For the Faith of Andrea Doria at Lepanto

—Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary  

When I was a kid, I really enjoyed reading history. Usually, I wasn't reading the history that I was supposed to be reading in the classroom.  I really didn't do that well in school until I served two hitches in the Marines and then decided to get out and go to college. Grade school and high school? Homework, schmomework!

The Rainbow (A Few Words For Wednesday)

A wiser man than I once said,

When, indeed, the artist desires to teach us a great spiritual truth, he invariably expresses it under the form of an allegory or symbol. For the soul dreams 'neath the star-sown sky of symbol. It is spiritually its lisping language—the divine form of its expression.

Because the Case for Marian Devotion is Iron-Clad

On the cusp of the Feast of the Assumption, it's a good time for a little Mariology. What follows are thoughts of John C.H. Wu on Our Lady and the Catholic Church. This is from the epilogue of his book Beyond East and West. To me this is one of the best answers to the question "Why do Catholics venerate Mary and why is this important?" Think of that as an essay question on a final exam that you must answer in 700 words (or less) and see if you can top my friend John. I personally don't think you can (I know I can't!).

Because of the Protestant Reformers Beliefs On Mary

Another Marian post as we are ten days from the Feast of the Assumption. This one was first published back in December of last year.

Back when I first joined YIMCatholic, I was going to write posts about my conversion. I hammered out seven posts in pretty rapid succession and then, I stopped writing them until recently.

Many of my posts now are simply my observations of the world which are colored through the lens of a convert to Catholicism. It would be difficult for them not to be. Other posts I've written are of the "look what I just found!" variety, and the "I want to share this with you" type. Call them the discovery posts if you will.

A Convert's Lament To Mary (A Few Words for Wednesday)

Our Eastern brethren have been observing the Dormition Fast since the first of August. It continues until August 15th this year and concludes on the Feast of the Dormition, which Western Catholics celebrate as the Feast of the Assumption. In honor of this tradition, I will be sharing some of our Marian posts. This one is from October of last year...

Edward Caswall was another Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism in the mid 1800's. He also joined the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, like his friends Blessed John Henry Newman and Frederick William Farber.  And, like them again, he was a prolific poet and hymnist.

Below is one of Caswall's fine poems included in his book of verse entitled The Masque of Mary. This particular  poem really resonates with me.

With Gratitude to Grammy

The strong scent of lilies yesterday afternoon transported me back to my childhood and Easter season Sundays with grandmother and the rest of my extended family. Forty years ago, I was a little girl, the youngest of four siblings who piled into a station wagon and traveled many Sundays after Mass across Hudson River's Tappan Zee Bridge with our parents to spend the afternoons with my dad's parents.

Someone at my parish this weekend donated a bouquet of lilies to rest at the feet of the statue of Mary near the altar. I sat in a nearby pew at the 5 p.m. Mass.

Because Mary Said "May It Be Done to Me"

Today is the Solemnity of the Annunciation of Our Lord. Before I was a Catholic, I wouldn't have even known what that all means. Just another one of those big ol' words linked to Jesus's mom that everyone knew Catholics worshiped.

Mary, schmerry, I thought, God can do anything. If Mary would have said no, big damn deal.

Sort of like asking a girl to dance at a party and you get rejected."Sorry God, looks like she said No. Let me buy you a beer to help you put the flames out." Next candidate please. There's a lot of fish in the sea.

A View from the Back Pew (A Book Review)

—Feast of St. Louise de Marillac  

As long-time readers of this blog know, we like books around here. It all started when Webster Bull kicked off the YIMC Book Club with 9 weeks of posts for the 9 chapters in G.K. Chesterton's classic, Orthodoxy.

Then I followed up with 9 weeks of posts on Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, as well as a later series of weekly posts on Hilaire Belloc's The Great Heresies. Those books were all worthy of selections by a blog that makes attempting to answer the statement Why I Am Catholic as it's raison d'être.

For Our Lady, "The Terror of Hell"

—Feast of St. Agatha 

Jesus, the God-Man, said that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we could move mountains. Well, what follows is the story of another human being whose faith is the size of a mountain, if not boundless. As a result, she can clean the Devil's clock like it's nobody's business.

I think it was when I was in RCIA that I first heard that the reason Lucifer revolted and started the war in heaven was because he got wind of what God intended to do. You know, become a human being. Or as the Holy Spirit says,

Thanks to Pope John Paul II, For Helping Me Survive Ovarian Cancer

Guest Post by Dee Sparacio

Dee lives New Jersey, where she blogs about how she survived ovarian cancer. Here, she shares how her faith was instrumental in her victory.

I have written about my experience as an ovarian cancer survivor for over three years now. I've shared stories about my CT and PET scans, the anxiety of waiting for CA-125 results, the options I had when I recurred, the sadness I felt when friends lost their battle and the decisions I made when it recurred.

Because Dracula was Catholic? Oh My!

