainly for all to see.  

In this last visit of the Mother of God she imparted the message that “I am the Lady of the Rosary.”  She continued, “Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended.”  To sin is to offend God, which leads one’s soul to hell.  The Miracle of the Sun, too, was perhaps an augur of a great chastisement upon the world if we did not repent and change our ways.  It was a great miracle and blessing but also a warning.   

In retrospect, the Blessed Virgin Mary came down from heaven just as the scourge of Socialism and Communism was unleashed upon the world.  This was not a coincidence.  Mary came to warn the world of the errors of Russia and their Communist doctrine.  

And, what were the errors of Russia?  Atheistic materialism.  An authoritarian state of centralized government.  Suppression of God and religion.  Destroy tradition and re-write history.  Decriminalization of abortion.  Attack the family and enactment of no-fault divorces.  Radical sex education.  Restriction of freedoms.  Silencing of dissent.  False imprisonment, and the mass killing of millions of people.  

The errors of Russia sprang primarily from the writings of Karl Marx, whose ideology is a perverse screed, some may say satanic, that dehumanizes the person and deifies the state.  A human being endowed with a soul and the image of his Creator is reduced to a mere material creature, a “worker” for the state.  That’s enslavement, not freedom or utopia.  Mary came down to warn us not to follow his errors.  

Militaristic Marxism came in a more insidious form, too, in Cultural Marxism.  This came out of the Frankfurt School in Germany, and entered into the education system primarily as a way to undermine the Western history.  It went mainstream as Critical Theory.  Their main efforts have been to critique and deconstruct Western Civilization, along with the Bible and the Church.  Critical theory deconstruction has now gone viral in America and in the West.  The battles we are fighting now with “cancel culture” sprang from the roots of Russia’s errors. 

As the Blessed Virgin Mary came to stop the spread of the errors of Russia and Communism, what did she ask us, as the faithful, to do?  Pray the Rosary daily.  Receive the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist.  Fast and offer spiritual sacrifices.  Wear the brown scapular.  Do the First Five Saturdays Devotion in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Then, there is also the question of the worldwide consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary done by the Pope and all the Bishops.      

Our Lady of Fatima is just as relevant today in 2021, if not more so, as she was in 1917.  We are a world plunged into the errors of Russia.  This is perhaps related to the Third Secret of Fatima that was likely was only partially revealed.  Our Lady’s probable commentary on the third vision, like in the first two parts, has never been disclosed.  Thus, most likely the Third Secret has yet to be fulfilled and it probably involves the errors of Russia spread throughout the world.  The battle between Our Lady and the serpent continues to rage on in America and the West, but as Our Lady of Fatima declared, “But in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”  

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The Blessed Virgin Mary at Zeitoun – July 27, 2020

The Blessed Virgin Mary praying before the Cross on St. Mary’s Coptic Church
The Blessed Virgin Mary and a dove above St. Mary’s Coptic Church
luminous doves in shape of a cross

What was the most prolifically witnessed apparition of the Virgin Mary in the 20th century? Most would say Our Lady of Fatima in 1917 Portugal, where approximately 70,000+ people witnessed the Miracle of the Sun. This, however, would be incorrect. The most prolifically witnessed miracle of the Virgin Mary in the 20th century, and perhaps ever, was at Zeitoun, Egypt from 1968 to 1971. Zeitoun, Egypt is one of the locations where the Holy Family supposedly stopped on their flight to Egypt, fleeing King Herod’s murder of the innocents some nineteen centuries earlier. From April 2, 1968 to May 29, 1971, the Virgin Mary appeared weekly on average, especially around feast days, on top of St. Mary’s Coptic Church in Zeitoun for all to see. This was not something just witnessed in a mystical vision, but it was a supernatural experience of sight and olfactory senses perceived by massive crowds of people over a few years. This was ontologically different from previous Marian apparitions. In addition, this occurred in a predominantly Muslim country and at a Coptic Church, perhaps the reason why Catholics are less familiar with it.

