Friday, April 30, 2021

May is the month of Mary. Saturday 1 May, 2021, Sts. Phillip and James, Ap

May is the month of Mary

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Traditionally, Mary has always been recognized by the Church as being Mary's month, and what better way of honoring the Mother of God than devotion to her Most Holy Rosary.

The Rosary was given to the Church in its present form by St. Dominic in 1214 after he received it from Our Lady in 1208, according to Dominican tradition, after she appeared to him in Southern France, after he had been combating the Albigensian heresy which was wreaking havoc in the Church.

St. Dominic with beads in hand he led the Catholic troops against the Albigensians and crushed that heresy.

St. Dominic 1170-1221 receives the Rosary from Our Lady in 1208

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Wednesday 6 May, 2021. St. John Before the Latin Gate

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st john oil

The Church commemorates the attempt to put St. John to death in a cauldron of boiling oil outside the Latin Gate in Rome.

In the year 95, St. John, who was the only surviving apostle, and governed all the churches of Asia, was apprehended at Ephesus, and sent to prison in Rome

The Emperor Domitian condemned him to be cast into a cauldron of boiling oil. St. John heard with great joy this barbarous sentence, since the most cruel torments seemed to him light and most agreeable. because they would, he hoped, unite him forever with his divine Master and Saviour.

God accepted his will and conferred on him the honor and merit of martydom, and the seething oil was changed into a most refreshing and invigorating bath, and the saint came out more refreshed and youthful than when he entered the cauldron, aside from his hair remaining white.

Domitian saw this miracle without gaining from it the least advantage, but remained hardened in his iniquity, and instead contented himself to banishing St. John to the little island of Patmos, which was there where, according to tradition, he wrote the Apocalypse.