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10/11 FEAST OF THE DIVINE MATERNITY

Feast of the Divine Maternity

October 11: Feast of the Divine Maternity of Our Lady

This feast, observed throughout the Western Church on October 11, honor Mary as Mother of God, and bears the same sort of relation to the Annunciation and to Christmas as does the Synaxis of Our Lady in the Byzantine rite. It was long known in Portugal and elsewhere, but was finally instituted in 1931 by Pope Pius XI in view of the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus.

At the same time the Pope ordered at his own cost the restoration of the Marian mosaics in Saint Mary Major, much decayed through age. He issued an encyclical letter, “Lux veritatis.” In this, among the objects of the new festival, is named one truth that was particularly close to the heart of Pius XI, “…that Mary, who is loved and revered so warmly by the separated Christians of the East, would not suffer them to wander and be unhappily led further away from the unity of the Church, and therefore from her Son, whose vicar on earth we are.”


 


Feast of the Divine Maternity, cont:

“On this occasion the heavenly Lady was full of the Holy Ghost and moreover bore within Her, as His Mother, the Divine Word, who proceeds from the Father and the Holy Ghost. Saint Joseph received special enlightenment and the plenitude of divine graces, and altogether renewed in fervor of spirit he said:

“Blessed art Thou, Lady, among all women, fortunate and preferred before all nations and generations. May the Creator of heaven and earth be extolled with eternal praise, since from his exalted kingly throne He has looked upon Thee and chosen Thee for his dwelling place and in Thee alone has fulfilled the ancient promises made to the Patriarchs and Prophets. Let all generations bless Him: for in no one has He magnified his name as He has done in thy humility; and me, the most insignificant of the living, He has in his divine condescension selected for thy servant.”

In these words of praise and benediction Saint Joseph was enlightened by the Holy Ghost, in the same manner as Saint Elizabeth, when she responded to the salutation of Our Queen and Mistress. The light and inspiration, received by the most holy spouse was wonderfully adapted to his dignity and office. The heavenly Lady, upon hearing the words of the holy man, answered in the words of the Magnificat, as She had done on her visit to Saint Elizabeth, and She added other canticles. She was all aflame in ecstasy and was raised from the earth in a globe of light, which surrounded Her and transfigured Her with the gifts of glory.

At this heavenly vision Saint Joseph was filled with admiration and unspeakable delight; for never had he seen his most blessed Spouse in such eminence of glory and perfection. Now he beheld Her with a full and clear understanding, since all the integrity and purity of the Princess of heaven and mystery of her dignity manifested themselves to him. He saw and recognized in her virginal womb the humanity of the infant God and the union of the two natures of the Word. With profound humility and reverence he adored Him and recognized Him as his Redeemer, offering himself to his majesty. The Lord looked upon him in benevolence and kindness as upon no other man, for He accepted him as his foster-father and conferred upon him that title. In accordance with this dignity, He gifted him with that plenitude of science and heavenly gifts which Christian piety can and must acknowledge.

Feast of the Divine Maternity

*from The Woman in Orbit and The City of God by Ven. Mary of Agreda

BOOK OF HEAVEN

Luisa 7

 From the writings of the Servant of God, Luisa Piccarreta,

The Little Daughter of the Divine Will

12/8/24 – Vol. 17

But do you want to know what was the greatest prodigy worked by Us in this creature so holy, and the greatest heroism of this creature so beautiful, that no one – no one will ever be able to equal? She began Her life with Our Will, and with Our Will She continued it and fulfilled it. So, one can say that She fulfilled it from the moment She started it, and that She started it there where She fulfilled it; and Our greatest prodigy was that in each one of Her thoughts, words, breaths, heartbeats, movements and steps, Our Will poured upon Her, and She offered Us the heroism of a divine and eternal thought, word, breath, heartbeat, operating in Her. This raised Her so high that what We were by nature, She was by grace. All of Her other qualities, Her privileges, Her very Immaculate Conception, would have been nothing compared to this great prodigy. Even more, this is what confirmed Her and made Her stable and strong during all of Her life. My continuous Will, pouring upon Her, made Her share in the Divine Nature; and Her continuous receiving It, rendered Her strong in love, strong in sorrow – different from everyone. In this Will of Ours operating in Her, She drew the Word upon earth, and the seed of the Divine Fecundity in order to conceive a Man and God without human intervention. And Our Will made Her worthy to be the Mother of Her own Creator.

