The Rosary: Spiritual weapon for men

At any time, and especially during dark days of spiritual warfare such as those we are living through, Catholic men must pray the Rosary for support.  This prayer is critical for both men and women.  But this excellent article explains why it is so necessary for men.

“God has established not just one enmity but ‘enmities’, and not only between Mary and Satan but between her race and his race. That is, God has put enmities, antipathies and hatreds between the true children and servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love and no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world, - for they are all one and the same - have always persecuted and will persecute more than ever in the future those who belong to the Blessed Virgin, just as Cain of old persecuted his brother Abel, and Esau his brother Jacob. These are the types of the wicked and of the just. But the humble Mary will always triumph over Satan, the proud one, and so great will be her victory that she will crush his head, the very seat of his pride. She will unmask his serpent's cunning and expose his wicked plots. She will scatter to the winds his devilish plans and to the end of time will keep her faithful servants safe from his cruel claws.

But Mary's power over the evil spirits will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lie in wait for her heel, that is, for her humble servants and her poor children whom she will rouse to fight against him. In the eyes of the world they will be little and poor and, like the heel, lowly in the eyes of all, down-trodden and crushed as is the heel by the other parts of the body. But in compensation for this they will be rich in God's graces, which will be abundantly bestowed on them by Mary. They will be great and exalted before God in holiness. They will be superior to all creatures by their great zeal and so strongly will they be supported by divine assistance that, in union with Mary, they will crush the head of Satan with their heel, that is, their humility, and bring victory to Jesus Christ.” (Treatise On True Devotion To The Blessed Virgin, 54).

I have always viewed the sling which David used to slay Goliath as a harbinger, a sort of figure or sign pointing to the Holy Rosary which would be given to the faithful by Our Lady and by which they would “crush the head of Satan” – “the very seat of his pride” as Montfort puts it. We read in 1 Samuel 17:

“With his shield-bearer marching before him, the Philistine also advanced closer and closer to David. When he had sized David up, and seen that he was youthful and ruddy, and handsome in appearance, he held him in contempt. The Philistine said to David, ‘Am I a dog that you come against me with a staff?’ Then the Philistine cursed David by his gods and said to him, ‘Come here to me, and I will leave your flesh for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.’ David answered him: ‘You come against me with sword and spear and scimitar, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel that you have insulted. Today the Lord shall deliver you into my hand; I will strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will leave your corpse and the corpses of the Philistine army for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field; thus the whole land shall learn that Israel has a God. All this multitude, too, shall learn that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he shall deliver you into our hands’…David put his hand into the bag and took out a stone, hurled it with the sling, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone embedded itself in his brow, and he fell prostrate on the ground. Thus David overcame the Philistine with sling and stone..” (1 Samuel 17: 41-47, 49-50).

The Devil is the adversary of faithful Christians. And, like Goliath, he seems to cast a big shadow. But when we approach him on the battlefield [“For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens,” Eph 6:12] we have our own sling as a weapon – the Holy Rosary. And every bead, every Hail Mary prayerfully recited, is hurled as a weapon against the Devil’s head, the seat of his pride. Therefore, Montfort exhorts us, “So arm yourself with the arms of God, with the holy Rosary, and you will crush the devil’s head and stand firm in the face of all his temptations. That is why even a pair of rosary beads is so terrible to the devil, and why the saints have used them to fetter him and drive him from the bodies of those who were possessed.” (The Secret of the Holy Rosary, 85).
Related reading here.

Related article here.

U.S. Bishops: What is behind this?

One has to wonder what the U.S. Bishops are up to here.  During  a General Audience on July 10, 1996, Pope John Paul II spoke on the virginity of Mary and Jesus' virginal conception.  The Holy Father said:

The Church has constantly held that Mary's virginity is a truth of faith, as she has received and reflected on the witness of the Gospels of Luke, of Matthew and probably also of John.


