He who loves mankind and knows anything at all about history cannot doubt the importance of pure women to the world.
Pure women must mother the race.
In the days of men’s young and fierce temptations pure maidens must be the cool protestations against passion and the inspirations that turn men to pure love.
The hands of pure women must tend our sick, the minds of pure women must instruct our young, the hearts of pure women must set the rhythm and tempo for that creative love out of which flows the future of the race.
Rightly then do those who love Mary know her importance to the women of our world.
In those dark days before Mary, women had forgotten much of womanly virtue. Mary’s smiling face brought this virtue back to them.
Love had soured and marriage with it, until Mary’s purity again taught women that purity is the safeguard of happy marriage.
Motherhood was a bore and a burden until the Madonna, blessing the world with the Son born of her body, brought back respect for children and honor to the great career of maternity.
To Mary, immaculate model of women, we pray:
The Prayer of the Immaculate Conception
O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, didst prepare a worthy dwelling place for thy Son, we beseech thee that, as by the foreseen death of this, thy Son, thou didst preserve her from all stain, so too thou wouldst permit us, purified through her intercession, to come unto thee. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son, who livest and reignest with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
(Copyright 1947 Daniel A. Lord, S.J. Nihil Obstat: John M. Fearns, S.T.D. Imprimatur: Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop, New York)
This article, Immaculate Conception Novena: Seventh Day is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/immaculate-conception-novena-seventh-day/
Do not repost the entire article without written permission. Reasonable excerpts may be reposted so long as it is linked to this page.