NV- Imm Conc

NOVENA TO THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION ~ FEAST DAY DECEMBER 8TH

For the feast day, begin on November 29th and end on December 7th, or November 30th to December 8th.
Or, you could say it towards the end of any month, so as to finish for the First Saturday of the month.
However, do not feel obligated to particular dates, pray it any time you want.

What is a Novena?
A novena is a traditional devotion consisting of specific prayers recited on nine successive days. Besides being a form of praise, a novena is frequently offered for a particular intention. The first novena took place in the Cenacle, during the nine days preceding Pentecost, or the coming of the Holy Ghost. As a regular popular custom, this practice began in 12th century Christianity and continues to be beneficial today as a way of praying for healing, protection or other blessings for ourselves or others.

This particular novena is prayed to God in honor of the Immaculate Conception. In praying this Novena, as in the case of all prayer, it is good to begin by opening ourselves wholeheartedly to God's will, offering a simple act of trust in God's wisdom and in His providential love for us all, that disposes all things for the ultimate benefit of our souls and their salvation.

How to Pray This Novena
This novena is based on the dogma and teachings of the Church on the Immaculate Conception. Each day of the novena is divided into the following parts: (1) a Holy Scripture quote for reflection; (2) words from Popes on the teaching of the Immaculate Conception or references to the apparitions where Our referred to the Immaculate Conception or appeared as such; (3) a Meditation; (4) a Prayer; (5) after mentioning your intention, pray the Our Father and the Hail Mary; (6) a Closing Prayer (The invocation concerning the Immaculate Conception as revealed by Our Lady to St. Catherine Labouré).

ACT OF CONSECRATION TO THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Mary, Mother of God, I believe what Holy Mother Church teaches about your Immaculate Conception: that from the first moment of your conception you possessed justice and holiness—that is sanctifying grace, even the fullness of grace, with the infused virtues and gifts of the Holy Ghost, and with integrity of nature; yet you remained subject to death and other pains and miseries of life that your Son Himself willed to undergo.

For the first time after four thousand years God in His Wisdom and power and love, created again a human being in that state in which He had created our first parents. Immaculate Virgin, you are that human being. Because of sanctifying grace infused into your soul, you were from the first moment of your existence most intimately united with God and endowed with the most precious gifts of heaven. You possessed a perfect faith, a firm hope, a burning charity, a deep humility, a purity greater than that of the angels.

Your soul is the creation and the masterpiece of almighty workmanship. The Archangel Gabriel expressed this very clearly: "Hail, full of grace"—there was no room left for sin; "the Lord is with thee"—where God dwells, Satan can have no rights; "blessed art thou among women"—you were elevated above all other women in the world.

Mary, My Mother, you were never without grace. From the first moment of your existence the Holy Ghost made you His temple and blessed you with the fullness of His grace. Your Immaculate Conception, purchased by the Precious Blood of the Son of God Himself and freely bestowed upon you as the highest gift of God, is the most wonderful work of sanctification that the world has ever seen.

Mary, Mother of God, no stain of Original Sin ever defiled your pure soul. This privilege separated you from all the rest of the children of Adam. As the Mother of the Incarnate Son you were so preserved from inheriting Original Sin that never for a moment was as much as a shadow cast by sin upon your spotless soul. You were the only one who was exempt from the universal curse that had fallen on the whole human race. You were never under the power of the serpent, whose head you crushed in giving a Redeemer to the world. Your Immaculate Conception is a triumph over Satan the author of evil, who under your heel, suffered his first complete defeat. It is but a symbol of the endless victories which you are to win over him to the last day. Hence the Church sings of you: "You are all fair, O Mary, and the original stain is not in you."

But you needed the redeeming Savior to obtain this exemption, and deliverance from the universal debt of being subject to Original Sin. Being the new Eve who was to be the Mother of the new Adam you were, by the eternal decree of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of Original Sin. Your redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He paid the debt that Original Sin might not be incurred.

Mary, My Mother, what joy for you never to have been, even for a single instant, in the state of enmity toward God! You know that you are the well-beloved Daughter of the Father, you embrace the Son; you are united to the Holy Ghost with a simplicity, a confidence, and a delicacy of love which belong to you alone, for in you alone there cannot be the remembrance of a moment in which you were opposed to God. I share in this joy. I am happy at the thought that you, a human creature, have escaped completely from the clutches of Satan, that born of a race universally tainted, you are more pure and more brilliant than the most sublime of the angels; and that you are my Mother.

Mary, Mother of God, your greatness began at the first instant of your existence with the privilege of your Immaculate Conception. After Almighty God and the Sacred Humanity of Jesus, there is no being so great as you. It is true, you are a creature, and, therefore, far beneath the Supreme Being. But you are a creature so holy and so perfect that you are superior to all other creatures. You are above not only patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and all the saints but even all angels. You stand alone on a throne of greatness and perfection far above the rest of creatures.

It was fitting that you, a Virgin Mother, should conceive the Man Who was also the Son of God. It was fitting that you should be adorned with the greatest purity ever possible to a creature. You are the Virgin to whom God the Father decreed to give His only Son—the Divine Word, equal with Himself in all things—that entering the natural order He might become your Son as well as His. You are the immaculate Virgin whom the Son Himself chose to make His Mother. You are the immaculate Virgin whom the Holy Ghost willed to make His bride and in whom He would work the tremendous miracle of the Incarnation. The privilege of the Immaculate Conception was suitable to your dignity. It was possible for God to confer it, and He did confer it!

Mary, My Mother, help me to imitate your sinlessness by keeping my soul free from every willful sin by the faithful observance of God's commandments. Help me to imitate your fullness of grace by receiving Holy Communion frequently, where I shall obtain the sanctifying grace that will make my soul holy and pleasing to God, more like your own, and where I shall obtain the actual graces I need to practise virtue and to walk in your footsteps. Through prayer may grace fill my soul with the life of God and transform me into a living image of Jesus, just as you were. Thus I ask, so may it be! Amen.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

Since Mary was chosen by God, from all eternity, and destined to the Mother of His Only-Begotten Son, it was absolutely necessary that she was preserved from any influence of Satan and from all stain of sin.

At Lourdes, four years after the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was pronounced in 1854, Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette and stated the she was the Immaculate Conception. Thus we see a link between Our Lady apparitions to St. Catherine Labouré, at the Rue du Bac in 1830, and the apparitions to St. Bernadette in 1858. Both places dealt with the subject of the Immaculate Conception, with the Church's solemn proclamation of the dogma sandwiched in between them.

The Miraculous Medal shows Our Lady as the Immaculate Conception. The words around the edge of the Medal clearly state the dogma, saying: "O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee."

The chapel of the Daughters of Charity, on the Rue du Bac, Paris, where Our Lady appeared to St. Catherine Labouré in 1830.

FIRST DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted for each day)
Theme: To be the Mother of God, Mary had to be Immaculate.

Holy Scripture Says:
"He showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven from God ... There shall not enter into it any thing defiled" (Apocalypse 21:10, 27).

