INTRODUCTION
Today we are celebrating the solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Consolata, Mother and Foundress of the Consolata Missionaries: Fathers, Brothers, Sisters, Lay Missionaries, Friends, Benefactors and all Christians working together with us to carry out our Mission Ad Gentes. We rejoice and thank God for the great missionary work we are doing under the company and intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary Consolata. Let us ask God to increase more his charismatic gifts in our minds, hearts and wills that we may be able to spread his Word, love and peace in the world.
THE
LOVE OF BLESSED JOSEPH ALLAMANO FOR OUR LADY THE BLESSED VIRIGN MARY CONSOLATA
Our Founder was always
speaking of the Blessed Virgin Mary Consolata: everything that has been done
here is the work of Our Lady of Consolation. She has performed miracles
everyday for this Society.
She has made the stones shout.
I have seen a lot, a lot... and if you are attentive, you’ll see and understand that the good spirit found in the House and the desire you have to be holy – everything, everything is a grace of Our Lady of Consolation.
I have seen a lot, a lot... and if you are attentive, you’ll see and understand that the good spirit found in the House and the desire you have to be holy – everything, everything is a grace of Our Lady of Consolation.
Nobody loves Our Lady more than Jesus (Wedding
at Cana ). Everything she asks the Lord, He
will grant it to her.
“Our Lady desires
nothing but the salvation of souls and she is so close to God that she can
obtain everything from Him”.
No real devotee of hers
has ever been lost.
Our Lady smiles on us
from heaven, and she is pleased and happy. Oh, Our Lady! She continually shows
that she loves our Society. I made her our Patroness and Guardian, and she
takes care of us. Allamano wanted our Society to be named after her so that
many souls as possible can be saved.
Devotion to Our Lady is
not only a pledge of predestination, but also of sanctification. He, who
doesn’t have true devotion to Our Lady, will never be a holy Christian, religious,
a holy priest, or a holy missionary. He who wants to reach sanctity without Our
Lady wants to fly without wings. Without her you can do nothing.
All saints were devoted
to our Lady. The most beautiful homily of St.
Jerome
Saint Bernard says that
Our Lady is both a fount and a channel. She is a fountain of grace; it suffices
for anyone to draw from it. She is a channel because all graces flow through
her.
She is the Mother of
Jesus and as such, commands Him – in a nice way, of course.
She is the Queen of
heaven and earth: a most powerful Queen. It is not only the King who commands,
but the Queen as well. The prayers of Our Lady can be considered commands more
than prayers, because Our Lord wants her to command.
With theological
exactness, it is said that what God can do because He is all powerful, Our Lady
can do with prayer. She is so because of grace. In and with God, Our Lady can
do everything. She is the treasurer and dispenser of graces. She can even go so
far as to put pressure on Our Lord, just as she did at the Wedding at Cana . According to the saints, she is the all-powerful
supplicant.
We have to thank Our
Lord for wanting things to be this way. We should consider ourselves fortunate
not to have to always run to the throne of God to obtain graces, but to have
these means at our disposal. Our Lady, you see, she is tendered!
With motherly
gentleness, she enters into the intentions of her Divine Son. She knows how
much He suffered for us. She knows that Our Lord wants everyone to be saved.
She knows this great desire of Jesus, this precise will of God: that we
sanctify ourselves and be saved. Thus it is enough for us to ask for and be
ready to receive her graces.
HOW
TO SHOW LOVE TO OUR LADY
Avoid
Sin:
There is only one thing that displeases Jesus, and therefore Our Lady: sin. Can
one be devoted to her and then drive a sword through her heart? Yet everything
that wounds Our Lord wounds her as well. We have to be careful. True devotion
to Mary can’t go together with mortal sin. And if something happens? We
straighten things out at once. Then we go to her just the same, for she is the
Refuge of sinners. In addition, we have to watch out for venial sins, which are
an insult and a slap in the face to both Jesus and Mary. Our Lady has carried
the weight of our sins also, for she is the Coredemptrix with Our Lord.
Bestow
Honour on Her: We’ll speak of the different pious practices that honour
Our Lady later on and by keeping her picture and respecting everything that
pertains to her. Thus as a practical consequence, we have to do everything with
Our Lady, everything for Our Lady, and receive everything with Our Lady alone.
