What happens when you use a magnifying glass? You can see what you are looking at better. What do you see when you look in your mirror? You see yourself. Now what if there were someone who magnifies God, and someone who mirrored God, so that when you look at them, you would see God rather than them, or you could see God more clearly by looking at them? Would that be a good person to stay close to?
In chapter two of St. Luke’s Gospel, after Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Ghost, she bursts out in praise of Mary. Notice, she is filled with the Holy Ghost now, scripture tells us, and the Holy Ghost inspires her to bless Mary first and Jesus second. Doesn’t seem proper, does it? Shouldn’t God be praised first, and Mary second? That’s the way we would do it, right? But the Holy Ghost doesn’t see it that way. He inspires Elizabeth to bless Mary first, then Jesus in her womb “And it came to pass, that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she cried out with a loud voice, and said: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. ” 41,42. Note also that the Holy Ghost did not fill her with the Holy Ghost until Mary saluted her. The salutation is very powerful, Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Ghost, and St. John is sanctified in her womb and also filled with the Holy Ghost: ” He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.” verse 15. All these great blessings at Mary’s salutation. Then Elizabeth continues to praise Mary, saying she’s not even worthy of a visit from the mother of her Lord, and praising her faith. What does Mary do? She turns it all back to God’s goodness and mercy, and in her Magnificat she says these intriguing words, “My soul doth magnify the Lord…verse 46, and also goes on to say that, ”all generations from henceforth will call her blessed,” verse 48. And why? Because “he that is mighty hath done great things for me, and holy is his name,” verse 49. She goes on to let us know if we want God’s mercy, we must fear him , and avoid sin: ”And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him.” Yes, and she says his name is holy, not to be profaned in idle and unholy conversation. That only serves to curse those who do so, and their families; “He that sweareth much, shall be filled with iniquity, and a scourge shall not depart from his house.” Ecclus. 23:12. And Proverbs 13:3: ”He that hath no guard over his speech, shall meet with evils.” Drbo.org “As a man shall sow, so shall he reap,” said St. Paul. You sow potatoes, you get potatoes. You sow blessings, you get blessings. You sow curses, you get curses.
But getting back to my point, Mary’s soul magnifies the Lord. When Mary walked the earth, she was so entirely godlike, that even her physical presence mirrored the Lord. Just by looking at her, it has been said that many were converted: “For she is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of his goodness.” Mary’s pure and unspotted soul mirrored God’s majesty because she never sinned. The angel greeted her as “full of grace,” St. Luke 1:28. She could not be full of grace if there were any sin in her. Thus Scripture says of her in prophecy in the Old Testament: ”One is my dove, my perfect one is but one, she is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her. The daughters saw her, and declared her most blessed.” Cant. (Songs)6:8. Mary was that perfect woman, the only one of her mother St. Anne, who only had one child, of which the daughters saw her, and declared her most blessed. What daughters? Mary’s other children in the order of grace; https://motherofgodlibrary.org/2019/03/28/mary-your-spiritual-mother/
St. John saw a miraculous vision in heaven, ”a great sign,” he said, ”appeared in heaven, a woman adorned with the sun” ”And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” Apoc. (Rev.) 12:1. This sun is a figure of Jesus, the Sun of Justice, and Mary was so entirely godlike, that St. John himself saw her reflecting the sun, ”the brightness of eternal light,” because God is light: “And this is the declaration which we have heard from him, and declare unto you: That God is light, and in him there is no darkness.” 1 John 1:5
But how do we keep our eyes fixed on Mary, since we cannot see her physically as the early Christians did? We keep our eyes on her by praying her rosary, wearing her brown scapular, and her miraculous medal. In this way we stay close to her spiritually, and as a good mother, she teaches us about God, and enlightens us. “For it is she that teacheth the knowledge of God, and is the chooser of his works.” Wisdom 8:4. Her rosary protects us in danger. In her 2nd promise of the rosary, she says: “I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to those who pray the rosary.”
ROSARY SAVES A MAN’S LIFE ON SEPTEMBER 11TH: A man from New York who had fallen away from the Catholic Church and not gone to confession in years was met at a TFP Fatima presentation given by America Needs Fatima Custodian, Jose Ferraz. After the visit, the New Yorker took home a rosary and rosary guide and started praying it and going to the sacraments again. Months later, on September 11th, 2001, he was in the world trade center at the very moment when the terrorist attack took place.
Seeing the fireball and smoke from the crash, the man fled his office and tried running down the stairs to safety. However, he met a big obstacle. The fire doors had locked and he was trapped in the stairwell, listening to the screams of burning people who were still inside the building, unable to escape death. It was awful…horrific. Any attempt to pry open the fire doors with bare hands would be futile. With Our Lady’s help, instead of panicking, he felt calm. He grabbed his rosary and started praying to the Blessed Mother for help. And within minutes, firemen reached his floor, broke down the fire doors and set him free. He ran downstairs to safety, his prayers answered thanks to the power of the Most Holy Rosary. The Blessed Mother says, “I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.” # 2. Do you not see how powerful the rosary is? Sr. Lucy, one of the Fatima children said, “Our Lady will protect her dear ones.”
