Fragrance of God’s Grace, Mama

 

Entrusting My Words to the Holy Spirit

 

Linda Mary Liotino

 

With the fall of man to sin, the Garden of Eden lost its beauty and the original order God wanted.  His plan was a place for man and beast to live in perfect peace and harmony.  It was to be a place where God himself could walk and commune with man.  The fall of Adam to sin in the Garden of Eden brought the destruction of the Garden because peace, harmony, and the place where God commune with man forever gone because of sin. Not all that God wanted in the Garden of Eden and His relationship with man could survive once sin entered into the Garden.  However, God being God gave us another Garden His Mother.

 

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.  In 1854 Pius IX gave the infallible statement: The most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin. [American Catholic.org]

Mary’s freedom from all sin is the most beautiful fruit of the work of redemption accomplished by her Son.  Chosen as Mother of the Savior, Mary received the benefits of salvation from the moment of her conception.  Christ came to take away the sin of the world; he did not allow that sin to contaminate Mary.  In her sanctity, our Blessed Mother is a model for all Christians.  We should seek her intercession in our own struggles with sin.  Mary is the patroness of the United States under the title of the Immaculate Conception. [Daily Roman Missal]

 

Mama pick by Papa God, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and carry within her womb the son of God Jesus stands to reason she is free of any stain of sin for God cannot abide where sin resides.  She a creature of God was free [by the will of God] from sin thus immaculately conceived.  Nothing is impossible with God.

 

Therefore, each of us has the beauty and fragrance of the first Garden where the beauty of God’s creation is and where God resides within our Mama.  She has not only the ear of her Son our Beloved Lord but also He readily listens to her and denies her nothing.  Therefore, her being our advocate allows us to go to the front of the line.  Our Beloved Lord sees His spotless Mother, as we peer from behind her mantel. 

 

Let our prayer be for today and everyday dear Mama obtain for us the grace to fight pride, jealousy, insecurity, sexual sin, compromise, unforgiveness, slothfulness, discouragement, covetousness, and fear.  Mama as we avoid sin may we imitate your virtues of deep humility, lively faith, ready obedience, continuous prayer, universal mortification, Divine purity, ardent charity, heroic patience, angelic sweetness and heavenly wisdom.  [virtues by St. Louis de Montfort]

 

I end with this last thought:  Luke 1:28

And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”

 

May the Hearts of Jesus and Mary Bless you.

 

DEDICATED:  To you my Beloved Mama…I love you so very dearly. 

 

 

WHAT IS THE RUSH?

Entrusting My Words to the Holy Spirit

Linda Mary Liotino

 

Thanksgiving is now behind us if only the lingering of memories and the refrigerator with abundance of leftovers from the dinner.  We are entering into the Christmas season and I say HALT…It is this time a year we find ourselves planning for December 25.  It is days of endless shopping, making the non-budging budget to stretch and trying to obtain the wow gift for all on our list.  By the time Christmas arrives, we are tired, exhausted, in two seconds gifts are opened and the toys are tossed aside by the disinterested little ones who we failed to please with the gift they so wanted.  We want Christmas Day with all the decorations and the meal to be ‘Martha Stewart’ perfect.  We lose site of the true meaning of Christmas and on December 26, we want the tree down and out of sight because frankly we Christmas burned out.

 

First, I am to tell you that the Celebration of the Birth of Our Blessed Lord [the reason for the season] is NOT one day.  It begins today the First Sunday of Advent.  I love Advent it is a spiritual time of contemplation of meditations during the first two weeks of the second coming of Our Lord.  I like to use this time in conjunction with the meditations to take stock of Linda and my relationship with Our Lord.  I look to trim the fat in my spiritual life.  I am in a spiritual inventory.  It is in these two weeks make the adjustments needed to get back on track, go confession and move forward in the Christmas season.  The Second two weeks I spend meditating on the events leading up to the birth of Christ making this my focus and not gifts, decorations, and food my main focus.  I look at it this way I may be called home before Christmas. Which makes all I am feverishly trying to accomplish a moot point.

 

I set up my Advent wreath on my desk to mark off the next four weeks it not only reminds me about the spiritual beauty of the season but serves to remind anyone to sees it that Christmas is more than just a day.  It also keeps the true meaning of Christmas in focus for the children.  They become enchanted by the lit candles and are naturally inquisitive to why candles and why now.  It is a great time to give spiritual teachings on Our Lord and the beginning of His life, all directed at the level a child can understand depending on their age. 

 

It is well to remember my dear Catholic brothers and sisters that the start of Advent marks the beginning of a new Liturgical Year in essence our New Year   It is also well to note that the Christmas season begins with Advent to the Epiphany.  It does not start on December 25 and end December 25 after midnight.

 

Therefore, relax and enjoy the beauty, wonderment and meditations of Advent.  This is a time of reawakening our hearts to the love of a Blessed Father who sent to His children His only begotten Son a gift to us.  WOW! How loved and blessed are we…Thank you Papa…thank you so much…I love you.

 

Meditation comes from Mark 13: 33-37:

 

33

Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.

34

It is like a man traveling abroad. He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his work, and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch.

35

Watch, therefore; you do not know when the lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning.

36

May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.

37

What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’”

 

May the Hearts of Jesus and Mary Bless You.

 

DEDICATED: In Thanksgiving for the gift of Our Beloved Jesus from our loving Papa.

        

PS:  Information about Advent is found at these sites:

 

http://www.ewtn.com/

 

http://www.mahalo.com/Advent_Prayers,_Liturgies,_Readings,_Poems_and_Devotions

 

Copyright Linda Mary Liotino