In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. I’d like to welcome you all, I’m Father Ed Broom, Oblate the Virgin Mary priest, and it’s great to be with all of you as we try to grow in our friendship with Christ and arrive at our eternal destiny, which is heaven. We’d like to start off our conversation by invoking Mary. Mary is the Mother of God, Mary is the Mother of the Church. Mary’s the mother of each and every one of us! And when we pray the Hail Holy Queen, we invoke Mary as our life, our sweetness and our hope. So let’s lift up our gaze to Mary. Who is truly the Mother of God, but also our mother and the order of grace and ask her to obtain for our special graces today as we pray.
Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee. Bless you thou among women, and blessed the fruit of divine Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God. Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Now let’s invite our Spiritual Director to be with us. Our Spiritual Director is the Holy Spirit and He has many wonderful descriptive titles among which would be the Paraclete. The Holy Spirit is also known as the Gift of gifts. And in the Sequence that will be praying this Sunday we invoke the Holy Spirit as the Sweet Guest of our souls. The Holy Spirit is also our Consoler. The Holy Spirit is also our Counselor. Holy Spirit is also known as our Sanctifier. The Holy Spirit is also Our Interior Master, our Teacher. Saint Paul said to the Gentiles, in his letter to the Romans, Chapter 8: “we really don’t know how to appraise we ought, but the Holy Spirit intercedes with ineffable groans, so that we can say “Abba, Father”.
Let’s invite the Holy Spirit to be with us and to guide our words, our thoughts, our actions. Let’s pray the classical prayer to the Holy Spirit. So together:
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.
Let us pray. O God, who have taught the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit,
grant that in the same Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in his consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen.
Our Lady of good counsel, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint Michael the Archangel Pray for us. St. Gabriel, pray for us. St Raymond, pray for us. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us. Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, pray for us. All God’s angels and Saints, pray for us. In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
My friends, the family that prays together stays together and a world at prayer is a world at peace. I’ll be praying for you in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass today that God would bless you most abundantly. I promise to place you all on the altar in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with the following intentions:
1. First, that all of us, as we draw closer to Pentecost, we’re in the novena now for Pentecost, which is the coming of the Holy Spirit, that we would be open and docile to the Holy Spirit. Let us make this our prayer. “Come, Holy Spirit, come. Come, Holy Spirit, come through the heart of Mary. Come, Holy Spirit, come. Come, Holy Spirit, come to the heart of Mary.”
2. Next intention, I’d like to pray for our families, specifically for the conversion of our family members. Pray for the conversion of those who are far away from God and that we ourselves would go through a deeper conversion every day. I’d like to pray for our sanctification, not only would we be converted, but that we would make a concerted effort to grow in holiness. Saint Paul says this is the will of our Heavenly Father, is our sanctification. Jesus says, “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for holiness they will be satisfied”. I’d like to pray also for our final perseverance, that we would be given the grace of all graces, which is the grace of final perseverance until the end. I’d like to place all of you on the altar.
3. The next intention, for all those who within the next 24 hours we be dying, for those that will will pass from this life to the next, from time to eternity, from the realm of God’s mercy to the justice of God, where all of us will have to be judged by Christ. He will come to judge the living and the dead! Please pray for those who are dying, especially those who are perhaps not prepared to die today. That they would open up their hearts to God’s mercy.
MARIAN REFLECTION
We’re still in the month of May. May is the month of Mary. I’d like to offer you a brief Marian reflection, as is our custom in the month of May. May is the month of Mary and given that we’re closer to Pentecost. I’d like to give a brief reflection on Mary and her relationship to the Holy Spirit.
Let’s start with the Blessed Trinity. In the context of the greatest mystery of our Catholic faith, which is the Trinity, Mary has a very special place. Mary is the daughter of God the Father, Mary is the Mother of God the Son and Mary is the Mystical Spouse of God the Holy Spirit. Mary is intimately interwoven in the presence of the Blessed Trinity. But related to the Holy Spirit, Mary is the Mystical Spouse of the Holy Spirit. Oh, beautiful! But how true!
