Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary

Earlier in the month, I mentioned in one of my blog posts the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary, and I also mention it in my profile.  One of my friends, in seeing this, asked me what it was about, and I told her I would discuss it in a post.  This amazing devotion, which at first I was wary of, has changed my life since I recited my consecration this past March on the feast of the Annunciation.  Let me tell you my story on how I came to this devotion and a little bit about St. Louis de Monfort's Total Consecration.

Last summer, after graduating college and transitioning into the "real world", I met a new group of young adults through the Lancaster Young Adult Catholics.  The leader of this group, Lisa, was a vibrant young women who had a faith that blew me away and filled me with joy.  One day, while I was with her, she asked me if I had ever heard of the Total Consecration.  I said that I had no idea what it was, and then she proceeded to tell me all about it.  All I heard was a month-long preparation period which included certain prayers, recitation of the rosary, and a consecration prayer at the end of the of the preparation in which you handed over your entire life to Mary, who would give it over to her Son, Jesus.  I found it interesting, but I was terrified at the word "consecration".  I felt like I was binding myself to something that I wouldn't be able to "get out of" if I wanted to.  At the time, my devotion to the Sacred Heart was still flourishing, and I was reciting a similar consecration prayer in which I handed my heart over to Jesus' Heart.  For some reason, though, this total consecration was instilling a certain fear in me that made me want nothing to do with it.

Mary was persistent, though.

I talked to some of my other, new Catholic friends about it, and they knew of it also, giving it high praise and talking about it with humble reverence.  Again, I still debated within myself whether or not to tack on another devotion to my prayer life and have it interfere with my devotion to the Sacred Heart.  A few months went by and it was getting close to the end of summer.  Over those months, I convinced myself that I should do the consecration.  I asked Lisa for her copy of the book, Preparation for Total Consecration according to St. Louis Marie de Montfort, and she happily let me borrow it.  Yet, more months passed by, and I put it off and put it off, until I had to give the book back to her because other people were waiting to use it also.  Again, I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Then, something finally changed.  Into winter, around the time of the Advent or Christmas season, I volunteered to be the lector for a special anointing Mass that was held at my church for the sick and infirm.  At my parish, the lector has the privilege of staying in the sanctuary throughout the entire Mass, so we are closely involved in witnessing the bread and wine turn into the Body and Blood of Christ.  After receiving communion at that Mass, I returned to my chair and knelt on a cushion on the marble floor.  While I was kneeling there in prayer, I decided to give myself over to Mary and proceed with the total consecration.

I never looked back after that Mass.  I went online and bought a copy of the book and selected the Feast of the Annunciation to recite the consecration prayer.

Now, what is the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary?  It is a 33-day preparation where a person spends time in prayer and reading through exercises and meditations, discovering oneself and discerning the roles of Mary and Jesus in his or her life.  The 33 days are broken down into four parts: Spirit of the World (12 days), Knowledge of Self (seven days), Knowledge of Our Lady (seven days), and Knowledge of Christ (seven days).  It is suggested that the person picks a major Marian feast day (which would be the 34th day) on which to go to confession, attend Mass and receive the Eucharist, and then recite the consecration prayer at the end of the book.  The book gives suggestions of feast days and the day in which to start the preparation before that feast day.  Also, after the prayer, there is a line where the person signs his or her name and dates it, so that he or she remembers his or her commitment and the day of consecration.  Then, each year after that, the person goes back through the exercises to renew his or her consecration.

This devotion truly graced my life.  To be quite honest, I knew the fear I was trying to overcome in doing this consecration.  I was afraid of the grace that might flow from the prayers and from handing my life, my actions, my thoughts, and all my possessions over to Mary; which is described as a kind of "holy slavery" by some of the saints (we'll talk about that more later).  I was struggling with so many things at the time, but there were also many things that I was content with, and I was afraid that grace was going to turn my life upside down.  Finally, through the Eucharist, I trusted in Jesus to have His mother lead me to Him ever more closely.  She wants to give me and you over to His care and place us within His Heart.

This is a totally voluntary act, but I promise you, your life will change for the better.  Mary does not seek us for her own, but she turns us all to her Son.  I also found that it has helped my devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Sacrament, so my first devotion has benefited from it.

I recited my consecration prayer on March 25th, 2011, the Feast of the Annunciation.  As a final act and reminder of my "holy slavery", I took a steel link chain and put it on my wrist.  It does not come off by itself and the only way to take it off is to use a pair of pliers to bend one of the links or have it rust off.

