Our Lady

From Under The Rubble…Notre Dame, Obama, And The Death of Dialogue

It’s been four long years since Notre Dame welcomed Barack Obama to campus, awarding him an honorary degree and the opportunity to address the graduating class of 2009. Among the reasons for the award, according to university President John Jenkins, C.S.C., one was central: “He is a leader who has respect for the role of…

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For the Conclave: Sub tuum praesidium

It is no surprise that the Catholic and non-Catholic media are buzzing at a fevered pitch concerning the upcoming Conclave. The situation is truly unprecedented for the Church and I must admit to a certain unease about the whole thing. Not only about the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI, but also about the stories of…

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Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Macula non est in te!

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Waking the Sleeping Giant

One of the more memorable (and apocryphal) quotes to come out of the Second World War was the quote of Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, the Japanese commander and mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor. After the attack he was supposed to have said: “I fear all we have done is wake a sleeping giant and…

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Immaculate Conception Novena: Ninth Day

In the Year of Our Lord 1846 the bishops of the United States dedicated our land to Mary of the Immaculate Conception.In a brave and splendid gesture they presented to the Queen of Heaven the new republic with its high hopes and uncertainties, with its enormous possibilities for good or evil, with the record of…

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Immaculate Conception Novena: Eighth Day

Life is not easy for a man who aspires to strong virtue.Temptations are much too fascinating.In youth passion plays like a livid flame.In success false loves throw themselves before him.In failure he is prompted to seek forgetfulness in sin.And always, creature of body and of soul that he is, he knows the war in his…

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Immaculate Conception Novena: Seventh Day

…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…

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Immaculate Conception Novena: Sixth Day

“Like Mother, like child,” runs the ancient saw.He who accepts the Savior as His Lord and God cannot doubt the perfect sinlessness that was Christ’s. It is blasphemy to imagine for a second that Christ could have been in the power of Satan, that His soul lacked the fullness of divine life, that He was…

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Immaculate Conception Novena: Fifth Day

Nothing else had been so holy among the chosen people as had the ark of the law.Within this sacred tabernacle had rested God’s promise to his people.Yet within this ark there rested only a few things that God had touched or designed. The table of the law, precious writings of God’s dictation, the loaves of…

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Immaculate Conception Novena: Fourth Day

Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with Thee, blessed art thou among women.The immortal words, spoken prayerfully every day by millions of Catholics in millions of rosaries, were not of human thought. They were spoken by the Archangel Gabriel, who came straight from the throne of God. These words were an angelic echo of…

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