Let’s start with Mary’s earthly existence. Like all of us, Mary began to exist in the moment of her conception but Mary’s conception was very different than our conception, because we believe as faithful Catholics that one of Mary’s great privileges that you receive from God himself is then privilege of her Immaculate Conception. When we say Immaculate Conception, we mean that the very moment that Mary started her earthly life in the very moment of her conception in the womb of Saint Anne, her mother, God intervened in a miraculous way thereby preserving Mary from the stain of Original Sin. For that reason we say, oh, Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
Saint Thomas Aquinas says that this was very opportune because of the Incarnation. God would have to come into the world through the most pure and perfect channel through the Immaculate one! So that takes us, moves us from the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the womb of. Saint Anne, her mother, that moment in which Mary was conceived, God preserved her from the stained of original sin. As William Wordsworth, the English poet expressed it, “Mary is our tainted natures, solitary boast”. How beautiful! So that takes us to what is called the virginal conception. The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s conception in the womb of Saint Anne, the virginal conception refers to when Mary has the encounter with the Archangel Gabriel appeared to her by saying “Hail full of grace the Lord is with you”. The Archangel, the messenger of God says, “…you shall conceive in your womb and bring forth the Son and his name is Jesus, because he will save the people from their sins”.
Mary gives her ‘fiat’. ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to their word’. And that moment, Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The next, Mary’s goes to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth who was pregnant in her old age. Mary moves in haste! The Venerable Beed points out that this is a manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and Mary corresponding to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit works with great alacrity, with great speed, with speed and graceful ease.
Mary travels to the Hill Country, a mission of charity toward her elderly cousin. The next moment is when Mary agreed to Elizabeth. Mary is communicating the Holy Spirit to Elizabeth the baby leaps for joy and Elizabeth says, “blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me at the sound of your greeting, the baby leapt in my womb for joy! Blessed are you for having believed that these things, and it’s by the Lord would be accomplished”.
In the same context of the visitation, Mary opens up her her heart. And she offers us a beautiful canticle of praise that we call the Magnificat, Mary, moved by the Holy Spirit, again says. “My soul does magnify the Lord! My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. He’s looked upon the loneliness of his hand. Henceforth. All generations will call me blessed. For the mighty has done great things for me, and Holy’s His name, His mercy, extends from generation to generation upon those who fear Him. He’s lifted up the lowly. And cast down the proud from their Proms. He’s remembered Abraham is servant.” This is what is called the Magnificat. It’s a wonderful, magnificent, sublime canticle of praise which Mary teaches us. She teaches us how to pray and how to praise God. All during the earthly life of Mary she was inspired by the Holy Spirit, she was enlightened by the Holy Spirit, she was motivated by the Holy Spirit, she was enveloped by the Holy Spirit. She was totally absorbed by the presence of the Holy Spirit, and we should pray for the same grace!
NOVENA IN PREPARATION FOR PENTECOST
Right now, we’re in the very heart of the Novena in preparation for Pentecost, which is the coming of the Holy Spirit. There we have Jesus after he ascends to heaven, where he sits at the right hand of God the Father, Jesus will commission His apostles to go out and teach the whole world, all that He taught them, and to baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son, the Holy Spirit.
Jesus promising them that they that He will be with them always, even until the end of the world. But it says first to go to the Upper Room. He tells his Apostles to go the Upper Room to be with Mary. And that’s where we are now. We’re in the Novena in preparation for Pentecost were in the novena preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit when the Upper Room.
The Apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary are in the upper room in silence, in fasting and in prayer, awaiting the Gift of gifts, the promised one of God, the Consoler, the Sanctifier! Imploring the coming of the Holy Spirit! After those nine days and nine nights of intense prayer, the Apostles united with Mary, the Mother of God, then we have the Pentecost experience. And there’s like a strong wind that shook the very foundations of their house. and tongues of fire descended upon the Apostles. They were able to express himself in different languages so that the people could have could understand them.
This outpouring of the Holy Spirit came about as a result of the Blessed Virgin Mary present with the Apostles in deep prayer! This was the first Novena, nine days and nine nights. As we draw close to this biggest Feast of Pentecost, which happens to be all set, the birth is church, let’s turn to Mary, the Daughter of God the Father, the Mother of God the Son, and the Mystical Spouse of the Holy Spirit, to descend upon us that we would have our own Pentecost experience.
My friends, we are a family, exactly one year ago today, Father Vincenzo Antolini died exactly a year from today. So in a few minutes I will be with the other priests and the Deacon. Which will be celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for Father Antolini. I’d like you to pray for him today and for his soul. And in that Mass, I’ll be praying for him. But also be praying for each and every one of you. That through the presence of the Blessed Virgin Mary you also. Will be filled with the Holy Spirit. The Lord be with you! May almighty God bless you, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