This is common among those who do the consecration to have a reminder that they are working towards a higher goal, and that the things God has blessed them with are no longer theirs.

I pray that you may consider this devotion and see how Mary can lead you to her Son!

The Witness of Our Diocese!

Wow, what a wonderful week it's been!  I started another catechist class last Monday called Introduction to Scripture, and it's being taught by a priest at St. John Neumann parish in Lancaster.  It's not near as structured as my Introduction to the Church class I have on Thursdays since the priest doesn't use any kind of class notes.  We do have a syllabus, and he does adhere to that outline, but it's more of a discussion between the students and the teacher, even though it's a little scattered.  I'm sure it will get better and people will be a little more open as the sessions continue.

In Intro to the Church this week, we talked about the Body of Christ as the people of the Church, and we started discussing the four marks of the Church: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.  There were wonderful discussions and beautiful imagery in describing the Church as one body with many parts, the one bride of Christ, and sons and daughters of God.  I could talk more about it, but I'll save that for another post.

Rounding out the week, I attended the Fishers of Men dinner at the Cardinal Keeler Center in Harrisburg.  It is a fundraiser which started a few years ago to help pay for the education of the seminarians who are studying to be priests for the diocese.  There were priests, sisters, and lay people from around the diocese who attended last night, as well as our beloved Bishop McFadden and a visiting bishop from Pittsburgh, Bishop Waltershied.  He originally was the Secretary of Vocations and Consecrated Life for the diocese (and also the one who helped to start the Fishers of Men dinner), but he was recently ordained as an Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh and, of course, had to leave.  We were served dinner and drinks by our seminarians, and listened to some of their vocational testimonies as to why they are studying to become priests.  Currently, there are 31 seminarians attending three different local seminaries for their studies: St. Charles Borromeo in Philadelphia; St. Vincent's in Latrobe, PA; and Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, MD.  That total has risen drastically since the beginning of the 21st century!

We are so blessed to have that many young men in formation.  So often today we hear stories about the "vocational crisis" in that less and less men are considering priesthood and consecrated life, as well as young women shying away from wanting to become sisters and nuns.  I do believe, and have heard, the stories from other parts of the world where one priest may be in charge of multiple churches or other churches just fall into ruin.  Yet, I think that we are recognizing the importance of our priests and their role in our faith, and people are acting upon this.  Bishop McFadden remarked last night that he believes the prayers of the lay people in the churches across the diocese have aided in young men recognizing the call of Christ to serve him in the priesthood.  The Church has stated this over and over again that we must pray for our priests, our seminarians, and for future seminarians; for holy men to enter into the service of Christ and His people.  And, from the witness of last night, I believe that the Harrisburg Diocese is accomplishing this through prayer and encouragement of our young men.  I can only pray that this happens more and more in dioceses across the world.

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!  Amen.

He made us; we belong to Him

At Mass this morning, I was listening to the Eucharistic prayers just before the Consecration, and the priest said, "Father, we thank you making us worthy to stand in Your presence and serve You."  At that moment, something in my head clicked.  It was one of the moments where I realized that I wasn't worthy; we, by ourselves, are never worthy to come before the Lord.  Yet, read that line again: He made us worthy.  Jesus Christ made us worthy because He was the one who took our burdens upon Himself and became the ransom for our souls, and was nailed to and died on the Cross.

Sometimes we forget (and I do, especially) that we are created beings, and our origin is from God the Father.  If it weren't for Him, we wouldn't be here, and the thing is we don't have to be here.  Out of His love, though, He put us here to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him (see the Catechism).  Also, the things around us have been created.  I'm not only referring to nature in all its plants and animals, but I'm also referring to the modern day things we have that includes our technology and art and science.  God allowed for us to realize and bring forth the wonderful advances in society that we have put together by the use our own hands and intellect.  These things were not born from our own minds, but only through the inspiration of our Father did they come to be.

This same concept also applies to the things we own, and it wasn't until earlier in the year that I recognized this.  One day, it kind of hit me that I came into this world with nothing, and I will leave this world with nothing.  I glanced around at my possessions, thought about my family and my job, and all the friends I had, and I saw that all these things will not last forever.  To be quite honest, the idea didn't scare me, and at that moment, I was very at peace.  I felt that God's love was holding me up, and I felt very humble.  It was thoughts and words on a day like today that help to remind me that nothing I do or have is mine, and I take no credit for it.  In the words of Saint Paul, I do not boast in what I do, but I boast in the Lord and in my weakness.