12/8/31 – Vol. 30

“In sum, in everything She (the Blessed Virgin Mary) is the Queen, All-Doer, who is unable to remain idle upon Her Throne of Glory, but descends—runs as Mother into the acts and needs of Her children.  Therefore, thank Her for Her many Maternal Cares, and thank God who has given to all generations a Mother so Holy, Lovable, and who Loves so much as to reach the point of acting as the Withdrawer of all their acts in order to cover them with Her Own, and to compensate for what is lacking in them, of Beauty and of Goodness.

12/8/35 – Vol. 34

“In fact, there is no Grace that descends over the earth, there is no Sanctity that is formed, there is no sinner who is converted, there is no Love that departs from Our Throne, that is not first deposited in Her (the Blessed Virgin Mary’s) Heart of Mother, that forms the maturation of that Good, fecundates it with Her Love, enriches it with Her Graces, and, if necessary, with the virtue of Her Sorrows, and then She deposits it in who must receive it in a way that the one who receives it feels the Divine Paternity and the Maternity of her Celestial Mother.  We can do it without Her, but We do not want to; who will have the heart of setting Her aside?  Our Love, Our Infinite Wisdom, Our Fiat Itself, impose over Us, and do not let Us do anything that does not descend by Her means.

12/8/36 – Vol. 34

But while I remained surprised, and I would have remained there who knows how long if my sweet Jesus had not called me by telling me:  “I want to Honor My Celestial Mother.  I want to narrate the story of Her Immaculate Conception.  Only I can speak of it, being Author of so Great a Prodigy.  Now, My daughter, the First Act of this Conception was one Fiat of Ours, pronounced with such Solemnity and with such Fullness of Grace, as to enclose everything and everyone.  We centralized everything in this Conception of the Virgin.  In Our Divine Fiat, in which past and future do not exist, the Incarnation of the Word was held present, and It made Her Conceived and incarnated in the same Incarnation of Me, future Redeemer.  My Blood that was in act as if I Myself were shedding it, continually sprinkled Her, embellished Her, Confirmed Her, and fortified Her in a Divine Way.

“But it was not enough for My Love.  All Her Acts, Words, and Steps, were first Conceived in My Acts, Words, and Steps, and then they had Life.  My Humanity was the refuge, the hiding place, the embodiment of this Celestial Creature, such that if She Loved Us, Her Love was Incarnated and Conceived in My Love.  And O! how She Loved Us.  Her Love enclosed everything and everyone.  I can say that She Loved as a God knows how to Love.  She had Our same follies of Love for Us and for all creatures, and that Loving one time, She Loves, She always Loves, without ever stopping.  Her prayer was Conceived in My Prayer and therefore it had an Immense Value, a Power over Our Supreme Being—and who could deny Her anything?  Her sufferings, Her Sorrows, Her Martyrdoms, that were so many, were first Conceived in My Humanity, and then She felt in Herself the Life of the sufferings and of the excruciating Martyrdoms, all animated by Divine Strength.  Therefore one can say She was Conceived in Me.  From Me Her Life went forth.  Everything that I did and Suffered lined up around this Holy Creature in order to court Her and continuously pour Myself over Her, and be able to tell Her:  ‘You are the Life of My Life, You are All Beautiful, You are the First Redeemed, My Divine Fiat has molded You, It has Breathed on You, and It has made You be Conceived in My Works, in My Humanity Itself.’

“Now, My daughter, Conceiving this Celestial Creature in the Incarnate Word, was done by Us with Highest Wisdom, with Unreachable Power, with Inexhaustible Love, and with Decorum that befits Our Works.  I, Word of the Father, having to descend from Heaven in order to Incarnate Myself in the Womb of a Virgin, just virginity and having made Her exempt from the stain of original sin was not sufficient for the Sanctity of My Divinity, therefore it was necessary for Our Love and for Our Sanctity that this Virgin first would be Conceived in Me with all those Prerogatives, Virtues, and Beauties that the Life of the Incarnate Word must possess, and then, therefore, I could be Conceived in the One who had been Conceived in Me.

“And I found in Her My Heaven, the Sanctity of My Life, My own Blood that had Generated Her and watered Her so many times.  I found My own Will, that communicating Its Divine Fecundity to Her, formed the Life of Her and the Son of God.  My Divine Fiat, in order to make Her Worthy of being able to Conceive Me, held Her Invested and under Its continuous Empire that possesses all acts as if they were One Single Act.  In order to give Her everything, It called into act My foreseen Merits, My Whole Life, and It continuously poured it within Her Beautiful Soul.

