Novena - Day 9

DAY NINE
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Feast Day: Our Lady of Lourdes (First apparition to St. Bernadette)
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. (mention 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 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.

Novena - Day 8

DAY EIGHT
Friday, February 10, 2012
O Immaculate Mother of God, from heaven itself you came to appear to the little Bernadette in the rough Grotto of Lourdes! And as Bernadette knelt at your feet and the magic spring burst forth and as multitudes have knelt ever since before your shrine, O Mother of God, we kneel before you today to ask that in your mercy you plead with your Divine Son to grant the special favor we seek in this novena. (mention your request)
O Brilliant star of purity, Mary Immaculate, Our Lady of Lourdes, glorious 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.

Novena - Day 7

DAY SEVEN
Thursday, February 9, 2012
O Almighty God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary did prepare a worthy dwelling place for your Son, we humbly beseech you that as we contemplate the apparition of Our Lady in the Grotto of Lourdes, we may be blessed with health of mind and body. And, O most gracious Mother Mary, beloved Mother of Our Lord and Redeemer, look with favor upon us as you did that day on Bernadette and intercede with Him for us that the favor we now so earnestly seek may be granted to us. (mention your request)
O Brilliant star of purity, Mary Immaculate, Our Lady of Lourdes, glorious 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.

Novena - Day 6

DAY SIX
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
O glorious Mother of God, so powerful under your special title of Our Lady of Lourdes, to you we raise our hearts and hands to implore your powerful intercession in obtaining from the benign Heart of Jesus all the helps and graces necessary for our spiritual and temporal welfare and for the special favor we so earnestly seek in this novena. (mention your request)
O Lady of Bernadette, with the stars of heaven in your hair and the roses of earth at your feet, look with compassion upon us today as you did so long ago on Bernadette in the Grotto of Lourdes.
O Brilliant star of purity, Mary Immaculate, Our Lady of Lourdes, glorious 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.

Novena - Day 5

DAY FIVE
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
O Mary Immaculate, Mother of god and our mother, from the heights of your dignity look down mercifully upon us while we, full of confidence in your unbounded goodness and confident that your Divine Son will look favorably upon any request you make of Him in our behalf, we beseech you to come to our aid and secure for us the favor we seek in this novena. (mention your request)
O Brilliant star of purity, Mary Immaculate, Our Lady of Lourdes, glorious 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.

Novena - Day 4

DAY FOUR
Monday, February 6, 2012
O Immaculate Queen of Heaven, we your wayward, erring children, join our unworthy prayers of praise and thanksgiving to those of the angels and saints and your own the One, Holy, and Undivided Trinity may be glorified in heaven and on earth. Our Lady of Lourdes, as you looked down with love an mercy upon Bernadette as she prayed her rosary in the grotto, look down now, we beseech you, with love and mercy upon us. From the abundance of graces granted you by your Divine Son, sweet Mother of God, give to each of us all that your motherly heart sees we need and at this moment look with special favor on the grace we seek in this novena. (mention your request)
O Brilliant star of purity, Mary Immaculate, Our Lady of Lourdes, glorious 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.

Novena Day 3

DAY THREE
Sunday, February 5, 2012
"You are all fair, O Mary, and there is in you no stain of original sin." O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. O brilliant star of sanctity, as on that lovely day, upon a rough rock in Lourdes you spoke to the child Bernadette and a fountain broke from thee plain earth and miracles happened and the great shrine of Lourdes began, so now I beseech you to hear our fervent prayer and do, we beseech you, grant us the petition we now so earnestly seek. (mention your request)
O Brilliant star of purity, Mary Immaculate, Our Lady of Lourdes, glorious 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.

Our Lady of Lourdes Novena - Day 1

Preliminary Prayer to be said each day
Be blessed, O most pure Virgin, for having vouchsafed to manifest your shining with life, sweetness and beauty, in the Grotto of Lourdes, saying to the child, St. Bernadette: "I am the Immaculate Conception." A thousand times we congratulate you upon your Immaculate Conception. And now, O ever Immaculate Virgin, Mother of mercy, Health of the sick, Refuge of sinners, Comforter of the afflicted, you know our wants, our troubles, our sufferings; deign to cast upon us a look of mercy. By appearing in the Grotto of Lourdes, you were pleased to make it a privileged sanctuary, whence you dispense your favors, and already many have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and physical. We come, therefore, with the most unbounded confidence to implore your maternal intercession. Obtain for us, O loving Mother, the granting of our request. (mention your request) Through gratitude for your favors, we will endeavor to imitate your virtues, that we may one day share your glory.
Our Lady of Lourdes, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your Divine son while upon earth. You have the same influence now in Heaven. Pray for us; obtain for us from your Divine Son our special requests if it be the Divine Will. Amen.
Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.
Saint Bernadette, pray for us.
Help spread this Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes
DAY ONEFriday, February 3, 2012
O Mary Immaculate, Our Lady of Lourdes, virgin and mother, queen of heaven, chosen from all eternity to be the Mother of the Eternal Word and in virtue of this title preserved from original sin, we kneel before you as did little Bernadette at Lourdes and pray with childlike trust in you that as we contemplate your glorious appearance at Lourdes, you will look with mercy on our present petition and secure for us a favorable answer to the request for which we are making this novena. (mention your request)
O Brilliant star of purity, Mary Immaculate, Our Lady of Lourdes, glorious 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

Violence for the Kingdom

Hope you are keeping that regular time of prayer. Of course it is not easy. Nothing important is easy. Mt 11:12 says "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence." Meaning: even to attain the kingdom of heaven, which is within us, we must do vioence to ourselves. You know, die to self (laziness, disorganization, selfishness) and place God as a priority - even putting aside some GOOD thing for the ONE that is better.