In the episode of the Annunciation, the Evangelist Luke calls Mary a "virgin", referring both to her intention to persevere in virginity, as well as to the divine plan which reconciles this intention with her miraculous motherhood. The affirmation of the virginal conception, due to the action of the Holy Spirit, excludes every hypothesis of natural parthenogenesis and rejects the attempts to explain Luke's account as the development of a Jewish theme or as the derivation of a pagan mythological legend.

The structure of the Lucan text (cf. Lk 1:26-38; 2:19, 51) resists any reductive interpretation. Its coherence does not validly support any mutilation of the terms or expressions which affirm the virginal conception brought about by the Holy Spirit.

The Evangelist Matthew, reporting the angel's announcement to Joseph, affirms like Luke that the conception was "the work of the Holy Spirit" (Mt 1:20) and excluded marital relations.

Furthermore, Jesus' virginal conception is communicated to Joseph at a later time: for him it is not a question of being invited to give his assent prior to the conception of Mary's Son, the fruit of the supernatural intervention of the Holy Spirit and the co-operation of the mother alone. He is merely asked to accept freely his role as the Virgin's husband and his paternal mission with regard to the child.

Matthew presents the virginal origins of Jesus as the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy. "'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel' (which means, God with us)" (Mt 1:23; cf. Is 7: 14). In this way Matthew leads us to conclude that the virginal conception was the object of reflection in the first Christian community, which understood its conformity to the divine plan of salvation and its connection with the identity of Jesus, "God with us".

Early Church firmly believed in virginal conception

Unlike Luke and Matthew, Mark's Gospel does not mention Jesus' conception and birth; nonetheless it is worth noting that Mark never mentions Joseph, Mary's husband. Jesus is called "the son of Mary" by the people of Nazareth or in another context, "the Son of God" several times (3:11; 5:7; cf. 1:11; 9:7; 14:61-62; 15:39). These facts are in harmony with belief in the mystery of his virginal conception. This truth, according to a recent exegetical discovery, would be explicitly contained in verse 13 of the Prologue of John's Gospel, which some ancient authoritative authors (for example, Irenaeus and Tertullian) present, not in the usual plural form, but in the singular: "He, who was born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God". This version in the singular would make the Johannine Prologue one of the major attestations of Jesus' virginal conception, placed in the context of the mystery of the Incarnation.

Paul's paradoxical affirmation: "But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman ... so that we might receive adoption as sons" (Gal 4:4-5), paves the way to the question about this Son's personhood, and thus about his virginal birth.

The uniform Gospel witness testifies how faith in the virginal conception of Jesus was firmly rooted in various milieux of the early Church. This deprives of any foundation several recent interpretations which understand the virginal conception not in a physical or biological sense, but only as symbolic or metaphorical: it would designate Jesus as God's gift to humanity. The same can be said for the opinion advanced by others, that the account of the virginal conception would instead be a theologoumenon, that is, a way of expressing a theological doctrine, that of Jesus' divine sonship, or would be a mythological portrayal of him.

As we have seen, the Gospels contain the explicit affirmation of a virginal conception of the biological order, brought about by the Holy Spirit. The Church made this truth her own, beginning with the very first formulations of the faith (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 496).

The faith expressed in the Gospels is confirmed without interruption in later tradition. The formulas of faith of the first Christian writers presuppose the assertion of the virginal birth: Aristides, Justin, Irenaeus and Tertullian are in agreement with Ignatius of Antioch, who proclaims Jesus "truly born of a virgin" (Smyrn. 1, 2). These authors mean a real, historical virginal conception of Jesus and are far from affirming a virginity that is only moral or a vague gift of grace manifested in the child's birth.

