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Mary

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Hail Mary

Photo Credit: Old Wallpaper from lifeteen.com
Photo Credit: Wallpaper from lifeteen.com

When I began to seriously investigate my faith, one of the things I was really struck by was Pope St. John Paul II’s devotion to Mary.  It seemed like every homily he gave and every letter or book he wrote ended with some sort of recourse to the Mother of God.  When I began to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, I realized how fitting this was – the Church’s official prayer ends each day with a prayer dedicated to Mary.

Arguably the most recognizable Catholic prayer is the Hail Mary:

Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you.  Blessed are you amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death, amen.

The prayer itself is quite simple and has a history going back several centuries.  The form by which we pray it today found its final form in the sixteenth century – concluding a journey that took centuries. [Read more…] about Hail Mary

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Audacious Faith: “He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit”

Photo Credit: Henry Ossawa Tanner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Scripture begins with the story of a man and a woman saying a definitive “no” to their creator, rejecting not only God’s one direction to them (don’t eat the fruit!), but also rejecting their Creator Himself.  It’s fitting, therefore, that our redemption really takes shape as a woman and then a man make the opposite choice: accepting wholeheartedly and without reservation the will of God.  And so, in response to the invitation issued to her through the Archangel Gabriel, Mary gives this yes, her fiat, in no uncertain terms:

“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” -Luke 1:38

St. Dominic used this as the first of fifteen mysteries – fifteen key moments in the Gospels – that he would preach on and invite people to meditate on with an Our Father and ten Hail Mary’s, creating the essence of the Rosary we pray today.  We not only celebrate this event on March 25th – not coincidentally nine months before Christmas – but we also profess our belief in it every time we pray the creed, affirming that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of a virgin. [Read more…] about Audacious Faith: “He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit”

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Unfolding Scripture: God’s Covenant with Adam

Credit:
Creation of Adam by gnuckx (Wikimedia Commons)

The Bible is a book that can be difficult to make sense of – which is why having a mental map of some sort to make sense of it is so important.  One of my favorite ways to look at this comes from Dr. Scott Hahn, one of my professors from Franciscan University, who sees the key to understanding the whole of Scripture in six covenants.  I’m in the process of journeying through each of these six with students at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic High School this spring – and this post contains some of the key understandings I passed on to them from the original covenant God made with humankind “in the beginning” – at the very outset of creation.
[Read more…] about Unfolding Scripture: God’s Covenant with Adam