Catholic Fire

The Annunciation by Philippe de Champaigne Byzantine Liturgy Akathist hymn to the Mother of God (7th century) “Hail, favoured one”An archangel was sent from Heaven to say to the Mother of God: Rejoice! And beholding Thee, O Lord, taking bodily form, he was amazed and with his bodiless voice he stood crying to Her such things as these: Rejoice, Thou through whom joy will shine forth: Rejoice, Thou through whom the curse will cease!Rejoice, recall of fallen Adam: Rejoice, redemption of the tears of Eve! Rejoice, height inaccessible to human thoughts: Rejoice, depth undiscernible even for the eyes of angels! Rejoice, for Thou art the throne of the King: Rejoice, for Thou bearest Him Who beareth all! Rejoice, star that causest the Sun to appear: Rejoice, womb of the Divine Incarnation!Rejoice, Thou through whom creation is renewed: Rejoice, Thou through whom we worship the Creator! Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded! Seeing herself to be chaste, the holy one said boldly to Gabriel: The marvel of t...

Gospel Luke 1:46 - 56 Throughout her whole life Mary lived in an attitude of gratefulness and thanksgiving. Her Magnificat burst forth in the presence of Elizabeth, but it was ever present in her soul. Mary lived in such poverty that she always recognized God's free gift of love for her. If we were poorer, if we had a greater sense of our littleness, of our poverty, and if we recognized that everything is free, that the Lord has given everything to us, then we would more often be in an attitude of gratefulness. We would always look at Jesus, thanking Him for being there, for loving us, and for gathering us into His love. We should always be thanking Jesus, thanking Mary for protecting us and for keeping us faithful to responding to His love. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to give us this attitude of thanksgiving with Mary, our Mother, so that with her, we can always sing our Magnificat. ~ ~ From the Daily Gospel with Fr. Philippe, OP (Priest, Philosophy Professor, Founder of t...

Today the Church celebrates the memorial of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary to teach us how useful and advantageous it is for us to invoke her holy name in our needs. The name Mary by which we honor the Most Blessed Virgin means star of the sea. It is, says Saint Bernard, very well given to her, because she is indeed a star which enlightens, guides, and leads us to a harbor in the stormy sea of this world. This feast day was first observed at Cuenca, Spain, 1513 , then extended to the universal Church and assigned to its present place and rank by Innocent XI (1683 ) in thanksgiving to God and the Blessed Virgin for the liberation of Vienna and the signal victory over the Turks on September 12, 1683 . Click here for the Litany of the Holy Name of Mary.

Let us celebrate the birth of the Virgin Mary; let us worship her Son, Christ the Lord. Each Year, the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated on September 8. Usually the church celebrates the feast day of a saint on the date of their death, which is actually the day remembered as their birth into everlasting life. Mary, however, was conceived without sin as a special grace because God had selected her to become the Mother of His Son. Her birth is a cause for great joy as it is considered the "dawn of our salvation" (Pope Paul VI, Marialis Cultus,1972.) Although there is no reference to Mary's birth in the Sacred Scriptures, the names of Mary's parents, Joachim and Anna, appear in the Protoevangelium of James (5:2), which is an apocryphal writing from the late 2nd century. According to this account, Joachim and Anna were also beyond the years of child-bearing, but prayed and fasted that God would grant their desire for a child. The primary focu...

Source Go here to learn the four doctrines on the Blessed Virgin Mary, which support her Assumption.

Follow the “woman dressed in the sun” against the “dragon” of materialism, says Pope.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary celebrates her being taken up body and soul into heaven when her earthly title was finished. It first began to be celebrated as a feast day in the Eastern Church after the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (431) proclaimed Mary the Mother of God. By the sixth century, the feast celebrated Mary’s Dormition, “her falling asleep”, meaning her death. The western church began to celebrate this feast around 650. The Church’s teaching on the Assumption was formally proclaimed a doctrine by Pope Pius XII in 1950. In today’s society, many idolize sensuality, materialism, and self-indulgence. In contrast, the celebration of the feast of the Assumption Our Blessed Virgin Mary turns our eyes away from these temporary, earthly attachments and directs our focus on the dignity and destiny of our human body and the beauty and dignity of womanhood. It turns our eyes upon the true life which awaits us beyond the grave – eternal life. May we take heart that one day ...

"It is well known, and is daily experienced by the clients of Mary, that her powerful name gives the particular strength necessary to overcome temptations against purity". ~St. Alphonsus Liguori

Truly we are passing through disastrous times, when we may well make our own the lamentation of the Prophet: "There is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land" (Hosea 4:1). Yet in the midst of this tide of evil, the Virgin Most Merciful rises before our eyes like a rainbow, as the arbiter of peace between God and man. ~ Pope St. Pius X

“Mary set out, proceeding in haste.” As soon as the angel had visited Mary, she went with haste to her cousin Elizabeth, who herself was expecting a child. And the child to be born, John the Baptist, leaped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb. How marvelous! The all-powerful God chose a child yet to be born to announce his Son’s coming! In the mystery of the Annunciation and the Visitation, Mary is the very model of the life we should lead. First of all, she welcomed Jesus in her existence; then, she shared what she had received. Every time we receive Holy Communion, Jesus the Word becomes flesh in our life – gift of God who is at one and the same time beautiful, kind, unique. Thus, the first Eucharist was such: Mary’s offering of her Son in her, in whom he had set up the first altar. Mary, the only one who could affirm with absolute confidence, “this is my body”, from that first moment offered her own body, her strength, all her being, to form the Body of Christ. Our mother the C...

The Virgin of the Grapes Pierre Mignard I 1612-1695 Oil on canvas French Musee du Louvre, Paris Source

Madonna of Loreto 1846-1850 Filippo Balbi (1806-1890) oil on canvas Vatican Pinacoteca, Inv. 41486 This litany to the Blessed Virgin Mary was composed during the Middle Ages. The place of honor it now holds in the life of the Church is due to its faithful use at the shrine of the Holy House at Loreto . It was definitely approved by Sixtus V in 1587, and all other Marian litanies were suppressed, at least for public use. Its titles and invocations set before us Mary's exalted privileges, her holiness of life, her amiability and power, her motherly spirit and queenly majesty. The principle that has been followed in their interpretation is the one enunciated by the same Pius IX: "God enriched her so wonderfully from the treasury of His divinity, far beyond all angels and saints with the abundance of all heavenly gifts, that she . . .should show forth such fullness of innocence and holiness, than which a greater under God is unthinkable and which, beside God, no one can even conce...

"A man teaches a woman pleasure; a woman teaches a man continence. Man is the raging torrent of the cascading river; woman is the bank which keeps it within limits. Pleasure is the bait God induces creatures to fulfill their heavenly infused instincts - pleasure in eating for the sake of the preservation of the individual - pleasure in mating for the sake of the of the preservation of the species... Since the abandonment of the Christian concept of marriage, both man and woman have forgotten their mission..." "Since woman today has failed to restrain man, we must look to THE WOMAN to restore purity. The Church proclaims two dogmas of purity for THE WOMAN: one, the purity of soul in the Immaculate Conception, the other, the purity of body in the Assumption. Purity is not glorified as ignorance; for when the Virgin Birth was announced to Mary, she said, "I know not man." This meant that not only was she untaught by pleasures; it also implied that she had so br...