 As Marian Sisters, we are greatly devoted to the Blessed Mother but we also take as our patron a man who made an immense impact in spreading devotion to Our Lady, St. Louis Marie de Montfort.
 We have all heard the phrase: “You are what you eat”; perhaps it could just as accurately be said: “You are what you read”! The thoughts and images we imbibe from books and media form our minds and hearts. Because of this, daily spiritual reading is an integral part of our religious life. It fills our minds with thoughts of God and provides a storehouse from which we pull ideas to speak to Him in our meditation and throughout the day. The Sisters’ will often choose reading directed toward the themes of particular liturgical seasons. During Lent, the Sisters’ prie-dieus are full of books about Our Lord’s Passion, Our Lady’s Sorrows, the Seven Last Words, the Stations of the Cross, and personal repentance and conversion. As we reach the culmination of the Lenten season, the Sisters shared some choice quotes from their spiritual reading to inspire your Holy Week:
"[St. Augustine] says that God preferred to bring good out of evil rather than to prevent evil. And indeed it is worthy of divine wisdom, love, and power to be able to draw out of those dark depths some magnificent good. Jesus Christ, who came to transform all things, who elevated, sanctified, and divinized them, did not wish to suppress evil, but gave us the divine secret of getting good out of it" (Archbishop Luis Martinez, The Sanctifier). "Sinlessness is not common to our Mother and to us. But sorrow is. It is the one thing we share, the one common thing betwixt us. We will sit with her therefore, and sorrow with her, and grow more full of love, not forgetting her grandeurs but pressing to our hearts with fondest predilection the memory of her exceeding martyrdom" (Father Faber, The Foot of the Cross). "A final dimension of [Mary's] faith is its tenacity. Hers was a faith delicate in its beauty, intricate in its design, but steadfast in its courage and tenacity. Of Mary, to whom much was given, much was expected! ... It is important for us to remember that this faith of Mary must be the model of our own… As in Mary, so also in us, Christ must live by faith. He must inhabit us. We do not have that fullness of receptivity for God's Word that was Mary's. But God has given us in our created reality and uniquely in our Baptism that radical capacity to hear and receive his Word" (James Cardinal Hickey, Mary at the Foot of the Cross: A Retreat Given to John Paul II and the Papal Household).   After a hiatus, we return to our document study of Pope St. John Paul II’s encyclical: Ecclesia de Eucharistia. Read parts I, and II.
 “Lent is like a long ‘retreat’ during which we can turn back into ourselves and listen to the voice of God, in order to defeat the temptations of the Evil One. It is a period of spiritual ‘combat’ which we must experience alongside Jesus, not with pride and presumption, but using the arms of faith: prayer, listening to the word of God and penance. In this way we will be able to celebrate Easter in truth, ready to renew the promises of our Baptism.”
- Pope Benedict XV  O my beloved St. Joseph, adopt me as thy child. Take charge of my salvation; watch over me day and night; preserve me from occasions of sin; obtain for me purity of body. Through thy intercession with Jesus, grant me a spirit of sacrifice, humility, self-denial, a burning love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and a sweet and tender love for Mary, my Mother. St. Joseph, be with me living, be with me dying, and obtain for me a favorable judgment. Amen. St. Joseph, pray for us! Easter is the feast of feasts, the pinnacle of the liturgical year. We spend forty days in Lent just to prepare for it! But how do we prepare for Lent? Is there something that can help us get ready?
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