The solemn definitions of faith by the Ecumenical Councils and the papal Magisterium, which follow the first brief formulas of faith, are in perfect harmony with this truth. The Council of Chalcedon (451), in its profession of faith, carefully phrased and with its infallibly defined content, affirms that Christ was "begotten ... as to his humanity in these last days, for us and for our salvation, by the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God" (DS 301). In the same way the Third Council of Constantinople (681) proclaimed that Jesus Christ was "begotten ... as to his humanity, by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, she who is properly and in all truth the Mother of God" (DS 555). Other Ecumenical Councils (Constantinople II, Lateran IV and Lyons II) declared Mary "ever-virgin", stressing her perpetual virginity (DS 423, 801, 852). These affirmations were taken up by the Second Vatican Council, which highlighted the fact that Mary "through her faith and obedience ... gave birth on earth to the very Son of the Father, not through the knowledge of man but by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit" (Lumen gentium, n. 63).

In addition to the conciliar definitions, there are the definitions of the papal Magisterium concerning the Immaculate Conception of the "Blessed Virgin Mary" (DS 2803) and the Assumption of the "Immaculate and Ever-Virgin Mother of God" (DS 3903).

Mary's holiness and virginity are closely linked

Although the definitions of the Magisterium, except for those of the Lateran Council of 649, desired by Pope Martin I, do not explain the meaning of the term "virgin", it is clear that this term is used in its customary sense: the voluntary abstention from sexual acts and the preservation of bodily integrity. However, physical integrity is considered essential to the truth of faith of Jesus' virginal conception (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 496).

The description of Mary as "Holy Ever-Virgin, Immaculate" draws attention to the connection between holiness and virginity. Mary wanted a virginal life, because she was motivated by the desire to give her whole heart to God.

The expression used in the definition of the Assumption, "the Immaculate, Ever-Virgin Mother of God", also implies the connection between Mary's virginity and her motherhood: two prerogatives miraculously combined in the conception of Jesus, true God and true man. Thus Mary's virginity is intimately linked to her divine motherhood and perfect holiness."

 
What are the U.S. Bishops up to?

Enter the New Ark ...

"For as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark. They did not know until the flood came and swept them all away. So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man." (Matthew 24: 37-39).

St. Louis de Montfort teaches us, in True Devotion to Mary, that "Blessed are those who enter into her as into another Noah's ark! The flood waters of sin* which engulf so many will not harm them because, as the Church makes Mary say in the words of divine Wisdom, 'Those who work with my help - for their salvation - shall not sin.'" (No. 175, citing Sirach 24: 22).

* Our Lady has warned of a new flood. This time a flood of fire which will fall on a sinful humanity if people do not repent.

The ladder which signifies the life of the most Holy Virgin...

"At another time I saw a most beautiful ladder with many rungs; around it were many angels, and a great number of them were ascending and descending upon it. His Majesty said to me: 'This is the mysterious ladder of Jacob, the house of God and the portal of heaven (Gen 28:17); if thou wilt earnestly strive to live irreprehensible in my eyes, thou wilt ascend upon it to Me'....I was informed by the Most High, that the ladder signified the life of the most Holy Virgin, its virtues and sacraments. His Majesty said to me: 'I desire, my spouse, that thou ascend this stair of Jacob and enter through this door of heaven to acquire the knowledge of my attributes and occupy thyself in the contemplation of my Divinity. Arise then and walk, ascend by it to Me. These angels, which surround it and accompany it, are those that I appointed as the guardians of Mary, as the defenders and sentinels of the citadel of Sion. Consider her attentively, and, meditating on her virtues, seek to imitate them.'" (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God, p. 20, Tan Books).

Our Lady is the Portal of Heaven. So necessary is devotion to Our Blessed Mother, that St. Louis de Montfort tells us (in his Secret of the Rosary, Ninth Rose) that: "St. Bonaventure says in his Psalter that whoever neglects our Lady will die in his sins.." In his True Devotion to Mary, Nos 37-43, this greatest of the Marian Saints explains that:


"Mary received from God a far-reaching dominion over the souls of the elect. Otherwise she could not make her dwelling-place in them as God the Father has ordered her to do, and she could not conceive them, nourish them, and bring them forth to eternal life as their mother. She could not have them for her inheritance and her possession and form them in Jesus and Jesus in them. She could not implant in their heart the roots of her virtues, nor be the inseparable associate of the Holy Spirit in all these works of grace. None of these things, I repeat, could she do unless she had received from the Almighty rights and authority over their souls. For God, having given her power over his only-begotten and natural Son, also gave her power over his adopted children - not only in what concerns their body - which would be of little account - but also in what concerns their soul.

