An Advent of Inspiration: Day 2!

Today is the second day of Advent and it is the Feast day of St. Catherine of Laboure. St. Catherine was a member of the Daughters of Charity. When she was twenty-four, she received an apparition from Our Lady three times. The first apparition, Our Lady told St. Catherine how to act in time of trial and pointed to the altar as the source of all consolation. Our Lady promised entrust St. Catherine with a mission which would cause her great suffering, the lady also predicted the anticlerical revolt which occurred at Paris in 1870. The Second apparition, Our Lady showed St. Catherine the medal of the Immaculate Conception, now universally known as the "Miraculous Medal." She told St. Catherine to have a medal made and spread devotion of the medal. The "Miraculous Medal" is a powerful weapon against the Devil and the source of many great miracles. 

Day 2: Prepare the way of the LORD; make straight His Paths! -Isaiah 40:3 

St. Maximilian Colbe said on the Miraculous Medal “At various times and in various trials the most Blessed Virgin Mary has come to the aid of her children, giving them different ways of attaining salvation more easily, and freeing others from the yoke of Satan. Now in this epoch of the Immaculate Conception the most Blessed Virgin has given mankind the ‘Miraculous Medal.’ Its heavenly origin has been proved by countless miracles of healing and particularly conversion….

“On this medal there is inscribed the ejaculation: ‘O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.’

This is a prayer which the Im­maculata herself places upon our lips, revealing it to us and recommending its recitation…. This is truly our heavenly weapon. . ." 

Source

A Prayer for the Second Day of Advent 

Loving God, 

I sense that all is your creation 

and everything, and all of us, 

are being drawn back toward your loving heart.

Help me to be a person of peace, 

To speak about it in an uneasy world, 

And to live it among the people 

you have put into my life every day.

Light in me a desire to prepare for your coming 

to stand in the darkness, waiting, eager and filled with joy.

Amen.

Ta, Ta for Now!