Day 7 Novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

basrelief

We approach the final days of our novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles. For those joining us today, you can make a “triduum” of prayer, starting today, in honor of Mary, Queen of Apostles!

Day 7 Novena Prayer

May all generations proclaim you blessed, O Mary!
You believed the words the Archangel Gabriel spoke to you,
and in you were fulfilled all the great things
he had announced to you…
You had faith
in the Incarnation of the Son of God in your virginal womb,
and you became the Mother of God….
O Mary, obtain for us
a lively, firm, and active faith–
a faith that leads to holiness in this life
and the assurance of eternal life in heaven.

– Blessed James Alberione
(excerpt from Live Christ! Give Christ! Prayers for the New Evangelization)

Day 6 Novena to Mary Queen of Apostles

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

RedwoodCityMaryQueen - Version 2Day 6 Novena Prayer

O Mary, Queen of Apostles,

pray for us your children

who entrust ourselves entirely to you.
– Venerable Mother Thecla Merlo

excerpt from Live Christ! Give Christ! Prayers for the New Evangelization

 

The Novena Continues…and 5 Things I’ve Learned About Holiness

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

 

Regina apostoli edit col bal - Version 2Day 5 of the Novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles

Prayer to Mary for a Listening Heart

Mary, when the Angel gabriel surprised you one day, you listened to his words with an attentive heart. You said “yes” to God’s invitation…

Intercede for us, that we, too, may have listening hearts: hearts that seek to hear the voice of God in every detail of our lives, hearts ready to respond to the needs of those around us…. Pray that we, like you, may treasure God’s word in our hearts and act on it. Amen. – excerpt from Live Christ! Give Christ! Prayers for the New Evangelization edited by Sr. Margaret Kerry, FSP.

 

 

 

 

FacebooknovenapicIn addition to the online Novena to Mary Queen of Apostles that I’m running here, our sisters are also running one on our Daughters of St. Paul Facebook Page here.  Now you can choose between two online novenas to our loving Mother and Queen!

I don’t know how I missed this lovely article by Daughter of Saint Paul Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble on her Pursued by Truth Patheos Blog, but here it is for you: Five Things I’ve Learned About Holiness in the Convent.

Day 4 Novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

queenblPrayer for Day 4 of the Novena

O Mary,
Mother of Jesus, Way, Truth, and Life,
intercede for us,
so that heaven may be filled
with those who sing the hymn of glory
to the Most Holy Trinity.
Amen.

                                                                        – Blessed James Alberione

Let us unite in prayer for the discernments of all who are reading the blog, and especially those who asked for prayers for their intentions and discernments in a particular way: IW, MR, JC, BS, AC, CC, S

Day 3 Praying Novena to Mary Queen of Apostles

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 2 Comments

Earlyqueenofapostles-smaller

Prayer for Day 3 of Novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles 

Immaculate Mary, Co-Redemptrix of the human race, look upon humanity redeemed by the blood of your divine Son, yet still immersed in the darkness of error and confusion. 

The harvest is always great, but the laborers are still very few. Have pity, O Mary upon your children whom the dying Jesus entrusted to you from the cross. Increase religious and priestly vocations; give us new apostles full of wisdom and fervor.

Sustain with your maternal care those who consecrate their lives to the good of their neighbor. Recall your care for Jesus and the apostle John; remember your consoling presence on the day of Pentecost. You were the counselor of the first apostles and of the apostles of all times. By your invincible intercession,  obtain a new Pentecost for all those called to the apostolate, that it may sanctify them and inflame them with holy zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of humanity. Guide them in all their efforts; help them with your graces; sustain them in moments of discouragement; crown their zeal with great success.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            – from Prayers of the Pauline Family

What’s My “Character Arc”? Personal & Spiritual Growth in Discernment

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 2 Comments
© Daughters of St. Paul, by Sr. Chelsea Moxley-Davis

© Daughters of St. Paul, by Sr. Chelsea Moxley-Davis

Picking up from Monday’s post about how discovering our desires is part of our “character arc” (or personal growth) as we continue to be the co-protagonists with the Holy Spirit on our discernment journey:

The character arc in the discernment journey—the inner part of our journey towards choosing God’s will in our lives—is twofold:

1) a journey towards understanding ourselves and our deepest desires and needs

2) a progressive freeing of our minds, wills, and hearts from anything that will limit our free choice and availability to God’s call

Our character arc—the personal and spiritual growth that is needed for a wise and authentic discernment—is often what requires the most time on our discernment journey. This is why we need patience, faith, and trust in God for the discernment journey, because it’s a spiritual journey that goes largely unseen, and is hard to explain to others and even harder to understand from the outside.

