December 18 -- The Expectation of Our Lady

The last week of Advent begins on December 18. 

The Church calls this the Week of Expectation.  Our Lord, the Savior, will be born in seven days so the Church imagines the joy and hope of Our Lady in anticipation of this Most Holy Birth. 

From her earliest infancy, Our Lady begged God to hasten the coming of the Redeemer.  Now His promise will be fulfilled.  The salvation of the world is close at hand and the Devil will be conquered-- the gates of Heaven will be opened. The Reign of the Devil will be destroyed by the Sacrifice on Calvary. She awaits with her virginal purity the birth of her Son, the Hope of the world. 

Therefore, she is called Our Lady of the Expectation or Our Lady of the Hope.

In these days before Christmas, we should join Our Lady in longing for a restoration so complete and total that it is similar to a redemption. 

We should hope for the fruits of the Redemption to be applied in a more vigorous way since the needs of this day are so much greater than those before the birth of Christ.  We should ask for the conversion or the punishment of the evil doers and the regeneration of those who are seeking Truth. 

We should pray that the message of Fatima be fulfilled,that the chastisement come and that the Reign of Mary be implanted on the earth.  May God's Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. 

If we ask, Our Lady will obtain this from her Son.  She will give us the hope to expect that the Babe King will hasten the Reign of His Queen and Mother like Saint Louis de Montfort said:

Finally, we must say in the words of the apostle Paul, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has the heart of man understood" the beauty, the grandeur, the excellence of Mary, who is indeed a miracle of miracles of grace, nature and glory. "If you wish to understand the Mother," says a saint, "then understand the Son. She is a worthy Mother of God." Hic taceat omnis lingua : Here let every tongue be silent.

My heart has dictated with special joy all that I have written to show that Mary has been unknown up till now, and that that is one of the reasons why Jesus Christ is not known as he should be.

If then, as is certain, the knowledge and the kingdom of Jesus Christ must come into the world, it can only be as a necessary consequence of the knowledge and reign of Mary. She who first gave him to the world will establish his kingdom in the world.