Thank you so much for posting this sspxbvm  I would have missed it.

I can't believe it was on the NY Times front page!

Quote from: sspxbvm

This was on the front page of the NEW YORK TIMES today, All Hallows Eve!! 80-100 home burnt down but God saved the image of His mother.

Oooops. It was the Wall Street Journal.

When I saw this yesterday I thought there is not another stone upon a stone. 110 homes burned to the ground as FDNY could not get near enough to fight this fire due to 4 to 6 feet of standing water.....yet the grotto and statue of HIS DIVINE MOTHER is left in tact.  It is as if Our Dear Lord is saying "Can you hear ME now?".

Repent, heed HIS Divine Mother. Ave Maria!

Quote from: Roland Deschain

The Blessed Mother is not Divine.

I guess you would have a problem with St. Alphonsus Liguori and St. Therese of Lisieux:

Quote from: St. Alphonsus Liguori

(This instruction may serve either for an instruction or for a sermon; but whether it be given in the form of an instruction or of a sermon, the person who gives the spiritual exercises to the priests is entreated not to omit this discourse, which is, perhaps, the most fruitful of all; for without devotion to the divine Mother it is morally impossible for any one to be a good priest.)

Let us, first, consider the moral necessity of the intercession of Mary for priests; and secondly, the confidence which they ought to have in the prayers of this divine Mother.

Quote from: St. Therese of Lisieux

Everyone was amazed, and since then many people, hearing of my desire, have described this event as "the little miracle" of my clothing day, and thought it strange I should be so fond of snow. So much the better, it shows still more the wonderful condescension of the Spouse of Virgins—of Him Who loves lilies white as the snow. After the ceremony the Bishop entered. He gave me many proofs of his fatherly tenderness, and, in presence of all the Priests, spoke of my visit to Bayeux and the journey to Rome; nor did he forget to tell them how I had put up my hair before visiting him. Then, laying his hand on my head, he blessed me affectionately. My mind dwelt with ineffable sweetness on the caresses Our Lord will soon lavish upon me before all the Saints, and this consoling thought was a foretaste of Heaven. I have just said that January 10 was a day of triumph for my dear Father. I liken it to the feast of the entry of Christ into Jerusalem, on Palm Sunday. As in the case of Our Divine Master, his day of triumph was followed by long days of sorrow; and, even as the agony of Jesus pierced the heart of His divine Mother, so our hearts were deeply wounded by the humiliations and sufferings of him, whom we loved best on earth. . . . I remember that in the month of June 1888, when we were fearing another stroke of paralysis, I surprised our Novice Mistress by saying: "I am suffering a great deal, Mother, yet I feel I can suffer still more." I did not then foresee the trial awaiting us. I did not know that on February 12, one month after my clothing day, our beloved Father would drink so deeply of such a bitter chalice. I no longer said I could suffer more, words cannot express our grief; nor shall I attempt to describe it here.

Anyway, that's just a couple of examples that I was able to find in a few minutes. I'm sure there's many more.

I don't doubt the hand of God played a role in the image of Our Lady still standing, but does anyone know what was near the grotto before the storm damage?  I'm just wondering if it wasn't someone's home who has a pious devotion to Our Lady?  

 

Quote from: Roland Deschain

"Divine" with a capital D is used for God alone. I should have made that distinction.

Don't be so Protestant. I've seen it both capitalized and uncapitalized. Take, for instance, this edition of The Glories of Mary by St. Alphonsus Liguori:

http://archive.org/stream/gloriesmary00ligugoog#page/n296/mode/2up/search/%22divine+mother%22

This edition has not just one, but two Imprimaturs from two separate Archbishops. It uses both "Divine Mother" and "divine Mother", mostly the former.

On this topic, I was reading the following article about Msgr. Ronald Knox:

The Problem of Monsignor Ronald Knox — A Painful Post-Mortem | Catholicism.org

One quote from it, which I think is particularly pertinent, is:

Quote

A few weeks before his death, Monsgnor Knox completed work on a new English translation of the autobiography of Saint Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower of Jesus. The book has just been published in this country and has been hailed as witness to the “abiding influence” of the late Monsignor.

Nothing, however, could be better calculated to show him up and finish him off than his current literary association with the Little Flower. For if ever there were antipodal personalities they are Therese of the Child Jesus and Ronald Knox of Oxford. In clothing her thoughts with his words — adjusting her style to his standards, dressing up her images, enlarging her vocabulary — he has done his best to transform her into a stuffy, British, slightly less masculine, more pious version of himself. Typical example: Saint Therese writes, “I laugh now at some things I did.” (Je ris maintenant de certaines choses .) Monsignor Knox elaborates this into, “It makes me laugh now to think what heavy weather I made over nothing at all.”

But in the end it is Therese, her brightness and clarity, who prevails, and Monsignor Knox who gets snowed under — as in his miserable attempt to portray her as an inferior theologian for having called Our Lady the “Divine Mother” of Our Lord. After correcting the text to read, “his own Mother,” Monsignor Knox adds the footnote: “The Saint by a slip of the pen has written ‘his Divine Mother.’ It is evident that she never revised these last few paragraphs.”

Among the scores of Saints who gave Our Lady that most fitting title, Divine Mother, and who showed no inclination to revise their paragraphs, were the following Doctors of the Universal Church: Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Bernard, Saint Ephrem, Saint Peter Damian, and Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori.

I would hope that you wouldn't consider yourself to know better than these saints.