Mary is the Queen of heaven and earth by grace as Jesus is king by nature and by conquest. But as the kingdom of Jesus Christ exists primarily in the heart or interior of man, according to the words of the Gospel, "The kingdom of God is within you", so the kingdom of the Blessed Virgin is principally in the interior of man, that is, in his soul. It is principally in souls that she is glorified with her Son more than in any visible creature. So we may call her, as the saints do, Queen of our hearts.

Secondly, we must conclude that, being necessary to God by a necessity which is called "hypothetical", (that is, because God so willed it), the Blessed Virgin is all the more necessary for men to attain their final end. Consequently we must not place devotion to her on the same level as devotion to the other saints as if it were merely something optional.

The pious and learned Jesuit, Suarez, Justus Lipsius, a devout and erudite theologian of Louvain, and many others have proved incontestably that devotion to our Blessed Lady is necessary to attain salvation. This they show from the teaching of the Fathers, notably St. Augustine, St. Ephrem, deacon of Edessa, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Germanus of Constantinople, St. John Demascene, St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure. Even according to Oecolampadius and other heretics, lack of esteem and love for the Virgin Mary is an infallible sign of God's disapproval. On the other hand, to be entirely and genuinely devoted to her is a sure sign of God's approval.

The types and texts of the Old and New Testaments prove the truth of this, the opinions and examples of the saints confirm it, and reason and experience teach and demonstrate it. Even the devil and his followers, forced by the evidence of the truth, were frequently obliged against their will to admit it. For brevity's sake, I shall quote one only of the many passages which I have collected from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church to support this truth. "Devotion to you, O Blessed Virgin, is a means of salvation which God gives to those whom he wishes to save" (St. John Damascene).

I could tell many stories in evidence of what I have just said.

(1) One is recorded in the chronicles of St. Francis. The saint saw in ecstasy an immense ladder reaching to heaven, at the top of which stood the Blessed Virgin. This is the ladder, he was told, by which we must all go to heaven.

(2) There is another related in the Chronicles of St. Dominic. Near Carcassonne, where St. Dominic was preaching the Rosary, there was an unfortunate heretic who was possessed by a multitude of devils. These evil spirits to their confusion were compelled at the command of our Lady to confess many great and consoling truths concerning devotion to her. They did this so clearly and forcibly that, however weak our devotion to our Lady may be, we cannot read this authentic story containing such an unwilling tribute paid by the devils to devotion to our Lady without shedding tears of joy.

If devotion to the Blessed Virgin is necessary for all men simply to work out their salvation, it is even more necessary for those who are called to a special perfection. I do not believe that anyone can acquire intimate union with our Lord and perfect fidelity to the Holy Spirit without a very close union with the most Blessed Virgin and an absolute dependence on her support."

Within the Church there are forces which seek to undermine devotion to the Blessed Virgin. These forces wish to build a new church in the image and likeness of man. But we must follow the examples of the Saints in these dark days.

Notes from yesterday...the apostasy spreads

Attended Holy Mass (Vigil Mass) at St. Cecilia's Parish in Leominster yesterday. Although it was the Feast of the Assumption, not one word was said about the Blessed Virgin. This is a tragedy. For the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was defined as a doctrine of the faith on November 1, 1950 by Pope Pius XII. This feast has been celebrated by Christians since as early as the seventh century. Today it is celebrated as a holy day of obligation in the United States on August 15th. The Catechism has this to say about Our Lady's Assumption:


"Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death." The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:

In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death." (CCC, 966).

