He added, "Aside from the impropriety of such a grandiose celebration for one of the country’s most notorious dissident Catholics, the ‘celebration’ was filled with liturgical errors and transgressions against the General Instruction of the Roman Missal which governs every celebration of the Church’s liturgy."

Bishop Gracida concluded, "It is not unreasonable to suggest that the ‘buck’ for the scandal of the secular extravaganza which obscured the sacred liturgical nature of the Kennedy funeral should stop at the desk of the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston. Again, since I do not want to directly criticize another bishop, I leave it to the laity to analyze the true nature of that celebration.”

This article is the attempt of one layman, a former lawyer and judge, to “analyze the true nature of that celebration.” The issues surrounding Ted Kennedy’s funeral are not limited to whether Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston, should have allowed or presided at his public funeral or whether he should have allowed the grand celebration of Kennedy’s supposed legislative accomplishments (without mention of his support for abortion, embryonic killing or same-sex marriage) or the liturgical transgressions or even the quasi-canonization by Fr. Mark Hession in his homily. The central issue is whether sacrilegious Communions were committed by Catholic politicians who publicly support the horrendous sin of abortion.

Cardinal O’Malley’s office and his Communications Director were requested to confirm or deny that these pro-abortion politicians received the Holy Eucharist at the funeral. Instead of answering this simple question, his Communications Director wrote, “With respect to the Cardinal’s participation at Senator Kennedy’s funeral we refer you to his blog statement. . .” However, the Cardinal was not asked about his participation but about the participation of Catholic pro-abortion politicians in receiving the Holy Eucharist. The Cardinal’s blog said nothing about this.

Moreover, neither Fr Hession, the homilist, nor his staff returned phone calls or answered emails that requested them to confirm or deny these Communion receptions, even after giving them three days notice before the publication of this article.

Neither the Cardinal nor Fr. Hession answered the very simple question of whether these Catholic pro-abortion politicians received. They could easily have denied it, but their failure to do so leads to the reasonable inference that they did receive. Canon Law 915 mandates that those who obstinately persevere in manifest grave sin are not to receive the Holy Eucharist.

This was interpreted by Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, to mean that when a Catholic politician has consistently campaigned and voted for permissive abortion laws, his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Holy Eucharist.

Cardinal Ratzinger also said that when “these precautionary measures have not had their effect or in which they were not possible," and the person in question, with obstinate persistence, still presents himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, "the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it.”

If the pro-abortion Catholic politicians at Mr. Kennedy’s funeral received the Holy Eucharist, perhaps they were never warned by their Pastor or Bishop or by Cardinal O’Malley or any of the celebrating priests that their conduct violated Canon 915. Or, if they were warned and their minister of Communion knew it, than the minister failed under his duty to refuse to distribute the Holy Eucharist to them.

Curiously, the printed program for the funeral liturgy did not contain the usual U.S. Bishop’s statement on the guidelines for receiving the Holy Eucharist. These guidelines are that only Catholics may receive and Catholics who do receive must be properly disposed. Moreover, neither presiding Cardinal O’Malley nor any priest gave any oral statement about the guidelines before the distribution of the Holy Eucharist. Giving these Catholic pro-abortion politicians the extraordinary benefit of the doubt, perhaps they were in total ignorance because no Pastor, priest or Bishop ever warned them as they should have.

Nevertheless, even though they may have never received any warning, still their reception of the Holy Eucharist was objectively unworthy and an objective sacrilege against the Holy Eucharist. This is why the Church in America is spiritually sick and infirm. Eucharistic sacrilege means to treat the Holy Eucharist unworthily and is a grave sin because in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present for us. (Catechism of the Catholic Church No. 2120). St. Paul said, “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily sins against the body and blood of the Lord…. That is why many among you are sick and infirm, and why so many are dying. If we were to examine ourselves, we would not be falling under judgment in this way.” (1 Cor. 11, 27-31; Catechism of the Catholic Church No. 1385). Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter, The Church of the Eucharist, reaffirmed this teaching. He said, “I reaffirm that in the Church there remains in force, now and in the future, the rule by which the Council of Trent gave concrete expression to the Apostle Paul’s stern warning when it affirmed that, in order to receive the Eucharist in a worthily manner, ‘one must first confess one’s sins, when one is aware of mortal sin.’” (No. 36).

It is very doubtful if any of these Catholic pro-abortion politicians first confessed their objective mortal sins of publicly supporting abortion. They never showed any public repentance and they persist in their public support of abortion. So to all appearances, their receptions of the Holy Eucharist were knowingly sacrilegious. We should not judge from appearances. We can, however, judge their objective actions which were publicly sacrilegious and scandalous whether they know it or not. We should not pass judgment on their state of grace or the lack of it or the subjective and personal guilt of any of them or of their pastors or Cardinal O’Malley. Rather, we should react to the person’s public unworthiness to receive Holy Communion by ourselves making Holy Communions to repair for sacrilegious Communions.

Bishop St. Ambrose refused the Holy Eucharist to the powerful Emperor Theodosius and thrust him back from the threshold of the Church. He did this because Theodosius had caused seven thousand innocent persons to be slaughtered by his soldiers. Eight months later, Theodosius requested absolution which St Ambrose gave him after he had submitted to the public penance of the Church.

Bishop St. John Chrysostom told his priests, “Though a captain or a governor, nay, even one adorned with the imperial crown, approach [the table of the Lord] unworthily, prevent him; you have greater authority than he . . . Beware lest you excite the Lord to wrath, and give a sword instead of food. And if a new Judas should approach the Communion, prevent him. Fear God, not man. If you fear man, he will treat you with scorn; if you fear God, you will appear venerable even to men.” However, we cannot reasonably expect any priest or Bishop to act like St Ambrose or to follow the advice of St John Chrysostom in the United States today. No American priest or Bishop has ever refused to distribute the Holy Eucharist to any Catholic pro-abortion politician who presented him or herself to him for reception. They have always publicly received without any public rebuke from their Pastor or Bishop or any public repentance by the recipient. Unless there is a reformation, they will continue to do so and the Church will suffer from continuing sickness and infirmity because of it.

It is fruitless to blame priests and Bishops for this. We the faithful should ourselves make reparation for these sacrilegious Communions. Moreover, most Catholics go to Communion every Sunday but very few go to Confession. Many are in the state of mortal sin because of the willful practice of contraception. Many of them are ignorant that this is grave sin because they have not been properly taught by their Pastors and Bishops. However, many others do know that this practice is gravely sinful and they have no intention of stopping it, or of confessing it, and they still receive the Holy Eucharist. This is why we should make reparation for sacrilegious Communions.

