Patroness of the United States of America
November 30 to December 8
O Mary, Most Holy, conceived without sin and all pure before the sight of the Most High God, we beseech Thee to have mercy on us and on our nation.
Look with loving eyes upon the plight of your children who implore Your powerful protection. The wicked serpent continues to wage war against God, against You and against the Holy Catholic Church and every good thing in society. The devil lays snares of confusion and deceit to lead souls along the path of perdition. The culture of death continues to attack the sanctity of life, marriage and the family.
Yet, from the very instant of Your conception, You, our Blessed Mother, Our Queen and Our Advocate, crushed the head of the diabolical enemy. At this moment, receive this prayer that we present to You before the throne of God. May we never fall into the snares of the devil; may we always follow the path of virtue and true courage toward our true home in Heaven. May the Holy Catholic Church obtain victory over the forces of evil and may the peace of Christ come down upon our souls, our nation and all peoples.
Obtain for us, O Virgin Most Pure, the grace of angelic purity which was Your favorite virtue. Grant us purity of heart so that we will seek God alone in all things. Provide for us the grace of purity of intention so that every thought, every word and every action in our daily lives be directed to the greater glory of Your Divine Son.
Obtain for us a participation in Your spirit of prayer, in Your humility and in Your self-denial. May we truly live the Fatima message of prayer, penance and conversion. May we recover through penance that innocence lost by sin and become more faithful and more united to the Will of God.
O Dear Mother, grant us unlimited Hope amid the current situation in our nation. Grant us an increasing love of Truth amid the lies and confusion of our times. Obtain for us from Your Divine Son greater Faith and growing Charity toward God and toward others.
Through Your grace and assistance, may we seek in all things the glory of God, the salvation of souls, and what is best for our beloved nation.
Hear our pleas, O Mother of Mercy, and hasten the triumph of Your Immaculate Heart as you promised in Fatima 100 years ago. And may You, the Immaculate Conception, crush once and for all the head of the wicked serpent and his followers. Amen
To be recited for nine consecutive days.
For
the first week of Advent, one purple candle is lit every day before the
evening meal and an accompanying prayer said. The flame, symbol of
Christ, the Light of the World, stays lit during the meal.
“O
most beautiful Cross that was glorified by carrying the Body of Christ!
Glorious Cross, sweetly desired, ardently loved, always sought, and
finally prepared for my heart that has so long awaited you. Take me, O
Cross! Embrace me. Release me from my life among men. Bring me quickly
and diligently to the Master. Through you He will receive me, He, Who
through you has saved me.”
The
Apostle continued by saying that he had “ardently awaited” the cross.
Today men flee far from any kind of suffering, any kind of fight against
their own passions, any kind of renunciation. For them to live is to
enjoy a good life. Andrew, however, ardently awaited his own cross
because he understood that what counts in life is not the pleasure he
has, but the sacrifice he makes. This is what gives meaning to life.
Therefore, the truly supernatural man is a friend of the cross, as St.
Louis Marie de Montfort said so well.
The
last pagan king of the Frisians was noted for saying that he preferred
to be in Hell with his ancestors than in Heaven without them. However,
his great-grandson and namesake became a saint.
Catherine was born Zoé Labouré on May 2, 1806, the ninth of eleven children born to a farm family in Fain-les-Moutiers, France.
Catherine told only her confessor about these visions. Though he was doubtful at first, he soon came to believe.
Born
in 1814, Alphonse Ratisbonne was from a family of wealthy, well-known
Jewish bankers in Strasbourg, France. In 1827, Alphonse’s older brother,
Thèodore, converted to Catholicism and entered the priesthood, thus
breaking with his anti-Catholic family whose hopes now lay in the young
Alphonse. 
kneeling
close to an altar, weeping. Alphonse himself tells us what happened in
those few minutes he waited for the Baron: “I had only been in the
church a short while when, all of a sudden, I felt totally uneasy for no
apparent reason. I raised my eyes and saw that the whole building had
disappeared. Only one side chapel had, so to say, gathered all the
light. In the midst of this splendor, the Virgin Mary appeared standing
on the altar. 
One
day she showed him a Miraculous Medal and explained its origin to him.
He seemed to pay attention, but when she offered it to him, he became
annoyed and snapped angrily: “Take that away, this Virgin is just an
ordinary woman.” “I will leave it on the table,” the nun replied, “I am
certain that you will think about what I said.” He did not answer her,
but, in order not to see the medal, he placed his bible on top of it.
Mrs.
C.H., a 70-year-old widow, had been admitted in impoverished
circumstances to the nursing home of Saint-Maur because of a bad fall
that occurred on August 7, 1833. She walked with great difficulty and
even with the help of a crutch needed someone’s arm for support. She
also found it hard to sit and only with great difficulty was she able to
rise again. It was almost impossible for her to climb stairs, as she
had to hold on to whatever she could to do so. She could not bend down
or kneel, and had to drag her left leg, as that was where the problem
lay.
Despite
my every effort to persuade him, I also failed. I then thought it
better to allow him to reflect a little while and to return another day
to find out his decision. In the meantime, I asked him to have recourse
to the Most Holy Virgin, refuge of sinners; and, without telling him, I
placed a Miraculous Medal in his pillow and departed.
