Virgo Potens

2 of 2 Month of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 4th 2. When we have a faithful friend who is possessed of unlimited influence and power, we consult him in all our difficulties. God is of all friends the most faithful and the most powerful; He desires to be consulted by us in things small as well as great, never tiring of our requests, more ready to hear than we to pray. Yet how little have I had recourse to Him hitherto! How little I have trusted Him! 3. The best proof of a friend's love is a desire for our company. In this what friend like God? He asks us, begs us, commands us to be always in His presence : "Walk with God and be thou perfect." His one object in all His advice to us is to secure our company forever in heaven. Why am I so indifferent about His presence,so soon weary of God? Pray that you may appreciate and relish the divine friendship of God. ~ Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S.J., The Devout Year (1893)

AMOUR POUR AMOUR C’est la toute la loi de Jesus. LOVE FOR LOVE This is the whole law of Jesus. 4th Day — God our Best Friend All are Thine, O Lord, who lovest souls. (Wisdom xi. 27.) 1. Friendship is one of the consolations of man upon earth. One faithful friend is worth a hundred acquaintances. A friend who values our friendship for its own sake is a treasure without price. Such a friend we have in God. He has nothing to gain from my friendship, His infinite happiness is not increased by it. Yet His infinite goodness includes an intense desire to make me happy. (continued)

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe December 3rd - December 11th Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe ~ December 12th Begins today at Christus Regnat ~ https://t.me/RexUniversi

2 of 2 Month of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 3rd 2. But we not only live in Him, but we also move in Him. He co-operates with our every action. We cannot lift a hand or move a finger unless He not only sanctions the act but actually helps us to perform it. Every breath we breathe, every pulsation of our heart, depends on God's co-operation. How completely dependent we are on Him! How careful should we be that our every action is one suitable to the divine co-operation ! 3. God does more than this. He not only preserves us, but tends us with watchful care, delivers us from dangers, warns us when we are going wrong, shows a never-failing interest in us, and an unceasing desire for our happiness. For all this we are dependent on Him! What folly, then, to neglect one to whom we owe everything! Pray for a sense of continual dependence on God. ~ Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S.J., The Devout Year (1893)

Preserve me, O Lord, for I have put my trust in Thee. Ps. 15,1. Month of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 3rd 3d Day — God our Preserver In Him we live and move and are. (Acts xvii. 28.) 1. If God had merely created us and then left us to ourselves, there would have been some excuse for our forgetting how completely we belong to Him. But we are not like a picture that the artist finishes off and then leaves to itself. God continues throughout our whole life the act of creation in the shape of preservation. Without this we should at once lapse into our previous nothingness. We depend upon Him for our being as the rivulet depends on the spring, or the smoke on the fire. (continued)

2 of 2 Month of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 2nd 2. God created every one with certain gifts of his own that He did not give to another, and He gave him those gifts to do a special work that God had for him to do. He created me with a certain object; from all eternity He had been planning my soul and body, and providing me with all that I needed, that both one and the other might serve Him. Have I on the whole carried out God's plan? Shall I be able to say, when I come to die: "I have finished the work Thou gavest me to do?” 3. What a serious thought this is, that God had a plan for my life! He meant me to occupy a certain position in society and to have certain employments; to influence certain persons for good, to overcome certain temptations, to practise certain virtues beyond the rest, to attain a certain place in heaven. Has my life been ordered by God's holy inspirations? has not my own self-will too often had part in it? Pray that you may not fail of fulfilling God's intentions concerning you. ~ Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S.J., The Devout Year (1893)

1 of 2 Month of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 2nd 2d Day ~ God our Creator Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, because Thou hast created all things. (Apoc. iv. 11.). 1. Why is it that God has such an absolute and all-embracing claim to ourselves and to all that is ours? It is because we are made by Him, and not only made, but created. We are His not only as the statue is the sculptor's and the picture the painter's, but He made out of nothing the very materials of which we consist. There is therefore nothing in us which is not God's. Every sort of excellence, strength, virtue, talent, beauty, skill, energy, affection— all are God's, not our own. (continued)

3 of 3 Alma Redemptóris Mater From the first Sunday of Advent until Christmas Eve (Latin) Alma Redemptóris Mater, quæ pérvia cæli porta manes, Et stella maris, succúrre cadénti, súrgere qui curat pópulo: Tu quæ genuísti, natúra mirante, tuum sanctum Genitórem: Virgo príus ac postérius, Gabriélis ab ore sumens illud Ave, peccatórum miserére. ℣. Ángelus Dómini nuntiávit Maríæ ℟. Et concépit de Spíritu Sancto. Oremus. Grátiam tuam quǽsumus, Dómine, méntibus nostris infúnde; ut qui, ángelo nuntiánte, Christi Fílii tui Incarnatiónem cognóvimus, per passiónem ejus et crucem, ad resurrectiónis glóriam perducámur. Per eúmdem Christum Dóminum nostrum. ℟. Amen.