“Reparation” means to repair for the damage of these sacrilegious Communions. We should practice the First Friday Devotion and the First Saturday Devotion to make reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We should also practice the First Wednesday Devotion to St. Joseph as revealed in the Our Lady of America Devotion and the Novena of Communions revealed in the Jesus King of All Nations Devotion.

The First Friday Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is based on a promise made by Him to St. Margaret Mary in France in the 17th century. He said, “I promise you in the excessive Mercy of My Heart that My all-powerful Love will grant to all those who communicate on the First Friday in nine consecutive months the Grace of Final Penitence; they shall not die in My disgrace nor without receiving the Sacraments; My Divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.”

The First Saturday Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is based upon promises made by her to the children of Fatima, Portugal in the 20th century. She said, “I promise to help at the hour of death, with the graces needed for salvation, whoever on the First Saturday of five consecutive months shall Confess and Receive Holy Communion; recite five decades of the Holy Rosary; and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”

The First Wednesday Devotion to St. Joseph was revealed in the Our Lady of America Devotion in the 1950′s. Jesus and Mary desire that the Pure Heart of St. Joseph be honored on the First Wednesday of each month. On March 30, 1958, St. Joseph appeared to Sister Mildred and said:

I am the protector of the Church and the home, as I was the protector of Christ and His Mother while I lived upon earth. Jesus and Mary desire that my pure heart, so long hidden and unknown, be now honored in a special way. Let my children honor my most pure heart in a special manner on the First Wednesday of the month by reciting the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary in memory of my life with Jesus and Mary and the love I bore them, the sorrow I suffered with them. Let them receive Holy Communion in union with the love with which I received the Savior for the first time and each time I held Him in my arms.

St. Joseph promised, “Those who honor me in this way will be consoled by my presence at their death, and I myself will conduct them safely into the presence of Jesus and Mary.”

The Novena of Communions was revealed in the Jesus King of All Nations Devotion in the 1990′s. This Novena consists of offering nine consecutive Holy Communions in honor of Jesus King of All Nations. Jesus said, "I desire that the faithful souls who embrace this devotion to Me. . . make a Novena of Holy Communions. They therefore shall offer me nine (9) consecutive Holy Communions, and go to Confession during this Novena, if possible, in honor of Me as ‘Jesus King of All Nations’."

Jesus indicated that by "consecutive", He meant nine Communions, uninterrupted, one after another, that the souls would receive. They need not be on nine calendar days in a row, just each Communion received, one after the other. Jesus promised, "For those souls who will offer Me [this] devotion I will bid an angel of each of the Nine Choirs, one with each Holy Communion, to guard this soul for the rest of its life on this earth."

The damage of sacrilegious Communions is the infirmity of the Church in America.

“Reparation” means to “make up” for this infirmity just like strong right arms make up for infirm and withered left arms by becoming stronger and doing the work of two arms. We the laity must make up for the infirm, withered left arm of the Church in America by making Holy Communions. Reformation and reparation through these Holy Communions are the only hope for the Catholic Church in America. By thy holy and Immaculate Conception, O Mary, Our Lady of America, deliver us from evil and pray for the Church in America!

Dan Lynch Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. Permission is granted for reproduction or copies made for non-commercial, non-profit use so long as the source of www.JKMI.com <http://www.JKMI.com> is cited and “© Dan Lynch” is indicated.

Similarly, Jesus King of All Nations said, “I shall unite all mankind, even unto the end of time, under MY Divine Reign of Kingship. The Merciful Reign of My Kingdom will be proclaimed everywhere among the nations through which shall come the end-time salvation of mankind by Unity in MY Holy Catholic Church” (The Journal of the Devotion, No. 53).

Pope Benedict XVI is Committed to Unity

On the day after his election as pope, Pope Benedict XVI said that his “primary commitment would be working tirelessly toward the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers.” He said, “The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council. Christians will gradually come together “into the unity of the one and only Church. This unity, we believe, subsists in the Catholic Church.”

He said that the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is “an important appointment to reflect on the tragedy of the division of the Christian community and to pray with Jesus Himself  ‘that they may all be one so that the world may believe.’” This is the reason that Christian unity is so important! Unity will be a sign to the world that all might believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

The Pope concluded by appealing for prayer “so as to be aware that the holy cause of the re-establishment of Christian unity exceeds our poor human efforts and that unity, finally, is a gift of God. God and our love are the condition for the unity of Christians,” he said. “They are the condition for peace in the world.”

Why should we seek unity? Because Christ desires it, the Popes ask us to pray for it and because “it is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained” (Vatican II, Decree on Ecumenism, No. 3).

Popes Ask for Prayer for Christian Unity

Both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II asked us to pray for this unity of the Church. Pope John Paul II prayed, “May God hasten the unity of all Christians, so that we may overcome the divisions of the second millennium.” He said that it is “God’s plan” that the Church work to “gather all Christians into unity.”

In the powerful summation to his encyclical, Ut Unum Sint (That They May All Be One), he forcefully repeated this hope. He said, “To believe in Christ means to desire unity; to desire unity means to desire the Church; to desire the Church means to desire the communion of grace which corresponds to the Father’s plan from all eternity. Such is the meaning of Christ’s prayer: ‘That they may all be one.’” Pope John Paul II trusted in the “primacy of prayer” as the means toward Christian unity. We are called to join Christ and the Popes in this prayer for Christian Unity.

Pray the Chaplet of Unity

Jesus King of All Nations asked us to pray His Chaplet of Unity and promised that He would “ask the Father to pour out with abundant newness and to magnify the anointing power of the Holy Spirit upon My Church under the Holy Father. Unity and oneness in Spirit was My Own prayer for all mankind and My Church as My own last testament before I gave My life as Savior of all mankind! As I am One with My Father and the Holy Spirit, MY Will is that all mankind be one in Me, so that one Faith, one Fold, and one Shepherd will be gathered together under My sovereign Kingship as LORD”  (The Journal of the Devotion, No. 52).

Let us join in this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity by praying daily the Chaplet of Unity. [Please see the Chaplet here: http://www.jkmi.com/PDF/Christianunity'09.pdf]. Jesus experienced great anguish in the disunity of His apostles in His Agony in the Garden. He felt abandoned at the hour of fulfilling the mission entrusted to him by the Father. Pope John Paul II said, “With Jesus as the model, the aspiration for unity must be accompanied by a profound capacity for sacrifice. Out of love for His brothers Christ assumed all divisions, conquering in Himself the sin of disunity of His own. How is it possible not to see the urgency to live with a love like this, in order to make the ecumenical activity fruitful?”

