Mary! A name so lofty, in the regal majesty of its sound and meaning—Mary, Maria, Miriam! It is a name as familiar to us as the name of our Mother, as the bells of the church, as the peaks of the mountains which send their friendly greetings to the valleys below. Mary! A thousand times we have prayed, sung, wept this name, in good and evil days. Millions of women are called by that name and it weaves a golden thread around even the plainest woman. (Read more…)

We know that everyone has a birthday. The Bible doesn’t say anything about Mary’s birth, but we know that she was born. Like all parents, Mary’s parents—we call them Joachim and Ann—probably took one look at their newborn daughter and knew that she was special.

Joachim and Ann loved God very much, and they were filled with gratitude to God for the gift of a child. They raised Mary as a child of God, teaching her to love and serve God. (Read more…)

The drunken oath of a king with a shallow sense of honor, a seductive dance and the hateful heart of a queen combined to bring about the martyrdom of John the Baptist. The greatest of prophets suffered the fate of so many Old Testament prophets before him: rejection and martyrdom. The “voice crying in the desert” did not hesitate to accuse the guilty, did not hesitate to speak the truth. But why? What possesses a man that he would give up his very life? (Read more…)

Pope Pius XII established this feast in 1954. But Mary’s queenship has roots in Scripture. At the Annunciation, Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever. At the Visitation, Elizabeth calls Mary “mother of my Lord.” As in all the mysteries of Mary’s life, she is closely associated with Jesus: Her queenship is a share in Jesus’ kingship. We can also recall that in the Old Testament the mother of the king has great influence in court. (Read more…)

The church has always held to the belief that Mary was assumed, body and soul, into a heavenly state, even though the belief was not declared as dogmatic until 1950. The early church had a robust tradition of revering relics from the saints of the day, and their complete lack of relics from the Mother of Jesus was seen as evidence of this Marian belief. The celebration of the event as a feast dates back to the fourth century in the East and the seventh century in the West. (Read more…)

The Transfiguration of Jesus is an event reported in the New Testament when Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant in glory upon Mount Tabor. The Gospels (Matthew 17:1–8, Mark 9:2–8, and Luke 9:28–36) describe it, and the Second Epistle of Peter also refers to it (2 Peter 1:16–18). It has also been hypothesized that the first chapter of the Gospel of John alludes to it (John 1:14).

In these accounts, Jesus and three of his apostles, Peter, James, and John, go to a mountain (the Mount of Transfiguration) to pray. (Read more…)