Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

"Thou art the boast of Jerusalem, the joy of Israel, the pride of our people."

-Judith 15:10

Cool Article of the Little Office

I have mentioned on this blog the wonderful Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary that our friends at Baronius Press have produced.  Well, with this being the month of Mary, it was nice to see an article concerning the Little Office on the Aleteia site yesterday by Joanne McPortland:

Do you pray some form of the Divine Office, the Liturgy of the Hours? This liturgical tradition is as old as the Church, built on the earliest Christian practice of praying the psalms and reading the Scriptures daily.

When I was a child, I would peer out the classroom window as the priests of our parish, their cassocks flapping in the Santa Ana winds, paced the schoolground with little black book in hand, their lips moving as they read the Office prescribed for all secular clergy. On rare visits from Father Peter, my dad’s cousin who was the Superior of the Columban Fathers, my sister and I would be cautioned to give him quiet time “to read his breviary” before he got back to astonishing us with coin tricks. In later life, I was privileged to join religious orders of women or men who chanted the canonical hours—Matins and Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline—in community, as all religious were required to do. The beloved Gregorian chant albums of monks like the Benedictines of Norcia, newly popular with listeners of all faiths, are the monastic Divine Office shared with the world.

The Prayer of Christians
Over the centuries, the Divine Office, with its sequence of psalms, antiphons, versicles, lessons, and prayers, has often been revised. (The word breviary, describing the book but also the practice of reciting the Liturgy of the Hours, actual means “a briefer version,” condensed a bit from the longer and far more ornate office once celebrated in Rome.) The revision with which most of us are familiar came about in the 1970s, as the Divine Office was simplified and universalized to encourage its use not only by priests and religious, but by the whole Church in communion.

I remember receiving my first copy of The Prayer of Christians, an early English edition of the revised Divine Office, from my husband as a Christmas gift. I was pregnant with our son. To begin the days as we did then, praying Morning Prayer in the car on the way to work, gave a richness of meaning to the words from the Canticle of Zechariah—“You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, and shall go before the Lord to prepare his way”—and united us with the whole praying Church.

Today, I try to find time to pray the daily office, but am more likely to settle for one of the “briefer breviaries”—the streamlined Morning, Evening, and Night Prayers provided by publishers of monthly missals like Magnificat or Give Us This Day. You may do this, too, perhaps without knowing what a long and glorious tradition we are weaving into our hours.

Mary and the Hours of the Laity

What does this have to do with Mary, and her “Little Office"? Read the rest to find out.  

True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin (Hardback Classic)

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Those of you who have been readers of this blog for a while know that one of my favorite publishers is Baronius Press.  For finely crafted Bibles, prayer books, and hardcover classics, they are about as good as it get in the Catholic publishing world.  Over the years, I have been blessed to receive review copies from Baronius, mostly in the form of Bibles.  I decided, however, a few weeks back to order one of their hardback classic books.  I don't know about you, but as my desire to only purchase well-made Bibles has increased, the same thing is starting to happen for other spiritual books from the Catholic tradition.  Many of my favorite older, vintage books, for example from Msgr. Knox, are in great condition with a strong binding, even though a few of them are almost 100 years old.  So, I asked myself, why not start to slowly get some of the more important Catholic books in a good quality edition?    

So, I decided to first look for a new edition of one of my favorite books The True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin by St. Louis-Marie De Montfort.  I had a one volume complete collection of his works, which was really beautiful, but it, unfortunately, was a casualty in the great flood of August 11th, 2014.  So, I did a quick Amazon search for True Devotion and there popped up the Baronius edition.  I'll be honest, I had forgotten that they had re-published it.  So, I decided to order it, assuming it would be of high quality.  I was surprised to find he price was only a bit over $20.00.

When it arrived, I instantly fell in love with it, much like I did when I first opened up my Knox Bible.  The size is a very portable at 5 1/2" X 8 1/3".  The width is quite thin too, encompassing only 176 pages.  The binding is sewn and the hardcover is a blue bonded leather over 1/8" boards.  The blue color matches the one used for The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary that they offer.  The cover material makes them a match, as you will see below.  In addition to that similarity, they both use a thick paper.  By thick paper, I mean that it is noticeably thicker than what is used for their Bibles and prayer books.  This makes the print, which is dark and well-spaced, jump off the page.  This book is a delight to read from, which is in sharp contrast to a much smaller paperback edition of True Devotion that I have had for a number of years.  This volume is printed in India.

There is a lovely yellow ribbon included, which makes it very suitable to daily devotional reading.  As with the majority of the volumes Baronius publishes, there are head and tail bands as well as endpapers.  I love endpapers.  One of things I miss about my Knox Bible, which I had rebound in goatskin by Leonard's, is the missing endpapers that needed to come out.  The ones here in the True Devotion add a nice touch of class and elegance to this book.  

Along with the text, itself, there is a preface from Baronius Press, as well as one from the translator Fr. Faber.  Also, there is a Letter to the Clergy (1883) from Herbert, the bishop of Salford.  In the appendix, there is a supplement on How to Practise this Devotion in Holy Communion and an act of Consecration to Jesus by the hands of Mary.  