The Blessed Virgin Mary was witnessed by at least hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, including Copts, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and even secular Marxists, like the former Egyptian President Abdel Nasser. This supposedly greatly influenced him in his relations with Christians, who at the time were being targeted by having red crosses painted on their houses to mark them. This was also a time of rapid expansion of Islamic fundamentalism. Perhaps, Mary had come to mollify these tensions against Copts and Christians in this very vulnerable time. Egypt had recently been defeated by Israel ten months earlier in the June 1967 Six-Day War. The Zeitoun years were a turning point from the ’67 war to the Camp David Accords, and finally, a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, on the one hand, and deeper into Islamism and the Muslim Brotherhood on the other. 

Yet, the miraculous nature of the apparitions could not be overlooked and drew Egyptians’ full attention. Black and white photographs exist showing a brightly luminous being, the Blessed Virgin Mary on top the Church. The apparitions would begin with a ball of light gradually materializing, and then, taking on the form of the Virgin Mary. One described Mary as “bright as a million suns.” They called her Our Lady of Light. She was accompanied by other phenomenon as well. Large, luminous doves moved swiftly across the sky, and at times flying in formations of two, seven or twelve, and in the shape of a cross. Incense as from “millions of censors” billowed up around her with a sweet fragrance. There were mysterious flashing lights, a canopy of shooting stars, like “a shower of diamonds made of light,” as one witness recalled. Many miraculous healings occurred too, from blindness, polio, paralysis, cripples, cancer and terminal illness. There were also spiritual conversions of Muslims and others to Christianity.  

The Vatican made no official statement on its authenticity but deferred to the Coptic Orthodox Church. The Coptic Church investigated the matter and determined it was an authentic and true phenomenon. The civil government as well concluded that something real was happening at Zeitoun. At one point, the authorities even investigated a fifteen-mile radius for electronic devices and cut all power off to the area to create a blackout, yet Mary continued to appear. 

The story begins much earlier, however, around 1920, when a Coptic Christian, Tawfik Khalil Abraham, who owned this spot of land in Zeitoun, was about to build a hotel there. Then, the Blessed Virgin Mary visited him in a dream requesting instead that he build a Coptic Church in her honor. If he did so, she promised to perform a miracle there sometime in the future. In 1925, the Coptic Orthodox Church of St. Mary was completed. Then, as promised, the miracle happened years later beginning on April 2, 1968. Two Muslim parking garage attendants noticed a woman on the top of the Church and thought she was about to commit suicide. One of the attendants, Farouk Mohammed Atwa, yelled up to her “Lady, don’t jump!” Soon, a crowd had gathered and realized that this was no ordinary woman but the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. The apparitions continued unabated, with Mary appearing for a few nights each week for the next three years. People from all around began to come to St. Mary’s in Zeitoun to see the miraculous apparitions. The crowds grew larger and larger. By some accounts, 250,000 at the highpoint would come nightly to watch for Mary appearing from Heaven. 

Despite the length of the apparitions and the mass witnessing of her by so many people, the Blessed Virgin Mary did not speak or deliver any verbal messages. She maintained an attitude of prayer bowing towards the cross and blessing the people. Mary was seen gliding slowly about the domes of the Church, sometimes standing for two to three hours in the same spot, and at times kneeling before the cross on the roof. She acknowledged the people’s presence by smiling at the crowd and blessing them with her hands. Mary had long white and blue robes, and a veil of bluish-white light. She had physicality. They could see her garments moving in the warm night breeze. She had a dazzling crown on her head with a halo of bright light. Sometimes the witnesses saw her with the infant Jesus, or sometimes with the twelve-year old Jesus, and other times, with St. Joseph. Still other times, she was seen carrying a cross, or an olive branch—a symbol typically for peace and unity. Bishop Athanasius of Beni Soueiff, sent personally from the Coptic pope, said, “There she was, five or six meters above the dome, high in the sky, full figure, like a phosphorous statue, but not so stiff as a statue. There was movement of the body and of the clothing . . . she was very quiet, full of glory.” One Coptic priest noted that, “there were rays [of light] coming down from her hands,” like depicted in the miraculous medal.   

