Saturday, December 01, 2007

Saturday - Day of Our Lady


MOTHER MOST CHASTE - PRAY FOR US!

With this and two following invocations of Loretto Litany we praise Our Lady's most beloved virtue - chastity. We venerate and celebrate this virtue in her trough the whole liturgical year, before, during, and after the birth of Jesus, for Mary was an ideal of chastity throughout her whole life. In contrary to Old Testament customs and preferences of the Jews, she preferred
perpetual virginity instead of marriage. According to St Bernard, she was troubled with St Gabriel greetings - "blessed art thou among women" - for she desired to be blessed remaining among virgins consecrated to God. And it was granted to her, for she miraculously conceived Son of God knowing no man. Exactly as prophet Isaiah foretold: Behold a virgin shall conceive 7:14 and as we read in St Matthew Gospel: Behold a virgin shall be with child 1:23. According to St Augustin, Son of the Immaculate Mother and Bridegroom of holy virgins, gladly granted Mary virginal motherhood. God bestows graces on souls He loves in every circumstances of their lives! Our Lady very carefully guarded her chastity; she withdrew from the world and took refuge in the silence of her house in Nazareth. She only left her sweet retreat: rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste into a city of Juda Luke 1:39 out of charity to her cousin Elisabeth. Jesus is her whole world, in Jerusalem when she looked for him for three days, during wedding at Cana, in His teaching ministry, just as St Matthew tells us: Who when he had found one pearl of great price, went his way, and sold all that he had, and bought it. 13:46. She was as close to God as she was far from the world - she should be our model. We cannot isolate ourselves from the world entirely, for we live and work in it, but at least in the spirit we should followed Mary's example and to remain far in spirit from all worldly affairs and entertainments always remembering that he who loves the world can easily become casualty of the world. Only by the grace given to us by Jesus in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we can live in the world safely. Let us pray with Mary: it is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God Ps 72:28