Prayer by St. Theresa: "O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me to become entirely forgetful of self, that I may establish myself in You, as changeless and as calm as though my soul were already in eternity! May nothing disturb my peace nor draw me forth from you, O my immutable Lord! but may I penetrate more deeply every moment into the depths of Your mystery. Give peace to my soul, make it Your heaven, Your cherished dwelling place, Your home of rest. Let me never leave You alone, but keep me ever there, all absorbed in You, in living faith, adoring You and wholly yielded up to You creative action!"

Oh, I could never write like her! Praised be God in His angels and His Saints!

Praying "in your room"

Please remember to keep your regular time for prayer with the Lord. And I mean a specific quite time IN ADDITION to prayer while driving, washing dishes and in the shower (the all day prayers). St. John of the Cross says, "...shutting the door upon thee (that is to say, closing your will toward all things save God), pray to thy Father in secret" (Spiritual Canticle 1,9). This does not mean to shut only the actual door of our room, but that it is necessary to close our will to everything, as he continues: "to shut all thy faculties upon all creatures." This requires a firm decision of the will to put aside everything - all cares, all thoughts of human things, and concentrate on God alone.

St. Theresa of Avila (my favorite saint) gives this advice, "Since we have resolved to devote to Him this very brief period of time...let us give it to Him freely with our minds unoccupied by other things and with a firm resolve never to take it back again, whatever we may suffer through trials, annoyances, or aridities" (Way of Perfection, 23)

While there is a time to pray for our worldly concerns and to mention them to God, it is not the only way, nor the best way, to pray. It is so hard to keep our prayer time free from the thoughts and cares of life and to just love God for the sake of God alone, but if we don't, we cannot enter that most intimate and interior "hiding place" where God resides. A spiritual director of mine would say, "We want to get heaven for a nickle." If we want more of God, we must give more of ourselves. It's going to cost. I don't know about you, but I want it all.

A Better Way to Pray

I like to pray a rosary every day but my schedule is so very hectic with 4 kids, homeschool, work, travel and homekeeping (which more often than not gets skipped in favor of preparing healthy meals instead of "fast" food) that, sometimes, I never get to finish my rosary.

I have fallen into taking St. Teresa of Avila's advice of "saying one Our Father" extremely well, which is better than saying a whole string of them poorly. Since I never know which prayer of the rosary will end up being my last, I pray each prayer like it is with my last breath, with very great attention. Once, I was tearing up before the end of just the Creed! I continue in the same way with the rest of the prayers. I may get interrupted or run out of time (I continue in increments throughout the day) but I know what was offered up already was gold and not straw. - Better a little gold than alot of straw, right?

Many times I even finish! Wow! I have to do it this way because there is only so much time available to set aside for prayer and there's already liturgy of the hours, dedicated meditation time and Mass. Try it!

Great prayer advice

I'm sure most of you pray the Divine Office (Liturgy of the Hours) so this might be redundant, but for those of you who DON'T, I wanted to share this EXCELLENT advice from St. Charles Borromeo (1500's) that I read this month on his feast day:

"Would you like me to teach you how to grow from virtue to virtue and how, if you are already recollected at prayer, you can be even more attentive next time, and so give God more pleasing worship? Listen, and I will tell you. If a tiny spark of God's love already burns within you, do not expose it to the wind, for it may get blown out. Keep the stove tightly shut so that it will not lose its heat and grow cold. In other words, avoid distractions as well as you can. Stay quiet with God. Do not spend your time in useless chatter."

This is enough for great meditation. I won't expound on it. Read a couple of times, it expounds upon itself. It goes on, but this is the best part. You can read the rest in Volume IV, Nov. 4. But now, I must get out the next Volume for the first day of Advent.

