DAY 1| NOVENA TO THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

DAY ONE | NOVENA TO THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION  (go to day 3, December, here)

Our love for our Mother Mary is shown in continually coming up with new ways of expressing our affection for her.

One such practice is to live a personal novena, trying to offer Our Lady something special each day of the nine days leading up to the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. This year, the Solemnity will be celebrated on December 9 (Monday).

Our offering can include special prayers and readings, a greater effort to keep a constant conversation with Our Lady, and to put loving care in fulfilling our everyday tasks. We can also reach out to others, helping family members, friends and acquaintances to come closer to Jesus Christ through Mary.

Read more here.

DAY ONE | NOVENA TO THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

O Most Blessed Mother, heart of love, heart of mercy, ever listening, caring, consoling, hear our prayer. As your children, we implore your intercession with Jesus your Son. Receive with understanding and compassion the petitions we place before you today,

especially... (special intention).

We are comforted in knowing your heart is ever open to those who ask for your prayer. We trust to your gentle care and intercession, those whom we love and who are sick or lonely or hurting. Help all of us, Holy Mother, to bear our burdens in this life until we may share eternal life and peace with God forever. AMEN.

The following is from Opus day and Saint Jose Maria Escriva 

Learn more here

November 30: Mary, Full of Grace 

PRAYER

It’s fair, gentle Lady, for me to ask you for a present, a proof of your affection: contrition, compunction for my sins, sorrow of love. Hear me, O Lady, my life, my hope. Take me by the hand – and if there is anything in me now that is displeasing to my Father-God, make me see it, and between the two of us we’ll tear it out.

Personal notes, October 7, 1932

Friends of God, 292

She is the one who is full of grace and the sum of all perfections; and she is also our Mother. Her power before God is such that she can obtain anything we ask for, and, like any mother, she wants to answer our prayers. Like any mother also, she knows and understands our weaknesses. She encourages us and makes excuses for us. She makes the way easy for us and, even when we think there is no possible solution for our worry, she always has one ready to offer us.

Perhaps some of you might be thinking that the ordinary comings and goings of your working day are not going to help you much to stay close to someone as pure as Our Lady. But I would just ask you to reflect a little. What are we looking for all the time in things we do, even without thinking about it especially? If we are motivated by the love of God and we work with a right intention, then we are seeking whatever is good and clean, whatever brings peace to our conscience and happiness to our soul. Yes, you might say, but don’t we still have our faults? Indeed, but it is precisely by acknowledg- ing our faults that we are able to see, more clearly than ever, just what our goal has to be. What we are looking for is happiness; not a momentary happiness, but one that is deep and lasting, and both human and supernatural.

There is one creature who achieved such happiness here on earth because she is God’s masterpiece: our most holy Mother Mary. She lives now and is protecting us. She is there, body and soul, with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

HOLY ROSARY | 4TH JOYFUL MYSTERY 

When the days of the Mother’s purification are accomplished, according to the Law of Moses, the Child must be taken to Jerusalem, to be presented to the Lord (Luke 2:22). And this time it will be you, my friend, who will carry the cage with the doves (Luke 2:24). Just think: She – Mary Immaculate! – submits to the Law as if she were defiled. Through this example, foolish child, will you learn to obey the Holy Law of God, regard- less of any personal sacrifice?

Purification!

You and I surely do need purification! Atonement, and more than atonement, Love. Love as a searing iron to cauterize our souls’ uncleanness, and as a fire to kindle with divine flames the wretched tinder of our hearts.

Friends of God, 189

Let us turn to her, tota pulchra! – all beautiful! – taking to heart the advice I gave many years ago to those who felt uneasy in their daily struggle to be humble, pure, sincere, cheerful and generous. “All the sins of your life seem to be rising up against you. Don’t give up hope! On the contrary, call your holy Mother Mary, with the faith and abandonment of a child. She will bring peace to your soul.