Growing in Sanctity

Sanctity = Holiness

Can you feel yourself growing in sanctity every day?

Are you working at it with the patience of a Saint?

Sanctity is hard work and something we absolutely cannot do on our own.

We must take God, in all three persons, along for the ride.

Pray to God the Father for wisdom to see the places in your life that need to be sanctified.  Trust me, He will show you.  Thankfully, with me, He is very gentle in His approach, although sometimes, I admit, that a 2 x 4 may be more effective!

Pray to Jesus to lead you to the Father.  "No one comes to the Father except through Me", Jesus tells us.

Read the Gospels.  Embrace the words of Jesus. Come to KNOW Him and His love for you!!

Especially pray to the Holy Spirit.  He has all those gifts He longs to pour out on you:
Wisdom, Understanding, Right Judgement, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety and Fear of the Lord.

These are gifts, freely given to those who who have been baptized and who ask for them.  You have to want them. You have to embrace them.

When you embrace them, you will give off good fruit. Those good fruits are:
charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, long suffering, mildness, faith, modesty, constancy and chastity.

Granted we cannot work on all of these at once. We are a work in progress.  But, if we truly wish to change and to grow in sanctity these are steps in the right direction.

Mary and St. Joseph are key helpers in growing in sanctity.  Don't forget to ask for their intercession as well.


thatslife12.blogspot.com

One Mother, Many Titles

The month of October is a special month in which we are reminded to pray the Rosary daily.   October 13 is especially important because it is the anniversary of the miracle of the sun at Fatima, Portugal.  For those who do not know the story of Our Lady of Fatima there is a ton of info on Google and several good movies about it. (I do not recommend "13 Days" however.  I found it very dark and grim.)

Traveling statue of Our Lady of Fatima.  This particular statue has been know to shed tears. 

In short, Mary appeared to three young children on May 13, 1917 in Fatima. She asked them to pray the Rosary every day and to offer their sufferings for the reparation for sins.  She appeared on the 13th of each month through October and on that day 70,000+ pilgrims watched the sun dance in the sky. One of the visionaries, Lucia Santos, lived until Feb. 13,  2005.

Since there are still a few days left in October, I thought I would share some of the many titles and pictures of Our Lady.  In Luke 1:48 Mary tells us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: "from this day all generations will call me blessed."   Not only do we call her blessed, we are blessed to have her intercession for us always.  Thank you, Mamma Mary!

The Our Lady of Good Counsel original fresco from Genazzano.

Our Lady of Good Counsel

"According to tradition, in the year 1467, in the midst of the festivities for the Feast of Saint Mark, the townfolk suddenly heard "exquisite music." A mysterious cloud was then said to have descended and obliterated an unfinished wall of the parish church. In front of the populace, the cloud dissipated and a beautiful fresco, no thicker than a carte-de-visite and no more than eighteen inches square, of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child was revealed. It was widely believed that it had been miraculously transported from a church in Scutari, Albania." ^(Wikipedia) 

Black Madonna of Częstochowa, Poland.

 There are many legends surrounding the "Black Madonna".  This  image is not as dark as some I have seen.  This is the most important information I gathered: " The Virgin Mary is shown as the "Hodegetria" ("One Who Shows the Way"). In it the Virgin directs attention away from herself, gesturing with her right hand toward Jesus as the source of salvation. In turn, the child extends his right hand toward the viewer in blessing while holding a book of gospels in his left hand." (Wikipedia)

Our Lady of Lourdes.  campus.udayton.edu


Our Lady appeared several times to a peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France from February 11 through July 16, 1858.  When she appeared, Bernadette asked for a name to give to the priest so he would know who spoke to her.  Our Lady called herself, The Immaculate Conception.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Under the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mary appeared to Juan Diego on Tepyak Hill near Mexico City.  The year was  1531.  Juan had a difficult time convincing his Archbishop that Our Lady had, indeed, appeared to him.  The Archbishop asked for a sign.  Juan presented Our Lady with this request.  Even though it was December and there was snow on the ground, she told Juan to go pick the roses she had left for him.  He brought her the roses and Mary arranged them in his tilma.  She told him to take the tilma to the Archbishop. When the Archbishop opened the tilma, the roses fell to the ground, but the image of Our Lady, just as Juan had seen her, remained on his cloak.

There are many more titles and many more devotions, and appearances.  Our Mother wants to be near us always.  I will leave you with one last image (ok, two).  It is one of my very favorites.  

The Madonna of the Streets by Roberto Ferruzzi

This is one rendition of the painting, It is very different from the original, but I found this information, again, on Wikipedia: "Although not originally painted as a religious picture, this painting became popularized as an image of the Virgin Mary holding her infant son, and has become the most renowned of Ferruzzi's works."

This is the image that hangs in our home: