A Catholic Monthly Magazine

Tag Archive for ‘Our Lady’

How to Have 
a ‘Mary’ Christmas

Let us learn from the Virgin Mary how to be bolder in obeying the Word of God. Lessons for Living – from Mary, the Mother of Jesus Pope Francis When friends and colleagues learned that Protestant theologian Dr Scot McKnight was writing a book about Mary, he was often asked, “Why?” His answer was simple and […]

Mary’s Month

I have never been convinced by the claim of northern hemisphere Catholics that “May is Mary’s Month.” I have never been convinced by explanations that try to attach Christian meanings to non-Christian customs and festivals.  I prefer to follow the liturgical year and the church calendar that have been set out for us in the […]

Saturday 21 April

Acts 9:31-42; Ps 116; John 6:60-69 Miracles Peter is performing miracles. Firstly for Aeneas, who was paralysed, then raising Tabitha from the dead. Do you know someone who is critically ill? Pray for that person, perhaps through the intercession of Venerable Suzanne Aubert, the Founder of the Daughters of Our Lady of Compassion.

Our Lady of Perpetual Succour

Our Lady of Perpetual Succour is familiar to most Catholics and, like many well-known pictures of Our Lady, it has a chequered past. It was believed to have been painted in the 15th century for the Greek Orthodox Church by an artist in Crete, although some think the image is much older, originating from St […]

A Reflection on Mary, Mother of God

There are at least eleven explicit and/or implicit references to Mary in the Gospel of Luke

Mary and the Reformation (1) – Erasmus

500 years ago Many things contributed to the breaking up of the Catholic Christian world of the Middle Ages: the Hundred Years War, the Black Death, the Western Schism, and the Islamic invasions. Humanism found a warm reception in Rome with the popes of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, all worldly men more […]

The Mary Garden

The first Mary Garden was thought to have been created by St Fiacre of Breuil

Mary for Today: Mary in Culture (8)

Apparitions within Culture The phenomenon of Marian apparitions or visions is a culturally specific feature understandable to Mediterranean people or those in contact with Mediterranean cultural scripts. In visionary form, the mother of Jesus has been part and parcel of Mediterranean living from time immemorial. At times such visions lasted only a few minutes, at […]

Thursday 15 September

Our Lady of Sorrows Hebrews 5:7-9, Ps 31, Lk 2:33-35 Many rooms in the Father’s house The Father’s house was the temple, where temple sacrifices joined heaven and earth. Mary offers in the temple the perfect offering, the Lamb of God. In making this offering Mary becomes Our Lady of Sorrows. The Lamb of God […]

Tuesday 26 July

Sts Joachim and Anne Ecclesiasticus 44:1, 10-15; Ps 132; Matthew 13:16-17 An example of unconditional love It must have been very difficult for Our Lady’s parents to accept the changes in their young daughter’s life when a respectable betrothal had to turn into a hasty marriage. Yet they supported and loved her – just as […]