"I am clean, and without sin: I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me" (Job 33:9) .... "My word is pure, and I am clean in thy sight" (Job 11:4). "I am without sin and am innocent" (Jeremias 2:35) ... "Now to him who is able to preserve you without sin, and to present you spotless before the presence of his glory ... to the only God be glory and magnificence" (Jude 1:24-25).

The Popes Say:
"There was in the entire Catholic world a most ardent and wondrous revival of the desire that the most holy Mother of God—the beloved Mother of us all, the immaculate Virgin Mary—be finally declared by a solemn definition of the Church to have been conceived without the stain of Original Sin ... "Many persons are now wondering why this honor has not already been accorded to the Blessed Virgin by the Church and the Apostolic See—an honor which the widespread piety of the Christian people so fervently desires ... Accordingly, We have appointed certain priests of recognized piety and theological learning, as well as several cardinals of the Holy Roman Church who are renowned because of their ability, piety, wisdom, prudence, and knowledge of the things of God; and We have directed them to make, carefully and thoroughly, a most diligent examination into this most important matter and then provide Us with a complete report"
(Blessed Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Ubi Primum, on the Immaculate Conception, February 2, 1849).

"The Virgin was kept the more free from all stain of Original Sin because she was to be the Mother of Christ" (Pope St. Pius X, Encyclical Ad Diem Illum, on the Immaculate Conception, February 2, 1904).

Meditation:
God is Sanctity itself, much more so than the sun is light, and no shadow of sin can endure before His face. "Thy eyes are too pure to behold evil, and Thou canst not look on iniquity" (Habacuc 1:13). The least sin displeases Him infinitely, and on account of the infinite Sanctity which is offended.

It was sin that led to banishment of the fallen angels to Hell, and it was sin led to Adam and Eve to be cast out of the Garden of Eden and to suffer and die. Both the Angels and our First Parents were created immaculate, that is to say, in a state of grace. Yet many of the angels failed to keep that grace, and both Adam and Eve lost that grace through Mortal Sin. God cannot tolerate sin. Sin is an attack upon the holiness and purity of God. Sin has to be eliminated and reparation has to be made.

Since Adam and Even listened to the devil and fell into sin, they thereby abused and threw away the gifts that God had given them: (1) the supernatural grace of God; (2) the possibility of never having to die; (3) the possibility of being free from any and all forms of suffering; (4) the harmonious submission and obedience of the soul to God's grace, and the obedience of the body and its passions to the soul; and finally, (5) they weakened the infused knowledge that God had created them with, to the point that now they would experience a darkened intellect that finds learning difficult, a weak will that struggles with temptation, and rebellious passions.

They had offended God in the name of humanity, all their future descendants would participate in the effects of that sin. As St. Paul writes: "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned" (Romans 5:12). Truly, as St. Paul states later, "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).

The gates of Heaven were closed. Humanity had failed the test through Adam and Eve. It is because we downplay sin in our own thoughts, that we have such a wrong notion about what sin really is. As the old, but very clear and simple, Penny Catechism says: "It is the greatest of all evils to fall into mortal sin." Another catechism, My Catholic Faith, states that "Mortal sin is a great evil, the greatest evil in the world, a greater evil than disease, poverty, or war, because it separates us from God ... Although venial sin is not a grievous offense against God, it is nevertheless a great moral evil, next alone to mortal sin ...  We are prone to look upon venial sin as of no consequence, and to be careless about guarding against it, forgetting that it is second only in evil consequences to mortal sin." (from the catechism My Catholic Faith).

After his fall, man was not abandoned by God. The passage in Genesis, which is called the Protoevangelium ("first gospel"), makes the first announcement of the Messias and Redeemer, of a battle between the serpent and the Woman, and of the final victory of a descendant of hers. The Christian tradition sees in this passage an announcement of the "New Adam" who, because He "became obedient unto death, even death on a cross", makes amends superabundantly for the disobedience, of Adam. Additionally, many Fathers and Doctors of the Church have seen the Woman announced in the Protoevangelium as Mary, the Mother of Christ, the "New Eve". Mary benefited first of all and uniquely from Christ's victory over sin: for she was preserved from all stain of Original Sin and by a special grace of God committed no sin of any kind during her whole earthly life.

[Quiet Reflection]

Our Prayer:
Mary, Mother of God, no stain of Original Sin ever defiled your pure soul. This privilege separated you from all the rest of the children of Adam. As the Mother of the Incarnate Son, you were so preserved from inheriting Original Sin, that never for a moment was there as much as a shadow cast by sin upon your spotless soul. You were the only one who was exempt from the universal curse that had fallen on the whole human race. You were never under the power of the serpent, whose head you crushed in giving a Redeemer to the world. Your Immaculate Conception is a triumph over Satan, the author of evil, who, under your heel, suffered his first complete defeat. It is but a symbol of the endless victories which you are to win over him to the last day. Hence the Church sings of you: "You are all fair, O Mary, and the original stain is not in you."

But you needed the redeeming Savior to obtain this exemption, and deliverance from the universal debt of being subject to Original Sin. Being the new Eve, who was to be the Mother of the new Adam, you were, by the eternal decree of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of Original Sin. Your redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He paid the debt that Original Sin might not be incurred.

[Mention Intention]

Mary, My Mother, what joy for you never to have been, even for a single instant, in the state of enmity toward God! You know that you are the well-beloved Daughter of the Father, you embrace the Son; you are united to the Holy Ghost with a simplicity, a confidence, and a delicacy of love which belong to you alone, for in you alone there cannot be the remembrance of a moment in which you were opposed to God. I share in this joy. I am happy at the thought that you, a human creature, have escaped completely from the clutches of Satan, that born of a race universally tainted, you are more pure and more brilliant than the most sublime of the angels; and that you are my Mother.Amen.

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

"The most Blessed Virgin, not only never lent an ear to the serpent, but by divinely given power she utterly destroyed the force and dominion of the evil one" (Pope Pius IX).

SECOND DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Theme: We Need a New Heart and a New Spirit.

Holy Scripture Says:
"I am clean, and without sin: I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me" (Job 33:9) .... "My word is pure, and I am clean in thy sight" (Job 11:4). "I am without sin and am innocent" (Jeremias 2:35).

The Popes Say:
"This doctrine so filled the minds and souls of our ancestors in the faith that a singular and truly marvelous style of speech came into vogue among them. They have frequently addressed the Mother of God as immaculate, as immaculate in every respect; innocent, and verily most innocent; spotless, and entirely spotless; holy and removed from every stain of sin; all pure, all stainless, the very model of purity and innocence; more beautiful than beauty, more lovely than loveliness; more holy than holiness, singularly holy and most pure in soul and body; the one who surpassed all integrity and virginity; the only one who has become the dwelling place of all the graces of the most Holy Ghost. God alone excepted, Mary is more excellent than all, and by nature fair and beautiful, and more holy than the Cherubim and Seraphim. To praise her all the tongues of Heaven and Earth do not suffice." (Blessed Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Ineffabilis Deus, proclaiming the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1854).