Coptic Bishop Marcos who witnessed her said when Mary looked at the crowd, it seemed as though “she concentrated her eyes on them exactly.” Despite the number of people, it felt personal and individual. One witness, an American, Pearl Zaki, described being there, “Yet I think each person present, as I talked with them and understood, felt alone with her and drawn completely to her.” A certain Coptic Christian, Dr. Khairy Malek, who witnessed the apparitions, said he could even see her teeth when she smiled at them. At one point, the crowd turned and began shouting up towards the moon. When Dr. Malek turned, he saw the Virgin Mary’s “whole face stamped on face of the moon.” Clearly, something extraordinary and profound was happening in Zeitoun between 1968 to 1971. The next question is why then, and why there?

As mentioned, Zeitoun, Cairo was one of the traditional locations that the Holy Family had fled to escape the slaughter of the innocents under King Herod, as Gospel explains: “Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” (Matt. 2:13) Nevertheless, King Herod still carried out his murderous intent against the infants, “…in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under.” (Matt. 2:16) Perhaps, the Blessed Virgin Mary appearing at Zeitoun was to honor the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt from Herod’s massacre of the innocent children. 

Blogger and author Emmet O’Regan has pointed out that 1968-1971 was the very same timeframe for the mass legalization of abortion in the world. In April 1968, the very same month that Zeitoun began, the United Kingdom enacted the Abortion Act. This was the initial break in the dam inundating the world with legalized abortion. This quickly spread to the United States in loosening abortion laws in 1969, and soon thereafter, Roe v. Wade was argued in 1971, and decided on January 22, 1973. This opened the doors to the mass slaughter of the innocents worldwide. It is the beginning of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents on an apocalyptic level. The world has been sacrificing the blood of millions of innocent babies every year ever since. By the Blessed Virgin Mary appearing at these sites of the Holy Family’s flight from Egypt, it was perhaps Heaven’s warning of a new massive slaughter of the innocence about to happen again.

Zeitioun is very much like Blessed Virgin Mary’s dramatic and unprecedented warning at Fatima in 1917, just before the unleashing of the errors of Communism upon the world in the Russian Revolution. Yet, at Zeitoun there were no messages, no visions, and no secrets. Mary’s message was her silent presence in that time and at that location. The Blessed Virgin Mary came, again, in unprecedented fashion in Zeitoun, perhaps, to warn the world of new evils that were about to be unleashed upon it — this time with abortion. Perhaps, it was an appeal, too, against the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt, like hotbeds in the city of Assiut.

Maybe not coincidentally, apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary were seen there in 2000-2001, and again, in 2006, in Assiut — which is also traditionally the southern most point that the Holy Family travelled to in their Egyptian flight. Another purported apparition, then, occurred in Warraq, Egypt in 2009, among other locations. Was the Blessed Virgin Mary retracing the steps of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt some two millennia later? In these unprecedented revelations, the Blessed Virgin Mary came to Zeitoun as Our Lady of Light, that is, the Woman clothed with the Sun with a crown on her head, much like the great portent that appears in Heaven (Rev. 12:1). 

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. 

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Fatima, Baal, Mt. Carmel, and the Brown Scapular – March 9, 2020

On October 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary appeared at Fatima declaring, “I am the Lady of the Rosary,” and instructing the visionary children again “to pray the rosary everyday.” This is one of the great messages of Fatima to pray the rosary each day, in addition to the devotion of the first five Saturdays. What seems to be less well known and associated with Fatima is the devotion of the brown scapular. In that final apparition, Lucia saw Mary and our Lord pass through the mysteries of the rosary: first, she saw Mary and Jesus as part of the joyful mysteries; and then, they came in the sorrowful mysteries; and finally, the glorious mysteries. 

