May Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, whom we commemorate on the 27th, watch over us all and guide us along the path that leads us to Christmas. Sunday marks the beginning of the new liturgical year. The season of Advent that we are preparing to celebrate is the strong season of the liturgical year that prepares us for Christmas. May this be a time of joy; may our hearts truly be inhabited by the hope that God does not abandon us. “Advent is an unceasing appeal to hope: it reminds us that God […] is present in the history of humanity, that he is ‘God with us’; God is not far away, he is always with us, to the point that he often knocks at the doors of our hearts. God walks at our side to support us. The Lord does not abandon us; he accompanies us in our lives to help us discover the meaning of our journey and the significance of everyday life, to infuse us with courage in times of trial and sorrow. Amid life's storms, God always extends his hand to us and frees us from threats” (Pope Francis).
THURSDAY 25 NOVEMBER
Today marks the wedding anniversary of the blessed couple Beltrame Quattrocchi. May their joyful testimony be a luminous example for all married couples. Their daughter Enrichetta recounts: “Mother used to say that one had to look at reality from the rooftops upward, to perceive, in the light of the Spirit, the meaning of events as vehicles of divine messages and avoid flattening one's gaze onto the world, remaining entangled in life's worries.” Amid the thousand worries of everyday life, may married couples truly try to lift their gaze to understand everything “in the light of the Spirit.” May they confidently invoke the intercession of the blessed couple Beltrame Quattrocchi.
For further reading:
• Novena to Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi
FRIDAY 26 NOVEMBER
Blessed James Alberione
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the death of the apostle of the mass media. The testimonies of those who knew him agree in describing Fr. Alberione as a reserved man of few words who did not like being in the spotlight. The secret of all the dynamism of his life was, first and foremost, his passion for Jesus and his irrepressible desire to make him known. “Our piety is first and foremost Eucharistic,” Fr. Alberione wrote in 1960. “Everything springs, as from a life-giving source, from the Divine Master. Thus the Pauline Family was born from the tabernacle; thus it is nourished, thus it lives, thus it works, thus it is sanctified.”
Blessed Alberione loved Jesus and, in imitation of Saint Paul, wanted Christ to be spoken of in every areopagus in the world, and all roads to be traveled to make him known and loved by the people of his time. Paul VI, so sensitive and attentive to the communicative power of words, never concealed his admiration for this man. He called him “a wonder of our age” and, to everyone’s great surprise, visited him at his bedside a few days before his death.
May Blessed Alberione intercede for each of us and watch over from heaven, for the good of the whole Church, the great Work that was born through him.
For further reading:
• In prayer with Blessed Giacomo Alberione
• Blessed Giacomo Alberione. Publisher and apostle of the new millennium
SATURDAY 27 NOVEMBER
Blessed Virgin Mary of the Miraculous Medal
Many wear around their neck the Miraculous Medal requested by Our Lady through Saint Catherine Labouré, but not everyone knows of the promise associated with it: “All those who wear this Medal will receive great graces, especially if they wear it around their neck.”
The Miraculous Medal is a sure and impenetrable shield under which we can take refuge in sad moments, in hours of sorrow, and in times of danger and anguish.
It protects us from temptations, strengthens us in the fight against evil, and shields us from the attacks of the devil, who in many ways seeks to make us fall and turn us away from God.
Among the many saints devoted to the Miraculous Medal, we remember Saint Teresa of Calcutta, who used the Medal whenever there was a need for a new home or a plot of land on which to build a facility. In Los Angeles, the Missionaries of Charity Brothers were having problems with a monsignor who did not want the Saint Vincent Center to be given to them. Mother Teresa went to the Center and said: “Let us make a quick novena to Our Lady,” and began reciting nine “Memorare” prayers. When she finished, she placed Miraculous Medals in various parts of the building. Then she went to Cardinal Manning and told him what she had done. The prelate said to her: “Mother Teresa, you must go and place another Medal in the monsignor’s home.” Mother Teresa did so, and two weeks later she received word that she could take charge of the Center. Wherever she went, she made sure to have a supply of Medals to give to the people she met. She asked each person how many children, brothers, and sisters they had, so that she could give them a sufficient number of Medals.
