Pray Always

"Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you.
For every one that asketh, receiveth: and he that seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened." -Matthew 7:7-8

“We ought always to pray.” –Luke 18:1

“Pray always” –Romans 12:12

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes - Day 9

Day 9 – February 10 – Feast of Saint Scholastica

Prayers-

O glorious Mother of God, to you we raise our hearts and hands to implore your powerful intercession in obtaining from the benign Heart of Jesus all the graces necessary for our spiritual and temporal welfare, particularly for the grace of a happy death. O Mother of our Divine Lord, as we conclude this novena for the special favor we seek at this time.  (make your request)  We feel animated with confidence that your prayers in our behalf will be graciously heard. O Mother of My Lord, through the love you bear to Jesus Christ and for the glory of His Name, hear our prayers and obtain our petitions.  O Brilliant star of purity, Mary Immaculate, Our Lady of Lourdes, glorious in your  assumption, triumphant in your coronation, show unto us the mercy of the Mother of God, Virgin Mary, Queen and Mother, be our comfort, hope, strength, and consolation. Amen.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette, pray for us.

O God, Who by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin didst prepare a worthy dwelling place for Thy Son, we entreat Thee, Who didst preserve Her from all stain of sin by the Death of that same Son, foreseen by Thee, to grant that through Her intercession, we also may be made clean, and so may come to Thee, through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen. Ave Maria…

O God, Who, to show us the way of innocence, caused the soul of Your Virgin, blessed Scholastica, to fly up to heaven in the likeness of a dove, grant us, through her merits and prayers, to live innocently so that we may be found worthy to reach everlasting joys.  Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.  Amen.

Reading – 

“Wherefore, in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father through his Son, that he would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete. Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.

"Hence, if anyone shall dare -- which God forbid! -- to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should are to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he think in his heart."

-Blessed Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, 8 December 1854


Taken from the Readings in the Divine Office for the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

About four years after the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, a girl named Bernadette asserted that she had seen the Immaculate Mother of God several times. The place of the apparition was a grotto of the cliff by the bank of the Gave river, near the town of Lourdes, France, in the diocese of Tarbes. The many great miracles which followed were evidence enough for any prudent and faithful Christian that the finger of God was there. The location of a hitherto unknown spring at the grotto had been revealed in one of the apparitions; and the miracles for which Lourdes became best known were those very frequent occasions when the sick regained their health after drinking the water of the spring. And so, as news of the benefits said to be received by the faithful at the holy grotto was spreading abroad and the number coming there was increasing day by day, the Bishop of Tarbes carried out an official investigation and then gave permission for the cult of the Immaculate Virgin at the grotto. Soon a church was built. Vast crowds of the faithful have come to Lourdes each year, and the name of the Immaculate Mother of God continueth to increase in glory all over the world. Adding to this glory are the events during the procession of the most Blessed Sacrament: year after year, among the sick brought to Lourdes from all parts of the world to ask health from the Lord through the intercession of his Immaculate Mother, many are immediately cured. Rightly influenced by these events, Pope Pius X extended to the Universal Church the feast already granted to certain places by Leo XIII.

Prayers for each day.


Day of Feast: February 11th - Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

Consecration to the Immaculata-

O Immaculata, Queen of Heaven and earth, refuge of sinners and our most loving Mother, God has willed to entrust the entire order of mercy to thee. I, N. . . , a repentant sinner, cast myself at thy feet humbly imploring thee to take me with all that I am and have, wholly to thyself as thy possession and property. Please make of me, of all my powers of soul and body, of my whole life, death and eternity, whatever most pleases thee.

If it pleases thee, use all that I am and have without reserve, wholly to accomplish what was said of thee: "She will crush your head," and, "Thou alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world." 

Let me be a fit instrument in thine Immaculate and merciful hands for introducing and increasing the maximum in all the many strayed and indifferent souls, and thus help extend as far as possible the blessed Kingdom of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For wherever thou enters, one obtains the grace of conversion and growth in holiness, since it is through thy hands that all graces come to us from the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

V. Allow me to praise thee O Sacred Virgin.
R. Give me strength against thy enemies.

 O God, who by the immaculate conception of the Virgin prepared a worthy dwelling for Your Son, we humbly beseech You that, recalling the apparition of the same Virgin, we may obtain health for both soul and body.  Through the same Jesus Christ, thy Son, Our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.  Amen.

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