It is specifically in this last vision of the glorious mysteries that Lucia saw Mary as the Queen of Heaven and Earth in the form of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel holding in her right hand the brown scapular. Sister Lucia would later affirm, according to a Carmelite priest Fr. Howard Rafferty, in an interview on August 15, 1950 that, “The rosary and brown scapular are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other.” The scapular is integral to the original message. Just as the Virgin Mary asks each of us to pray the rosary every day, so too, according to Sister Lucia, does Mary want us to wear the brown scapular. This is why she was holding the brown scapular in the vision, as if asking us to take it and wear it. 

What is the brown scapular? If you are like me, I knew relatively little about it until recently. The brown scapular is imaged after the brown habit or garment that the Carmelite monks wear. These are the two brown wool cloths the monks wear over their shoulders covering their front and backside. The brown scapular is this garment in miniature form. It is a sacramental of the Church. “Scapular” is derived from the “scapula bones,” or the shoulder blades that the garment covers. The Carmelite monks wear the brown garment as a type of mantle covering themselves, an idea that originally shows up with them in history around the 13th – 14th century at Mt. Carmel in Israel. Tradition has it that Mary first gave the brown scapular to St. Simon Stock. 

The Carmelites were the original order consecrated to the Virgin Mary. This is why they hold a special place in Mary’s heart. They pattern their lives after her, just as “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart”(Luke 2:19). So too, the Carmelites contemplate these heavenly matters and consecrate themselves to the Virgin Mary. Thus, the Carmelite mantle is synonymous with consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The brown scapular is the passing of this Carmelite garment to the secular world in miniaturized form. The large brown garment that covers the body in the ascetic world is shrunk to two little brown cloth pieces attached by strings in the lay world. It is the same Carmelite spirituality and Marian devotion extended to the average layperson living within the hubbub of common life.     

The idea of the Carmelite mantle extends all the way back to Elijah’s mantle in the Old Testament. The prophet Elijah had challenged the false-prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel. Baal was the demonic god of the Canaanites, whose religion demanded idolatrous worship, cultic orgies with temple prostitutes, and even the sacrificial offering of infants. That is, the Canaanite religion was a depraved mixture of idolatry, sexual immorality, and human sacrifice. Elijah challenged the 450 priests of Baal at Mt. Carmel to see whose “god” would consume an offering by fire, a kind of liturgical battle. Baal, of course, did not answer, and the false-prophets stood mute. Elijah, on the other hand, called on the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and fire from heaven consumed the offering. Elijah, through Yahweh, defeated Baal and the false-prophets. This is the legacy of Mt. Carmel. Later, Elijah parted the Jordan River by touching his mantle to the waters (2 Kings 2:8), and thus, re-enacting the parting of the Jordan by Joshua and the Red Sea by Moses. This is a prefigurement to the Sacrament of Baptism. It is at that point that Elijah is taken up to heaven – linking the notion of Baptism to heaven. The brown garment, then, which is the Carmelite monks’ habit, is by extension reminiscent of the mantle of Elijah at Mt. Carmel. 

In modern times, we battle the same type of false-prophets of Baal that Elijah battled in ancient days on Mt. Carmel. The worldly influence of modernism pushes on us various forms of idolatry, especially money, power, materialism, and extreme political correctness. Sexual immorality too is rampant in our society. Even child sacrifice is the law of the land with nearly unencumbered abortion on demand. Baal and Baal-worship is alive and well in Western Civilization. Yet, just like in biblical times at Mt. Carmel, God comes to defeat Baal again. In our New Covenant era of the Gospel, God crushes the head of Baal through the Virgin Mary. Our Lady of Mt. Carmel asks us to embrace this special devotion and consecration to her Immaculate Heart through wearing the brown scapular.

