May 2025 issue of The Canticle (on line)

Next Gathering

Sunday, May 11, 2025

(Mothers' Day)

3:00 pm to 4:45 pm

St. Helen Church in Vero Beach, FL
St. Patrick's Room

Meeting Schedule

3:00 Opening, Reports (All times are approximate)

3:20 Formation: will advise /Fred

4:00 Social

4:20 Liturgy of the Hours-Evening Prayer

4:50 Clean up, prepare for 5:00 pm: Holy Mass

The Month of May is dedicated to the
Blessed Virgin Mary

Our Mother, the Virgin Mary

by Fred Schaeffer, OFS

 "It becomes you to be mindful of us, as you stand near him who granted you all graces, for you are the Mother of God and our Queen. Help us for the sake of the King, the Lord God and Master who was born of you. For this reason, you are called full of grace. Remember us, most holy Virgin, and bestow on us gifts from the riches of your graces, Virgin full of graces." St. Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor (lived 298-373).

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 783 we already know that "Jesus Christ is the one whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit and established as priest, prophet, and king. The whole People of God participates in these three offices of Christ and bears the responsibilities for mission and service that flow from them." From the above, we learn that we are priest, prophet and king as the last sentence in CCC 783 indicates, an awareness that comes to us through our Baptism.

And St. Athanasius in his beautiful prayer to the Virgin Mary, confides that we are a Royal people, because the Lord God is King, and, Mary is our Queen. Realizing all that, then why is it that so many Catholics have stopped praying the Rosary? Now especially, with the state this world is in, a very dangerous time particularly in Russia and Ukraine - we should and must ask Our Mother, the Virgin Mary, for her intercession to her Son, Jesus, and to the Father, to bring back the Peace that once reigned before people began to fool around with instruments of war that can annihilate entire Nations. The most valid prayer to Mary and her Divine Son, is the Holy Rosary. The "Our Father", "Hail Mary", and "Glory Be," that make up the Rosary, are Gifts from Heaven. The "Our Father" is the prayer of Jesus to His (and our) Father; the "Hail Mary" is Archangel Gabriel's manner of addressing the Holy Virgin as he brought the announcement that a Son would be born to her and that she was to call him, Jesus. The "Glory Be" is also a very old prayer from 529 or perhaps older. Let us then set aside 15-20 minutes every day to pray the Rosary, or better yet, a half an hour while meditating on each Decade, using perhaps Scriptural verses or Sacred Images to keep your mind on Mary and her Son. Let us often spend time with God and listen to His voice as He speaks to us in our hearts!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pray for us.

FSS/2013