Meditation:
We love things to be immaculate! We want things to be clean. We wash our dishes and scrub our pans; we wash ourselves and our clothes often; we seek and prefer to buy things that are immaculate, unused: whether it be a spouse in marriage, an article in a store, or a car we buy, or simply kitchen utensils that we use. If we can afford it, we prefer the immaculate and clean rather than the stained or damaged things.

That is why we speak of starting a "new life"; "turning over a new leaf"; looking forwards to buying a "new car"; or "making a new start." Even Holy Scripture speaks of the "New Jersulalem" coming down from Heaven: "I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of Heaven from my God, and my new name" (Apocalypse 3:12). Further on, St. John writes: "And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband ... "And He that sat on the throne, said: 'Behold, I make all things new!' " (Apocalypse 21:2).

We need that cleanliness and purity to stand before God: “Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord: or who shall stand in his holy place? The innocent in hands, and clean of heart” (Psalm 23:3-4). “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).

That is why we, who are not only born with Original Sin, but have added many more of our own sins besides, need to be cleansed and renewed in body, soul, mind and heart. “Who can say: ‘My heart is clean, I am pure from sin?’ ” (Proverbs 20:9). Rather, we have to cry out with the Psalmist: "Create a clean heart in me, O God: and renew a right spirit within my bowels” (Psalm 50:12).

God is always willing to answer that prayer and to make us immaculate after sin, just as He made Our Lady immaculate before sin. As He preserved her from all stain of sin, so too He can preserve us from all future stain of sin—if we really want that and work together with Him to achieve that.

“And I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels: and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh” (Ezechiel 11:19).

“For I will take you from among the Gentiles, and will gather you together out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land. And I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness, and I will cleanse you from all your idols. And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in the midst of you: and I will cause you to walk in my commandments, and to keep my judgments, and do them. And you shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will save you from all your uncleannesses” (Ezechiel 36:24-29).

They say that a broken bone, once healed, can turn out to be stronger than it was before being broken; and God is the one “Who healeth the broken of heart, and bindeth up their bruises” (Psalm 146:16). But to be healed, we need a change of heart. We cannot remain the same and expect God to so something with us: “Neither do they put new wine into old bottles. Otherwise the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish. But new wine they put into new bottles: and both are preserved” (Matthew 9:17).

“For behold I create new heavens, and a new earth: and the former things shall not be in remembrance” (Isaias 65:17). Like Mary, we must be filled with God's spirit, and that is why we pray to that Holy Spirit of God, saying: "Come, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and enkindle in us the fire of Thy love! Send forth thy spirit and we shall be created [or rather re-created] and Thou shalt renew [make new] the face of the Earth!' He sanctified Our Lady, He will sanctify us if we let Him.

[Quiet Reflection]

Our Prayer:
Mary, Mother of God, no stain of Original Sin ever defiled your pure soul. This privilege separated you from all the rest of the children of Adam. As the Mother of the Incarnate Son, you were so preserved from inheriting Original Sin, that never for a moment was there as much as a shadow cast by sin upon your spotless soul. You were the only one who was exempt from the universal curse that had fallen on the whole human race. You were never under the power of the serpent, whose head you crushed in giving a Redeemer to the world. Your Immaculate Conception is a triumph over Satan, the author of evil, who, under your heel, suffered his first complete defeat. It is but a symbol of the endless victories which you are to win over him to the last day. Hence the Church sings of you: "You are all fair, O Mary, and the original stain is not in you."

But you needed the redeeming Savior to obtain this exemption, and deliverance from the universal debt of being subject to Original Sin. Being the new Eve, who was to be the Mother of the new Adam, you were, by the eternal decree of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of Original Sin. Your redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He paid the debt that Original Sin might not be incurred.

[Mention Intention]

Mary, My Mother, what joy for you never to have been, even for a single instant, in the state of enmity toward God! You know that you are the well-beloved Daughter of the Father, you embrace the Son; you are united to the Holy Ghost with a simplicity, a confidence, and a delicacy of love, which belong to you alone, for, in you alone, there cannot be the remembrance of a moment in which you were opposed to God. I share in this joy. I am happy at the thought that you, a human creature, have escaped completely from the clutches of Satan, that, born of a race universally tainted, you are more pure and more brilliant than the most sublime of the angels; and that you are my Mother. Amen.

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

"The most Blessed Virgin, not only never lent an ear to the serpent, but by divinely given power she utterly destroyed the force and dominion of the evil one" (Pope Pius IX).

THIRD DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Theme: To Attain Heaven and Salvation, We Must Be Immaculate.

Holy Scripture Says:
“What can be made clean by the unclean? And what truth can come from that which is false?” (Ecclesiasticus 34:4).

“For know you this and understand, that no fornicator, or unclean, or covetous person hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (Ephesians 5:5).

“There shall not enter into it any thing defiled” (Apocalypse 21:27).

The Popes Say:
"It was wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin that she would triumph utterly over the ancient serpent ... and most completely triumphed over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot" (Blessed Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Ineffabilis Deus, proclaiming the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1854).

Meditation:
The more immaculate we are, the more pure we are, the less sin we commit, the more power we have over the devil, the world and the flesh and the more chance we have of attaining the salvation of our souls and reaching Heaven.

The more we sin, the more we open ourselves up to the influence and power of the devil, the world and the flesh. The more we fight temptation and the less we sin, the more we open ourselves up to the influence and power of God.

To be successful in our attempts to become increasingly immaculate, we need the help and intercession of the Original Immaculate—namely, Our Lady. We need the grace of God to fight temptation and sin, for Jesus said: "Without Me, you can do nothing!" (John 15:5); and that grace of His comes through the immaculate hands of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As the Church puts into the mouth of Mary, the words of the Epistle in the Mass of the Immaculate Conception on Decmber 8th:: "He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord” (Proverbs 8:35); and from the Epistle of the Vigil of the Immaculate Conception, the Church puts into Mary's mouth these words: “He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting” (Ecclesiasticus 24:30-31).

The more devoted we are towards Our Lady, and the more we show that devotion, the more graces we will receive. Heaven will spoil no one, we have to work for our share of the grace of God. “Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). Our Lady said the same thing in her apparition as the Immaculate Conception to St. Catherine Labouré, by pointing out that all graces radiated to mankind through the jeweled rings on her hands, but that some rays gave out no rays of grace because people neglected to ask for them.

How many souls would not be in Hell right now if they had only asked Our Lady for the graces they needed to leave sin and become immaculate? How many souls would not be in Purgatory right now if they had only sought the necessary graces to live better lives while still on Earth? Will we fall among them, in Hell or Purgatory, because of our sloth, indifference or negligence? Let us rouse ourselves in this time of Advent and turn to our Immaculate Mother, asking for the graces we need to avoid not only Hell, but also the fires of Purgatory, which the saints and popes say are the same fires as those of Hell.

But there are many ways of asking. Our Lord condemns some of those who ask, but ask badly: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). St. Augustine says that the chief reasons why our prayers are not heard are because (1) we pray badly, (2) we ask for bad things, and(3) we are bad.