We know the essential conditions of the Fatima promise: to pray the rosary daily, make frequent confessions, receive the Eucharist often, make spiritual sacrifices, as well as fulfill the first five Saturdays’ Devotion of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Yet, Mary also appeared at Fatima as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel offering us the brown scapular. Through a simple enrollment ceremony with a priest or deacon, we can consecrate our brown scapular and seek to live that consecration each day. It must be of great importance if Mary made sure to present it to the world again in such a very purposeful and dramatic fashion as at Fatima. The final apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes was also on the feast day of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, July 16th. Wearing the brown scapular is something very easy and takes little effort. Yet, it is a strong affirmation and a tangible sign of our consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It is a badge of our desire to live holy lives each day under the mantle of her guidance and protection. 

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The Centrality of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Dec. 3, 2019

Advent is a good time to meditate upon the central role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the conception and nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, the central role of Mary in our redemption. 

As Marino Restrepo was being held hostage for six months in 1997 by Columbian FARC rebels and near death, he had a great mystical experience of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary. In his testimony, he describes a vision of the Virgin Mary to whom he was united by “a spiritual umbilical cord.” He further testifies to her centrality: “Everything that I was receiving from Heaven went through her first. Similarly, everything that emerged from my heart and moved towards Heaven passed through her.” Mr. Restrepo experienced what the Catechism calls the “motherhood of Mary in the order of grace” as the “Mediatrix.” (CCC no. 969; Lumen Gentium 62) That is, the sanctifying grace of Jesus Christ is distributed to us through the intercession and mediation of the Virgin Mary. 

We see this in the Incarnation. God willed for the Son not to be manifested directly, but to be born through Mary. God the Creator manifests himself through the intermediary of his creature. The Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary and she conceived Jesus and nourished his body through a physical umbilical cord. When the Holy Spirit comes upon us in faith and the sacraments, spiritual nourishment is given to us as the Mystical Body of Christ. Mary is the spouse of the Holy Spirit, who produces the Mystical Body of Christ in each soul by way of a spiritual umbilical cord. Jesus attests to this spiritual conception and birth: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (Jn. 3:6) The Virgin Mary is literally our spiritual mother by order of grace to those who are the children of God. 

St. Louis de Montfort speaks of the important intercession and mediation of the Virgin Mary as seen in the typology of Rebekah, the wife of Isaac, in the Old Testament. In the Book of Genesis, Jacob, the younger son, claims the blessing his father Isaac, and all the inheritance that entails, rather than the rightful inheritor, the first-born son Esau. Jacob puts on the garments of Esau and tricks the father Isaac into blessing him instead. These are typologies for Christ and us. Esau, as the first-born son of the father, and rightful inheritor of the father’s blessing, is a typology of Christ, the first-born Son of God the Father. Jacob, on the other hand, as the younger son, who puts on the garments of Esau, and receives the blessing of the father, is a typology for us, as Christians. We are not worthy of receiving the blessing of God the Father and his inheritance, but only through “putting on Christ” (Gal. 3:27; Rom. 13:14) are we blessed by God the Father and receive the inheritance of eternal life. By putting on Christ in Baptism and the sacraments, we receive Christ’s “white garments”of sanctifying grace of purity and righteousness (Rev. 3:18). This is the idea of substitution found through the Old Testament that the younger son receives the merits due to the first-born. This finds its fulfillment in the New Testament where Christ the first-born Son’s garments are given to us. Our unworthiness is substituted with Christ’s worthiness. 

