Catholic Fire

1. Saturday is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe -- - one of my favorite Marian feast days. Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, brings hope into our lives. She covers us in the folds of her heavenly mantle and cradles us. She is the Mother who tenderly consoles us and protects us from evil. She is the one who carries Divine Life within her and crushed the head of the wicked serpent. She brings us life and love; hope and healing. She brought conversion to Mexico and will renew the Americas again if we pray for her intercession. She is the Mother of Mercy. Here is a beautiful reflection for this Feast Day from Father Stephen Morris with some intercessions to help us during this Jubilee Year of Mercy. Here is a story of my family's personal miracle through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe. 2. On December 8, we celebrated two significant events in the Catholic Church on the same day – the beginning of the Jubilee Year of Mercy and the Solemnity of ...

Mark Your Calendars Now! August 15 through October 7, 2015 Join hundreds of thousands of people of all ages in prayer across America Mark your calendars & spread the word A Message of Hope in response to the spiritual crisis in our culture and nation What: Pray the rosary for 54 straight days for the Novena Intentions 27 days in petition from August 15 through September 10, 2015 27 days in thanksgiving from September 11 through October 7, 2015 Where:  Pray the rosary individually or as a family in your home or as part of your parish community Primary Novena Intention:  “For the Family & Marriage” including for peace, human life and religious freedom Visit the website for more information www.54days.org A Hearts United Campaign of the Rosary Evangelization Apostolate Bishop Kemme (Wichita diocese) makes a request for our participation in this prayer campaign:

O Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy, at this most critical time, we entrust the United States of America to your loving care. Most Holy Mother, we beg you to reclaim this land for the glory of your Son. Overwhelmed with the burden of the sins of our nation, we cry to you from the depths of our hearts and seek refuge in your motherly protection. Look down with mercy upon us and touch the hearts of our people. Open our minds to the great worth of human life and to the responsibilities that accompany human freedom. Free us from the falsehoods that lead to the evil of abortion and threaten the sanctity of family life. Grant our country the wisdom to proclaim that God’s law is the foundation on which this nation was founded, and that He alone is the True Source of our cherished rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. O Merciful Mother, give us the courage to reject the culture of death and the strength to build a new Culture of Life.

A prayer to say each night before sleep during Advent and Christmas: Loving Mother of the Redeemer, gate of heaven, star of the sea, assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again. To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator, yet remained a virgin after as before. You who received Gabriel's joyful greeting, have pity on us poor sinners.

A film based on the Marian apparitions to three shepherd children at Fátima in Portugal on the 13th day of six consecutive months in 1917, starting on 13 May. The Miracle of the Sun occurred on the final day of the Blessed Virgin Mary's appearance in Fatima. The 13th Day premiered for the film industry on May 13th 2009, the opening day of the Marche du Film which runs alongside the world renowned Film Festival in Cannes. The producers of the film are trying for a release date in Fall of this year (2009 A.D.) to coincide with the October 13th anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun . For more information and to learn how you can promote this film, click here . ~ Video and information via Tito.

Stabat Mater (At the Cross Her Station Keeping) Our Lady of Sorrows (Memorial)

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 foc...

Today is the optional memorial of St. Anslem of Canterbury, Benedictine Monk, Bishop, Theologian, Philosopher, and Doctor of the Church. St. Anslem (b. 1033, Aosta, Lombardy; d. 1109, Canterbury, Kent) is generally considered to be the founder of the philosophical school of Scholasticism, for his attempt to analyze and illumine the truths of faith through the aid of reason. He was a major figure in the intellectual life of the Middle Ages, and a major political and ecclesiastical force as well. To learn more about him, go here. Here are a few of his gems: "O God, let me know you and love you so that I may find joy in you; and if I cannot do so fully in this life, let me at least make some progress every day, until at last that knowledge, love and joy come to me in all their plenitude. While I am here on earth let me know you fully; let my love for you grow deeper here, so that there I may love you fully. On earth then I shall have great joy in hope, and in heaven complete joy in t...

The Way of the Cross for Children – a coloring book by Kathryn Mulderink, OCDS, with drawings by Victor KyNam Kathryn Mulderink, lay Carmelite and Catholic homeschooling mom of seven, originally wrote these beautiful prayers for the 14 Stations of the Cross for her own children and has used them for several Lenten seasons. Kathryn’s poignant prayers and meditations on the Stations of the Cross combined with Victor KyNam’s sensitive illustrations make this book one that will touch the hearts of the children who peruse it. The Way of the Cross for Children offers brief meditations entitled “I Think of Jesus”, which help children to reflect on the suffering that Jesus experiences during His Passion, while reminding them of His overwhelming, unconditional love for each one of us. This is followed by a prayer “I talk to Jesus” which gently encourages children to open their hearts to Him, to broaden their prayer intentions, and to change their behavior in response to His love. A one line c...