“Therefore I (Jesus) alone can tell the true story of the Immaculate Conception and of Her (the Blessed Virgin Mary’s) whole Life, because I (God) Conceived Her (the Blessed Virgin Mary) in Me and I am aware of everything.  And if the Holy Church speaks about the Celestial Queen, they can say only the first letters of the alphabet about Her Sanctity, Greatness, and Gifts with which She was enriched.  If you knew the Contentment that I feel when I speak about My Celestial Mother, who knows how many demands you would make Me in order to give Me the Joy of letting Me speak about the One whom I Love so much, and who has Love

12/8/37 – Vol. 35

…“Do you see then, the extent of Our (God’s) Power and Our Love in the Conception of this Holy Creature (the Blessed Virgin Mary)?  We reached the point of elevating Her to such a Height and Glory that She can say:  ‘Wherever My Creator is, there I am—to Love Him.  He Invested Me with such Power and Glory that I am Sovereign over all.  Everything is dependent on Me.  My Dominion reaches everywhere, to the extent that, while I am Conceived in all things I keep, Conceived within Me, the sun, the wind, the sea—everything.  I possess everything in Me—even My Creator, and I am the Sovereign and the Owner of all.  This is all of My Unreachable Height; My Glory—that nobody can equal, and My Great Honor:  with My Love I embrace all, I Love all, and I belong to all.  I am the Mother of My Creator.’

12/8/38 – Vol. 36

My flight in the Divine Will continues.  It seems to me that It can be found in all things, natural and spiritual, saying with Unspeakable Love:  “I am here, let’s act together—do not do it by yourself. Without Me you wouldn’t know how to do it the way I would.  I would remain with the Pain of having been put aside, while you would remain with the sorrow of not having in your acts the Value of one single Act of a Divine Will.”

While I was thinking this, my sweet Jesus, repeating His short little visit, all Goodness told me: “My blessed daughter, My Most Holy Humanity was the depository of My Divine Will.  There was no act, little or great, even the breathing and the motion, that My Humanity, like a veil, did not hide completely in My Divine Fiat.  Even more, I would not have been capable of a breath or a movement if I did not enclose It within Me.  Therefore, My Humanity served as the veil in which to hide My Divinity as well as the Great Prodigy of the Work of My Will in all My Acts.  Otherwise, no one could have come close to Me.  My Majesty and the shining Light of My Divinity would have eclipsed him and would just have floored him—all would have run away from Me.  Who would have dared to cause Me the smallest Pain?  But I Loved the creature and I came on earth not to show off My Divinity, but My Love.  So I wanted to hide Myself inside the veil of My Humanity to get acquainted with man, to do what he did, reaching the point of letting him give Me Unheard-of Pains and even Death.

“The soul that unites with My Humanity in all her acts and pains, by wanting to find My Will and make It her own, breaks the veil of My Humanity, finding in My Acts the fruit, the Life, the Prodigies that My Humanity did within Me, and receiving all that I did within Me as her own Life.  My Humanity will serve to help and guide her, showing her how to Live within It.  In this way, I will still be on earth, continuing to be the veil hiding what My Will wants to do.  But if creatures will look for Me without My Will, they will find only My veil, not the Life of My Will.  They will not be able to produce the Prodigies that It Operated in the hiding place of My Humanity.  It is always My Will that knows how to place inside the creature the Greatest Prodigies—the brightest Suns; Wonders never before seen—as if inside each of My Humanities on earth.  But, alas, I search them and I cannot find them because no one, in Total Firmness, is looking for My Will.”

Then dear Jesus kept silent.  I remained thinking of what He had just said, and I could really see how everything Jesus had done and suffered became Bearer of the Divine Volition.  Then He continued: “My good daughter, it wasn’t only My Humanity that—though in a more special way—was hiding My Divinity and My Will; all created things and the very creatures are veils that hide Our Divinity and Our Adorable Will.  Even Heaven is a veil that hides Our Immense Divinity, Our Firmness and Immutability; while the variety of stars hides the multiple effects that Our Immensity, Firmness and Immutability possess.  O! If man could see Our Divinity revealed under that blue vault without the veil of that blue that covers Us and hides Us, his littleness would remain crushed under Our Majesty.  He would walk trembling, feeling continuously upon him the gaze of a Pure, Holy, Strong and Powerful God.  But since We Love man, We veil Ourselves, lending Ourselves secretly to all that is needed.