Exaltation and Church Class!

Today went by way too fast; I almost couldn't keep up.  By the time I knew it, work was over and I headed to my first spiritual direction meeting with Father at St. Mary's.  For an hour we talked about the current state of my life, my family, my work, and of course my spiritual life.  It felt good to get some things out and to discuss some of my problems and anxieties.  I plan on meeting with Father once a month to seek out guidance and talk about life in general.  Again, I am so fortunate and blessed to have a priest as my spiritual director!

Today is a very important feast day: the Exaltation of the Cross.  We focus on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross, and we don't just see the Cross as an instrument of death, but an instrument of salvation in the plan of God.  What a beautiful paradox of suffering and death which lead to joy and eternal life!  I'd like to share some of the antiphons from Morning and Evening Prayer from the Christian Prayer book:

Morning Prayer, 2nd Antiphon: "The Lord hung upon the cross to wash away our sins in his own blood.  How splendid is that blessed cross."

Morning Prayer, 3rd Antiphon: "How radiant is that precious cross which brought us our salvation.  In the cross we are victorious, through the cross we shall reign, by the cross all evil is destroyed, alleluia."

Evening Prayer, 1st Antiphon: "What a great work of charity!  Death itself died when life was slain on the tree."

Evening Prayer, Canticle of Mary Antiphon: "O cross, you are the glorious sign of our victory.  Through your power may we share in the triumph of Christ Jesus."

What powerful phrases these are!  There is so much to contemplate in just the antiphons alone.  The idea of Christ's sacrifice is so contrary to our humanness, that "death itself died when life was slain" on the Cross baffles the mind!

Tomorrow, I'm attending my first class, Introduction to the Church, at the Diocesan Institute at the Cardinal Keeler Center in Harrisburg.  I never thought I'd be so excited to go to a class!  I think the reason why is that it's about the Catholic faith, and I've never had any formal classes like this growing up or in college; I went to a public elementary school and high school and a PA state university.  With the classes I'm taking, I plan on getting a basic catechist certificate, and then work toward another certificate with a concentration in RCIA and adult formation.  I look forward to being able to teach, if it is God's will!

Apathy and prayer

While I was driving to work Monday morning, I was praying a rosary, and on Mondays we pray the Joyful Mysteries, which include the very beginning of Jesus' life on earth.  When I got to the Nativity of the Lord, which is the third Joyful Mystery, the direction of my thoughts on this mystery caught my attention.  I found myself asking, why am I not so awed by the fact that God came into this world as a helpless child?  I felt my apathy creep in from the background.  I just thought to myself, I can be so numb to such powerful images as the birth of Jesus, His crucifixion and death, and His resurrection.  There are certain times of the year when we focus more intently on these tremendous events in the life of our Savior, but do we always need to have these times in order to appreciate them or to be awe-struck by them?

Apathy can be a slow poison that we don't even realize is destroying us on the inside, and when we do finally see it, a lot of damage has already been done.  We become numb to our surroundings and to evil or shocking news, and our motivation and will to care is lacking.  The devil likes to use this against us every chance he gets.  I find that for certain periods of time, prayer comes easy and I feel uplifted and motivated to pray for myself and others all the time.  Then, weariness sets in, and that's when the devil's hand falls upon me.  I get lazy and easily forget who or what I'm praying for.  The mysteries of God seem bland and uninteresting.  He especially likes to get me when I am praying the rosary, because he utterly abhors when we pray rosaries since Mary has been given so much power over him.  I noticed that I can do any other formal prayer without much trouble, but when it comes to a rosary, it becomes difficult, and I know that he is trying to discourage me.

Realize that apathy can be fought with constant prayer to Jesus and Mary.  You can renew yourself and remain recollected every day by consecrating your day to Jesus through Mary.  I learned a practice through my devotion to Mary that, as soon as you wake up in the morning, kneel on the floor and give your day over to Mary.  I pray, "Blessed Mother, I consecrate my day to you, and I give all my thoughts and actions to you.  I pray that you will lead to the Sacred Heart of your Son by doing the will of the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen."  This prayer puts me in the right disposition to be conscious of my actions and my words throughout the day.  We will stumble and fall, of course, but both Jesus and Mary will be there to catch us if we ask them to be our motivation and safety net at the outset of our day.