The typologies found in Genesis with Jacob, Esau, and Isaac extend to Rebekah too. It is Rebekah, a type for the Virgin Mary, who instigates the blessing upon Jacob. It is Rebekah who takes the “best garments”of the first-born son Esau and “puts them on”the younger son Jacob, as the text reads: “Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau her older son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son.” (Gen. 27:15) It is Rebekah, behind the scenes, directing Jacob to put on Esau’s garments and receive the blessing of the father Isaac. Rebekah helps the quiet Jacob, who stays home with her, over the strong, self-serving hunter, Esau. St. Louis de Montfort equates Jacob with the righteous and Esau with the reprobate. In fulfillment of this typology, it is the Virgin Mary who comes to aid the faithful and devout Christian and clothes us with the garments of her Son, Jesus Christ, the first-born, in order to secure the blessing of God the Father and inherit eternal life. As St. Louis de Montfort wrote in True Devotion to Mary: “She clothes us in the clean, new, precious and perfumed garments of Esau the elder – that is, of Jesus Christ her Son – which she keeps in her house, that is, which she has in her own power, inasmuch as she is the treasurer and universal dispenser of the merits and virtues of her Son, which she gives and communicates to whom she will . . .” Just as Rebekah clothed Jacob with the finest garments of Esau to secure the blessing of Isaac the father, so too, does the Virgin Mary clothe us with the finest garments of Christ’s sanctifying grace in order to secure for us the blessing of God the Father for eternal life in Heaven.   

St. Louis de Montfort calls Mary our “mediator with the Mediator.” The world, he says, is unworthy to receive directly from God himself so it receives grace through the intermediary of Mary, just as the world received the Incarnation of the Son, not directly, but through the intermediary of Mary. The Incarnation, and thus the Redemption, happened through Mary, and so, the on-going redemption of man continues to happen through the mediation of the Virgin Mary.  

The life of Christ attests to her centrality too. Jesus lived in humble obedience in the house of Mary for thirty years! Think of that. He lived solely honoring his mother for the vast majority of his earthly life. This is the example par excellencefor us. If she was good enough for the Son of God to remain in humble obedience to for thirty years, surely we too should commit ourselves to honoring her. The angel Gabriel greeted Mary with the angelic salutation, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” (Lk. 1:28) If Heaven greets Mary in such a way, as one full of grace and conceived without sin, surely we should invoke the Immaculate Virgin Mary in such a way too. The Annunciation is after all the moment of the Incarnation. In praying the Rosary, we are glorifying the work of God in the Incarnation. The Virgin Mary is the mother of the Incarnation and the Redemption. Mary points always to him. It is to Jesus through Mary, as she commands, “Do whatever he tells you.” 

The beginning of Genesis frames the main struggle through history. The enmity that God speaks of in Genesis 3:15 is primarily between the serpent and “the woman.” The original woman, Eve, is another type for the second Eve, Mary. Adam and Eve were the original progenitors of humanity and source of Original Sin. Jesus and Mary are the spiritual progenitors of the children of God and the fixers of sin. In perfect symmetry, God wills the redemption of man through the new Adam, Jesus, and the new Eve, Mary. The sin of Eve is undone in the obedience of Mary. The first woman was instrumental in the fall, and the second woman is instrumental in the redemption. And, this redemption is ongoing. It is “the woman,” Mary who mediates Jesus’s first miracle at Cana, and it is “the woman” Mary, who Jesus entrusts the beloved Apostle John to from the Cross. The ancient enmity between the serpent and the woman reaches its final, apocalyptic climax in Revelation with “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev. 12:1) This is followed by the portent of “a great red dragon” whose head she will crush. 

The enmity between the woman and the dragon is alluded to in the symbols of St. John Bosco’s prophetic dream of the two great columns: One great column has the Blessed Virgin Mary on the top of it, and on the other greater, taller column is the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist. The two great columns secure “the ship” of the Church under “waves” of attacks by the world, as he explained the vision, “Only two means are left to save her amidst so much confusion: devotion to Mary Most Holy and frequent Communion.” This seems more relevant now than ever before. 

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Kecharitomene – March 1, 2019

The word “kecharitomene” (κεχαριτωμένη) is used only once in the Greek New Testament.  It does not appear anywhere else in Greek literature.  The Gospel writer, Luke, appears to have created it out of thin air. This Greek word is, in some respects, very much reminiscent of another Greek word seemingly created out of thin air in the Gospels, “epiousios” (ἐπιούσιον), which also only appears in Jesus’ Our Father prayer.  Epiousios is translated as our “daily” bread but its literal meaning is our “super-substantial” bread, as translated in the Douay-Rheims bible, based off of St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation.  It was a special, singular word to express a special, singular phenomenon – the Bread of Life.  Epiousios is translated in most modern translations as “daily,” however, the literal meaning that St. Jerome conveyed, hints at the Eucharist, the bread above material substance.  

