Seeking Mary's guidance through the challenges of weeks and months ahead...

We will be getting a new pastor in June, a new liturgy in November, and probably many other unknown challenges will confront us in 2011. Who better to turn to for guidance than our Blessed Mother, Mary, Our Lady of Perpetual Help...


from catholicnewsagency.com by Louie Verrecchio


On October 11, 1962, the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council — the first document of which addressed the reform of the sacred liturgy — formally opened in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. It was, according to the liturgical calendar of that day, the Feast of the Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary — the same Solemnity that the Church just celebrated according to the current liturgical calendar on Jan. 1.

As one with a deep devotion to our Blessed Lady, I find it fitting is that we should begin each New Year of our Salvation in Christ by honoring the Blessed Mother in hopeful expectation that she will lead the way to her Son amidst the many blessings and challenges that await us in the weeks and months ahead. 

Catholics throughout the English speaking world know that one of those blessings (and indeed challenges) lays in the implementation of the third edition of the Roman Missal on the first Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2011. In light of this fact asking Mary to lead the way strikes me as particularly fitting at the start of this momentous New Year.     

As some readers may recall, in honor of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception last month I proposed in this space that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Beautiful Gate of the Christian era; the one through whom the Body of Christ entered into the world and likewise the sure pathway for those who wish to enter the Lord’s Holy Sanctuary to avail themselves of the Divine embrace that is offered in the sacred liturgy.

In yet another column earlier last year, I proposed that Mary is the “gateway to liturgical renewal,” and in it I suggested that the Wedding Feast at Cana offers us a wonderful lesson about the gifts that lie in store for those who are humble enough to place themselves in the tender care of the Virgin Mother, especially when we take our esteemed place as the Lord’s invited guests at Holy Mass — the Nuptial Banquet in which Christ renews the covenant with His Bride in the Most Holy Eucharist. 

I promised in that column to offer at a future date some reflections as to how one might seek Our Lady in the celebration of Holy Mass that she might lead the way to an ever more profound encounter with her Son. In what for many is the first week of implementing their New Year’s resolutions, now seems like exactly the right time to make good on that promise.



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