Urgent New Message from Jesus King

On October 18th Jesus King of All Nations gave the following message:

My daughter, My secretary, it is My Holy Will that the daily intentions I gave you for the praying of My Chaplet of Unity be published for use by the faithful. [For these intentions please see: http://www.jkmi.com/PDF/Christianunity'09.pdf].

Let them embrace in their hearts these intentions through the praying of My Chaplet and thereby open the floodgates of My grace which will then be poured out upon individuals and the entire world “Shall I not open for you the floodgates of heaven, to pour down blessing upon you without measure?” (Malachi 3:10) which is presently burdened by the immense weight of its sinfulness. “Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world. Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains forever” (1 John 2:15-17).

Mankind must quickly turn to Me and claim My Mercy for My Justice is about to be poured out. “In one hour your judgment has come” (Revelation 18:10). There is not much time left to you My children!

I ask My faithful ones to redouble their efforts “I now redoubled my efforts.” (Nehemiah 6:9) and help Me to save a good number of the erring. Pray, pray, pray!!!

Remain faithful. Anchor yourselves to Me by means of the holy Sacraments, My Holy Mother’s rosary and My Chaplet of Unity. This chaplet is a great and powerful prayer given to My children in My Mercy. I say again: I have given it great power over My Sacred Heart.

Become Ministers of Unity and Adopt a Leader

Pope John Paul II asked us to become “ever more profound instruments and ministers of unity and sanctification,” in the first place, through prayer, and in the second place, through daily and constant conversion of heart. Become a minister of unity and adopt a leader of our federal government to pray for conversion of hearts.

Please join our Adopt a Leader Program. To join, simply call our center at 802-524-5350 and pledge to practice the Novena of Holy Communions for one of our federal government leaders. We will provide you with the name of your adopted leader. You will help to call down God’s angelic protection for our country! Your adopted leaders will receive Jesus’ solemn promise of angelic protection and so will our country!

Our country’s leaders are divided between those who act as if God does not exist and do not act according to His will and the foundational principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, and those who do. Let us pray that all will do so and for unity in accordance with our country’s motto, E Pluribus Unum, Out of Many, One.

A People in Need of Hope

Pope John Paul II asked us, “How will the Church obtain the grace of unity?” His answer was, “Through hope in the Spirit, who can banish from us the painful memories of our separations. . .  And should we ask if all this is possible, the answer will always be yes. It is the same answer which Mary of Nazareth heard: with God nothing is impossible.”

Jesus asked us to pray the Chaplet of Unity on Wednesdays for “all those afflicted in these latter days with hopelessness.”  We are a people in need of hope! One of our supporters wrote and said, “I have had depression for years and nothing has really helped me except for the Jesus King of All Nations Devotion. You have no idea how many times I have wanted to give up only to remember the encouraging words and promises of Jesus. I wanted to thank you because I know that people don’t do it enough.”

“For thus says the Lord: . . . I know the plans I have for you, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:10-11).

In some mystical way, Our Lady of Guadalupe is present with her Missionary Image. It seems that Our Lady honors the courage and faith of those who publicly display her in her Missionary Image in public places. This is in response to Pope John Paul II’s plea at World Youth Day.

The Missionary Image was brought into public places at the Ground Zeros of the St. Louis Flood, the Attack on America and the Priests’ Sexual Abuse Scandal. As she promised to St. Juan Diego, she showed her “powerful help and protection for the people” when in faith they brought her out in public.

The St. Louis Flood stopped rising on the day that of a public procession of over 100 to the Mississippi riverside in prayer for the victims and for the end of the rising waters. Inexplicably, the flood ended the next day. The Attack on America was mitigated after the Image was publicly brought to Ground Zero in the shadows of the Twin Towers in Battery Park in New York City, for a Day of Prayer exactly two years before the Attack. It was later publicly brought to New York and Rhode Island for consolation after the Attack. Many were also consoled when the Image was publicly brought to the Cathedral in Boston for prayer for priests and victims during the height of the Priests’ Sexual Abuse Scandal.

The Missionary Image made a Visitation to Rhode Island before, during and after the Attack on America. Guardian Evelyn Boler reported that almost every church that they visited lost someone in the Attack. Many of them were on the planes that left from nearby Logan Airport in Boston. The Visitations included Masses, Adoration, Rosaries, Chaplets, Litanies, Consecrations, Hymns and Benedictions. They prayed for the souls of those who were killed and their families.

Our Lady of Guadalupe brought consolation, healing and peace. As Evelyn said, “We thank Our Lady with all of our hearts for her loving kindness and mercy to us in our time of need. Every place she went she touched hearts. She is truly a mother to us all!”

Pope Pius XII prophesied, “As long they recognize Our Lady of Guadalupe as their Queen and Mother, Mexico and America will be safe!” So let us recognize her as our Queen and Mother, turn to her in prayer for our safety and protection and bring her Missionary Image with courage and faith to public places, especially to abortion centers.

In response to Pope John Paul II’s call to “go out on the streets and into public places”, the Missionary Image visits abortion centers for Peaceful Prayer Presences.

Over 20 abortion centers have closed shortly after these Visitations. Last year, Guardian Mike Stack reported as follows:

Last night was the 40th consecutive night of prayer in front of our local abortion center with an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We dedicated the hours of prayer to her. We prayed from Dan Lynch’s booklet, Prayers for Life.

Prior to her visit to our abortion center, she visited the Ann Arbor, Michigan Planned Parenthood site where she was part of their 40 Days for Life. Our Lady managed to have her picture prominently displayed on Planned Parenthood’s web site for thousands to see her peaceful presence and open the door for conversion of hearts!

The abortion clinic is located on one of the busiest roads in Southeast Michigan. Our Peaceful Prayer Presence with the Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe witnessed to thousands and thousands of passing motorists. Many of them honked in support of Life as they passed by.

Now that Barack Obama is our President-elect, we will have a much greater need for Peaceful Prayer Presences at abortion centers because he promised Planned Parenthood that he would sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA).

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement on November 12 during their annual fall meeting in Baltimore. They called the Freedom of Choice Act “an evil law that would further divide our country” and that the Church “should be intent on opposing evil.”

The statement elaborated a range of concerns about FOCA, including concerns that it would “deprive the American people in all 50 states of the freedom they now have to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry.” It said the bill “would coerce all Americans into subsidizing and promoting abortion with their tax dollars,” and would counteract any efforts to reduce the number of abortions in the country.

In his encyclical, The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II wrote:

Man’s life comes from God; it is His gift, not a right! His image and imprint, a sharing in His breath of life. God therefore is the sole Lord of this life:  man cannot do with it as he wills. God Himself makes this clear to Noah after the Flood: ”For your own lifeblood, too, I will demand an accounting…and from man in regard to his fellow man I will demand an accounting for human life“ (Gn. 9:5).

Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Mt. 22:21). We render unto Caesar by obeying just laws. We render unto God by obeying His first law of worshiping Him alone and by following His law of love of God and neighbor. However, Barack Obama promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act which will remove all restrictions on abortion. He promised not to love our preborn brothers and sisters, but rather to legalize their killing without any restrictions from conception to birth.

Barack Obama promised to render unto Caesar what is God’s! — the sole authority to take innocent life.  God “is the sole Lord of this life”, as Pope John Paul II wrote. Only God creates an immortal soul destined to live with Him forever. Only God has authority to take innocent life unto Himself. But Barack Obama has promised to act like God by taking innocent life unto himself through signing the Freedom of Choice Act.

Bishop Finn said, “Life issues, particularly the protection of unborn children against the crime of abortion, has to be our greatest priority. This is an ongoing slaughter of 4,000 children every single day for the last 35 years, and if we don’t do anything about it, we bear a lot of responsibility.”

Yes, we bear a lot of responsibility for as God, quoted by Pope John Paul II, said, “From man in regard to his fellow man I will demand an accounting for human life“ (Gn. 9:5). We must examine our consciences and free ourselves from any cooperation in the Culture of Death, make reparation by fasting, prayer, especially the Rosary, Eucharistic adoration and pro-life works of mercy for pregnant mothers and the victims of post-abortion stress syndrome.

We all should respond to Pope John Paul II’s request to pray and fast. We should do this for the conversions of Barack Obama and all abortion supporters. The Pope wrote in the Gospel of Life, “… a great prayer for life is urgently needed, a prayer which will rise up throughout the world… Jesus himself has shown us by his own example that prayer and fasting are the first and most effective weapons against the forces of evil (Cf. Mt. 4:1-11). As he taught his disciples, some demons cannot be driven out except in this way (Cf. Mk. 9:23). Let us therefore discover anew the humility and the courage to pray and fast.”

Pope John Paul II also warned us at World Youth Day in Denver, Colorado:

No country, not even the most powerful, can endure if it deprives its own children of this essential good [the gift of life]… If you want equal justice for all, and true freedom and lasting peace, then, America, defend life! America needs much prayer… lest it lose its soul… America, defend life so that you may live in peace and harmony. Woe to you if you do not succeed in defending life.

On the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1981, Pope John Paul II prophesied, “the light of the Gospel of Christ will shine out over the whole world by means of the miraculous image of His Mother.” He prayed to her, “Since you are the Empress of the Americas, protect all the nations of the American continents.”

We are in need of her protection! She told St. Juan Diego, “Here I will offer all my love, my compassion, my powerful help and my protection to the people. I am your Merciful Mother.” Now after the Attack on America, the Snipers’ Attacks, the Militant Muslim Terror Attacks throughout the world, the war in Iraq, many natural disasters and the threat of the Freedom of Choice Act, we need her powerful help and protection more than ever, especially for our preborn brothers and sisters!

Let us be a people that hope in her protection instead of cursing the darkness! Let us show the world the light of the Gospel of Christ as Pope John Paul II said, “by means of the miraculous image of His Mother.” Please visit our website and learn how to host a Visitation of the Missionary Image of His Mother.

Pope John Paul II said, “I ask Our Lady of Guadalupe to visit every diocese and parish in America.” We do this by these Visitations of the Missionary Image. These Visitations bring hope! The Holy Father called Our Lady of Guadalupe “The Mother of Hope.” He said, “It is the beginning of a new mission — a providential occasion to lead the People of God in America to cross the threshold of the Third Millennium with renewed hope. That is why, as we look to the future, we are full of hope and are not overcome with fear!“

Jesus told His “Secretary,” the mystic of the Devotion, “Mankind must recognize my Divine Kingship, my Divine Rights over them! It is only in Me, my child, that mankind will find peace” (See The Journal of the Devotion No. 160).

In the midst of war, terrorism, disasters and economic collapse, many in our country still live as if God does not exist and there is no King but Caesar (the rulers of this world). We need to pray that they will come to recognize Christ as King of Love and live His commandments.

Recognize Christ the King

Pope Pius XI said, “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony” (Encyclical Letter Quas Primas). That’s why Jesus King revealed to us the ejaculation, “O Jesus King of All Nations, may your reign be recognized on earth.”

The late John Denver recognized His reign in his song, Raven’s Child. John derided the kings of this world — drugs, arms and oil — who sit on their arrogant thrones. He then gave tribute to Jesus, the King of Kings, in these words:

The true King sits
On a heavenly throne
Never away nor above nor apart
With wisdom and mercy
And constant compassion
He lives in the love
That lives in our hearts.

Jesus Is Our True King

A true king protects and saves his people. Jesus King of All Nations dictated a Novena prayer in His honor as True King. He asked us to pray to Him: “Protect, O Lord our King, our families and the land of our birth. Guard us, we pray, Most Faithful One! Protect us from our enemies and from Your Just Judgment.”

Jesus promised us, “… every time you say these Novena prayers I will convert ten sinners, bring ten souls into the One True Faith, release ten souls from Purgatory, many of whom are the souls of priests, and be less severe in My judgment of your nation.” We should pray this prayer for the salvation of the poor souls in Purgatory and for the protection of the Pope.

Pray to Protect the Pope

Militant Muslims continue to terrorize the world. Pope Benedict XVI said that our God is a God of reason, that violence is unreasonable and therefore ungodly, especially when done in the name of religion by Militant Muslims. In this way, he tried to start a dialogue with Militant Muslims. Their answer was more violence throughout the world and threats to kill him.

Al-Qaida in Iraq and its allies warned the Pope that he and the West were “doomed” and proclaimed that the holy war would continue until Islam dominates the world. Al-Qaida said:

You infidels and despots, we will continue our jihad and never stop until God [permits] us to chop your necks and raise the… banner of monotheism, when God’s rule is established governing all people and nations…. We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose head tax, [and] then the only thing acceptable [will be] a conversion or the sword. Jihad continues and should never stop until doomsday, when [Islam] ends victorious.

This is a very serious world problem and needs much prayer to Jesus our True King and His Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God

The Kingdom of God actually means: God reigns. Jesus King of All Nations asked us to pray that His reign be recognized on earth. He Himself is present and crucial to human beings on earth. That is why Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God does not come in the future like a triumphant parade. He said, “The Kingdom of God is in your midst!” (Lk. 17: 20).