We could dovetail this with St. Louis de Montfort's description of the false devotees of Our Lady, whom he places in seven categories, namely: 1. the critical devotees; 2. the scrupulous devotees; 3. the external devotees; 4. the presumptuous devotees; 5. the inconstant devotees; 6. the hypocritical devotees; 7. the interested devotees.

The critical devotees are, for the most part, proud scholars, rash and self-sufficient spirits, who have at heart some devotion to the holy Virgin, but who criticize nearly all the practices of devotion which simple people pay simply and holily to their good Mother, because these practices do not fall in with their own humor and fancy.

The scrupulous devotees are those who fear to dishonor the Son by honoring the Mother, to abase the one in elevating the other. They are unwilling that we should speak so often of Our Lady and address her so frequently.

External devotees are persons who make all devotion to Our Blessed Lady consist in outward practices. They have no taste except for the exterior of this devotion, because they have no interior spirit of their own. They will say quantities of Rosaries with the greatest precipitation; they will hear many Masses distractedly; they will go, without devotion, to processions; they will enroll themselves in all her confraternities--without amending their lives, without doing any violence to their passions.

Presumptuous devotees are sinners abandoned to their passions, or lovers of the world, who under the fair name of Christians and clients of Our Blessed Lady conceal pride, avarice, impurity, drunkenness, anger, swearing, detraction, injustice or some other sin. They sleep in peace in the midst of their bad habits, without doing any violence to themselves to correct their faults, under the pretext that they are devout to the Blessed Virgin. They promise themselves that God will pardon them; that they will not be allowed to die without confession; and that they will not be lost eternally because they say the Rosary, fast on Saturdays, wear the Scapular. They will not believe us when we tell them that their devotion is only an illusion of the devil and a pernicious presumption likely to destroy their souls.

The inconstant devotees are those who are devout to our Blessed Lady by fits and starts. Sometimes they are fervent and sometimes lukewarm. Sometimes they seem ready to do anything for her, and then a little afterward, they are not like the same people. They begin by taking up all the devotions to her, and enrolling themselves in the confraternities; and then they do not practice the rules with fidelity.

Hypocritical Devotees are those who cloak their sins and sinful habits with her mantle, in order to be taken by men for what they are not.

Interested Devotees have recourse to Our Lady only to gain some lawsuit, or to avoid some danger, or to be cured of some illness, or for some other similar necessity, without which they would forget her altogether. All these are false devotees, pleasing neither to God nor to His holy Mother.

[Quiet Reflection]

Our Prayer:
Mary, Mother of God, no stain of Original Sin ever defiled your pure soul. This privilege separated you from all the rest of the children of Adam. As the Mother of the Incarnate Son, you were so preserved from inheriting Original Sin, that never for a moment was there as much as a shadow cast by sin upon your spotless soul. You were the only one who was exempt from the universal curse that had fallen on the whole human race. You were never under the power of the serpent, whose head you crushed in giving a Redeemer to the world. Your Immaculate Conception is a triumph over Satan, the author of evil, who, under your heel, suffered his first complete defeat. It is but a symbol of the endless victories which you are to win over him to the last day. Hence the Church sings of you: "You are all fair, O Mary, and the original stain is not in you."

But you needed the redeeming Savior to obtain this exemption, and deliverance from the universal debt of being subject to Original Sin. Being the new Eve, who was to be the Mother of the new Adam, you were, by the eternal decree of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of Original Sin. Your redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He paid the debt that Original Sin might not be incurred.

[Mention Intention]

Mary, My Mother, what joy for you never to have been, even for a single instant, in the state of enmity toward God! You know that you are the well-beloved Daughter of the Father, you embrace the Son; you are united to the Holy Ghost with a simplicity, a confidence, and a delicacy of love, which belong to you alone, for, in you alone, there cannot be the remembrance of a moment in which you were opposed to God. I share in this joy. I am happy at the thought that you, a human creature, have escaped completely from the clutches of Satan, that, born of a race universally tainted, you are more pure and more brilliant than the most sublime of the angels; and that you are my Mother. Amen.

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

"The most Blessed Virgin, not only never lent an ear to the serpent, but by divinely given power she utterly destroyed the force and dominion of the evil one" (Pope Pius IX).

FOURTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Theme: The Awesome Power of the Immaculate Mother of God

Holy Scripture Says:
“Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?” (Canticle of Canticles 6:9).

The Saints Say:
"Eve listened to the serpent with lamentable consequences; she fell from original innocence and became his slave. The most Blessed Virgin, on the contrary, ever increased her original gift, and, not only never lent an ear to the serpent, but by divinely given power she utterly destroyed the force and dominion of the evil one"  (Blessed Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Ineffabilis Deus, proclaiming the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1854).

Meditation:
Yesterday, we said that the more immaculate we are, the more pure we are, the less sin we commit, the more power we have over the devil, the world and the flesh and the more chance we have of attaining the salvation of our souls and reaching Heaven. If that is true for us, how much more true is that not of the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God?

"The most terrible of all the enemies which God has set up against the devil is His holy Mother Mary. He has inspired her, even since the days of the earthly paradise–though she existed then only in His idea–with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much ingenuity in unveiling the malice of that ancient serpent, with so much power to conquer, to overthrow and to crush that proud, impious rebel, that he fears her not only more than all angels and men, but in a sense more than God Himself"  (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).

► In St. Louis' book, The Secret of Mary, we have the confession of the devils that St. Dominic was exorcising. Forced by Our Lady to speak, the devils screamed: "Oh, you who are enemy, our downfall and our destruction, why have you come from heaven to torture us so grievously? O advocate of sinners, you who snatch them from the very jaws of hell, you who are a most sure path to heaven, must we, in spite of ourselves, tell the whole truth and confess before everyone who it is who is the cause of our shame and our ruin? Oh, woe to us, princes of darkness. Then listen, you Christians. This Mother of Jesus is most powerful in saving her servants from falling into hell. She is like the sun which destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety. It is she who uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares, and makes our temptations useless and ineffective. "We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us; one single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints. We fear her more than all the other saints in heaven together, and we have no success with her faithful servants." (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary).

Blessed Thomas of St. John was well known for his sermons on the Holy Rosary, and the devil, jealous of his success, tortured him so much that he fell ill and was sick for such a long time that the doctors gave him up. Our Lady put out her hand, took him by the arm and said, "Do not be afraid, Thomas my son, here I am and I am going to save you; get up now and go on preaching my Rosary as you used to do. I promise to shield you from your enemies."

► She also said to Blessed Alan de la Roche: "I want you to know that whosoever shall persevere in the devotion of the Holy Rosary, with its prayers and meditations, shall be rewarded for it; I shall obtain for him full remission of the penalty and the guilt of all his sins at the end of his life. And let this not seem incredible to you; it is easy for me, because I am the Mother of the King of Heaven, and He calls me full of grace; and, being filled with grace, I am able to dispense it freely to my dear children."

► "The length of her power, which she exercises even over God Himself, is incomprehensible ... her prayers and petitions are so powerful with God that they always pass for commandments with His Majesty, who never resists the prayer of His dear Mother ... the prayer of the humble Mary, that worthy Mother of God, is more powerful with His Majesty than the prayers and intercessions of all the angels and saints both in Heaven and on earth ... God has empowered her and commissioned her to fill with saints the empty thrones from which the apostate angels fell by pride." (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).