Coming to know ourselves—as we’ve been exploring—is not easy. It takes prayer, self-reflection, and courage. But coming to freedom, which is so essential—even critical—to our discernment, can be even more challenging. It’s critical because our full and free assent is the only kind of “yes” that God wants. God wants our greatest joy and happiness—but to be truly joyful and happy, we need to be truly free. Growing in freedom—from sinfulness, selfishness, old ways of thinking and acting, past habits of relating to others and accomplishing our goals, old and limited ways of seeing things—letting go of all of these can be extraordinarily challenging!

Becoming truly free is a lifelong journey, and it doesn’t need to be fully accomplished in order to make a good discernment. But lacking in freedom in certain areas can make it very difficult to discern God’s invitations in our lives. When we pray for the light and grace that we need on our discernment journey, we are often mostly praying for the grace of spiritual freedom.

Day 2 Novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

Today, the second day of the Novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles, is the first day of the Novena to the Holy Spirit for the feast of Pentecost. So today, our prayer will focus on Mary as Spouse of the Spirit.

Spiritstainedglass_2

Mary, Queen of Apostles, rejoice for the days
in which you were Teacher, Comforter
and Mother of the apostles in the Cenacle.
You invoked and received the divine Paraclete,
the Spirit with the seven gifts,
Love of the Father and of the Son,
Transformer of the apostles.
With your invincible intercession
and your humble and irresistible prayers,
which always move God’s heart,
obtain for me this grace….
                                                              –excerpt Prayers of the Pauline Family

It’s not too late to send in your prayer intentions to me–via email, a comment below, or Twitter (@SisterMPaul).

 

Send in Prayer Intentions for Novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

queenofapostlesToday, we begin the novena to Mary, Queen of Apostles. This feast day is celebrated on May 23rd this year–the Saturday before Pentecost, when Mary gathered the apostles in prayer to await the coming of the Holy Spirit. Of course, when the Holy Spirit descended, the Apostles received very special graces to go forth and carry out their mission!  It’s a very special feast day for my community as communicators of the Gospel, because Mary is the ultimate Communicator of the Word of God. 

Our Pauline website has an explanation of what the title means. In the images of Mary, Queen of Apostles, Mary is holding Jesus out–as if to give him away. Blessed James Alberione describes the meaning of this gesture very specifically: “In the ‘Hail, Holy Queen,’ the Church describes her [Mary] to us with very beautiful titles, but the most beautiful is the one we see portrayed in the new painting of the Queen of the Apostles, in which the Madonna does not clasp Jesus to her heart, but holds him out to the Apostles, as her most sweet fruit, in order that they, in turn, will hold him out to humanity.”

For our purpose as discerners, Mary is also known as the “Spouse of the Spirit” because she so closely listened to, treasured, and responded to the invitations of the Spirit.

I invite each of you to send in your prayer intentions–you can email me if you want to remain anonymous, or send me a message on Twitter. (@SisterMPaul) If you add it in as a comment below, I will cut and paste all the prayer intentions (including the initials of those who wish to be anonymous), and we can all pray for each other on our discernment journeys.

I will post up a short prayer each day of the novena, so that if you check in over the next nine days, we can unite not just in intention, but also focus our prayers. The prayer below is an excerpt from our Founder’s prayer of entrusting to Mary–his own version of Consecration to Mary. It’s a beautiful prayer to begin our novena:

Receive me, Mary, Mother, Teacher and Queen,
among those whom you love, nourish, sanctify and guide,
in the school of Jesus Christ, the Divine Master.
You identify in God’s mind those whom he calls,
and for them you have special prayers, grace, light and consolations.
My Master Jesus Christ entrusted himself wholly to you,
from the Incarnation to the Ascension.
For me this is doctrine, example and an ineffable gift.
I too place myself entirely into your hands.
Obtain for me the grace to know, imitate and love always more
the Divine Master, Way and Truth and Life.

                                                                                                                – Blessed James Alberione

What Makes Our Hearts Tick…

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 1 Comment

04A 3 choiceThe kind of “deep” desires that we refer to here doesn’t necessarily mean our strongest desires, but rather, the most urgent, the most all-encompassing of our identity. The deeper we go and the more personal our desires are, the more universal they usually are.