The Kingdom of God develops wherever God’s will is done. It is present wherever there are people who open their hearts and accept Him and so let God enter the world. Pope Benedict XVI said, “Jesus is the Kingdom of God in person: the man in whom God is among us and through whom we can touch God, draw close to God. Wherever this happens, the world is saved.”

Pope Benedict XVI challenged the Church in the United States to pray and work to hasten the spread of the Kingdom of God in our nation. When he visited Yankee Stadium last April, the Pope urged us to pray “… in the Lord’s own words: ‘Thy Kingdom come.’”

“This prayer needs to shape the mind and heart of every Christian in this nation,” he said. “It needs to create new ‘settings of hope’ where God’s Kingdom becomes present in all its saving power.”

The Holy Father said that praying for the coming of the Kingdom of God “means facing the challenges of present and future with confidence in Christ’s victory and a commitment to extending His reign. It means not losing heart in the face of resistance, adversity and scandal. It means overcoming every separation between faith and life, and countering false gospels of freedom and happiness.”

The Pope challenged us to “follow faithfully in the footsteps of those who have gone before you. Hasten the coming of God’s Kingdom in this land! Only God in His providence knows what works His grace has yet to bring forth in your lives and in the life of the Church in the United States, yet Christ’s promise fills us with sure hope. Let us lift our eyes to Him, for even now He is preparing for us a place in His Father’s house. And empowered by His Holy Spirit, let us work with renewed zeal for the spread of His Kingdom.”

“She was not a humanitarian; she was a heroic lover of God. In her missions of charity, in her achievement of the impossible, it was not genius; her secret was Divine Love. This is the wonderful story — a romance that is gripping and striking. It is the story of a woman who lived among us, who saw the things which we see, a woman in whose soul Divine Love had consumed the last remnant of self, who came to love only God, and who saw God in every poor man, woman and child. She loved us. She was our benefactor. She went begging in our streets. She rode our street cars. Through alleys she went in search of little hungry children who were homeless and friendless. Our Saint issues a challenge to each of us, no matter how gloomy the world about us may be; we can smile the serene smile of our Saint” — Samuel Cardinal Stritch of Chicago, Radio Address, July 7, 1946, the day of the canonization of Mother Cabrini.

The small young nun with beautiful large blue eyes entered the presence of the elderly Pope Leo XIII. She knelt before him and told him of her ambition to go to China. He shook his head and said, “No, not to the East, my daughter, but to the West.” He decided that Mother Francis Cabrini should go to the United States and not to China. Thus began a missionary service that resulted in the largest number of missionary foundations in the United States.

On March 12, 1888, her diocesan Institute was approved by the Vatican. Pope Leo XIII dispensed with the usual formalities and approved her rule. While Mother was in Rome, she also learned from Bishop Scalabrini about the plight of the Italian immigrants in the United States.

Bishop Scalabrini was the Founder of the Scalabrini Fathers who ministered to the Italian immigrants. He asked Mother if her community would go New York to help his priests work with them. Italy suffered from an economic crisis in 1887 and the government encouraged poor people to leave the country. There was insufficient work for the men in Italy and many of them immigrated to the States where there was plenty of work for laborers. There were over a million immigrants who lived in ghettos, worked at low-paying menial jobs and had no priests, teachers or doctors to care for them or the orphans. The preceding Irish and German immigrants had assimilated into American society but the Italians had not. Their plight was much like the plight of our undocumented immigrants today.

When the immigrants arrived in the States, they faced minority discrimination, a language barrier in communicating for their daily needs and, more importantly, for their spiritual needs. Some came only for money. Mother said, “They had to come to the United States to earn a living. But what breaks my heart is to see how often they think of nothing else.” Immigration endangered the immigrants’ faith since there were hardly any Italian-speaking priests or nuns in the States to help them to practice it.

The Italian workers had no medical insurance, unemployment insurance, workmen’s compensation or welfare benefits. Their crowded tenement homes helped to spread contagious diseases and there was no one to nurse them. Their children often got hurt at play and their fathers often got hurt working. There was no medical attention for them. Some died and left widows and orphans with nothing. Children had few Italian teachers. There was a great need to educate the children, to take care of the orphans and to conduct hospitals that would care for the sick and injured. Many immigrants lived and died without a priest, without teachers and without doctors.

A newspaper article told the story about Mother’s arrival with her nuns:

This week young ladies with radiant faces dressed in plain black religious hoods and robes were seen coursing the overcrowded streets of Little Italy between the Ghetto and Chinatown, befriending and soliciting the Italians. They left no stones unturned, climbing the dark narrow-hallways of poverty to the top floors, descending murky cellar-ways into filthy basement flats, boldly entering questionable alleys, backyards and obscure areas into which not even the police would venture. They are the pioneers of a congregation called the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, and in the short period of a month have already founded a school and orphanage. It is not unlikely that after their devoted rounds these young religious ladies are rewarded with scant alms and the care of more of our vaunted city’s shamefully neglected orphans. These young nuns hardly speak English. The Directoress of their congregation is “Madre Francesca Cabrini,” a diminutive, youthful lady with great eyes and an attractive smiling face. She does not know the English language, but she knows the universal language of the human spirit.

The Missionary Apostolate

Mother never waited until everything was perfectly in place before she started working. The work was more important than the means. She started and worked with whatever was available. Soon, benefactors came to her aid and praised her for her works. She simply replied, “I am merely watching God perform wonders through us.”

In 1907, Mother celebrated the 25th anniversary of her Institute and Pope Pius X granted its final approval. At that time it had more than 1,000 Sisters who cared for 5,000 children in schools and 100,000 patients in hospitals throughout America. The Italian Ambassador to the United States said, “As Ambassador, I consider the illustrious Mother General of the Missionary Sisters a priceless collaborator; for while I work for the interest of Italy among the powerful, she succeeds in making it loved and esteemed by the humble, the infirm, and children.”

Mother continued to establish houses in the United States and South America seemingly out of thin air. Somehow, a hospital, an orphanage or a school sprung up from nothing.

Rest

In her lifetime, Mother established 67 elementary schools, high schools, hospitals, orphanages and other missions. She established one institution for every year of her life. “Rest?” she would exclaim, “We will have all eternity in which to rest. Now let us work.” But all of her work was the fruit of her prayer. She once wrote, “I would become weak and languid and risk losing myself if I were to occupy myself only with exterior things or if I were to be without the sleep of prayer in the heart of my beloved Jesus.”

As Christmas of 1917 neared, Mother learned that the local priest was unable to distribute the usual Christmas candy to the children because of the sugar shortage during the war. Mother said, “What! No candy for the little ones? Christmas would not be Christmas! We’ll provide the candy as usual, war or no war.”