Posting

I know I need to be better about posting or I'm going to lose the few readers that I have. But honestly, I've been so busy singing and traveling and getting ready to travel and recovering from travel and taking care of the kids and homeschool and staying up late working on real important things, like paying bills and responding to emails and fixing broken things for gigs and ordering more stuff (O that reminds me, now I need to buy more "Prayers From Heaven" CD's). I don't have time to prepare my menues for the week - I just wing it - or (and I hate to admit it) take a shower. I was supposed to take one today (day 2) but somehow it just slipped away. It is not scheduled for tomorrow, but on Fri. It will mess up my week and weekend to juggle it around. However, I did meet Jesus for one half hour of prayer after lunch today when the baby took a nap and Grace watched Veggietales and Chris was gone and Marie did schoolwork. It was all I could do to keep from falling asleep. It was hard to "snap out of it" when Veggietales was over and I had to get moving again. Hmmm, sometimes I think the time would have been better spent if I had just taken a shower then. We'll, at least I "showed up", like my spiritual director suggested. Besides, it's not for me - but Jesus. I can honestly say to Him, "I'm doing my best and all that I can. You'll have to do the rest."

Daily Devotions with Children

Well, I haven't written in a very long time. OK, so I'm terrible at blogging. I don't know how others make a post every day. I'm amazed, really.

So, I'll make this post a really good one.

I thought I'd share a little of what I'm spending my time actually doing these days. A few days ago I stayed up until 1 a.m. planning my children's group devotion time. I've been called an over achiever and I'm sure you will agree after I share this.

There are so many great materials out there to help our children grow in faith, prayer, and knowledge of our Faith and it seems the calendar just slips away and before you know it, we've missed that St. day activity that we planned to do, etc. Well, I got us SO organized, we never miss anything (unless we want to).

GROUP DEVOTION TIME

1. The first thing we do after assembling together is sing our "Good morning, Jesus..." song (which I wrote, of course) the 2 yr. old hears the 4 yr. old's booming voice and of course has to compete and, boy, is it cute. It's only 8 lines, but very catchy and we all know it and love it.
2. Then we continue with our morning offering and end with a "Hail Mary." (so far, 5 minutes)
3. If it is not a particularly packed day, I will play a song from "Our Musical Year 1 or 2" from Emmanuel books which has fun songs of the season, faith, holiday, tradition, etc. (3 min.)
4. Then I give the hand outs (VERY important if you want the little ones to stay quiet). Each child has his own clipboard. They share colored pencils (they MUST be pencils, as crayons and markers are messy in the living room.) The hand outs can be of any variety. I take mine from "A Year with God" (Catholic Heritage Curricula), Catholic activity books, or any place I find something that can be used for this edifying purpose. If it is a saint's feast day and I have a handout for that, that's what they get. Otherwise, it's another sheet to keep them occupied while I read. Maybe the sheet is the lesson that day and we go from there. I keep all my master sheets in 12 monthly folders. The feast days and occasions are writtin on the outside cover of the folder letting me know what is in them as well as making it easier to include then on a calendar grid when making my plans. (1 min.)
5. The story of the day can be taken from a variety of sources. I use scripture (many sources, some include a felt board but we only use that once a week because it adds so much time), story of the saint or feast day (we use Catholic Mosaic suggestions and guide as well as our own saint books), or a story relating to one of the virtues that we are studying that month (this month it is compassion, so 2-3 times a week I will read a story related to that virtue as out lined in PACE-Program for Achieving Character Education by M. Monica Speach. The stories are from The Book of Virtues, The Moral Compass, or Library books illustrating that virtue.) (10 min.)
6. Based on what we've just read, I start a prayer, but have each of the children add to it in their own words and we end with our own petitions for the day.(2-5 min.)
7. From here the little ones can disperse, but the older one stays and we work on our Scripture memory verse (we use A-Z avail. through Catholic Heritage Curriculum. Day one takes 15 min. but the rest of the week is 30 seconds.)
8. We work on reciting our Catechism (Baltimore Catechism as outlined by Mother of Divine Grace Lesson Plans) 5 min.

Sample days on the calendar might look like this:

Oct. 15 - Song, prayer, music, St. Teresa of Jesus SHEET and a book page number, Virtue - WORK "Jacob for Laban" Gen. 29:15-30 use FELT, A-Z, Catechism questions 35-7, 39, 40, 42
Oct. 17 - Song, prayer, music, St. Ignatius of Antioch, WORK - "The Shoe Maker and the Elves" BOV p. 370, Discuss WORK questions PACE p.28, A-Z, Cat. 35-7, 39, 40, 42
Oct. 22 - Song, prayer, music, Respect-life (day chosen randomly) book "Angel in the Waters" use CM p. 169 questions. WORK - Prov. 24:27-34, A-Z, Cat. .......

SEE PICTURE ABOVE

Hey, I'll post my schedule every month. You can borrow if you like. This way I get two birds with one stone with my efforts. I'll be neater next time, but you can read this if you print it out.

So, you see, if it is well planned out (and yes, it took me (2-3 hours to plan the whole monthand you've GOT to list the page numbers), we can get in everything we want to cover, we move quickly from one thing to the next , it doesn't take that long (30 - 45 min.) and we USUALLY have a great time. When it all starts to deteriorate, because the little ones are very unpredictable) we just make our closing prayer and move on, but usually we have a very enjoyable session while growing together spiritually. It is the only time I actually read to my oldest one and she really does enjoy it, so it is also a special time.

Next time I'll tell you how I guide my children in personal daily prayer - alone...