For further reading:
• The Miraculous Medal
• A Month with the Miraculous Medal
• The Miraculous Medal and Catherine Labouré. History and Miracles
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28
First Sunday of Advent
The Season of Advent begins today. “During these four weeks, we are called to move away from a resigned and habitual way of living, and to do so by nurturing hopes and dreams for a new future. The Gospel for this Sunday (cf. Lk 21:25-28,34-36) points precisely in this direction and warns us not to let ourselves be oppressed by a self-centered lifestyle or by the frantic pace of our days. Jesus’ words are particularly incisive: ‘Be on your guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness, and the anxieties of life, and that day does not catch you suddenly. […] Stay awake at all times, praying’ (vv. 34,36)” (Pope Francis).
For further reading:
• “On Your Word” Missal November-December 2021
• Let Us Adore the Blessed Sacrament. Vol. 4 Prayers for Advent and Christmas
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28
Anniversary of the apparitions at Kibeho
Between 1981 and 1989, Our Lady appeared in Kibeho, Rwanda, to three young local students, presenting herself under the title “Mother of the Word.”
She said she had come to remind people of the “forgotten Gospel,” that is, to commemorate the life, passion, and death of her Son Jesus. She asked for penance, fasting, and sacrifices “because the world is going badly… I want to lift you back up, but you do not listen to me.”
He foretold and showed the visionaries in tears the dramatic scenes of the 1994 genocide: the murders, heads severed from bodies, mass graves… a harbinger of a destiny of hatred that - he warned - can strike the entire world, which has turned its back on God and today “stands on the brink of the abyss.”
He showed them the places and states of souls in the afterlife: Hell exists, but so does Heaven, the destination that every person, willed and loved by the Father in Heaven, can freely reach through a good life.
The Church officially recognized the apparitions in 2001. Appearing at Kibeho in 1982, Our Lady told Marie Claire, one of the visionaries, to love the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary greatly (it is part of the relatively ancient Marian devotions of the Order of the Servants of Mary), because through it her sorrows are contemplated and, by contemplating Jesus’ Passion with her, it is easier for people today to repent of their sins: “What I ask of you is to repent. If you pray this Rosary while meditating on it, you will have the strength to repent. Today many people no longer know how to ask for forgiveness. They put the Son of God on the cross again.”
The Rosary of Mary’s Seven Sorrows (or the Rosary of Our Lady of Sorrows) is a simple and immediate way to meditate with the Virgin on Christ’s Passion: “The therapy for a world in revolt,” Our Lady said at Kibeho.
For further reading:
• Our Lady’s apparitions in Africa: Kibeho
• The Rosary of the Virgin’s Seven Sorrows
• Prayers for the sorrows and tears of Our Lady
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28
Saint James of the Marches
Today we remember Saint James of the Marches, a Friar Minor at the Porziuncola in Assisi. Gifted with great oratorical abilities, he brought about abundant fruits of conversion and reform of morals; immense crowds listened to him in churches and squares. God granted him extraordinary mystical gifts: one day, while he was preaching, he suddenly stopped speaking, knelt down, and devoted himself to prayer for a quarter of an hour, to the astonishment of those present; when he rose, he said that at that moment his mother had died and that he had begun to pray for her eternal salvation; the Lord answered his fervent prayer by allowing him to see his mother’s soul ascend to Paradise. He died in Naples in 1476.
For further reading:
• Saint James of the Marches
“Most Holy Mary, woman of expectation, accompany our steps in this new liturgical year that we are beginning, and help us carry out the task of Jesus’ disciples, indicated by the apostle Peter. And what is this task? To give a reason for the hope that is in us (cf. 1 Pt 3:15).” Let us make Pope Francis’s words our own in this time of expectation, joy, and hope.
Have a good journey!