So she spent the day of December 21 with her Sisters wrapping Christmas presents and filling bags of candy for the children and wrapping a special gift of a desk set for a long time friend, Cardinal Mundelein of Chicago. Shortly before noon on the next day, December 22nd, she was found collapsed in a chair in her room, her clothes stained with blood. There was just enough time for a priest to come and administer the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. Then Mother turned a last look on to her Sisters and died at age 67.

Interior Life

All of Mother’s missionary activity was carried on in an un-hurried manner. In the midst of her whirlwind activities she maintained her recollection in the presence of God. She was never in a hurry and always in a spirit of detached peace. Her prayer life nourished her active life and proved the wisdom and prudence to make her decisions in conformity and obedience to the will of God.

Mother continually practiced prayer in the midst of all of her activities. She wrote, “Pray, pray always, and ask unceasingly for the sprit of prayer. What is the sprit of prayer? It means praying according to the Spirit of Jesus, in Jesus and with Jesus. The spirit of prayer means praying in accordance with the divine good pleasure, willing only what God wills. It means that we have our minds fixed on prayer at all times, in all places, working, walking, eating, speaking, suffering; habitually and always.”

One of the Sisters once asked Mother what to do when her prayers were not answered. “Do?” Mother replied, “Thank God all the more!” At such times she herself would say, “I thank Thee, dear Jesus, that Thy will and not mine has been done.”

She did not practice nor recommend austere penitential methods such as the wearing of a hair shirt. She said, “Contradictions, there is the real, sharp hair shirt! If you love penance, there is a penance that has made saints and which all can practice, even with the weakest health. It is a hair shirt that you can wear not for an hour but all day long.”

Mother was also docile to the voice of Jesus and promptly obeyed. She said, “Jesus speaks and passes by. The Sacred Heart of Jesus acts so quickly that I can hardly follow Him.” Her confidence in Jesus was increased by her humility. She said, “I am imperfect and full of failings, what shall I do? Discouragement, anxiety and worry keep us away from our merciful Jesus. It is an offense to the Sacred Heart, this lack of confidence in His love and gracious bounty.”

Fruits

Mother’s Institute served in 67 institutions in eight countries on three continents. Her charitable institutions seemed to sprout from nothing in a whirlwind of activity. It was an extraordinary demonstration of her faith and her works of mercy in cooperation with the mighty power and works of God. With no money or means and little help from others, she bought furnished, staffed and administered schools, hospitals, orphanages and convents.

Mother simply went forward with the means at hand confident that God would supply what was lacking. “Don’t worry,” she would say with a smile, “if I were to think too much about procuring the means, the Lord would withhold his graces. We have nothing, yet we spend millions.” No obstacle could stop her. She wrote, “Difficulties! What are they, Daughters? They are the mere playthings of children enlarged by our imagination, not yet accustomed to focus itself on the Omnipotent. Who is not weak? But with God’s help you can do everything. He never fails the humble and faithful.”

This little frail woman with no college education or prior business training or experience demonstrated the truth of her motto, the words of St. Paul, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Fear of sickness did not stop her work. She said, “While I am at work, I am well. I fall sick the instant I stop working.”

At the time of her death, Cardinal Mundelein recalled the paradox of her dynamic power in so frail a body. He said, “When we contemplate this frail little woman, in the short space of two-score years, recruiting an army of 1,000 women under the banner of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, dedicated to a life of poverty and self-sacrifice, fired by the enthusiasm of the Crusaders of old, burning with love of their fellowmen, crossing the seas, penetrating into unknown lands, teaching them and their children by word and example to become good Christians and law-abiding citizens, befriending the poor, teaching the ignorant, washing the sick, all without hope of reward or recompense here below — tell me, does not all this fulfill the concept of a noble woman?”

Saint

Mother was beatified in 1938 after Pope Pius XI waived the rule requiring a lapse of 50 years after death. She was canonized in 1946 and was the first United States citizen to be canonized. Her Feast Day is celebrated on November 13 which is the day before the anniversary of the foundation of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart.

One of the miracles brought through Mother’s intercession was the complete cure of a baby boy at Columbus Hospital. He was blinded by an overdose of silver nitrite solution poured into his eyes by a careless nurse. His eyes burned out, but his eyesight was restored after prayers for Mother’s help.

In 1996, on the 50^th anniversary of her canonization, Pope John Paul II called Mother Cabrini “Missionary of the New Evangelization.” Mother’s intercession is necessary in the New Evangelization particularly for the many immigrants still coming to the United States from foreign lands. They come as refugees from persecution, war and famine as well as the immigrants who come undocumented from Latin America and the Caribbean as refugees from poverty.

Mother wrote in one of her letters a prophecy of her intercession for them and for us, “In the adorable Heart of Jesus, I can always find you. He is our comfort, our way, our life. To Him I shall confide all your needs. I will speak to Him of each one of you in particular. I know the wants of every one of you. I will take a great interest in you and keep you close to my heart — you may be sure of this.”

When the right to life is violated by abortion, contraceptive abortifacients, in vitro fertilization, embryonic experimentation and infanticide, all other rights are at risk. If the mother can kill her unborn child, logically why can’t a child kill its mother by euthanasia? Failure to protect the paramount right to life may lead the United States to what Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI warned us about — totalitarianism and the dictatorship of relativism.

For true freedom and peace in the United States, we must protect the paramount right to life recognized by our Founding Fathers and follow the request of Our Lady of America for purity. She requested our purity and promised us peace and protection. The devotion to her is the only canonically approved devotion based upon apparitions in the United States. To no other country in the world has Our Lady identified herself as its Patroness as she did to the United States. She said, “I am the Immaculate One, Patroness of your land.”

The Founding Fathers

The American Founding Fathers’ statement in the Declaration of Independence that natural rights are endowed by God agrees with the teaching of the Church. The paramount right is to life with its inclusive rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the freedoms of free exercise of religion, speech, press and assembly. These rights and freedoms are bestowed upon us by God and inherent in the nature of all human persons. All of the inclusive rights and freedoms are meaningless if there is no paramount right to life.

We are dignified because we are created in the image of God. We have mortal bodies and immortal spiritual souls that God endowed with intellects to know the truth and free wills to do good and avoid evil in order to reach our end of happiness with Him. These rights, as the Founders said in the Declaration of Independence, are “inalienable” as a requirement of the dignity of the human person and must be recognized and protected by civil authority within the limits of the common good and public order.

Because God is perfectly free, He has instilled in us all the natural rights of freedom so that we can reach our end of eternal happiness with God in heaven.  We are called to freely exercise these rights in the pursuit of this end.

America’s Pilgrim Fathers came here for the free exercise of their religion. Their descendants declared independence because they believed that their subjugation under England was immoral and opposed to God’s providential plan for America, which they formulated with His blessing in the United States Constitution.

