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I wonder when I’ll get used to having anything delivered on Sunday. This time it was a used book: Purest of All Lilies: The Virgin Mary in the Spirituality of St. Faustina, by Fr. Donald Calloway, MIC. (Links at the end of this post.) The back cover reads that “the Virgin Mary is a spiritual mother of St. Faustina and us” and that the book is an “in-depth study of the very special relationship between the Virgin Mary and St. Faustina.”

“Before Holy Communion I saw the Blessed Mother inconceivably beautiful. Smiling at me She said to me: ‘My daughter, at God’s command I am to be in a special and exclusive way your Mother; but I desire that you, too, in a special way, be My child” (Diary, 1414).

Fr. George Kosicki, CSB, quoted on the back cover of Purest of All Lilies.
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It’s a bit of a long ramble tonight. Sorry, I didn’t have time to make it shorter. (Hiya, Pascal!) ;)

I don’t know how many of my readers are Catholic and how many aren’t. I assume most are but I wonder. I don’t even know how many actual readers I have. Probably a fraction of those who “follow” me ever get around to reading anything I’ve written. Well, I’m going to do what I’ve been doing, and write as if I’m addressing fellow Catholics or someone who is at least interested in Catholicism. And since this is supposed to be a post about the Blessed Virgin Mary (in the Something About Mary Every Day In May series), tonight I will write about one of my favorite Marian topics: the Rosary. Eventually. ;) Here goes.

When I was a young woman, fresh out of high school and no longer expected to accompany (I used to like that word) my family to church on Sundays, I began to search. I didn’t know what I was searching for, but I knew there had to be something. There had to be some way to know more. More about the reality, truth, the universe, more about how Christianity was supposed to work. No one could ever answer when I asked these things at home or at Sunday School or anywhere else. But I knew that someone somewhere had answers, to my questions, to my deepest longings, and I was determined to find that someone and get my answers, once and for all.

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Banner for the series
A post in the Something About Mary Every Day in May series.

Mary is the antidote for the crisis of womanhood we find ourselves facing. The Marian Option is not like the many other options being written about now, based on saints and noble persons. Because Mary is not like any other saint or noble person. Mary is the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, Full of Grace, Mother of Mercy, the Queen Mother of the King of the Universe. Those are some pretty important titles. And Mary is a pretty important Woman. (Ahem. That’s a deliberate echo of the Woman in Genesis, the Gospel of John, and the Apocalypse, also by John, the Beloved Disciple. More on that in posts about another book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary.)

“God really sends the antidote to the problem of each era…What we’re really facing in the culture today is a crisis of womanhood, so in light of that it makes perfect sense that our Lady would be the antidote to that. Those who have devotion to her, who are striving to be like her, would be the ones that can renew the culture based on the kinds of destruction we’re seeing in western civilization.”

Carrie Gress on Women of Grace. (1) talking about her book, the Marian Option. (2)

Watch the video here on the blog for the rest of that interview. Other links follow the end of this post.

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A post in the Something About Mary Every Day in May series.

This week I bought three books by Carrie Gress. Tonight’s post is about her book, The Marian Option (link to the book at the end of this post). I haven’t read it yet (so many books, so little effective time management on my part) but I have watched some of her interviews about it. Below see her appearance on Women of Grace in February 2019.

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A post in the Something About Mary Every Day In May series

I’ve written before about the connection between the Divine Mercy devotion and abortion. Tonight I’ve been reading an article by Carrie Gress (also added three of her books to the booklist today) on the Hidden Connection Between Mary and Divine Mercy. She points out something I hadn’t really thought about: St. Maximillian Kolbe, St. Faustina Kowalska, and Pope St. John Paul II were all living in Krakow at about the same time. I don’t think I ever thought about that before. Links to article and books mentioned at the end of this post. (See note about a tour with Steve Ray in the links at the end of the post.)

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A post in the Something About Mary Every Day In May series.

As Eve played an essential role in our downfall, Mary played an essential role in our redemption. And she still does. How, you ask? Consider these parallels. First, concerning Eve, then Mary as the New Eve, some points from the second chapter of Brant Pitre’s book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary.

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A post in the Something About Mary Every Day In May series.

In the good old days when I could still walk easily and without assistance, like a normal healthy person, and wasn’t tethered to an oxygen machine, and both of my beloved dawgs were still with me—man, I miss those days—back in those days of youth and health I would take our small pack to the park every day, and while the dawgs sniffed every blade of grass and chased each other and all the squirrels, I would pray the Rosary. I usually took them to the back of the park where we could be alone and they could enjoy some measure of freedom.

One day as I walked along praying the Rosary, I was watching the birds or squirrels or something in the trees overhead. A man passed us going in the other direction and of course, he spied my Rosary beads. And he couldn’t resist saying something about them. 

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