LENT WITH MARY

To those our our readers who, for reasons of legitimate business and the shortage of time which the winter months necessarily impose on us, have not yet looked at the programme of 33-day preparation for the Consecration of England to Our Lady, the Dowry of Mary (see our post HERE), we throughly recommend the series of meditations proposed by BEHOLD 2020 (HERE).

The first week was given to the writings of St Louis-Marie de Montfort on the graces and eternal benefits of total consecration to Mary, the present section deals with the writings of St Maximilian Kolbe, one of the greatest Mariologists of the 20th century, whose teachings have been much proposed by the recent Popes. We give below an excerpt of the Saint's writings, on which these meditations expound, to give a flavour of the riches of these texts.

The meditations are short, and can profitably be used on the journey to work as an additional element of our Lenten devotions. It is not a coincidence that this period chosen by our Bishops and the Shrine at Walsingham should coincide with Lent - a Lent without Mary is no Lent at all.

To inscribe yourself by email is easy and free, go to this LINK, all it needs is your name and email address. Do not waste these precious weeks.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.

DOS TUA VIRGO PIA HÆC EST, QUARE REGE MARIA

"IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. These words fell from the lips of the lmmaculata herself. Hence they must tell us in the most precise and essential manner who she really is.... Who then are you. O lmmaculate Conception?...

"What type of union is this (between the Holy Spirit and Mary)? It is above all an interior union, a union of her essence with the "essence" of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in her, lives in her. This was true from the first instant of her existence. It was always true: it will always be true. 

"In what does this life of the Spirit in Mary consist? He himself is uncreated Love in her: the Love of the Father and of the Son, the Love by which God loves himself, the very love of the Most Holy Trinity. He is a fruitful Love, a "Conception." Among creatures made in God's image the union brought about by married love is the most intimate of all (see Mt 19:6). In a much more precise, more interior, more essential manner, the Holy Spirit lives in the soul of the lmmaculata, in the depths of her very being. He makes her fruitful, from the very first instant of her existence, all during her life, and for all eternity. 

"This eternal "Immaculate Conception" (which is the Holy Spirit) produces in an immaculate manner divine life itself in the womb (or depths) of Mary's soul, making her the Immaculate Conception, the human Immaculate Conception. And the virginal womb of Mary's body is kept sacred for him: there he conceives in time - because everything that is material occurs in time - the human life of the Man-God.

"... If among human beings the wife takes the name of her husband because she belongs to him, is one with him, becomes equal to him and is, with him, the source of new life, with how much greater reason should the name of the Holy Spirit, who is the divine Immaculate Conception, be used as the name of her in whom he lives as uncreated Love, the principle of life in the whole supernatural order of grace?" (St Maximilian Kolbe)