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Birth of Mary
Beautiful Hands of a Priest
We need them in life's early morning, we need them again at its close; we feel their warm clasp of true friendship, we seek them when tasting life's woes. When we come to this world we are sinful, the greatest as well as the least. The hand that makes us pure as angels is the beautiful hand of a priest.
A Mother's Heart
Monday, August 27, is the feast day of Saint Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine. She is the patron saint of mothers, married women, abuse victims, and alcoholics. Like the persistent widow in Luke 18:1-8, Saint Monica's constant prayer led her son into the Church, and he eventually became a great Doctor of the Church.Saint Monica, pray for us, especially for all who have left the Church or refuse to enter into the fullness of truth! Appropriately, the entire month of August is dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Queenship of Mary
Venerable Pope Pius XII established this feast in 1954. But Mary’s queenship has roots in Scripture. At the Annunciation, Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever (Luke 1:26-38). At the Visitation, Elizabeth calls Mary “mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:39-56). As in all the mysteries of Mary’s life, she is closely associated with Jesus: Her queenship is a share in Jesus’ kingship.
Assumed into Heaven
On Wednesday, August 15, Catholics and many other Christians celebrate the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This significant feast day recalls the spiritual and physical departure of the mother of Jesus Christ from the earth, when both her soul and her body were taken into the presence of God. Venerable Pope Pius XII confirmed this belief about the Virgin Mary as the perennial teaching of the Church when he defined it formally as a dogma of Catholic faith in 1950, invoking papal infallibility to proclaim:
Rain Down Bread
2 The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”