[Quiet Reflection]

Our Prayer:
Mary, Mother of God, no stain of Original Sin ever defiled your pure soul. This privilege separated you from all the rest of the children of Adam. As the Mother of the Incarnate Son, you were so preserved from inheriting Original Sin, that never for a moment was there as much as a shadow cast by sin upon your spotless soul. You were the only one who was exempt from the universal curse that had fallen on the whole human race. You were never under the power of the serpent, whose head you crushed in giving a Redeemer to the world. Your Immaculate Conception is a triumph over Satan, the author of evil, who, under your heel, suffered his first complete defeat. It is but a symbol of the endless victories which you are to win over him to the last day. Hence the Church sings of you: "You are all fair, O Mary, and the original stain is not in you."

But you needed the redeeming Savior to obtain this exemption, and deliverance from the universal debt of being subject to Original Sin. Being the new Eve, who was to be the Mother of the new Adam, you were, by the eternal decree of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of Original Sin. Your redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He paid the debt that Original Sin might not be incurred.

[Mention Intention]

Mary, My Mother, what joy for you never to have been, even for a single instant, in the state of enmity toward God! You know that you are the well-beloved Daughter of the Father, you embrace the Son; you are united to the Holy Ghost with a simplicity, a confidence, and a delicacy of love, which belong to you alone, for, in you alone, there cannot be the remembrance of a moment in which you were opposed to God. I share in this joy. I am happy at the thought that you, a human creature, have escaped completely from the clutches of Satan, that, born of a race universally tainted, you are more pure and more brilliant than the most sublime of the angels; and that you are my Mother. Amen.

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

"The most Blessed Virgin, not only never lent an ear to the serpent, but by divinely given power she utterly destroyed the force and dominion of the evil one" (Pope Pius IX).

FIFTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Theme: The Immaculate is the Solution to Today's Crises and Woes

Our Lady Says:
“Only she can help you” (Fatima, July 13, 1917; Our Lady speaking of herself).

The Saints Say:
Father Frederick Faber writes: "What is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by God Himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady; but, remember, nothing short of an immense one. Here in England, Mary is not half enough preached. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor ... It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be. Hence it is that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls which might be saints wither and dwindle; that the Sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized ... Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines. Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother ... Oh, if Mary were but known, there would be no coldness to Jesus then! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much more wonderful would be our faith, and how different would our Communions be! Oh, if Mary were but known, how much happier, how much holier, how much less worldly should we be, and how much more should we be living images of our sole Lord and Savior, her dearest and most blessed Son!" (Preface to True Devotion to Mary, by Fr. Faber).

Meditation:
Yesterday, we meditated upon the power of the Immaculate Virgin and Mother of God. Today we shall reflect upon the need to tap into that power to solve the miseries that the world is increasingly facing today, and the terrible punishments that those miseries are threatening to bring about on the whole of mankind.

Our Lady is the "umbrella" of all other solutions to the many crises facing the Church and civil society today. If we are seeking or proposing solutions that downplay, ignore or reject the Marian solution, then we are proverbially "shooting ourselves in the foot."

In a 1957 interview with Fr. Fuentes, Sister Lucia of Fatima said:
"Father, the Most Holy Virgin did not tell me that we are in the last times of the world but she made me understand this for three reasons. The first reason is because she told me that the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle against the Virgin. And a decisive battle is the final battle where one side will be victorious and the other side will suffer defeat. Hence from now on we must choose sides. Either we are for God or we are for the devil. There is no other possibility.

"The second reason is because she said to my cousins as well as to myself that God is giving two last remedies to the world. These are the Holy Rosary and Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These are the last two remedies which signify that there will be no others.

"The third reason is because in the plans of Divine Providence, God always before He is about to chastise the world, exhausts all other remedies. Now, when He sees that the world pays no attention whatsoever then, as we say in our imperfect manner of speaking, He offers us, with a certain trepidation, the last means of salvation, His Most Holy Mother. It is with a certain trepidation, because, if you despise and repulse this ultimate means, we will not have any more forgiveness from Heaven because we will have committed a sin which the Gospel calls the sin against the Holy Spirit. This sin consists of openly rejecting with full knowledge and consent, the salvation which He offers. Let us remember that Jesus Christ is a very good Son and that He does not permit that we offend and despise His Most Holy Mother. We have recorded through many centuries of Church history the obvious testimony which demonstrates, by the terrible chastisements which have befallen those who have attacked the honor of His Most Holy Mother, and how Our Lord Jesus Christ has always defended the honor of His Mother." (Sister Lucia dos Santos of Fatima's interview with Father Augustin Fuentes, December 26, 1957)

[Quiet Reflection]

Our Prayer:
Mary, Mother of God, no stain of Original Sin ever defiled your pure soul. This privilege separated you from all the rest of the children of Adam. As the Mother of the Incarnate Son, you were so preserved from inheriting Original Sin, that never for a moment was there as much as a shadow cast by sin upon your spotless soul. You were the only one who was exempt from the universal curse that had fallen on the whole human race. You were never under the power of the serpent, whose head you crushed in giving a Redeemer to the world. Your Immaculate Conception is a triumph over Satan, the author of evil, who, under your heel, suffered his first complete defeat. It is but a symbol of the endless victories which you are to win over him to the last day. Hence the Church sings of you: "You are all fair, O Mary, and the original stain is not in you."

But you needed the redeeming Savior to obtain this exemption, and deliverance from the universal debt of being subject to Original Sin. Being the new Eve, who was to be the Mother of the new Adam, you were, by the eternal decree of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of Original Sin. Your redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He paid the debt that Original Sin might not be incurred.

[Mention Intention]

Mary, My Mother, what joy for you never to have been, even for a single instant, in the state of enmity toward God! You know that you are the well-beloved Daughter of the Father, you embrace the Son; you are united to the Holy Ghost with a simplicity, a confidence, and a delicacy of love, which belong to you alone, for, in you alone, there cannot be the remembrance of a moment in which you were opposed to God. I share in this joy. I am happy at the thought that you, a human creature, have escaped completely from the clutches of Satan, that, born of a race universally tainted, you are more pure and more brilliant than the most sublime of the angels; and that you are my Mother. Amen.

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Scroll down for meditations from previous days

"The most Blessed Virgin, not only never lent an ear to the serpent, but by divinely given power she utterly destroyed the force and dominion of the evil one" (Pope Pius IX).

SIXTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Theme: Mary Wants Us To Be Immaculate

Holy Scripture Says:
“Thou shalt be perfect, and without spot before the Lord thy God” (Deuteronomy 18:13).
“Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

The Saints Say:
Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like Him in this life, and glorious like Him in the next (Matthew 5:48). It is certain that growth in the holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake, must lead you towards that end. Otherwise you are resisting God, in not doing the work for which He created you and for which He is even now keeping you in being. What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God!" (St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary).

