aeternus

Today is the Carmelite memorial of Our Mother of Divine Grace. What a beautiful title for our Mother is this!

‘The Blessed Virgin Mary was eternally predestined, in the context of the incarnation of the divine Word, to be the Mother of God. As decreed by divine Providence, she served on earth as the loving Mother of the divine Redeemer, his associate, uniquely generous, and the Lord’s humble servant. She conceived, bore, and nourished Christ; presented him to the Father in the Temple; and was united with him in his suffering as he died on the cross. In a completely unparalleled way she cooperated, by her obedience, faith, hope and burning charity, with our Saviour’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls. For this reason she is Mother to us all in the order of grace’ (Lumen Gentium, the Constitution on the Church, 61).

This miraculous oil painting was rescued from a heap of rubbish and restored in 1610 by Ven. Dominic of Jesus and Mary, Prepositor General of the Order of Discalced Carmelites. According to the testimony of Ven. Dominic, our Lady spoke to him and promised, “‘All those who implore my protection, devoutly honoring this picture, will obtain their petitions, and will receive many graces. Moreover, I shall hearken in a special manner to the prayers that shall be addressed to me for the relief of the souls in purgatory‘”

PRAYER

Virgin most holy,
Mother of the Word Incarnate,
Treasurer of graces,
and Refuge of poor sinners:
we fly to thy motherly affection
with lively faith,
and we beg of thee the grace
ever to do the will of God.
Into thy most holy hands
we commit the keeping of our hearts,
asking thee for health of soul and body,
in the certain hope that thou,
our most loving Mother,
wilt hear our prayer.
Wherefore with lively faith we say:

Hail Mary three times

Prayers taken from a holy card distributed by the Monsatary of Discalced Carmelites, New Orleans, LA, with Nihil obstat and Imprimatur dated March 5, 1949.