Overall, I really admire the work and craftsmanship that went into this volume.  The price for this lovely volume is remarkable as well.  I would think it would easily be sold for over $30.00.  I have been using it everyday since it arrived and plan on getting some of their other editions in the future. You can check their website to see which ones are currently available.   They sell-out quickly, so if there is something you like, I'd advise that you get it.  Some of them will be printed again, but which ones and how many is uncertain.  

The Real Mary

The Theotokos

“You are the glory of Jerusalem!

You are the great pride of Israel!

You are the great boast of our nation!

By your own hand you have done all this.

You have done good things for Israel,

and God is pleased with them.

May the Almighty Lord bless you forever!”

-Judith 15:9-10 (NABRE)

Walking with Mary Contest

I am very excited to be the second stop on the Walking with Mary Virtual Blog Tour in celebration of the release of Walking with Mary: A Biblical Journey from Nazareth to the Cross by Edward Sri.  I am also thrilled that the fine folks at Image are offering, via the Catholic Bibles Blog, three copies of Sri's new book.  Walking with Mary is a wonderfully helpful work that looks at all the essential moments in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary as found in the New Testament.  As Sri explains: "This book is the fruit of my personal journey of studying Mary, from her initial calling in Nazareth to her painful experience at the cross.  It is intended to be a highly readable, accessible work, that draws on the wisdom from the Catholic tradition, recent Popes, and biblical scholars from a variety of perspectives and traditions." You can read more about Walking with Mary, including an excerpt, at the Image website.  If you have any friends or family members who are Protestant and wary of anything concerning Mary, I think this book would be a great introduction since it is so grounded in Scripture.  Walking with Mary is available in hardbound and eBook editions.

Dr. Edward Sri is a nationally known Catholic speaker who appears regularly on EWTN and is the author of several well-loved Catholic books. He is a founding leader, with Curtis Martin, of FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students), and he currently serves as vice president of mission and outreach and professor of theology and scripture at the Augustine Institute master's program in Denver, Colorado. Sri holds a doctorate from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. He resides with his wife, Elizabeth, and their six children in Littleton, Colorado. 

Rules for the contest:

1) If you have a website or blog, please announce this contest on your blog.  If you don't, that is OK.  You can still enter the contest. 

2) Please enter your name in the comment section of this blog post.  I will randomly draw three winners at the conclusion of the contest, which will be on Sunday September 15th at 11:59 PM.   

3) I will announce the winners on Monday September 16th.  The winners must contact me, via email, within a week with their full name and address and I will submit it to Image who will send you a brand new copy of the book.

4) One entry per person. 

5) Contest is only available to those who live in the United States.

Thank you to Image for providing three copies of Walking with Mary for the contest.

7 Questions: David Calvillo

David Calvillo, and his wife Valerie, founded the apostolate Real Men Pray the Rosary (RMPTR) on the Feast of the Annunciation in March 2009 as an attempt to “promote [the Rosary] with conviction” to all Christians but especially Catholic men and their families.  Most recently, David published Real Men Pray the Rosary: A Practical Guide to a Powerful Prayer which calls all men to deepen their devotion to Christ through Our Lady.  It is a fantastic book which should be read in every men's fellowship group throughout the country.  It has helped to re-ignite my devotion to the Rosary.  Thank you to David for taking the time to answer the following "7 Questions":

1)    Could you talk a little bit about your own faith journey, in particular the role the Rosary has played in it?

It took me almost 50 years of life to finally realize that Mom knows best. I was blessed with a Mom who always emphasized praying the Rosary and to have a special devotion to our Blessed Mother. But I was way too cool for that. It took me until I attended a retreat, an ACTS retreat, for me to finally receive the Holy Spirit’s message. That retreat and the ecstatic experience granted me during that retreat started me on a journey that brings me to today with my life’s mission to promote the Rosary with conviction. Praying the Rosary and promoting it is now a central theme in my life. I find that I need prayer in order to have a fighting chance to combat the things that we all face in life and the Rosary provides that excellent structured nourishment of faith that feeds my soul. I am especially grateful to God that I was able to finally pray the Rosary with and express my love to Our Blessed Mother with my beautiful saintly mom before she passed in 2010.

2)      How did RMPTR get started and what is its mission?

RMPTR was ignited when I was serving on a retreat team and I was working with some men are faithful in praying the Rosary. Those “real men” provided the backdrop for the Holy Spirit to spark a message within me to visualize the our logo and to promote the Rosary to all, but especially the knuckleheads like me, to know that the Rosary nourishes our faith in a way that few other things can do.

We take our mission directly from Blessed Pope John Paul II’s 2002 Apostolic Letter on the Rosary. Our mission is to “promote the Rosary with conviction… in the light of Scripture, in harmony with the liturgy, and in the context of our daily lives.”

3)      Your book "Real Men Pray the Rosary: A Practical Guide to a Powerful Prayer" is a fantastic reintroduction and encouragement to men to pray this devotion daily.  How has the response been from those who have read it?