In a similar manner, Mary is a special, singular creature in Salvation History.  She became the Tabernacle where Christ would dwell. Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant where God would dwell in her womb.  Christ, the Son of God, was clearly without sin and second Person of the Trinity.  How could Jesus a Person of the Godhead dwell anywhere but somewhere immaculately pure and clean?  He could not co-dwell somewhere with sin.  That is impossible.  The archangel Gabriel came to the Virgin Mary at the moment of the Annunciation and declared to her, “Hail, full of grace.” (Lk. 1:28)  He seems to address her more with a title than descriptive language.  He addresses her more for who she is rather than what she is.  Who is she?  She is “full of grace.”  Eighteen hundred years later, Mary came to St. Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France referring to herself as, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”  Mary was reiterating the words of Gabriel in Luke 1:28.  The Immaculate Conception is the one full of grace.

How could one have been “full of grace” before the life, death, and resurrection of Christ? According to Ineffabilis Deus, Mary was given the sanctifying grace of Jesus Christ, her Son, by way of anticipation of His Redemption.  This is the underlying teaching of the Immaculate Conception.  Mary was preserved from Original Sin to make her a suitable dwelling place for the Second Person of the Trinity.  The Immaculate Conception made possible the Incarnation.  The Annunciation led directly to the Incarnation, as Mary gave her fiat to do the will of the Lord. Kecharitomene is the Greek word St. Luke used for the angel Gabriel’s address to Mary as “full of grace.”  In the Rosary, we pray over and over, these special and singular words of the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation and the Incarnation, “Hail Mary, full of grace.”  We are invoking the name of Mary, Kecharitomene, over and over again.  She is “Full of Grace” and “the Immaculate Conception.”  Mary is the Theotokos, the Mother of God, “the woman,” who crushes the head of the serpent, through her seed, the Messiah.  Kecharitomene was that blip in the matrix, where the devil was undone.  Sin was undone in one creature, preserved in grace, in order to bear the Savior of the world.  

Just another reason to pray your five decades of the Rosary every day!        

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The Woman and the Two – 27 March 2018

There has been a lot of discussion recently about women, from the “Weinstein Effect” to #MeToo. Misogyny in our culture is on notice, and the idea of womanhood has come to the forefront. In many respects, we have never before seen a moment like this focused on the dignity of women.

Perhaps it is time the modern world should look towards an older idea of womanhood, that which permeates our Catholic faith.

From the very beginning of scripture to the very end we find ‘the woman.’ Christians often quote lines from the Old Testament and the prophets regarding the Savior to come. This is all true, but it is not the whole story. The prophetic announcements tell of two intertwined together on behalf of our salvation. In the first moments in Genesis after the fall, God declares to the wicked serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.”

There is some dispute how to best translate the next line in the passage, specifically if it should be “he” and “his” or “she” and “her.” But, St. Jerome in translating this from the ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Latin texts chose to translate it as “she” and “her” as the most accurate. The Douay-Rheims translation based on the Latin Vulgate into English renders it “she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” This was reaffirmed by other Church Fathers and in Ineffabilis Deus on the Immaculate Conception as “unmistakable evidence that she crushed the poisonous head of the serpent.”

The effect is the same. The woman through her seed shall crush the head of the serpent. That is, the Virgin Mary through Jesus Christ shall crush the head of Satan. Jesus is the divine Redeemer, and Mary the creature, but the two together crush Satan, and bring hope of eternal life. This is downplayed in our protestantized modern Christianity. The prophet Isaiah talks of the two as well, a virgin who will bear a son. The fall came at the hands of two, and in God’s beautiful symmetry, the restoration also comes at the hands of two.