Meditation:
At the Miraculous Medal apparitions in 1830, Our Lady said: "The times are very evil ... The whole world will be plunged into every kind of misery ... It pains me that there are great abuses in regularity, that the rules are not observed, that there is much relaxation in the Communities"

At La Salette, in 1848, Our Lady said: "Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles, with dread, at what must happen to the earth stained with crime. Tremble, earth, and you who proclaim yourselves as serving Jesus Christ and who, on the inside, only adore yourselves!"

At Lourdes, in 1858, Our Lady, who later told Bernadette that she was the Immaculate Conception, tells Bernadette to "go to the fountain to wash, and that I was to pray for sinners." Washing is something we do to make ourselves clean and immaculate; while the reference to sinners signifies their lack of spiritual cleanliness. They need prayers that will draw down the waters of grace than will wash them clean. It is penance that scrubs us clean and at Lourdes Our Lady said: ""Penance! Penance! Penance! Pray to God for sinners!" For with regard to Heaven, "there shall not enter into it any thing defiled" (Apocalypse 21:27).

At Fatima, Our Lady warned that we have sinned and offended God enough. It has to stop.

All these quotes show the negative side of the coin, whereby Our Lady wants us to leave sin behind. The flip side of the coin is that she watns us to be holy or immaculate. IF we fail to become immaculate and scrub ourselves clean from the stain of our sins, then Purgatory will have to do it.

Our Lady glories in the conversion of sinners; in the rendering of what was stained to the ranks of the immaculate. She said to the Venerable Sr. Mary Villani: "Next to the title of mother of God, I glory most in being named the advocate of sinners." What does this advocate plead on behalf of sinners? She pleads that they may be made clean, just like the man pleaded with Jesus in the Scriptures: “And behold a leper came and adored Him, saying: ‘Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean’” (Matthew 8:2).

To obtain our own grace of cleansing from the leprosy of sin, we must seek and find Mary. "The Holy Ghost, the more He finds Mary, His dear and inseparable spouse, in any soul, the more active and mighty He becomes in producing Jesus Christ in that soul, and that soul in Jesus Christ" (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).

[Quiet Reflection]

Our Prayer:
Mary, Mother of God, no stain of Original Sin ever defiled your pure soul. This privilege separated you from all the rest of the children of Adam. As the Mother of the Incarnate Son, you were so preserved from inheriting Original Sin, that never for a moment was there as much as a shadow cast by sin upon your spotless soul. You were the only one who was exempt from the universal curse that had fallen on the whole human race. You were never under the power of the serpent, whose head you crushed in giving a Redeemer to the world. Your Immaculate Conception is a triumph over Satan, the author of evil, who, under your heel, suffered his first complete defeat. It is but a symbol of the endless victories which you are to win over him to the last day. Hence the Church sings of you: "You are all fair, O Mary, and the original stain is not in you."

But you needed the redeeming Savior to obtain this exemption, and deliverance from the universal debt of being subject to Original Sin. Being the new Eve, who was to be the Mother of the new Adam, you were, by the eternal decree of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of Original Sin. Your redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He paid the debt that Original Sin might not be incurred.

[Mention Intention]

Mary, My Mother, what joy for you never to have been, even for a single instant, in the state of enmity toward God! You know that you are the well-beloved Daughter of the Father, you embrace the Son; you are united to the Holy Ghost with a simplicity, a confidence, and a delicacy of love, which belong to you alone, for, in you alone, there cannot be the remembrance of a moment in which you were opposed to God. I share in this joy. I am happy at the thought that you, a human creature, have escaped completely from the clutches of Satan, that, born of a race universally tainted, you are more pure and more brilliant than the most sublime of the angels; and that you are my Mother. Amen.

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

SEVENTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Theme: The Immaculate Mary is a Refuge for Sinners

Holy Scripture Says:
“If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Isaias 1:18).

Our Lady Says:
The blessed Virgin herself revealed to St. Bridget: “I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the gate of entrance for sinners to God; neither is there living on earth a sinner who is so accursed that he is deprived of my compassion; for everyone, if he receives nothing else through my intercession, receives the grace of being less tempted by evil spirits than he otherwise would be; no one. therefore, who is not entirely damned, is so entirely cast off by God that he may not return and enjoy his mercy if he invokes my aid. I am called by all the Mother of Mercy, and truly the mercy of God towards men has made me so merciful towards them. Therefore he shall be miserable, and forever miserable in another life, who in this, being able, does not have recourse to me, who am so compassionate to all, and so earnestly desire to aid sinners.” (taken from The Glories of Mary, by St. Alphonsus Liguori).

Meditation:
There are rich people who despise the poor; and there are rich people who feel sorry for the poor. There are rich people who rarely help the poor; and there are rich people who often help the poor. Our Lady is rich in grace. Guess which category she falls into! The answer is obvious of course. But that is only the beginning of the matter.

Let us look at things from the side of the poor. There are the poor who use well and wisely the assistance given to them by the rich; and there are the poor who waste and squander the assistance given to them by the rich. To whom do you think the rich are most likely to give more to? Again, the answer is obvious.

We have all heard of the saying: "Give the man a fish and you will feed him for a day; but teach a man to fish and you will feed him for life." To complement this, we can add the saying: "God helps those who help themselves" and the words of Our Lady to the servants at the Marriage Feast at Cana: "Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye" (John 2:5).

If we poor sinners wish to find shelter under Our Lady's protective mantle, then we need to do as she says. Our Lady will not protect us if we persist in attacking her Son through sin. Of course, she wants to reconcile the two warring children, that of the sinful adopted child with her attacked and aggrieved real Child. But if she sees that the adopted sinful child is not wanting to stop attacking her Divine Son, with whom, do you think, is she going to side? Again, the answer is obvious. To continue to sin deliberately, while telling ourselves that it's alright because Our Lady will obtain pardon for us, is a despicable sin of presumption upon the mercy of God.

But if we regret our falls and sincerely wish to repent and make amends for all that we have done, then we will find no more powerful a help that Our Lady, the Mother of Perpetual Help, the Help of Christians, of whom the devils say that they are powerless to snatch and damn souls that are under her special protection, no matter how sinful they may have been. The following quote comes from the devils themselves, who, during an exorcism by St. Dominic, were commanded to speak by Our Lady:

"Oh, you who are enemy, our downfall and our destruction, why have you come from Heaven to torture us so grievously? O advocate of sinners, you who snatch them from the very jaws of Hell, you who are a most sure path to Heaven, must we, in spite of ourselves, tell the whole truth and confess before everyone who it is who is the cause of our shame and our ruin? Oh, woe to us, princes of darkness. Then listen, you Christians. This Mother of Jesus is most powerful in saving her servants from falling into Hell. She is like the sun which destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety. It is she who uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares, and makes our temptations useless and ineffective.

"We have to say, however, reluctantly, that no soul who has really persevered in her service has ever been damned with us; one single sigh that she offers to the Blessed Trinity is worth far more than all the prayers, desires, and aspirations of all the saints. We fear her more than all the other saints in Heaven together, and we have no success with her faithful servants. Many Christians who call on her at the hour of death and who really ought to be damned, according to our ordinary standards, are saved by her intercession. And if that Marietta (it is thus in their fury they called her) did not counter our plans and our efforts, we should have overcome the Church and destroyed it long before this, and caused all the Orders in the Church to fall into error and infidelity. Now that we are forced to speak, we must also tell you that nobody who perseveres in saying the Rosary will be damned, because she obtains for her servants the grace of true contrition for their sins by which they obtain pardon and mercy."

