quinta-feira, 21 de dezembro de 2017

Why You Need to Love Our Lady Even More by Father Stefano M. Manelli, F.F.I.

Resultado de imagem para Fr. Stefano Maria Manelli
This article aims at casting light on the beauty and high value of devotion to the Madonna, enkindling affection in readers' hearts for our dear heavenly Mother. Father Stefano Manelli endeavors to achieve this by showing what our models, the Saints, have taught by word and example.

The Madonna merits devotion as our Queen

St. Therese of the Child Jesus called the Madonna "Queen Of My Heart." We, too, should have devotion to the Madonna because She is our Queen and because it is a duty of subjects to love, honor, and praise their Queen.
The Madonna has a share in the royalty of God, the royalty of Jesus. She became Mother of the supreme King. One rightly calls Her Jesus' Queen-Mother, and in Heaven She now takes Her place in glory at Her Son's right hand: "The queen stood on Thy right hand in gilded clothing" (Psalm 44:10).
Her status as God's Mother and Her Immaculate Conception truly make the Madonna Queen of the universe and Empress of paradise. She is the only creature who can say to God, "Thou art My Son" (Psalm 2:7). She can say to all heaven and earth, "The Lord possessed Me [envisioned Me, planned Me] in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning. I was set up[conceived in His designs] from eternity, and of old before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived: neither had the fountains of waters as yet sprung out. The mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been established: before the hills I was brought forth [forechosen]." (Proverbs 8:22-25) St. Bernardine of Siena explains: Mary was "preordained in God's mind before all creation" in order that She "might beget God as man" (Serm. 15, c. 4). Thus the world was created for the Immaculate Queen as foreseen in God's mind; and She, in the fullness of time, was created for God. READ...