The Virgin Mary is the masterpiece of God’s creation. She is conceived without sin, the sanctifying grace of her Son applied to her by way of anticipation, but to the rest of humanity by deliverance. She is unique in all of creation. Mary told St. Bernadette at Lourdes “I am the Immaculate Conception.” In the heavenly vision to St. Catherine Laboure at Rue du Bac, later forged into the miraculous medal, Mary is standing on the head of the serpent, seemingly answering the question of pronouns in the protoevangelium.

We find ‘the woman’ again at a wedding feast in Cana. The two together, Jesus and Mary, co-launch Jesus’ first miracle and his public ministry. When the wedding party ran out of wine, Mary looks knowingly at Jesus saying, “They have no wine.” In that one short sublime sentence Mary asks Jesus to perform his first open miracle, and begin his public work of salvation. This is Mary’s first act of motherly mediation too for her spiritual children. Jesus knows what she is asking but answers, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” He addresses his mother as the archetype ‘woman’ acknowledging her prophetic role. Yet, Mary continues to direct the servants to “do whatever he tells you.” Jesus is the Son of God, he is in charge, but he defers out of respect and love for his mother.

At last, at the final stroke of the salvific drama, Jesus addresses ‘the woman,’ this time from the Cross, saying “woman, behold your son,” and to John, “behold your mother.” Mary, ‘the woman,’ became, by order of grace, the spiritual mother of all the living. And, Mary is still our mother. Is it any wonder that our Lady still comes to us at Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fatima to remind us over the centuries “do whatever he tells you”?

St. Louis de Montfort called the Incarnation the “greatest event in the whole history of the world.” It is ‘the woman’ who is central to the Annunciation, which leads to the Incarnation and the Redemption. At that critical moment, God sends the Archangel Gabriel to Mary, and he greets her with the Angelic Salutation, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you” and “blessed are you among women.” In ‘the woman,’ who alone is full of grace, the inherited link of sin is broken. The serpent can only lie in wait of her heel, and only enmity remains between them.

It was not until Mary’s fiat, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord,” that God became man. God made his Incarnation dependent upon the woman. This set in motion the whole drama of the Redemption. This greatest moment in the history of the world, the Incarnation, is memorialized in the prayer of the Rosary. Every time we pray the words of the Rosary, which are the words of the Angelic Salutation, we are greeting and honoring Mary again, just as the heavenly ambassador did. We are praying over and over again the words of the Incarnation. In it, we are reliving and honoring that unique theandric event, when the Word became flesh in the woman. In short, the Rosary is the Incarnation in prayer form.

‘The woman’ is at Eden; she is at Cana; and she is at Golgotha. And, ‘the woman’ appears again at the very end of time, with the great unveiling of the apocalypse, the final bookend to salvation history: “And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” Our spiritual Mother appears as Queen of heaven, offering intercession for her children even to the last moment.

St. Pope John Paul II highlights this in Redemptoris Mater. He declares that the Virgin Mary was “not only the ‘nursing mother’ of the Son of Man but also the ‘associate of unique nobility.'” One of the great modern errors is that Mary was just a human vessel to birth Jesus. Mary did provide Jesus with his physical flesh and blood, hence the profound link between the devotions to the Virgin Mary and the Eucharist. But, Mary’s maternal mediation was much more in the order of grace. She was, and is, a collaborator with her Son in the work of salvation, as the encyclical states: “Mary’s motherhood itself underwent a singular transformation” with “‘burning charity,’ which sought to achieve, in union with Christ, the restoration of ‘supernatural life to souls.'”

In this time of women, let us remember ‘the woman.’ The Virgin Mary is the fulfillment of that original dignity in our preternatural past. She offers us the example par excellence of holiness and virtue. Mary is the Theotokos, and based on that unique grace of who she is, her intercession for us is most efficacious. Through our devotion to her, she will crush the head of Satan in our lives. She is the Queen mediating on behalf of our salvation before the throne of the King.

This is why we pray: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

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