But we are in a time of apostasy. It was Our Lady who told Father Gobbi [back in 1988]: "The hour of the great apostasy has come. What has been foretold in Holy Scripture, in the Second Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians, is now on the point of coming to pass. Satan, my Adversary, with snares and by means of his subtle seduction, has succeeded in spreading errors everywhere, under the form of new and more updated interpretations of the truth, and he has led many to choose with full knowledge - and to live in - sin, in the deceiving conviction that this is no longer an evil, and even that it is a value and a good. The times of the general confusion and of the greatest agitation of spirits has come. Confusion has entered into the souls and the lives of many of my children. This great apostasy is spreading more and more , even through the interior of the Catholic Church. Errors are being taught and spread about, while the fundamental truths of the faith, which the authentic Magisterium of the Church has always taught and energetically defended against any heretical deviation whatsoever, are being denied with impunity. The episcopates are maintaining a strange silence and are no longer reacting. When my Pope speaks with courage and reaffirms with force the truths of the Catholic faith, he is no longer listened to and is even publicly criticized and derided. There is a subtle and diabolical tactic, woven in secrecy by Masonry, which is used today against the Holy Father in order to bring ridicule upon his person and his work and to neutralize his Magisterium.....In these times, in the Catholic Church, there will remain a little remnant who will be faithful to Christ, to the Gospel, and to its entire truth. The little remnant will form a little flock, all guarded in the depths of my Immaculate Heart. This little flock will be made up of those bishops, priests, religious and faithful who will remain strongly united to the Pope, all gathered together in the cenacle of my Immaculate Heart, in an act of unceasing prayer, of continual immolation, of total offering to prepare the painful way for the second and glorious coming of my Son Jesus."

There is confusion even in the Church's interior. C. Joseph Doyle is Executive Director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts. He has agreed to appear as a guest speaker at the 2009 Saint Benedict Center Conference to be held this October in Richmond, New Hampshire. The Saint Benedict Center, which is not in communion with the Catholic Church and which has no permission from Bishop John McCormack to do any ministry within the Diocese of Manchester, describes Mr. Doyle as "..the media's go-to man whenever traditional Catholic values are threatened in the public arena, appearing for television and radio interviews approximately 150 times a year...C.J....worked in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for many years as an adviser and aide to the late Rep. James Craven...He also served as National Director for William Donohue's Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights before the Massachusetts CAL [Catholic Action League] was established.."

The Massachusetts Catholic Conference (website may be found here), is the public-policy arm of the Massachusetts Bishops. The Massachusetts Catholic Conference website has a link to Mr. Doyle's Catholic Action League website. I wrote an email to Sean Cardinal O' Malley yesterday and forwarded a copy to The Most Rev. Robert J. McManus, Bishop of Worcester. This is what I wrote:

Dear Cardinal O'Malley,


I am writing to you (and forwarding a copy of this email to my Bishop, The Most Rev. Robert McManus) because it has been brought to my attention that Mr. C. Joseph Doyle, Executive Director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, has agreed to appear as a guest speaker at the 2009 Saint Benedict Center Conference to be held in Richmond, New Hampshire this October.

The Center is not in communion with the Catholic Church. In fact, in a letter written by Fr. Edward Arsenault, Moderator of the Curia for the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, to a Mrs. Terri O'Rorke, Father Arsenault makes this clear:

"I write to you in reply to your letter dated May 24, 2007. I share your concern about the ongoing controversy and difficulties with the Saint Benedict Center. As you know, the Saint Benedict Center has no permission or authority to exercise any Ministry on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church in New Hampshire. Bishop McCormack has and will continue to do all that he can to encourage people to refrain from participating in any of the spiritual exercises at the Saint Benedict Center.

For my part, I will continue to make it clear that Saint Benedict Center has no affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church in any way. Please know that I will continue to pray for you and all those who are affected by difficulties that have been created by the Saint Benedict Center."


I have worked tirelessly to expose the anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial of the Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire. Some background may be found in this article: http://splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=782 I am well-aware that the Southern Poverty Law Center is not without its own problems. But in this matter (as the Diocese of Manchester will attest to), they got it right. The news-magazine Chronicle dedicated an episode back in 2007 to the whole controversy surrounding the Center.