Being loved is hugely important to each of us—it’s a deep need and desire. But our deepest fulfillment is not found in being loved, but in loving. True love is giving one’s self away, a self that no longer clings to selfishness, but puts the beloved one(s) first. As we come to a fuller understanding of who we are, we also start to see our deepest needs and desires, in all their beauty, urgency and intensity—desires and needs that are not determined by sin and egoism but have been placed in our hearts by God. It is in these deepest needs and desires that we can glimpse God’s “dreams” for us, because God often speaks to us through them.

A popular paraphrase of Saint Augustine is: “Love, and do what you will!” Psalm 37:4 goes even further, “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (NRSV). When our hearts—and thus our entire beings—are directed towards God, then God can use our heart’s desire to draw us to himself.

Each of us is unique, unrepeatable, created out of love and for Love. Discovering and living fully God’s call for us is the key to our happiness—God knows the deep desires of our hearts better than we do. God calls us to be holy in a way that makes our hearts tick, and our personalities click.

Coming to understand ourselves and the true desires of our hearts are important parts of our “character arc” on our discernment journey. Growing in this self-understanding will help us to eventually respond to God wholeheartedly because we will see how our desires are in harmony with God’s desires for us.

Discerning with Deep Despires

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 1 Comment


04A 2As we explore how God might be speaking through our deep desires, it might be helpful to describe “deep desires” a little more, as compared to other kinds of desires:

  • a sudden sharp craving for ice cream on a hot day
  • a yearning to spend time with a loved one
  • a fancy for a new gadget
  • a pining for some peaceful moments in the midst of a busy day or week
  • a physical attraction to someone we find good-looking
  • an impulsive “itch” to clean the house or do something else we find immediately satisfying
  • a passionate love for our spouse
  • a longing to be immersed in creativity—writing, music, art
  • a yearning for a real, profound relationship with God
  • a devotion to someone(s) else; a dedicated giving of ourselves in love to someone(s) in need

We all have many kinds of desires every day. Because we are body and soul, our deepest desires often manifest themselves physically even when the desire isn’t for something material. We may say that we “ache” for something, or experience restlessness when a desire goes unfulfilled. Whenever we desire something, we perceive it as good. Eating unlimited chocolate feels good on some level, and so we might desire to eat two pounds of chocolate in one sitting, even though it is not actually good for us.

Our desires can be good and healthy, or they can be evil, disordered by original sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks about feelings, desires, and passions in #1768. If you are interested in exploring a bit more about the morality of feelings and desires, you may want to read up in the Catechism or other sources. (If you need references, send me an email or visit a Pauline Book & Media Center!)

Because in any discernment, we are discerning between good things (see my January 23 post on four essential principles for discernment), this blog isn’t the place to address evil desires that are sinful or lead to sin beyond the obvious fact that evil desires are to be avoided, and that God doesn’t “speak” through sinful desires.

However, for the purpose of discernment, we distinguish different kinds of desires. We look at their source, how lasting they are, how connected they are with our identity. If we feel a craving for chocolate (can you tell that I have the potential to become a choc-a-holic?), we know that is a physical desire that arises from our body—perhaps a need for certain nutrients, or a desire for the gratifying pleasure of a delicious bite. But a desire for chocolate has nothing to do with my God-given identity, and while it may arise periodically, it is not a lasting desire.

Our deep desires are longings that are profound, lasting, and entwined in our very identity. The reason that we look more carefully at how God might be speaking through deep desires is because we know that God wants our happiness, and fulfilling a deep desire often leads to happiness. Personally, the further I go in life, the more I see how my deepest desires are given to me by God.

A deep desire is something that we will long for and be passionate about for a long time…perhaps our entire lives. Many people would agree that the deepest desire of the human heart is to love and be loved. (This is definitely a God-given desire!) Since God is Love, this can be rephrased to say that the longing for God himself is the deepest desire of the human heart. In discernment, we acknowledge this deep desire for God, and we look for the specific, unique “how” God is calling me personally, to love and be loved in my daily life.

We all desire love, goodness, beauty, etc. Getting to know our deep desires and the unique “how” we feel called to fulfill them is really helpful and important to living God’s invitations. Here is a personal example from my own life. All human beings desire not only beauty, but to express beauty. For me, that desire to express beauty is specified in one way by my deep desire to write. I’ve wanted to write for a long time, but it took me years to discern that my desire to write was not just a personal desire but also a call from God. Eventually, my community confirmed my discernment when sisters and superiors affirmed my written works and gave me writing assignments.

I still love other forms of beauty, and I dabble in music, but writing seems to come from (and go back to) the core of who I am.

To Pray & Journal With

  • Pray with Psalm 63: “My soul thirsts for you.”
  • How do you experience your longing for God?
  • What are your deepest desires?