I hope that you don't struggle with apathy as much as I do, but I pray that Jesus and Mary will be your help and guide each and every day!

Busy, busy week.

Last week was a busy week, and I didn't get the chance to post at all.  From Friday after work until this morning, I was in Huntingdon, PA at Juniata College.  My brother is the head women's volleyball coach for Transylvania University in Lexington, KY, and his team played in a tournament at Juniata this weekend.  I don't get to see him very often since he lives in Kentucky, so I definitely wanted to make the trip.  My dad and his fiance (which, by the way, I found out this weekend that they are now engaged!), and my sister, my nephew, and my mom also came to stay the weekend for the tournament.  It was really special to have everyone there to watch because both my brother and sister played volleyball at Juniata, and we all got the chance to reminisce and catch up with people we hadn't seen for a few years.

The whole week, weather wise, was a mess from all the rain we got with the combination of a cold front and remnants of tropical storm Lee.  There were many major roads running along the Susquehanna River that were impassable because the river was at record level flooding and was covering some roads.  I had to take a completely different route to get up into central PA, and lot of those detour roads were congested, even for a Friday well before rush hour around Harrisburg.  I witnessed monumental flooding where parts of routes like 322/22 along the east side of the river were completely under water.  I had to take 11/15 along the west side, and there were places where houses along the river were partially submerged and water was coming close to the road.  When I came back this morning, 322/22 was passable again, and you could tell driving along the road where the water came up and covered everything.  It was incredible!

Now, again, I'm back home and preparing to start another work week.  Tonight was the first youth group meeting for my parish, and we had a back to school party for all the teens.  This week, I have my first spiritual direction meeting on Wednesday.  I'm really looking forward to this because I've been looking for a spiritual director for a while, and Father Leo, the priest at my parish, offered to be my director.  I'm so grateful to have a priest as my personal guide!  Finally, on Thursday, I start the first of a series of classes I'm taking through the Harrisburg Diocese to go toward a pastoral ministries certification (I'll talk more about that in a later post).  The class is called Introduction to the Church, and it's to be held in Harrisburg.  I'm sure I'll be talking about my classes in later posts so I can share a little bit of what I learned!

Well, I hope everyone has a peaceful and productive week.  May God bless you, and may Jesus keep us close to His Sacred Heart!

Some sound advice.

This little wooden sign couldn't have said it any better... and it couldn't have slapped me upside the head any better either.

Last Friday during the First Friday festivities, my friends and I went into a store called Art and Glassworks on Queen Street in downtown Lancaster.  It's a pretty neat little shop that mainly consists of every kind of class sculpture, figurine, and knick-knack you could possible imagine.  They also had many wooden signs, like the one above, with cute sayings scrawled across their surfaces.  Our curiosity piqued, we wandered around the store for a little while, and then went out back into their courtyard to listen to a small jazz band play.

When we were satisfied, we came back inside, and I realized I missed one small section of the store during my browsing.  Here, I discovered even more of these wooden signs, and it was then I found the one pictured above.  After I read it, I began to laugh, and I turned to Kyle and pointed it out to him.  He read it and smiled, and said that was perfect advice for me.  I heartily agreed.

I was tempted to buy it then, but held off until today, when I happened to be running errands around town.  I stopped into the store, and to my delight, it was still sitting where I first saw it Friday night.  I took it up to the lady behind the register, and we struck up a little conversation about the sign, in which I said these were words I needed to see every day.  While she wrapped it up in tissue paper, I looked up above her on the back wall and saw another wooden sign in big letters that said, "Where the HECK is Easy Street?"  I laughed.  With my sign in hand, I got into my car, finished my errands, and went home.  Now, my new advice sits on top of my dresser mirror in my room where I can see it every day.

Why did those words hit me so hard, yet make me laugh and make me feel so humble too?  Because it was an answer to an accumulation of so many thoughts and ideas that I've struggled with throughout my life, in both my every day living and my spiritual life.  A simple statement like the one pictured above was enough of an answer for me say, "Duh!" (God works in such interesting ways, doesn't He?).