Our Founding Fathers established the Constitution of the United States to secure the God-given rights that they had recognized in the Declaration of Independence. The relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is crucial. The Declaration is the “why” of American government, while the Constitution is the “how” Each of them should be read and interpreted in the light of the other.

Our individual rights should be protected by the state to enable the individual to express all of his God-given talents to worship, create and achieve, free from unjust government restraint. The Founding Fathers’ recognition that the individual is greater than the state and has natural rights enabled America’s successes in education, business, industry and the arts. The exercise of these rights enabled individual initiative and the protection of individual liberty.

However, the survival of our democratic tradition depends on our fidelity to all of our founding principles, especially for the recognition and protection of the paramount right to life. Our continued failure to recognize this right may lead to totalitarianism and may subject us to what Pope Benedict XVI calls the “dictatorship of relativism” and our ultimate descent to tyrannical rule by the powerful over the weak and the rule of individual men instead of the rule of law.

The Great United States of America

After his recent visit with us, Pope Benedict XVI, like Pope John Paul II before him, complimented our great country and its Founding Fathers and prayed that we will face our future rooted in the faith of our fathers.  He said:

In the meeting with the President, in his residence, I was able to pay homage to this great country, which from the beginning has been constructed based on a pleasing joining together of religious, ethical and political principles, and continues to be a valid example of healthy secularism, where the religious dimension, in the diversity of its expressions, is not only tolerated but valued as the “soul” of the nation and the fundamental guarantee of the rights and duties of the human being. . .

In the great and festive Eucharistic celebration in Nationals Park stadium in Washington, we invoked the Holy Spirit upon the Church in the United States of America, so that firmly rooted in the faith transmitted by its fathers, profoundly united and renewed, it will face present and future challenges with courage and hope.

The Pope also spoke to the youth in front of a display of images of American saints and said, “Each responded to the Lord’s call to a life of charity and each served Him here. . . The key to walking the true path of freedom is to follow the way of the saints, who walk in the light of Christ. . . Take courage! Fix your gaze on our saints.” You can fix your gaze on them by reading the book, Saints of the States, which includes the story of the Queen of our States, Our Lady of America. We need to turn to our saints and our Queen for a revolution in moral values in America, especially for purity.

Our Lady of America

The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in the United States and revealed her title as “Our Lady of America, the Immaculate Virgin.” She appeared to a nun in the United States in several apparitions during the latter half of the 20th century. The nun’s name was Sister Mary Ephrem (later Mildred Neuzil).

On September 26, 1956, Our Lady said, “My child, I entrust you with this message that you must make known to my children in America. I wish it to be the country dedicated to my purity. . . I desire, through my children in America, to further the cause of faith and purity among peoples and nations.”

Remember that this was in 1956, just before the Sexual Revolution of the Sixties. That is why Our Lady of America asked for the practice of purity. She knew what would come from impurity, if her requests were not followed. They were not and we now suffer in our Culture of Death. But it’s not too late to heed Our Lady’s call today. She’s coming again to us through her Image to remind us of her requests and she seems to be giving us a second chance. You may request a Visitation of her Image for An Hour of Prayer for Purity, Peace and Protection with Our Lady of America by contacting our apostolate. She can still teach us, as she said, “to become pure like to [her] heart that [our] own hearts may be more pleasing to the Heart of [her] Son.” For the complete story on Our Lady of America, her requests and promises, read the book, Our Lady of America, Our Hope for the States and see our website at http://www.jkmi.com/.

Warnings for the United States

In April of 1957, Our Lady of America said, “Unless my children reform their lives, they will suffer great persecution. If man himself will not take upon himself the penance necessary to atone for his sins and those of others, God in His justice will have to send upon him the punishment necessary to atone for his transgressions.”

Today, with our Culture of Death and wars, international terrorism, nuclear threats and natural disasters, Our Lady of America’s messages for purity, peace and prayer are more urgent than ever and we are in great need of her protection.   

Pope John Paul II warned us at Denver’s World Youth Day in 1993, “If you want equal justice for all, and true freedom and lasting peace, then, America, defend life! America needs much prayer . . . lest it lose its soul.”

Vote Your Catholic Conscience

The skeleton of the United States is our Founding Father’s democratic constitutional framework with a balance of powers in a republican form of government by representatives of the people. But a skeleton needs a body and soul. The body is the sovereign people and the soul is their moral character to follow the law of a sovereign God. We can follow Him by voting according to our correctly formed conscience.

Our Bishops told us that “a candidate’s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion . . ., may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support.” (Faithful Citizenship #42).

Let us vote our Catholic conscience. Our failure to follow God’s law and to protect the paramount right to life will result in the loss of the soul of the United States of America and its subjection to tyranny and the dictatorship of relativism which Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI warned us against.

What You Can Do

1. You can lead a life of purity and peace.

2. You can combat the moral evils of our culture and become a missionary to the culture by educating and forming your conscience according to the moral truths taught by the Church. Then you can express these truths in your voting and in conversations with your family, friends and co-workers in your daily life. You can write letters to the editors of newspapers and to those in government expressing these moral truths.

3. You can and should vote for persons who support the moral teachings of the Church and against those who oppose them. Catholics have a moral obligation to promote the common good through the exercise of their vote. (See Catechism of the Catholic Church # 2240).

  4. You can and should vote against a candidate who endorses actions that are intrinsically evil such as abortion, homosexual unions and embryonic experimentation.

5. You can visit our website on Our Lady of America at http://www.jkmi.com/ and pray the Presidential Novena to her and the other prayers that she requested.; read the books Saints of the States and Our Lady of America, Our Hope for the States and order bulk quantities of our bumper sticker for Our Lady of America to pray for our country.

Pope John Paul II said, “Christians look with trust to Mary Queen and this exalts their filial abandonment to her, who is Mother in the order of grace. Mary’s glorious state brings about a continuous and caring closeness. She is a queen who gives all that she possesses, participating above all in the life and love of Christ.”

Our Lady of America is Our Queen

The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in the United States and revealed her title as “Our Lady of America, the Immaculate Virgin.” She appeared to a nun in the United States in several apparitions during the latter half of the 20th century. The nun’s name was Sister Mary Ephrem (later Mildred Neuzil). On September 26, 1956, Our Lady said, “I am Our Lady of America. I desire that my children honor me, especially by the purity of their lives.” She promised that greater miracles than those granted at Lourdes and Fatima would be granted in the United States, if the people responded to her requests.