On
November 9, 1835, Rosalie Ducas from Jauchelette, near Jodoigne,
suddenly lost her sight. She was only four and a half years old, in
perfect health with no signs of illness. Any light or breeze disturbed
her to the point of having to cover her face with a cloth folded in
four. The pains the child suffered day and night caused everyone much
grief.
This
Christian carried a Miraculous Medal and took it into his hand. Drawing
near to the possessed boy, he showed it to him, ordering the devil to
leave him alone and depart, which happened immediately. The boy, seeing
the Christian with the medal, threw himself to the ground before this
image without knowing what it was. The pagans, who had watched him from
afar, were astounded.
When
she revealed the Miraculous Medal, Our Lady clearly promised that
“everyone who wears it, when it is blessed, will receive great graces,
especially if they wear it around their neck.” She did not put
restrictive conditions; she said “everyone.” And then completed the
phrase with: “The graces will be abundant to those who use it with
confidence.”
This son of the soil became one of the most illustrious preachers in the history of the Franciscan Order.
Widely
regarded in his own lifetime as a second St. Francis of Assisi, he died
in 1742 just as he was beginning the solemn novena for the feast of the
Immaculate Conception. Upon hearing of his death, the poor children of
Lucera ran through the streets, crying "The saint is dead! The saint is
dead!" In this humble Franciscan they had lost a true father and
protector.
In
the US, Thanksgiving dates back to the first colonists in Plymouth,
M.A. in 1621, who organized a feast in thanks for a good harvest.
Sylvester
was born in 1177 to a noble and prestigious Italian family. When he was
of age, he was sent to Bologna and then Padua to study law, but feeling
within himself a call to the ecclesiastical state, he left off the
study of jurisprudence to pursue that of theology and the Sacred
Scriptures. This course of action so angered his father upon Sylvester’s
return to his native city of Osimo, that it is said his father refused
to speak to him for ten years on that account.
Catherine was the daughter of Constus, the governor of Alexandrian Egypt, and her mother was a secret Christian.
Born in 1795 in the Tonkinese town of Bac-Nihh in North Vietnam, Tran An Dung was the son of pagan parents.
To avoid further persecution by the authorities, Andrew Dung changed his name to Lac and relocated to a different region.
Columban
was born about the year 543 in County Meath, in the Irish province of
Leinster, to respectable parents. He was well-educated in grammar,
rhetoric, geometry, and the Holy Scriptures.
Cecilia was a devout Christian maiden of noble Roman birth who lived during the early part of the third century.
St.
Urban and his deacons buried her among the bishops in the catacomb of
St. Callixtus along the Apian Way. As she had requested, her house was
transformed into a church by the Holy Pontiff and it has remained in the
service of the Church until this day.
As
He entered Jerusalem in triumph that first Palm Sunday, it did not
lessen His majesty that He rode in humility on the back of a donkey. To
the contrary, the people acclaimed Jesus of Nazareth enthusiastically,
sensing His royal grandeur without the prompts of pageantry.
Consider Christ as one who works with His hands,
as does a manual laborer. Unthinkable? Have we forgotten the carpenter
shop of Nazareth where Jesus worked under the watchful eye of His foster
father Saint Joseph?
he
is introduced to the synagogue, the institution in charge of keeping
this promise. Thus, the synagogue receives Our Lady as a first step. In
this act, the hopes of ages would soon be fulfilled.
Though
only about fifteen years old when crowned in 855, Edmund showed himself
a model ruler from the first, anxious to treat all with equal justice,
and closing his ears to flatterers and untrustworthy informers.
Born
of royal descent, Nerses was the son of At'anagenes and his mother was
the sister of King Tigranes VII and a daughter of King Khosrov III.
Born
on August 29, 1769 in the French city of Grenoble, Rose Philippine was
baptized in the Church of St. Louis. She was educated at the Convent of
the Visitation of Ste. Marie d'en Haut and, against her father’s wishes,
became a novice there when she was eighteen years old. However, the
French Revolution caused much disruption for the nuns, and when the
Sisters of the Visitation were expelled from their convents, Rose
returned home.
Also
known as Elizabeth of Thuringia, she was born in Hungary in 1207. She
was a daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary and his wife Gertrude, a
member of the family of the Counts of Andechs-Meran; Elizabeth’s brother
succeeded his father on the throne as Bela IV; St. Hedwig, the wife of
Duke Heinrich I, the Bearded, of Silesia was her mother’s sister, while
another saint, Queen St. Elizabeth of Portugal, the wife of the
tyrannical King Diniz, was her great-niece.
Shortly
after their marriage, Elizabeth and Ludwig made a journey to Hungary;
Ludwig was often after this employed by the Emperor Frederick II, to
whom he was much attached, in the affairs of the empire. During the
spring of 1226, when floods, famine, and the plague wrought havoc in
Thuringia, Ludwig was in Italy attending the Diet at Cremona on behalf
of the emperor. Under these disastrous circumstances Elizabeth assumed
control of affairs, distributed alms, giving even state robes and
ornaments to the poor. In order to care personally for the unfortunate
she built below the castle of Wartburg a hospital with twenty-eight beds
and visited the inmates daily to attend to their needs; at the same
time she aided nine hundred poor daily. It is this period of her life
that has preserved Elizabeth’s renown as the gentle and charitable
chételaine of the Wartburg. Upon his return, Ludwig confirmed all that
she had done in his absence.