What do you see when you look at a picture or an icon of The Annunciation? Gabriel communicating with Mary about The Incarnation. Straight forward enough - but what more? Mary is being told she is going to give birth to, and mother the Christ. She will form Him in her womb, and in her home. St. Louis Marie De Monfort teaches us to ask Mary to form US in her womb, because God gives us to her for our formation. As Spouse of the Holy Spirit, she takes us into her "home". Wh

When Solomon humbled himself and asked God to enter the Temple at its dedication, He did, and His glory filled the temple! God's heart longs to make our hearts his temple, if we would humble ourselves and make room for Him. His Holy Spirit will enter our poor heart little by little in this life, and fully in the next. In this way we become, as the closing prayer at Mass on the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time says, "sharers of His Divine Nature." In the mystery of Mary's pre

St. Seraphim Of Sarov assigned certain petitions to each mystery, and one of his disciples added more, but you can find those in Anthony Steblin's little book. In these 15 reflections I want to share my own thoughts - but well, you know I read a great deal, so only God knows what is original and what came back to me from someone I read years ago. I really owe a great many writers for what I deem to be my own thinking - maybe we all do. My first thought on the birth of Mary

For some time I have kept the Prayer Rule Of The Theotokos(Mother Of God) , and all of it every day now that I am retired. Given to us through St. Seraphim of Sarov, and kept by him as well as by those who were his spiritual children, it has been the core devotion of his nuns at Diveyevo, Russia. Using a very soft leather Lestovka (ladder) as Seraphim did, they and pilgrims walk around the monastery grounds beside a spring fed ditch whose banks are covered with shrubs and