2 of 3 Alma Redemptóris Mater From the first Sunday of Advent until Christmas Eve English translation ~ Fr. Edward Caswall (1814-1878) Mother of Christ! hear thou thy people’s cry, Star of the deep, and portal of the sky! Mother of Him who thee from nothing made, Sinking we strive, and call to thee for aid: Oh, by that joy which Gabriel brought to thee, Thou Virgin first and last, let us thy mercy see. ℣. The Angel of the LORD declared unto Mary ℟. And she conceived of the Holy Ghost. Let us pray. Pour forth we beseech Thee, O LORD, Thy grace into our hearts, that we to whom the Incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an Angel, may, by His Passion and Cross, be brought to the glory of His Resurrection. Through the same Christ, our Lord. ℟. Amen.

1 of 3 Alma Redemptóris Mater (Loving Mother of the Redeemer) This is one of four seasonal liturgical Marian hymns from the Tridentine Divine Office, sung at Lauds and Compline from the beginning of Advent until the Feast of the Purification.

2 of 2 Month of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 1st 2. God is, moreover, a God infinite in knowl edge and in power. His all-seeing eye over looks nothing, forgets nothing, passes nothing by. No one shall escape who takes anything from Him and does not give Him His due. Have I not therefore cause to tremble when I think how often I have behaved as if I were my own master, independent of God ? 3. Yet in the end I must recognize God’s ownership ; if I do not do so willingly and with joyful loyalty, I shall have to do so unwillingly and in misery and pain. Everything I have taken from God and appropriated to myself will have to be given back toHim. I shall have to pay the penalty for each misuse of what was entrusted to me. How much wiser and happier to recognize Him now in all things as my Lord and Master ! Offer yourself to God with loyal submission as your God and Lord. ~ Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S.J., The Devout Year (1893)

My Lord and my God, John 20, 28 1 of 2 Month of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 1st The Great Truths Short Meditations for Advent 1st Day ~ God our Lord The Lord hath made all things for Himself. (Prov. xvi. 4.) 1. We are all of us jealous of what belongs to ourselves. We resent it if anyone interferes with it, or deprives us of any portion of it. Yet no one owns anything by a title so absolute as that by which God is the Lord and Owner of all creatures in the universe. My body and my soul are His; everything I possess is His; every action, every thought belongs to Him. He has given all these in charge to me to use for Him. Do I do so? (continued)

✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯ December ~ Month of the Immaculate Conception ✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯

✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯ December ~ Month of the Immaculate Conception ✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯

PRAYER to Obtain Favors November 30th - December 24th To be said from the feast of St. Andrew (November 30th) until midnight on Christmas Eve. Begins November 30th at Christus Regnat ~ https://t.me/RexUniversi

2 of 2 Month of the The Holy Souls in Purgatory ~ November 30th This supreme act of self-sacrifice is indeed heroic, for it includes a willingness to remain in Purgatory as long as God shall please for the sake of helping others out. What a great reward this will obtain in heaven! What gratitude it will earn from the Holy Souls! Think how many there are that need your help. (Richard F. Clarke, S.J., The Devout Year.) ~ Rev. F. X. Lasance, Holy Souls Book: Reflections on Purgatory (1922) N.B. The Heroic Act can be made either using a set formula or simply by an act of one’s will. It is important that one fully understands what he is doing before making the Heroic Act, and thus one ought to consult his confessor before doing so. Also, should anyone who has made the Act ever regret having done so, he may revoke it by a mere act of his will.

(continued) 2 of 2 Month of the The Holy Souls in Purgatory ~ November 30th This supreme act of self-sacrifice is indeed heroic, for it includes a willingness to remain in Purgatory as long as God shall please for the sake of helping others out. What a great reward this will obtain in heaven! What gratitude it will earn from the Holy Souls! Think how many there are that need your help. (Richard F. Clarke, S.J., The Devout Year.) ~ Rev. F. X. Lasance, Holy Souls Book: Reflections on Purgatory (1922)

1 of 2 Month of the The Holy Souls in Purgatory ~ November 30th Chapter 20 How to Help the Holy Souls in Purgatory (continued) 3. There are some whom God inspires to make what is called the Heroic Act, by which they offer up all the satisfactions of all their works, of the prayers and Masses said for them, and the indulgences gained for them after their own death, to be bestowed on the Holy Souls according to Our Lady’s pleasure. (continued)

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. Amen. 100 Days, once a day (Leo XIII, March 13, 1884) ~ The Raccolta (1910) Novena to the Immaculate Conception November 29th - December 7th Feast of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 8th Begins today at Christus Regnat ~ https://t.me/RexUniversi

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee Novena to the Immaculate Conception November 29th - December 7th Feast of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 8th Begins today at Defende nos in prœlio https://t.me/Defende_nos