Unnecessary seriousness has crept into many facets of my life.  Growing up, I always felt like I had to stick to some schedule or rigid guideline that described how I should live my life and how to be successful.  If something wasn't going right, say, in a relationship or I was struggling with a class, I would stress over it and worry about it.  This also applied to how I acted in front of people and how I thought I needed to perform; I cared way too much about what people thought of me.  I walked a thin tightrope, and if I made a mistake and fell, I wouldn't hear the end of it.  My seriousness, and sometimes lack of humor really made me feel miserable, and probably made the people around me uncomfortable sometimes, too.

I've lightened up some, due to a lot of grace and joy from God.  I continue to struggle with caring about what others think of me, but it has lessened some over the years after going through college and now being out in the "real world."  I still see it occurring a lot in my spiritual life, though.  I try too hard to be a spiritual example for others when I need to tell myself that people should not be looking at me, but they should be seeing a reflection of God's love instead.  The saints can attest to this; they sought to decrease while Christ increased (in the words of John the Baptist).  Saints had plenty of humor, too!  St. Teresa of Avila, my beloved patron, was always amiable with our Lord.  Once, while she was traveling around Spain, she was getting out of a carriage when she slipped and fell into some mud.  She said to the Lord, "If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few!"

I also get stuck in ruts where I think I need to follow a specific formula in order to gain my salvation, and I convince myself that I've figured it out and everybody else should follow; the "holier than thou" mentality that I recently realized have sometimes.  I'm sure people have probably seen my grumpy, serious face that just screams, "You're doing it all wrong!"  One, this mentality is totally unrealistic.  Two, I have no room to judge people and most of them are probably doing a much better job than I am.  Three, there is no set formula or regime of prayers to recite in order to guarantee salvation; it's not what I do, but only through my "fiat" to love God does grace overflow into the channels that are opened through acts of adoration, prayer, and love, transforming my soul to receive the love of the Three in One.   Love of God, self, and neighbor will always lead me down the "narrow way" of salvation, because that love fulfills everything God has set out for you and I through salvation history which ultimately leads to the sacrifice of Christ and His love!

So... sometimes we just need to remind ourselves to lighten up a little bit (me, especially), even if it takes some words or sign to remind us.  A little humor doesn't hurt, and if we fail, Jesus' hand is always outstretched to help pick us up again.  Life is short, and we want to use as much of that time as we can to tell everyone that we have an even greater life waiting for us after this one through Jesus Christ and His Church!

A little twist on iconography...

This past Friday was my 24th birthday.  It was a very enjoyable day.  I received a lot of birthday wishes from people on Facebook, and it was good seeing some messages from people I hadn't heard from in a long time.  We had a little celebration at work that consisted of cake and being sung to by my co-workers, which is usually happens when one of the employee's birthdays falls on a work day.  It was rather amusing because I was sung to by all my male co-workers because our secretary wasn't there and she's the only other female in the office.  After work, I got a call from my grandma and my mom, and in the evening, I went into downtown Lancaster with some friends to walk around Gallery Row and Queen Street for First Friday.  Overall, it was a good birthday. :)

Yesterday evening, I went to eat at Pub Dunegal in Mount Joy with my closest friends, Kyle, Brian, and Sharon.  They belong to the same parish as me and they work in youth ministry along with me.  We've all been so busy the past few months, so we were finally able to hang out together, just the four of us, for a little birthday celebration.  For my birthday, Kyle asked me to look online for pictures of some of my favorite icons to give to him because he was going to make a carving of one for me for my birthday.  How was he going to do this ?  Well, he's a cabinet maker/woodworker by profession, and he recently got this really awesome machine called a Carvewright.  This machine is computerized and has a desktop program with it that allows you to create designs with lettering and images, and then it carves the finished design onto a piece of wood.  So, I went out and found two icons, one of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and one of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  He ended up using the Our Lady of Mount Carmel image, which looked like this:

The image itself is only about 300 x 386.  He put the above image into the program, and here's the result:

I was blown away by it!  He took this fairly small image and carved it onto an 11" x 13" piece of pine.  The image also has some stain on it to bring out the deeper crevices on the image.

Now, this is NOT traditional iconography at all.  Icons are painted on paper with certain, theologically-defined colors and then mounted on a piece of wood.  In this case, the idea of carving the image of an icon into wood was, I thought, very intriguing.  I don't think I'd keep collecting or wanting carved icons, but I thought it was such a neat idea that I had to see what it looked like.