The Airplane Pilots Protected By The Rosary: https://motherofGodlibrary.org/2019/05/01/the-rosary-a-powerful-weapon-against-the-devil-the-story-of-the-airplane-pilots/
Another one of the promises is that it will decrease sin. The more we decrease sin in our lives, the closer we come to God. The closer we draw near to God, who is light, the more He enlightens us. ”The more we sin,” said Fr. Tangen, “the farther away we move from God, who is light, into darkness. The deeper in darkness we go, the blinder we get.” So as, we do not see things spiritually as we should, even though we think we do. Our sins blind us, “Their own malice blinded them.” Wisdom 2:21. drbo.org. That is why, St. Paul urged the Corinthians to turn away from their sin, and the veil would be taken away: “But their senses were made dull. For, until this present day, the selfsame veil, in the reading of the old testament, remaineth not taken away (because in Christ it is made void). But even until this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. But when they shall be converted to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.” 1 Cor. 3:14-16.
Wearing the brown scapular and the miraculous medal are also two other ways of staying close to our Blessed Mother. Doing these things along with praying the rosary every day, she enlightens us even more. She promises that those who die wearing the scapular will not suffer the flames of eternal fire. There have been a few cases of those who wore it as a license to sin saying, “Oh, I can do anything I want now because I’m wearing the scapular,” and yet, before they died, these presumptuous people unfortunately had the scapular ripped off them, and died without its promise!
Miracles Through the Brown Scapular:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5leFKgQjMzI
Impressive Stories on the Miraculous Medal: https://motherofgodlibrary.org/2021/03/15/claude-newman-death-row-convict-converted-by-the-miraculous-medal
MotherofGodlibrary.org, Dec. 2019, scroll down
St. Augustine explained, “There are many graces God wants to give to us, but we are not worthy. The only way He will give them to us is through the Blessed Virgin Mary.” – Fr. Nicholas Gruner. At Fatima, Mary herself instructed us through the little children, after showing them a terrible vision of hell on July 13th, 1917: “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. . In order to save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart…Many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray and sacrifice for them.” St. Alphonsus explained that Mary is the channel of grace God uses to give grace to the world. For those protestants who wish to object, I only need to remind them that our salvation, Jesus Christ himself, came into the world through Mary. That is proof enough. And St. Alphonsus explained that the devil does his utmost to cut off our devotion to Mary, to close up this channel, and then he can overcome that soul. “The devil, like Holofernes, who, in order to gain possession of the city of Bethulia, ordered the aqueducts to be destroyed, exerts himself to his utmost to destroy devotion to the Mother of God in souls; for if this channel of grace is closed, he easily gains possession of them.” The Glories of Mary, Chapter 5, Mary our Mediatress. Mary is the tree, Jesus is the fruit. You go to the tree to get the fruit. See, Devotion to Mary — A Great Sign of Predestination https://motherofgodlibrary.org/2019/05/
Mary leads us to Jesus, especially in the Eucharist for the life of our souls, and in the tabernacle for visits and Holy Hours. “We go to Jesus through Mary because that is the way He came to us, and He said, “As I have given you an example, do you also.” St. John 13:15.” – St. Louis de Montfort. Many souls are saved through Holy Hours. One day before her Holy Hour, Jesus showed Blessed Dina Belanger a multitude of souls on the precipice of hell. After her Holy Hour, Jesus showed her the same souls in the hands of God. Jesus told her that, through Holy Hours of prayer, a multitude of souls go to heaven who otherwise would have gone to hell; as one person can make up for what is lacking in the lives of others by winning precious, efficacious graces for their salvation.
So, let us stay close to our Blessed Mother, praying her rosary every day, wearing her brown scapular and medal, receiving Jesus often in Holy Communion, in reparation on First Fridays and First Saturdays to Jesus and Mary, for the Angel of Fatima told the children, “Receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by the sins of ungrateful men, and console your God.” Visit Jesus often in the Blessed Sacrament, and make Holy Hours whenever you can. “Do you wish many graces? Visit the Blessed Sacrament often. Do you wish few graces? Visit it seldom. Visits to the Blessed Sacrament are a powerful and indispensable means of overcoming the devil, and of growing in virtue.” – St. John Bosco. And please, Reverend Fathers, please start preaching on sin, and the need for reparation. And please encourage people, everyone, to say that rosary every day! That’s what Mary asks of us at Fatima. She prophesied over 700 years ago, “One day through the rosary and the scapular, I will save the world.” At Fatima she came with the rosary and the scapular. This is her time. Now, it is up to you Reverend Fathers, to make these things known.