Day 3 Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary and St. Joseph!
We come together to prepare to make our consecration with our bishops, who are choosing to look to and entrust our Church in North America to Mary during this time. Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has announced that the U.S. bishops will join the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops on May 1 in renewing their consecrations of the two nations to the care of our Blessed Mother, saying:
“This will give the Church the occasion to pray for Our Lady’s continued protection of the vulnerable, healing of the unwell, and wisdom for those who work to cure this terrible virus. This year, we seek the assistance of Our Lady all the more earnestly as we face together the effects of the global pandemic.”Our current situation consisting of this man-made virus is one more example of the great evils of communism that Mary warned us would ravage the world in 1917 in Fatima. It also exemplifies the great confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church that St. John Paul II warned us of almost 50 years ago:
"We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has ever experienced. I do not think that the wide circle of the American Society, or the whole wide circle of the Christian Community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-church, between the gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the Antichrist. The confrontation lies within the plans of Divine Providence. It is, therefore, in God's Plan, and it must be a trial which the Church must take up, and face courageously."-- (St. John Paul II)~ Philadelphia, USA 1976It is for these reasons that Mary asks for our consecration every time she appears - but, perhaps, most importantly in Fatima, when on July 13th, 1917, Mary asked for the consecration of Russia and showed the three children hell.
Reaching out her hands, she let fall rays of light on the earth.
We saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke. Now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright... You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go...God wants us to realize the reality of evil. But, while showing us this reality, Heaven also wants us to realize the great remedy He has set in place for the great evil of our time and its eternal consequences:
“To save them, God wishes to establish in the world the devotion to my Immaculate Heart.”
On August 13, at the Cova da Iria, the Blessed Virgin insisted: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to hell because there is no one to pray and make sacrifices for them.”
“Make sacrifices for sinners,” she gently insisted, and say often, but especially when you make a sacrifice, “O Jesus! It is for the love of you and for the conversion of sinners.”
On October 13, she insisted again, “Do not offend the Lord Our God any more, He is already so much offended.”
Sister Lucia later explained that these were the words of the apparition that were the most deeply engraved upon her heart: “Do not offend the Lord Our God any more, He is already so much offended.”
And on the same day, October 13, 1917, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God gave the reason for her apparitions:
"I have come to ask men to repent of their sins, to change their lives, to stop offending Our Lord who is already offended so much, and to recite the Holy Rosary.
Heaven's Requests
"I shall come to ask the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart .... (and the Communion of reparation on the first Saturday of the month). If my requests are heard, Russia will convert and there will be peace. If not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions against the Church."
ST. JOSEPH IS THE PROTECTOR OF THE HOLY FATHER AND OF THE CHURCH - THE MYSTICAL BODY OF THE SON ON EARTH.
(Strikingly. St. Joseph revealed that he saved Pope Pius XII from physical death at the hands of his enemies during the war (during WWII).
"...As God chose me to be the special guardian of his Son, so has He chosen me as the special guardian of him who in Christ’s Name is head of the Mystical Body of that same Son on earth.
My special protection of the Holy Father and the Church should he made known to him. God wishes to make this known to him that he may receive thereby renewed consolation and encouragement.
During the war, little daughter, it was I who saved him from death at the hands of his enemies.
Continually I watch over him and the Church, and I desire this to be acknowledged for the greater glory of God and the good of souls."
Gospel of St. Mark
The Novena prayers are simple, but they are rooted in the messages Our Lady has reiterated and given to us again and again in all her apparitions to try to save us.
Let us always strive to live them ever more fully.
They are:
Pray the full Rosary,
Read Scripture together as a family each day,
Make the Eucharist the center of your life (we can still do this interiorly if not physically during this time of quarantine through our Spiritual Communions, and visits to Church to pray in front of the tabernacle if they are open, etc.),
Fast twice a week on Wednesdays and Friday on bread and water and
Go to Confession at least monthly (again, if you are unable make frequent heartfelt acts of contrition)…
And each day of this novena, pray especially during the 3 O’clock hour (if possible):
• an act of contrition (in place of or in addition to confession)
• an act of spiritual communion (in place of or in addition to going to Mass and receiving communion;
• the Divine Mercy Chaplet
• the Rosary
The bishops conference continues its explanation of the Consecration:
“Through a collective dedication or entrustment of a nation to Mary, an act of consecration is meant to be a reminder to the faithful of the Blessed Mother’s witness to the Gospel and to ask for her effective intercession before her Son on behalf of those in need. Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore, the first bishop of the United States, promoted devotion to Mary, the Mother of God, and placed the United States under her protection in a pastoral letter of 1792.
The twenty-one bishops attending the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore in 1846 determined to name the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the title of the Immaculate Conception, as the Patroness of the United States, and Pope Pius IX approved this decision the following year. More recently, the dedication of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. in 1959 was the opportunity for the bishops to once again consecrate the nation to the Blessed Mother. Several popes have likewise consecrated the world to Mary on various occasions.
The consecration on May 1. . . follows a similar action of the bishops’ conference of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM) who consecrated their nations to Our Lady of Guadalupe on Easter Sunday. The renewal of consecration planned in this country for May 1 does not change the designation of Mary as the Patroness of the United States under the title of the Immaculate Conception.
Rather, this prayer reaffirms and renews previous Marian entrustments, and unites us in solidarity with our Holy Father, who recently established the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, as a source of protection and strength.” http://usccb.org/news/2020/20-65.cfm
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