I believe the book has been well received. I pray that all men, but especially those of us who find it hard to pray the Rosary or who don’t have that special love for the Mother of God, can see that if knuckleheads like me can eventually be enlightened to the power and beauty of the Rosary and how indispensable our Blessed Mother is in our lives, then hope exists for all. In other words, if I can do it, anyone can.

4)      What do you see as the biggest obstacle to getting men to pray the Rosary regularly?

Part of it may be that we are conditioned by society that somehow or other praying and relying on others is a sign of weakness. We fall prey to the notion “Real Men” are strong and stoic and don’t need anything from anyone. The real man, however, is Jesus and his life is how the ultimate real man conducts himself. We also need to set forth St. Joseph as the example of a real man. A working man, he listened with an open and loving heart and helped raise the Savior of man.

5) I really appreciated your "Tool Box" question for chapter 3 concerning having a well-made, high quality Rosary for praying.  On my blog, I often discuss this same issue in regards to owning a well-made Bible, not simply the cheapest paperback available.  Why, then, is it important for men to have a high-quality Rosary instead of one of the many plastic ones you see in churches or those we seemed to get  mailed to us from various Catholic agencies each month?

 There is a physicality that is part of praying the Rosary that appeals to men. If we have a good quality Rosary in our hands as we pray, then it “feels good”. Not only does it feel good in our hands when we have something sturdy and weighty in our hands but it also feels good to know we’re doing something manly and natural for our families and ourselves when we take that weapon and pray it. We’re taking care of business: taking care of our ladies and our families! The Rosary. Don’t leave home without it. 

6) Speaking of the Bible, what role does it play in praying the Rosary?

The first component of our mission statement and of the 2002 Apostolic letter is “in the light of Scripture.” As I began my rebirth journey, I was somewhat surprised at the Rosary’s biblical basis. I did not know that the traditional rosary prayers and the mysteries are directly connected with and derived from Scripture. As I say in my book, the Rosary is an “executive summary” of the Gospel.  That message should appeal to all Christians.

7) As is my custom for the last question, what is your favorite scripture verse or verses?  Why?

I am learning every day so I don’t know that I should have a favorite or favorites but I do feel a special connection with several, including:

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all things for this is Christ’s will for you in all things.” 1 Thess. 5:16-18.

“Live justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with God.” Micah 6:8.

“God is love.” 1 John 4: 8. 

The Feast of the Visitation

"In the days that followed, Mary rose up and went with all haste to a town of Juda, in the hill country where Zachary dwelt; and there entering in she gave Elizabeth greeting. No sooner had Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, than the child leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth herself was filled with the Holy Ghost; so that she cried out with a loud voice, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. How have I deserved to be thus visited by the mother of my Lord? Why, as soon as ever the voice of thy greeting sounded in my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed art thou for thy believing; the message that was brought to thee from the Lord shall have fulfilment.

And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord; my spirit has found joy in God, who is my Saviour, because he has looked graciously upon the lowliness of his handmaid. Behold, from this day forward all generations will count me blessed; because he who is mighty, he whose name is holy, has wrought for me his wonders. He has mercy upon those who fear him, from generation to generation; he has done valiantly with the strength of his arm, driving the proud astray in the conceit of their hearts; he has put down the mighty from their seat, and exalted the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty-handed. He has protected his servant Israel, keeping his merciful design in remembrance, according to the promise which he made to our forefathers, Abraham and his posterity for evermore."

-Luke 1:39-55 (Knox)

Matthew Kelly on the Rosary

A Prayer on the Day of the March for Life

 

Virgin of Guadalupe,
Patroness of unborn children,
we implore your intercession
for every child at risk of abortion.
Help expectant parents to welcome from God
the priceless gift of their child’s life.

 

Console parents who have lost that gift
through abortion,
and lead them to forgiveness and healing
through the Divine Mercy of your Son.

 

Teach us to cherish
and to care for family and friends
until God calls them home.
Help us never to see others as burdens.

Guide our public officials
to defend each and every human life
through just laws.

Inspire us all to bring our faith into public life,
to speak for those who have no voice.

We ask this in the name of your Son,
Jesus Christ, who is Love and Mercy itself.
Amen.

The Mother of God

"In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”  -Luke 1:39-45

Scott Hahn on the Queenship of Mary

Scott Hahn on the Assumption of the BVM

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

"Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death." The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:

In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death.

 

--Cathechism of the Catholic Church 966

Biblical Evidence for Perpetual Virginity of Mary

Probably my favorite Catholic blogger, Mark Shea, has a fine piece up at Inside Catholic which analyzes the biblical evidence for the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. You can read that article here. This is ironic, since a couple weeks back, I finished reading his Mary, Mother of the Son trilogy of books, which I found to be both informative and witty. I highly recommend all three. In particular, the first volume, Modern Myths and Ancient Truth, spends a great deal of time setting the table, so to speak, looking at not only the ancient Christian and non-Christian philosophies, but probably more importantly the a priori assumptions about the Catholic Church's Marian teachings made by those who oppose them. Only at that point does Mark move to volume two to begin analyzing the four major Marian dogmas in depth. Volume three is concerned primarily with Marian devotions and apparitions. Again, I highly recommend all three volumes.