The painting of an icon can actually a very moving, spiritual, and sacred process.  In traditional iconography (which is more of an Eastern Catholic Church tradition, though icons do appear in the Western Church), the person who wants to create an icon spends a period time in retreat with prayer and fasting before starting to paint it.  At this point, the person may not even know what image he or she will use in the icon, but during the retreat, the person will pray to God for inspiration on what image he or she should paint.  Once an image is determined, the person will start the work and continue to be recollected in prayer since the image he or she is working on is sacred.  At each brush stroke, the person says a prayer, and the most common prayer said is the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."  Can you imagine trying to pray a simple prayer at every stroke?  In the end, it could take many months for one icon to be painted.

Of course, Kyle and I show no disrespect toward the Eastern tradition of iconography with a carving that only took six hours to create by machine.  This was more of an experiment (and also a really awesome birthday gift!).  I will always love traditional iconography more than anything else, and I will have to dedicate a more extensive blog post to discussing it!

The Hail Mary is scriptural. What?!

So, I kind of left out introductions in my last blog post.  Back at the beginning of 2009, I tried starting a blog, but I never kept up with it.  I think I aspired too much to try to write extremely long and informative blog posts, but I found out it wasn't necessary to do that.  Yet, with the former mentality, I lost my motivation to consistently post in my old blog.  This blog is now "take two", with the mindset of some shorter posts with somewhat simple topics either based on information about the Catholic faith or my own experiences.

The Blessed Mother has increasingly become one of my favorite topics to discuss.  I have great affection for Mary, for she is my spiritual mother and my mistress.  Back in March of this year on the feast of the Annunciation, I completed my Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary according to St. Louis de Montfort.  Mary has certainly put me to work, and I've seen the effects of how she has led me closer to her Son.  Of course, the Total Consecration is a topic for a whole other post.  Don't get me wrong; I struggled for a very long time with the concept of honoring Mary and praying to her for help, but God did enough work in me to accept her as the Mother of the Church and my Mother.  It was only a few years ago that I really started letting this enter into my spiritual life, and I haven't looked back.

I bring up St. Louis de Montfort because I recently read one of his works called The Secret of the Rosary.  He was deeply devoted to Mary and to the Rosary, and in this book he discusses how to pray the Rosary and recalls the miraculous events he's witnessed and personally experienced throughout his life.  The first section of the book is devoted to the explanation and importance of the Our Father and the Haily Mary prayers that are an integral part of praying the Rosary, and I discovered in his explanations that the Hail Mary is mostly based on passages from the Gospel of Luke.

For the Catholics reading this, we all know that Mary is a hot topic of debate between us and our Protestant brothers and sisters, and even among some Catholics.  There's the whole "worship of Mary" idea, and the Hail Mary could be argued as a sketchy prayer.  First, Catholics do not worship Mary; we honor her as the Mother of God.  She aided in the salvation of the human race by consenting to birth the Son of God; she is the first disciple; and she is the model of who we should aspire to be in holiness.  Second, the Hail Mary prayer is mostly based on Scripture.  When I read this in St. Louis' book, I thought, how did I not see this before?  My attentiveness to the prayer was so lacking!  If you do not know what the prayer is, here you go:

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.  Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.  Amen."

The first sentence of the prayer comes from Luke 1:28 when the angel Gabriel came to Mary in Nazareth and said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!"  How wonderful to think that an angel could greet a human being with such a salutation!  The passage continues on in verses 29 and 30 to say, "But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be.  And the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.'"  She is favored by God!

The second sentence of the prayer comes from Luke 1:42 when Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.  I'll start the passage with verse 41: "And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the child leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!'"  Elizabeth was inspired by the Holy Spirit Himself to proclaim that Mary was indeed blessed, and the child she was carry was also blessed.  Mary is never praised without there being praise of Jesus.

At the end of the prayer, we are simply asking Mary to pray for us now and at the time of our death, because we need those prayers always.  How could we not ask the Mother of our Lord and King to pray for us?  She was the person who was closest to Jesus Christ, and she continues to be the closest person to Him.  He cannot refuse the requests of His Mother.  Look at the wedding feast of Cana.  She went to Him and told Him that they had no more wine, and He insisted that His time had not yet come.  BUT, she said to the servants, "Do whatever He tells you."  They went to Him for instruction, and He could not refuse.

With this in mind, may we reverently pray the Hail Mary and ask her to guide us to the Sacred Heart of her Son, Jesus!