[Quiet Reflection]

Our Prayer:
Mary, Mother of God, no stain of Original Sin ever defiled your pure soul. This privilege separated you from all the rest of the children of Adam. As the Mother of the Incarnate Son, you were so preserved from inheriting Original Sin, that never for a moment was there as much as a shadow cast by sin upon your spotless soul. You were the only one who was exempt from the universal curse that had fallen on the whole human race. You were never under the power of the serpent, whose head you crushed in giving a Redeemer to the world. Your Immaculate Conception is a triumph over Satan, the author of evil, who, under your heel, suffered his first complete defeat. It is but a symbol of the endless victories which you are to win over him to the last day. Hence the Church sings of you: "You are all fair, O Mary, and the original stain is not in you."

But you needed the redeeming Savior to obtain this exemption, and deliverance from the universal debt of being subject to Original Sin. Being the new Eve, who was to be the Mother of the new Adam, you were, by the eternal decree of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of Original Sin. Your redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He paid the debt that Original Sin might not be incurred.

[Mention Intention]

Mary, My Mother, what joy for you never to have been, even for a single instant, in the state of enmity toward God! You know that you are the well-beloved Daughter of the Father, you embrace the Son; you are united to the Holy Ghost with a simplicity, a confidence, and a delicacy of love, which belong to you alone, for, in you alone, there cannot be the remembrance of a moment in which you were opposed to God. I share in this joy. I am happy at the thought that you, a human creature, have escaped completely from the clutches of Satan, that, born of a race universally tainted, you are more pure and more brilliant than the most sublime of the angels; and that you are my Mother. Amen.

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

The chapel of the Daughters of Charity, on the Rue du Bac, Paris, where Our Lady appeared to St. Catherine Labouré in 1830.

EIGHTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Theme:  The Immaculate Mary is a Pillar of Strength to Her Children

Our Lady Says:
“Are you suffering a great deal? Don't lose heart. Don't be discouraged. I will never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God” (Our Lady at Fatima, June 13, 1917).

"I shall be with you myself. I always have my eye upon you. I will grant you many graces. The moment will come when the danger will be extreme. It will seem that all is lost. At that time, I will be with you. Have confidence." (Our Lady during the Miraculous Medal apparitions in Paris, 1830).

Holy Scripture Says:
"Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? And if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee." (Isaias 49:15).

The Saints Say:
"She is taken as the protectress of many kingdoms, provinces, dioceses and cities" (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).

"We believe that she opens the depths of the mercy of God, to whom she will, when she will, and as she will; so that not even the vilest sinner is lost, if Mary protects him" (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary).

Meditation:
We are reminded of one of the visions given to St. John Bosco, where he saw the Church portrayed as a ship on the sea of life in the middle of a terrible storm, attacked by pirate ships on all sides. The Pope at the helm was killed, and another was quickly elected in his place. At which point to pillars arose out of the tempestuous sea: on one pillar was a gigantic Eucharistic Host, with the inscription underneath, "Salvation of Believers"; on the other pillar stood Our Lady, with an inscription underneath that read "Help of Christians." The Pope sailed the ship of the Church in between these two pillars and chained it to them for protection.

Let us remember that Mary was made Queen of Mercy for this very end, that she might save, by her protection,
the greatest and most abandoned sinners who have recourse to her. They are to be her crown in Heaven, as her divine spouse has said: "Come from Libanus, my spouse, come from Libanus, come: thou shalt be crowned from the top of Amana, from the top of Sanir and Hermon, from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards."  (Canticles 4:8). And what are these dens of wild beasts and monsters, if not miserable sinners, whose souls become dens of sins, the most deformed monsters?  (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary).

Oh, happy those who live under the protection of a Mother so loving and so powerful .... What fury of hell or of passion can.conquer them, if they place their trust in the protection of this great mother? .... She then, with maternal affection, protects them as it were in her bowels, and continues to shelter them until she has placed them in the secure haven of Paradise ... In every battle with Hell we shall always conquer, and certainly conquer, if we have recourse to the Mother of God and our mother, always repeating, over and over again: "We fly to thy protection, oh holy Mother of God; we fly to thy protection, oh holy Mother of God."   (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary).

Be joyful then, all ye children of Mary; remember that she adopts, as her children, all those who wish her for their Mother. Be joyful; for what fear have you of being lost when this Mother defends and protects you? Thus says St. Bonaventure: "Every one who loves this good mother and trusts in her protection, should take courage and repeat: What do you fear, oh my soul? The cause of thy eternal salvation will not be lost, as the final sentence depends upon Jesus, who is thy brother, and upon Mary who is thy Mother." And St. Anselm full of joy at this thought, exclaims, in order to encourage us: "Oh, blessed confidence! Oh, secure refuge! The mother of God is my Mother also!" (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary).

[Quiet Reflection]

Our Prayer:
Mary, Mother of God, no stain of Original Sin ever defiled your pure soul. This privilege separated you from all the rest of the children of Adam. As the Mother of the Incarnate Son, you were so preserved from inheriting Original Sin, that never for a moment was there as much as a shadow cast by sin upon your spotless soul. You were the only one who was exempt from the universal curse that had fallen on the whole human race. You were never under the power of the serpent, whose head you crushed in giving a Redeemer to the world. Your Immaculate Conception is a triumph over Satan, the author of evil, who, under your heel, suffered his first complete defeat. It is but a symbol of the endless victories which you are to win over him to the last day. Hence the Church sings of you: "You are all fair, O Mary, and the original stain is not in you."

But you needed the redeeming Savior to obtain this exemption, and deliverance from the universal debt of being subject to Original Sin. Being the new Eve, who was to be the Mother of the new Adam, you were, by the eternal decree of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of Original Sin. Your redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He paid the debt that Original Sin might not be incurred.

[Mention Intention]

Mary, My Mother, what joy for you never to have been, even for a single instant, in the state of enmity toward God! You know that you are the well-beloved Daughter of the Father, you embrace the Son; you are united to the Holy Ghost with a simplicity, a confidence, and a delicacy of love, which belong to you alone, for, in you alone, there cannot be the remembrance of a moment in which you were opposed to God. I share in this joy. I am happy at the thought that you, a human creature, have escaped completely from the clutches of Satan, that, born of a race universally tainted, you are more pure and more brilliant than the most sublime of the angels; and that you are my Mother. Amen.

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

"The most Blessed Virgin, not only never lent an ear to the serpent, but by divinely given power she utterly destroyed the force and dominion of the evil one" (Pope Pius IX).

St. Louis de Montfort

Fr. Frederick Faber

Blessed Pope Pius IX

Pope St. Pius X

NINTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Theme:  The Immaculate is the Masterpiece of God

Our Lady Says:
“I am the Immaculate Conception” (Our Lady at Lourdes, 16th apparition, March 25th, 1858).