Since this organization is not in communion with the Catholic Church, has absolutely no permission to do any ministry whatsoever and engages in anti-Semitism and Holocaust-denial, I think it inappropriate that someone of Mr. Doyle's stature should associate himself with this entity. It will only serve as a source of scandal to many of the faithful and reflect poorly on the Catholic Church in Massachusetts.

It is my hope that Your Eminence will agree.

Asking the Blessing of Your Eminence,

I am, Yours Respectfully,

Paul Anthony Melanson


Related reading here, here and here.

The City of God by which men will be converted and fed...

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in a letter to Marcello Pera several years ago, wrote, "Today it is a matter of the greatest urgency to show a Christian model of life that offers a livable alternative to the increasingly vacuous entertainments of leisure-time society, a society forced to make increasing recourse to drugs because it is sated by the usual shabby pleasures...The Christian model of life must be manifested as a life in all its fullness and freedom, a life that does not experience the bonds of love as dependence and limitation but rather as an opening to the greatness of life." (Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, pp. 125-126).

But how do we effectively achieve this Christian model of life by which a pleasure-satiated society will be converted? Only by consecrating ourselves to Our Lady will we find the grace and zeal to live a life which is appealing to a materialistic and hedonistic world. It was St. Louis de Montfort who prophesied, in his True Devotion to Mary, No. 48, that, "..great souls filled with grace and zeal will be chosen to oppose the enemies of God who are raging on all sides. They will be exceptionally devoted to the Blessed Virgin. Illumined by her light, strengthened by her food, guided by her spirit, supported by her arm, sheltered under her protection, they will fight with one hand and build with the other. With one hand they will give battle, overthrowing and crushing heretics and their heresies, schismatics and their schisms, idolaters and their idolatries, sinners and their wickedness. With the other hand they will build the temple of the true Solomon and the mystical city of God, namely, the Blessed Virgin, who is called by the Fathers of the Church the Temple of Solomon and the City of God. By word and example they will draw all men to a true devotion to her and through this will make many enemies, it will also bring about many victories and much glory to God alone...This seems to have been foretold by the Holy Spirit in Psalm 58: ‘The Lord will reign in Jacob and all the ends of the earth. They will be converted towards evening and they will be as hungry as dogs and they will go around the city to find something to eat.’ This city around which men will roam at the end of the world seeking conversion and the appeasement of the hunger they have for justice is the most Blessed Virgin, who is called by the Holy Spirit the City of God."

The Lord loves this City conceived Immaculately: "The Lord loves the city founded on holy mountains, Loves the gates of Zion more than any dwelling in Jacob. Glorious things are said of you, O city of God! From Babylon and Egypt I count those who acknowledge the Lord. Philistia, Ethiopia, Tyre, of them it can be said: ‘This one was born there.’ But of Zion it must be said: ‘They all were born here.’ The Most High confirms this; the Lord notes in the register of the peoples: This one was born here.’" (Psalm 87: 1-6).

And what is this "register of the peoples"? We find an answer in Chapter 20 verse 12 of the Book of Revelation: "I saw the dead, the great and the lowly, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened. Then another scroll was opened, the book of life. The dead were judged according to their deeds, by what was written in the scrolls."

Of Zion is must be said "They all were born here."* This holy city of Zion is the City of God, the Blessed Virgin. We must all therefore seek our conversion from this holy City. We must approach this City of God if our hunger for justice is to be appeased. We must strive to become more and more like this holy City so that our devotion will be true. Only then will we be able to offer our sin-sick world that Christian model of life Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI is calling for with such urgency.

*"Many have proved invincibly, from the sentiments of the Fathers-among others: St. Augustine, St Ephem, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Germanus of Conantinople, St. John Damascene, St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, St. Thomas, and St. Bonaventure-that devotion to Our Most Blessed Virgin is necessary for salvation, and that it is an infallible mark of reprobation to have no esteem or love for that Holy Virgin while, on the other hand, it is an infallible mark of predestination to be entirely and truly devoted to her."

- St. Louis de Montfort.