To do everything with Mary means to perform all our actions in union with her.
St. Joseph Cafasso used to say that Our Lady should be taken along as a
companion in everything. “When we go to preach”, he used to say, “taker Our
Lady along with you.” To do everything with Mary also means to take her as our
model in all actions. How would Our Lady do this? To do everything for Mary
means to do everything to please her, in the ways she wants it done. If we want
to please Our Lord in all actions, we have to do them in such a way that
they’ll also please Our Lady. We must always aim at pleasing her. Then she’ll
present our actions to Our Lord as if they were her own as well as ours. And we
can be sure that she’ll make things just right. She’ll fix things up in such a way
that Jesus will be happy.
The Consolata is ours in
a special way and we have to be proud to have such a Protectress.
We are the favourite
children of Our Lady of Consolation In fact, isn’t the Virgin Mary, under the
title “Consolata” our Mother? And aren’t we her children? Yes, she’s our most
tender mother, and she loves us as the apples of her eye! She planned our
foundation, sustained it materially and spiritually during all these years,
both in the Mother House and in Africa , and
she’s always alert to our needs.
Let us congratulate
ourselves and feel honoured for being the favourite sons of Our Lady of
Consolation. Let us not allow the others to take away all the graces. Yes, I
repeat: we have to be proud, in a holy sense, of belonging to Mary under a
title envied by so many! How many people love us because we are called
“Consolata Missionaries” and should have great devotion to Our Lady under this title?
“Show
yourselves to be her sons and daughters! We are sons of Our Lady
of Consolation and favourite sons at that. But in practice, do we always act
like her favourite sons, honouring her in every possible way, having recourse
to her with the confidence of loving sons, and trying to listen to her commands
and desires, which are all concerned with our duty to become good and holy?
This filial love is tender by nature. We need to run to Mary throughout the
day, just as we would to a mother. He who doesn’t have a little sentiment and
special love for our Lady of Consolation is heartless.
We invoke her through
the “Hail Mary”, “Hail Holy Queen”, Jaculatories, and imitating her
virtues.
“My heart exults in the
Lord my Saviour” (1 Sam 2:1, 4-5, 6-8)
Mary is the Mother of
Jesus and, as such, commands Him in a maternal way. She is the Queen of heaven
and earth: a most powerful Queen. It is not only the King who commands, but the
Queen as well.
In and with God, Our
Lady can do everything as she did at the Wedding of Cana in Galilee .
To reach to the heart of
Mary we have the “Hail Mary and the “Hail Holy Queen”.
HAIL MARY which was
composed by the Archangel Gabriel: “Rejoice, O highly daughter! The Lord is
with you. Blessed are you among women” (Luke 1:28). He was saying it under the
mandate of God our Father. Then Elizabeth
Every time we recite the
“Hail Mary”, we should do it with a lot of enthusiasm, with overflowing heart.
HAIL HOLY QUEEN: after
the “Hail Mary”, the most beautiful and useful prayer is the “Hail Holy Queen”,
by a monk. St. Alphonsus calls it “A most devoted prayer in which the mercy and
power of the Holy Virgin are so wonderfully described.
This prayer is composed
of three parts:
Hail, Holy Queen, Mother
of Mercy. Hail our life, our sweetness and our hope. With it we appeal to the
Heart of Mary calling her with five venerable titles. The 1st and
the 2nd: Queen and Mother because she is the daughter, mother and
spouse of the King of kings. The other three (by appropriation) because Jesus
is our true life, sweetness and hope and She participates in them because of
being the mother of Jesus and because of God’s will that she be the dispenser
of all graces.
The second part goes up
to “after this our exile”. We ask Our Lady to help us in this valley of tears,
to come to us in our trials, to be our advocate next to her Divine Son in order
to obtain for us the graces we need down here, and to intercede for us so that
we may one day see and enjoy the blessed fruit of her womb, Jesus!
The third part: “O
Clement, O Loving, O Sweet Virgin Mary”, is as a plea that our Lady will be
moved and will listen to us.
THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE WHO LOVE US BECAUSE WE ARE CONSOLATA MISSIONARIES
Great information, almost everything is captured and well explained. Thank you sir.
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