Jeanie Hannaman

By Regis Martin, Crisis Magazine - What then is death but an event that follows upon birth, the dread certainty of which awaits us all. Indeed, says Pascal, “it makes all the difference in the world, if it is certain that we shall not be here for long, and uncertain whether we shall be here even for an hour.” There can be no exceptions, each of us having been predetermined to die at a given time and place none of us knows in advance—toward which we find ourselves inexorably moving from the first moment we begin to exist in our mother’s womb.

By Dina Fathi, Catholic Exchange - The Church’s devotion to Our Blessed Mother is simply the will of God, as we saw in the fourth article of this Magnificat series (“All Generations Will Call Me Blessed”). Pope Benedict XVI called it “a command of the Holy Spirit” (Homily, August 15, 2006)... And so it is that “the Church rightly honors [the Mother of God] with special devotion,” as the Catechism says (971), and par excellence in the prayer of the Holy Rosary. In the Hail Mary, “all generations” call Our Blessed Mother “blessed,” a fulfillment of Luke 1:48, and in the Mysteries of the Rosary we come to know the “great things” God has done for Her (Lk. 1:49).