quote from Meg:
"I appreciate the focus on Our Lady. There was never a saint, as far as I know, who didn't have a strong devotion to Our Lady."
I've been praying, studying, and thinking recently about Mary and the role God has given her in recent times. Trying to organize my thoughts. I would appreciate any feedback forum members might have.
In the last 200 years There have been 2 Marian dogmas defined and several major apparitions of our Lady that have been thoroughly investigated and approved by the Church (Rue du Bac, LaSalette, Lourdes, Knock, Fatima). So it seems God has been preparing us, trying to draw our attention to something.
I've read and heard in multiple places that just as Jesus suffered, died, and resurrected so too His Church would have to go through similar things. The more I have considered this the truer it seems. The Church certainly has suffered in the past decades. And though some are afraid to think it, the Church appears dead. And the current hierarchy is doing their best to bury what remains.
It's easy to read the words but when I really think of it, Jesus dying, I can't quite grasp it. The closest personal experience that I can compare it to is the night my father died. I remember lying in bed slowly repeating the words "my father is dead, my father is dead" in my mind, trying to make it sink in and grasp what it meant.
Mary stayed with Jesus through His torture, His death, and burial. I can't grasp what that night after the burial must have been for her.
All was dead and buried, disciples fled, pagans in charge. But She didn't abandon Faith. Simply and only because She believed Jesus.
In practical terms the Church is dead, Peter has fled. The only thing that remains is that Jesus said His Church would not fail. Somehow it hasn't.
Whatever theory of the Papal situation I consider, in practical terms we don't have a Pope, at any rate we don't have one that any Catholic trying to be faithful can look to with confidence.
I think that ,because Mary did not abandon Faith, God has chosen to exult Her in this period. He has made Her the only way to keep Faith.
I wonder if her ever intensifying devotion to Mary isn't another sign of the Divine origin of the Catholic Church?
I also wonder if God will not allow the clear unequivocal answer to the current situation (the One Ring as Matthew calls it) until He is satisified with our love for Mary?
Topic: Necessity of Mary in the present time (Read 669 times)