 An Evening with Mary After my second pilgrimage to Lourdes, France in 2013, I felt a stronger call for a devotion to the Blessed Mother. This was how "An Evening with Mary" ministry started. I wanted to serve the Blessed Mother by helping the community foster a beautiful devotion to Mary, to bring the gifts of our prayers as a bouquet of flowers for her. Though the route of Our Lady is always on the tough side, her strong intercession for us all has brought many persons to Her. Through the blessed Lourdes pilgrimage, I met a group of friends who were also excited to devote themselves to the Blessed Mother. At the beginning of our ministry, there were many crosses, sufferings, rejections, and stress, but our hearts were on fire to start the devotion. With the initial help from Mr. Gerson, and spiritual guidance of Fr. Gerard Hatton, we celebrated our first home-based devotion on Feb. 11, 2017. The statue of Our Lady was also blest on this day by Rev. Father Antoni Paul for the devotion to the Immaculate Conception, Lourdes and Health of the Sick (Vailankanni). With this devotional ministry, we hope that all pilgrims may experience the mantle love of Our Lady, allowing us to celebrate the blessing of Lourdes here in the Diocese. Latin Rosary For over a year, the world has been living in very tough times. Times are filled with confusion, fear and uncertainty. We felt that the devil enjoys creating division, destruction and hatred among the people of God. With this in our mind, Jude Ghia from our ministry, was drawn to start a group and pray the Rosary in Latin, the official language of the universal Church. Our Lady talk about the importance in reciting the Rosary, and many Saints demonstrated their love for the Latin language and prayed in this sacred language throughout the ages. Currently due to the pandemic restrictions the recitation of the Rosary in Latin is hosted online (Zoom) every Saturday at 7 am. It’s been close to 6 months since we started the Latin rosary. Many Catholics join us from across the world to pray as one children of God. During the rosary, we pray for our individual intentions along with world peace, the intensions of the Holy Father Pope Francis, the health of Pope Emeritus Benedict the XVI, the conversion of sinners, the souls in purgatory, for our Bishops, priests, deacons and all people dedicated to religious life and for church unity. In these past 4 years, many who have prayed as a child of Mary through our ministry have found favours answered through the Blessed Mother's intercession, including for conversions of hearts. When topics about Our Lady is shared, peace is felt in many of us as she brings peace from her Son us all. The enrolment of The Brown Scapular of Our Lady also has led many to true conversion from this devotion. We learned more about Mary and Our Lord in our ministry. We grow, we change and we are led towards our Lord when we pray as children of one Mother, regardless how sinful we are. She loves us all unconditionally and direct our journey towards her Son always. With conclusion, through Mary, our journey becomes sanctified as we entrust ourselves in her loving care. All to Jesus through Mary (Ad Iesu, per Mariam). Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, pray for us. Amen.
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Catholic Pastoral Centre Staff and Guest Writers Archives
September 2024
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