Holy Scripture Says:
"I am clean, and without sin: I am unspotted, and there is no iniquity in me" (Job 33:9).
"My word is pure, and I am clean in thy sight" (Job 11:4). "I am without sin and am innocent" (Jeremias 2:35).
"Now to him who is able to preserve you without sin, and to present you spotless before the presence of his glory ... to the only God be glory and magnificence"(Jude 1:24-25).

The Saints Say:
"Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High, the knowledge and possession of which He has reserved to Himself ... Mary is the sanctuary and the repose of the Holy Trinity, where God dwells more magnificently and more divinely than in any other place in the universe ... The saints have said admirable things of this holy city of God; and, as they themselves avow, they were never more eloquent and more content than when they spoke of her ... We must cry out with the saints: “De Maria numquam satis” – “Of Mary there is never enough.” We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought. She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service" (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).

"Mary is not half enough preached. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor ... Jesus is obscured because Mary is kept in the background. Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines. Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother" (Fr. Frederick Faber, Preface of his translation of St. Louis de Montfort's True Devotion to Mary).

The Popes Say:
BLESSED PIUS IX: "From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared, for His only-begotten Son, a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, He would be born into this world. Above all creatures did God so love her, that truly in her was the Father well pleased with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints, so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts, poured from the treasury of His Divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully. And indeed it was wholly fitting, that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of Original Sin, that she would triumph utterly over the ancient serpent.

"Accordingly, the Fathers of the Church have never ceased to call the Mother of God the lily among thorns, the land entirely intact, the Virgin undefiled, immaculate, ever blessed, and free from all contagion of sin, she from whom was formed the new Adam, the flawless, brightest, and most beautiful paradise of innocence, immortality and delights planted by God himself ... The Fathers of the Church affirmed that the same Virgin is, and is deservedly, the first and especial work of God ... the very model of purity and innocence; more beautiful than beauty, more lovely than loveliness; more holy than holiness, singularly holy and most pure in soul and body; the one who surpassed all integrity and virginity; the only one who has become the dwelling place of all the graces of the most Holy Spirit. God alone excepted, Mary is more excellent than all, and by nature fair and beautiful, and more holy than the Cherubim and Seraphim. To praise her, all the tongues of Heaven and earth do not suffice" (Blessed Pope Pius IX, Encyclical on the Immaculate Conception, Ineffabilis Deus, December 8th, 1854).

POPE ST. PIUS X: "Can anyone fail to see that there is no surer or more direct road, than by Mary, for uniting all mankind in Christ and obtaining, through Him, the perfect adoption of sons, that we may be holy and immaculate in the sight of God? ... Nobody ever knew Christ so profoundly as she did, and nobody can ever be more competent as a guide and teacher of the knowledge of Christ ...The Virgin is more powerful than all others, as a means for uniting mankind with Christ ... She is a most sure and efficacious assistance to us for arriving at the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ ... [But], to be right and good, worship of the Mother of God ought to spring from the heart; acts of the body have here neither utility nor value, if the acts of the soul have no part in them. Now these latter can only have one object, which is that we should fully carry out what the Divine Son of Mary commands. For if true love alone has the power to unite the wills of men, it is of the first necessity that we should have one will, with Mary, to serve Jesus our Lord. What this most prudent Virgin said to the servants at the marriage feast of Cana, she addresses also to us: "Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye" (John 2: 5).  (Pope St. Pius X, Encyclical on the Immaculate Conception, Ad Diem Illum, February 2nd, 1904).

Meditation:
A true masterpiece is a work of that art that is universally admired and honored at all times and in all places. Mary is not just a masterpiece of God's hands; she is the masterpiece of God's hands. The more trained a person is in the field of art, the more he can see and admire things in a masterpiece. To the common eye, all that may seem beautiful are the superficial elements of the masterpiece. In a painting, for example, it may be the colors and their harmony, the outlines and shapes with their proportions, etc. But to the trained-eye, there is a still deeper beauty. Besides the things already mentioned, the trained-eye will take in the beauty of the compositional structure of the painting, with its nuances that are calculated to lead the eye around the canvas along a specific path; the trained-eye will appreciate the mathematical structure in the placement of objects within the painting; the subtle variations or precisions of perspective; the multitude of symbolic meanings given by the specifically chosen objects with their colors, sizes and locationso or positions. This is only a tip of iceberg as to what can be found in a masterpiece. The better trained the eye, the more it sees and so the more it appreciates and loves the masterpiece.

Likewise with God's masterpiece, the Immaculate Mary! If St. Therese of Liseux could say: "Jesus is so little loved, because He is so little known", then we can say the same of Mary: "Mary is so little loved, because she is so little known." She is so little known because she is so little studied. We are more than content with a superficial knowledge of her, and we live our lives on the meager scraps of that meager knowledge. Yet, as with an iceberg, then is much more to it than is first seen by the eye. If we go under the surface of things, if we go under the water, we see the vastness of what really exists. If we were to study Mary more deeply, take more time over her, give more time to her, then we would discover some of the unbelievable treasures that lay waiting for us. Let this feast of the Immaculate Conception be the beginning of a new approach to Our Lady. You will not outdo her generosity and you will start to approach a little more that exalted level of honor that almighty God wishes mankind to show to His Masterpiece.

[Quiet Reflection]

Our Prayer:
Mary, Mother of God, no stain of Original Sin ever defiled your pure soul. This privilege separated you from all the rest of the children of Adam. As the Mother of the Incarnate Son you were so preserved from inheriting Original Sin that never for a moment was as much as a shadow cast by sin upon your spotless soul. You were the only one who was exempt from the universal curse that had fallen on the whole human race. You were never under the power of the serpent, whose head you crushed in giving a Redeemer to the world. Your Immaculate Conception is a triumph over Satan the author of evil, who under your heel, suffered his first complete defeat. It is but a symbol of the endless victories which you are to win over him to the last day. Hence the Church sings of you: "You are all fair, O Mary, and the original stain is not in you."

But you needed the redeeming Savior to obtain this exemption, and deliverance from the universal debt of being subject to Original Sin. Being the new Eve who was to be the Mother of the new Adam you were, by the eternal decree of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of Original Sin. Your redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He paid the debt that Original Sin might not be incurred.

[Mention Intention]

Mary, My Mother, what joy for you never to have been, even for a single instant, in the state of enmity toward God! You know that you are the well-beloved Daughter of the Father, you embrace the Son; you are united to the Holy Ghost with a simplicity, a confidence, and a delicacy of love, which belong to you alone, for, in you alone, there cannot be the remembrance of a moment in which you were opposed to God. I share in this joy. I am happy at the thought that you, a human creature, have escaped completely from the clutches of Satan, that, born of a race universally tainted, you are more pure and more brilliant than the most sublime of the angels; and that you are my Mother. Amen.

Pray:
Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

NOVENA TO THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION ~ FEAST DAY DECEMBER 8TH

​ACT OF CONSECRATION TO THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

ACT OF CONSECRATION TO THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION