Our Lady's Rosary Makers of Grand Rapids, Michigan

07/13/2025

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10/31/2024

FIRST FRIDAY:
1. The first Friday of each month was designated by Jesus himself as consecrated to honoring his Sacred Heart, to increase our love for Him in Holy Communion by receiving Our Lord Jesus Christ on first Friday and to make reparation for past and present offenses against His love. Those that keep the first Friday devotion receive 12 promises.

FIRST SATURDAY:
2. “See, my daughter, My Heart surrounded with thorns with which ingrates pierce me at every moment with blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, make sure to console me and announce that all those who for five months, on the first Saturdays, go to confession, receive Communion, say five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for 15 minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the purpose of making reparation to Me, I promise to assist them at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their souls." ~ Our of Lady of Fatima to Sister Lucia

FIRST WEDNESDAY:
3. Wednesdays are dedicated to Saint Joseph, but especially the first Wednesday of the month where you can offer your Holy Communion to his Most Chaste Heart that he would continue to intercede and protect you and your family.

10/30/2024

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐢𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐨𝐲

A six-year-old Protestant boy had often heard his fellow Catholics pray the Hail Mary. He liked it so much that he memorized it and prayed it every day. "Look, mommy, what a beautiful prayer," he told his mother one day.

"Do not say it again," replied the mother. "It is a superstitious prayer of Catholics who worship idols and think that Mary is a goddess. She is a woman like any other. Come on. Take this Bible and read it. It contains everything we have to do.” From that day on, the boy stopped praying his Hail Mary every day and spent more time reading the Bible.

One day, while reading the Gospel, he saw the passage on the Annunciation of the Angel to the Virgin. Full of joy, the boy ran to his mother and said: "Mommy, I found the Hail Mary in the Bible: ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women’. Why do you call it a superstitious prayer?" She did not answer. On another occasion, he found the scene of Elizabeth's salutation to the Virgin Mary and the beautiful canticle of the Magnificat, in which Mary announced: 'from now on all generations shall call me blessed'. He did not say anything to his mother and began to pray the Hail Mary every day again, as he used to do. He felt pleasure in telling those beautiful words to the Mother of Jesus, Our Savior.

When he turned fourteen, one day he heard his family discussing about Our Lady. They all said that Mary was an ordinary woman. The boy, after hearing their erroneous reasoning, could not take it anymore and, full of indignation, he interrupted them saying: "Mary is not like any other son of Adam, stained with sin. No! The Angel called her FULL OF GRACE AND BLESSED AMONG WOMEN. Mary is the Mother of Jesus and consequently, the Mother of God. There is no greater dignity to which a creature can aspire. The Gospel says that all generations shall call her blessed, while you try to despise her. Your spirit is not the spirit of the Gospel or the Bible you claim is the foundation of the Christian religion."

The impression made by the boy's words on his mother was so deep that she often wept inconsolably: "Oh, God, I fear that this son of mine will one day join the Catholic religion, the religion of the Popes!" And indeed, a short time later, the son was convinced that the Catholic religion was the only authentic one, he embraced it and became one of his most ardent apostles.

A few years after his conversion, the protagonist of our story found his sister already married. He wanted to greet her and hug her, but she rejected him and said indignantly: "You have no idea how much I love my children. If one of them wanted to become Catholic, I would first bury a dagger in their heart than allow them to embrace the religion of the Popes."

Her anger and temper were as furious as those of St. Paul before his conversion. However, she would soon change her mind, as happened to St. Paul on his way to Damascus. It happened that one of her children fell seriously ill. The doctors gave no hope for his recovery. As soon as her brother found out, he looked for her in the hospital and spoke to her with affection, saying: "Dear sister, you naturally want your child to be cured. Very well, then do what I'm going to ask you. Let us pray together a Hail Mary and promise God, that if your child recovers, you will study the Catholic doctrine. And in case you come to the conclusion that Catholicism is the only true religion, you will embrace it no matter what sacrifices this implies."

His sister was initially reluctant, but she wanted her son to recover, so she accepted his brother's proposal and prayed with him a Hail Mary. The next day, her son was completely healed. The mother fulfilled her promise and began studying the Catholic doctrine. After intense preparation, she received Baptism in the Catholic Church along with her entire family. How much she thanked her brother that he had been an apostle to her.

This story was told by Father Francis Tuckwell in one of his homilies. "Brothers," he concluded, "the Protestant boy who became a Catholic and converted his sister to Catholicism, devoted his whole life to the service of God. He is the priest who speaks to you now. How much I owe to the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady! You too, my dear brothers, dedicate yourselves completely to serving Our Lady and do not let a single day pass without saying the beautiful prayer of the Hail Mary as well as your Rosary. Ask her to enlighten the minds of Protestants who are separated from the true Church of Christ founded on the Rock (Peter) and against which 'the gates of hell will never prevail'."

**Join me in saying the Hail Mary today!**

10/28/2024

10/25/2024

Worship requires Sacrifice (Romans 12:1, Hebrews 13, etc.).

Our Lord shows us how to worship particularly in each Gospel:

(1) John 6:

“The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 54 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. 55 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. 56 For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. 57 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. 58 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. 59 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever.”

(2) Mark 14

“And whilst they were eating, Jesus took bread; and blessing, broke, and gave to them, and said: Take ye. This is my body. 23 And having taken the chalice, giving thanks, he gave it to them. And they all drank of it. 24 And he said to them: This is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many.”

(3) Luke 22:

“19 And taking bread, he gave thanks, and brake; and gave to them, saying: This is my body, which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of me. 20 In like manner the chalice also, after he had supped, saying: This is the chalice, the new testament in my blood, which shall be shed for you.”

(4) Matthew 26:

“26 And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. This is my body. 27 And taking the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. 28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins.”

(5) 1 Corinthians 10:

“16 The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread, which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord? 17 For we, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread.”

(6) 1 Corinthians 11:

“26 For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come. 27 Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. 29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.”

(7) 1 John 5:

“6 This is the one who came through water and blood,[b] Jesus Christ, not by water alone, but by water and blood. The Spirit is the one that testifies, and the Spirit is truth. 7 So there are three that testify, 8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three are of one accord.”

10/24/2024

10/24/2024

06/08/2024

Mary is truly the Mother of God, the Theotokos (God-bearer). This is so familiar to us, particularly because of the Eastern prayers and the frequent references to this in the Divine Liturgy. Though are you familiar with the Scriptural explanations?

The Nestorian heresy, that Jesus has 2 separate natures - divine and human - is actually still prevalent today among Protestants, which is a logical conclusion of the rejection of Mary's title as Mother of God. The Church is the "pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Timothy 3:15) that protects the Christian Faithful from such errors.

An objection to Catholic teaching and the Christian Faith is the title of the Blessed Virgin Mary as "Mother of God" or Theotokos (God-bearer).

These objections are often prompted by the idea that Mary, as a human being, could not possibly give birth to God's divinity. If this stance is taken to its logical conclusion though, this effectively denies the divinity of Christ, or it separates Jesus's humanity from his divinity in a manner that they are not united hypostatically as taught by the Church - which is the Nestorian heresy.

Though we don’t have the words “Mother of God” as such in Scripture, we do have something very close in Luke 1:43, when Mary’s cousin (or relative) Elizabeth greets Mary shortly after she has conceived our Lord: "And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"

"Mother of my Lord" should suffice, though some further objections are made by some people who say that the Greek word kurios or ‘lord’ can indeed be used to denote divinity but not necessarily so. It can be used to denote an earthly potentate or even false ‘lords’ or gods (see Matt. 20:8; 21:40; I Cor. 8:5-6, etc.). This is true, however this is not the full picture. The key to our discussion then is to ascertain how kurios is being used of Christ in Luke 1:43.

When Elizabeth “exclaimed with a loud cry… why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me” (Luke 1:42-43), Mary was revealed to be the New Testament Ark of the Lord. Elizabeth’s words make this clear as they hearken back to a text from II Samuel 6:9 wherein David exclaims concerning the Old Covenant “ark of the Lord: ”David was afraid of the LORD that day; and he said, 'How can the ark of the LORD come to me?'"

If this one parallel leaves you unconvinced, there are more that may tip the scale for you. St. John the Baptist “leaped for joy” at the salutation of Mary (Luke 1:44), just as King David “danced before the Lord” in the ark of the Lord in II Samuel 6:14. Moreover, Mary “remained with [Elizabeth] for three months (Luke 1:56),” just as “the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obededom the Gittite for three months” in II Sam. 6:11.

The question is: Was the ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament the ark of an “earthly potentate,” or was it the ark of almighty God? The answer is obvious. If this is true, then the more glorious New Covenant Ark of the Covenant could never be said to be inferior to its antecedent. New Covenant fulfillments are always more glorious than their Old Covenant types (see Heb. 10:1; Col. 2:17; Heb. 8:6). Thus, the New Covenant “Ark of the Lord” could not be an ark of an earthly potentate, or a mere man. Given the revelation we have received from God, it—or she—is the Ark of Almighty God.

The second and most important reason we know Luke 1:43 is referring to Mary as the Mother of God is summed up nicely in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 495:

Called in the Gospels “the mother of Jesus,” Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as “the mother of my Lord.” In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father’s eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly “Mother of God” (Theotokos).

Mary is the Mother of God precisely because Jesus Christ, her Son, is God. And when Mary gave birth, she did not give birth to a nature, or even two natures; she gave birth to one, divine person. To deny this essential truth of the faith, as the Council of Ephesus (AD 431) declared in its first of many “anathemas” of St. Cyril which would be accepted by the Council, is heresy:

If anyone does not confess that God is truly Emmanuel, and that on this account the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (for according to the flesh she gave birth to the Word of God become flesh by birth), let him be anathema.

The real problem with denying Mary to be Mother of God and affirming her to be merely the mother of the man Christ Jesus is in doing so one invariably either denies the divinity of Christ (as the 4th century A***ns did), or one creates two persons with regard to Jesus Christ (as the 5th century Nestorians did). Either error results in heresy. The Ecumenical Councils of Nicaea (AD 325) and Constantinople (AD 381) dealt decisively with the A***n heresy. The Council of Ephesus (AD 431), as mentioned above, dealt with this latter heresy as it was being taught by the followers of Patriarch Nestorius of Constantinople. Rather than teaching the truth that Christ is one divine person with two natures—one human, and one divine—hypostatically unified, or joined together without admixture in the one divine person of Christ, they were teaching Christ to be two persons with a mere moral union. The Council fathers understood this could never be affirmed by Christians. The Bible declares to us: “… in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). And, “… in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…” (Colossians 1:16) No where do we read in "them".

The painting is of the Council of Ephesus, where judgment was made against the A***ns. The other picture is of how we are to understand the motherhood of Mary in relation to Jesus and the Trinity. Mary is mother of Jesus who is God, though Mary is not mother of God the Father or the Holy Spirit, neither is she the mother of the Trinity.