“The sun is the veil that hides Our Shining Majesty—We must perform a miracle to restrain Our Uncreated Light so as not to scare the creature.  Veiled by this light Created by us, We approach the creature, kissing her and warming her; We lay this veil of light even under her steps—on the right, on the left, under her head.  We even fill her eye with light, and, who knows, maybe the frail pupil of her eye will recognize Us; but no, in vain—she takes only the veil of light that hides Us and We remain the unknown God in the middle of the creatures.  What Pain!  The wind, too, is a veil that hides Our Empire; the air is a veil, hiding Our Life that continuously gives to the creatures; the sea is a veil, that hides Our Purity, Our Refreshments and Divine Freshness—its murmuring hides Our continuous Love, and when We see We are not listened to, We even storm in huge waves so as to be recognized and loved.  For every Good that man receives, Our Life is hidden inside, offering that Good to him.

“Our Divinity Loves man so much that It even hides inside the earth, making it firm and stable under his steps, not allowing him to vacillate.  Even in the singing bird, in the flowered fields, in the various sweetnesses of the fruits—Our Joys, to make him taste the innocent delights of our Divine Being.  And how much more could I tell you about the many Prodigies of Love by which We are veiled and hidden inside man?  We veil Ourselves in the breathing, in the heartbeat, in the motion, in the memory, in the intellect, in the will; We veil Ourselves in the pupil of his eyes, in his word, in his love, and—O! how Painful it is not to be recognized or loved.  We can say that We Live in him, We carry him and We let Ourselves be carried by him.  He could do nothing without Us; but still, We live together without knowing each other.  What Pain!  If only he knew Us.

“The life of man was supposed to be the first, the Greatest Prodigy of Our Love and Omnipotence.  We had only to offer him, from within its veils, Our Sanctity and Our Love, covering him with Our Beauty—making him enjoy Our Delights.  But since he does not recognize Us, he keeps Us like the far away God—away from himself.  If We are not recognized, We cannot give Our Goods to the blind.  He is forced to live under the nightmare of his own miseries and passions.  Poor man, who does not recognize Us, either in the veils that hide Us within him, or in the veils of each created thing; he just keeps running away from Our Life and from the scope for which he was Created; so, many times, when We cannot tolerate his ingratitude, the very Goods contained in Our veils are turned into chastisement for him.  Therefore, do recognize that you are nothing other than a veil hiding your Creator, in order for you to receive, and for Us to administer, Our Divine Life in all your acts.  Recognize It in the veils of all created things, so that all may help you to receive a  Good so Great.”

After this, I was doing my round in the Acts of the Divine Volition.  How many Surprises in this Will, so Holy.  It is this Will that most awaits the creature, keeping her aware of all Its Works, letting her know how much It Loves her, and offering her everything It does.  It fidgets to give without ceasing, and It is content with a little “I love You” from the creature in return.

Then I arrived at the Conception of My Mother and Queen:  how many wonders!  And My sweet Jesus continued: “My blessed daughter (Luisa), today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.  It is the Most Beautiful Feast, the Greatest one for Us (God)—for Heaven and for earth.  In the Act of Creating this Celestial Creature from nothing, We made such Prodigies and Wonders that the Heavens and the earth remained completely filled.  We called everyone—nobody was put aside, so that all could be Reborn together with Her.  It was the New Birth of everyone and everything.

“Our Divine Being overflowed so much that, in the Act of Her Conception, we put at Her Disposal Seas of Love, of Sanctity and Light, with which She could Love all, make Saints of all, and give Light to all.  The Celestial Little One felt an innumerable population being Reborn in Her little Heart.  And what did Our Paternal Goodness do?  First, We donated Her to Ourselves, so that We could delight and court Her, and She could delight and court Us; then, We donated Her to every creature.  O! How much She Loved Us, and Loved all—with such Intensity and Fullness that there is no point in which Her Love does not arise.  The whole Creation—the sun, the wind, the sea, are filled with the Love of this Holy Creature, because they too felt Reborn with Her to New Glory.  They even had the Great Glory of possessing their Queen, to the extent that when She prays to Us for the good of Her people with a Love that We cannot resist, she says:  ‘Adorable Majesty, remember that You offered Me.  I am Yours and I am theirs too; so, by right, You must grant what I ask.’”

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