The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Yesterday, I did something that I can only explain by pointing to the fact that I am a Catholic. I said a prayer for the soul of Dracula. No, not for Bram Stoker's fictional vampyre version of him, but for the real Dracula. That's right, Vlad "the Impaler."

For all we really now, he died a hero and a good Catholic. Bear with me for a second.

To Dedicate this Song to the Memory of the Martyrs of Baghdad

I remember listening to America's Top Forty with Casey Kasum while I was growing up, do you? While I was fooling around at You Tube preparing for the MfM music post, I replayed the beautiful Hail Mary prayer that is in Arabic that I posted on Friday. I soon realized that there is a ton of Christian music in Arabic posted over there.

So like the people who used to call in to Casey (who is of Lebanese Druze family heritage), and to Wolfman Jack (and other disc-jockeys too), I would like to dedicate this song to my brothers and sisters at Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad Iraq.

To Ask Mary to Pray For Us— in Arabic

Feast of St. Josaphat 

Asking for the intercession of Our Lady may be the best course of action each one of us can take to help bring about peace in the Middle East for our persecuted Christian brothers and sisters. Our Lady is held in high esteem in the Islamic world, as well she should be, and our prayer requests to her are effective.

I spent some time in the Middle East and a friend of mine tipped me off to the Hail Mary in Arabic.

Ave Maris Stella, A Poem and a Prayer

The poem below was written by a Scot by the name of John Leyden (1775 - 1811). From what I could find, Leyden was a medical doctor by trade and a Christian. He was even a minister, and according to Wikipedia,

Though he completed his divinity course, and in 1798 was licensed to preach from the presbytery of St Andrews, it soon became clear that the pulpit was not his vocation.

But he evidently had a soft spot in his heart for Our Lady as attested to by the following apologetic words of his publisher in the introduction to these verses,

Thanks to Bartolomé Esteban Murillo's The Birth of the Virgin

On this, the feast day of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, take a long look at this painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. He was a 17th century Baroque artist from Seville whose paintings depict the joys of spiritual life. This one, displayed at the Louvre in Paris, shows the birth of our Blessed Mother. She is being cared for by angels and servants while her mother, Saint Anne, rests in the background.

To Be One of Mary's Clients

I'll probably die when I least expect it. That is my sense, anyway. Death for me will come "as a thief in the night." It almost happened that way for me once already. Then again, I really have no idea.

I do know several people who are close to me who are looking death in the eyes from an illness. The dreaded cancer takes one down this road slowly and tortuously. That path may await me as well. It's the "thief in the night" once again, just in a different guise. But certainly I will die, and I won't have a say in the manner or method. What to do? I intend to go down like a Christian, but I'll need a lot of help to do so.

Because We Need To Let Go With Compassion

Allison writes: Meredith and I met in Raleigh, North Carolina, when Greg and I were engaged and Meredith and her husband were newly married. All of us were, at the time, working journalists. Our families have grown and moved since then, but we have kept in touch for nearly 20 years. Meredith and her husband now are raising their three children in Noblesville, Indiana. 

Guest post by Meredith Cummings
Thursday didn’t begin well. I  looked at my eighth-grade son’s online grades before he left for school and then failed to hold my frustration at him in check. There he stood, head down, shame on his face, as I let him have it with my angry words. I managed a “Have a good day,” before he left, but I didn’t mean it, and he knew it.

Thanks to Our Lady (Music for Mondays)

This post is by Allison Salerno.
I'd guess that Mary, the poor unmarried Jewish teenager who 2,000 years ago agreed to bear the Son of God at considerable personal risk, is the most famous woman who ever lived. Certainly, she is the most remarkable. We Catholics dedicate the month of May to her - not because we worship her or think she gives us salvation. We honor Mary because she is in heaven, reigns as its queen, and can pray for us. Always, she leads us to her son.

So it's no surprise that Catholics throughout the ages have sung songs dedicated to Our Lady, who is the mother of us all. I thought it would be fun to share a few. (Along with a photo of a work by contemporary sculptor Enrique de la Vega.)

Because of May Crownings

We Catholics dedicate the month of May to Mary, who is the Queen of Heaven and Earth. Today at noon, for the first time in my 47 years, I participated in a May Crowning.

We Catholics do not worship Mary; we ask her to pray for us. To those who did not know her destiny, Mary probably seemed like an ordinary teenager when she became the Mother of God. And yet, Mary was the most extraordinary woman who ever lived. How wonderful that our Church cherishes the unique role she played in bearing and raising the Son of God and the Savior of our world. She kept her faith all the way to the foot of her son's cross.

Because of the Franciscan Knots on My Rosary

This morning I made my first Franciscan knot. I am inordinately proud of this knot of mine. I only was able to make this knot because Marge, who has been making these knots for—pardon the pun—decades, guided my hands with her hands, which are knotted with arthritis. Marge, a daily communicant, retired nurse, and mother of five, offered to teach the teens in our youth group how to make rosaries. Loading plastic beads on a piece of nylon rope is not hard. Knowing how to make the knots between them is key. I learned this morning if you want to make a rosary out of cord, you have to know how to make the knot.