In February, the Church marked 166 years since Mary appeared near a stream in Lourdes, France. It's been 165 years since she appeared in Champion, Wisconsin; 493 since Tepeyac Hill; 91 years since Belgium. The list goes on. Though Catholics are not
Father Patrick Briscoe reveals how a Catholic convert can help the faithful delight in Mary. Raïssa Maritain is “one of the 20th century’s greatest writers about the Virgin Mary,” he writes. He adds: “The Virgin Mary is not just a subject of
A reader asks about Mary’s promises to brown scapular wearers concerning the guarantee of heaven. Monsignor Charles Pope responds: “Our Lady of Mount Carmel promised to save those who wear the scapular from the fires of hell and to shorten their stay
A reader writes: “Wasn’t Mary a surrogate mother? Did she not bear a son for someone other than her husband, Joseph? Jesus was the Son of God. Was he not conceived by artificial insemination? She didn’t have intercourse with anyone. … I
Venerable Fulton Sheen once wrote, “Unless there is a Good Friday in your life, there can be no Easter Sunday.” None of us can understand the joy of Easter without the suffering of the passion. John’s Gospel tells us, “Standing by the
The Third Last Word: “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother.'” (Jn 19:26-27)
On this day, we honor Mary as the “Mother of God,” and we celebrate her role in God’s plan of salvation. The feast was introduced near the end of the fourth century and is the oldest Marian feast in the Roman liturgical
Sometimes we have this feeling that Our Lady is an icicle or an image on a holy card or a statue with perpetually folded hands — aloof, above us, almost inhuman, unrelated to anything that’s related to us. Why do some of
Commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Weeping Madonna of Syracuse, a plaster image of Mary hung in the bedroom of a newlywed couple in southern Italy that began shedding tears, Pope Francis said the miraculous sign is a reminder of Mary's maternal
Mary, human and not divine, shows us what the living inculturation of the Gospel looks like by revealing herself as one of the people to whom she appears. Juan Diego doesn't see an outsider; he sees a mother and trusts her. In