Later that day, Our Lady appeared again to Sister and repeated the call to her children in America to dedicate their lives to her purity. She said that the role of the United States is to lead the world to purity. For the complete story on Our Lady of America, her requests and promises, read the book, Our Lady of America, Our Hope for the States and visit http://www.jkmi.com.

Our Lady appeared as our Queen wearing her crown, manifesting her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart and holding out to us the lily of purity.

Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, formerly of Saint Louis, a world renowned canon lawyer, stated that the devotion to Our Lady of America was canonically approved. In a letter dated May 31, 2007, he reviewed the prior history and then-state of the devotion, as well as the earlier actions of Archbishop Leibold approving the devotion. Archbishop Burke wrote, “What can be concluded canonically is that the devotion was both approved by Archbishop Leibold and, what is more, was actively promoted by him. In addition, over the years, other Bishops have approved the devotion and have participated in public devotion to the Mother of God, under the title of Our Lady of America.”

Patroness of Our Land

The Most Reverend John Carroll of Baltimore, America’s first Roman Catholic Bishop, consecrated the newly-created nation under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary with the title of the Immaculate Conception in 1792. On May 13, 1846, the Bishops of the United States unanimously chose Mary, under the title of Immaculate Conception, as the Patroness of our land. In 1847, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the Immaculate Conception as the patroness of the United States.

Our Lady of America identified herself to Sister Mildred and said, “I am the Immaculate One, Patroness of your land.” Our Lady of America appeared as our Patroness, the Immaculate Conception.

In 1959 the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception was dedicated in Washington D.C. and the Bishops of the United States consecrated the country to the Immaculate Conception. On November 11, 2006, the United States Bishops reconsecrated the country to her at the Basilica of the National Shrine.

The Statue and Our Lady’s Desire for the National Shrine

On November 15, 1956, Our Lady of America requested that a statue be made according to her likeness and that it be solemnly carried in procession and placed in the Basilica of the National Shrine. She wishes to be honored there in a special way as “Our Lady of America, the Immaculate Virgin.” Our Lady promised that the placement of her statue in the National Shrine would be a safeguard for our country and the placement of her image or statue in the home would be a safeguard for the family

On November 13, 2006, a new statue of Our Lady of America was publicly displayed for the first time at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in their Concelebrated Mass Room in Baltimore, Maryland. Former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond L. Burke requested the display of this statue at this conference for the benefit of all of the Bishops. On November 15th, 2006, Archbishop Burke blessed this new statue. This blessing occurred precisely on the 50th Anniversary of the request that Our Lady of America made on November 15, 1956, to be placed and honored in the Basilica of the National Shrine.

This statue is now located across the street from the Basilica at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center. Please visit http://www.jkmi.com to sign the Petition for the Solemn Procession and Placement of the Statue of Our Lady of America in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Let us pray that Our Lady of America’s request is honored soon and that her statue is placed in the National Shrine as a safeguard for our country, because she gave a grave warning for us if we don’t heed her requests.

Warning and Grace for the United States

In April of 1957, Our Lady said, “Unless my children reform their lives, they will suffer great persecution. If man himself will not take upon himself the penance necessary to atone for his sins and those of others, God in His justice will have to send upon him the punishment necessary to atone for his transgressions.”

In addition to leading the world to purity, the United States is called to lead it to peace. On November 22, 1980, Our Lady told Sister Mildred:

Beloved daughter, the United States is a small one among nations, yet has it not been said that ‘a little child shall lead them’? It is the United States that is to lead the world to peace, the peace of Christ, the peace that He brought with Him from heaven in His birth as man in the little town of Bethlehem. Dear child, unless the United States accepts and carries out faithfully the mandate given to it by heaven to lead the world to peace, there will come upon it and all nations a great havoc of war and incredible suffering. If, however, the United States is faithful to this mandate from heaven and yet fails in the pursuit of peace because the rest of the world will not accept or co-operate, then the United States will not be burdened with the punishment about to fall.

Today, with wars, international terrorism, nuclear threats and natural disasters, Our Lady of America’s messages for reformation, purity, peace and prayer are more urgent than ever and we are in great need of her protection. The time is short to pray and sacrifice for world peace. It is evident that the forces of evil are enveloping the world. Their hatred, however, is now particularly focused on the United States because of the Divine Mandate given to it to lead the world to purity and peace.

What You Can Do

1. You can lead a life of purity and peace and pray and sacrifice for the display and veneration of the statue of Our Lady of America in the National Shrine.

2. You can combat the moral evils of our culture and become a missionary to the culture by educating and forming your conscience according to the moral truths taught by the Church. Then you can express these truths in conversations with your family, friends and co-workers in your daily life. You can write letters to the editors of newspapers and to those in government expressing these moral truths.

3. You can and should vote for persons who support the moral teachings of the Church and against those who oppose them. Catholics have a moral obligation to promote the common good through the exercise of their vote. (See CCC 2240).

4. You can visit http://www.jkmi.com/ to:

- host a Visitation of the Image of Our Lady of America

- pray the Presidential Novena to her and the other prayers that she requested

- order bulk quantities of a bumper sticker for Our Lady of America to pray for our country

- sign the Petition for the Solemn Procession and Placement of the Statue of Our Lady of America in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

The procession included altar servers, Knights of Columbus, schoolchildren and Archbishop Burke. The Missionary Image remained at the Shrine for a week where it visited several schools and was displayed at the Pilgrim Center for veneration by the pilgrims.

The Shrine serves the spiritual needs of those who suffer poverty in body and soul. It is a place of ceaseless prayer for the corporal and spiritual welfare of God’s children, especially those in most need. In fidelity to its mission as a place of religious pilgrimage, the Shrine pays homage to the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of America and Star of the New Evangelization and honors her as the Patroness of the Unborn.

Archbishop Burke said:

The Shrine is a place of pilgrimage. It recalls the appearances of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531 and proclaims once again her message of God’s mercy and love. In the preparation of the Great Jubilee Year 2000, Pope John Paul II confirmed the importance of shrines and pilgrimages to shrines for our spiritual life. In my ministry as Bishop of La Crosse and now as Archbishop of St. Louis, I have noted the wholehearted response of the faithful during pilgrimages over the past several years. It has been my desire to provide a place of authentic devotion to Mary, the Mother of God, to which the faithful may go on pilgrimage. In response to my request, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II gave his Apostolic Blessing to the work of establishing such a place of pilgrimage, the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

For complete information on the shrine and its dedication, visit its website at: http://www.guadalupeshrine.org/.

Devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe

Devotion is the manifestation of our love, our honor and our respect for a person. The devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe began in Mexico from the moment Bishop Zumarraga fell on his knees when St. Juan Diego opened his tilma in front of him. Miraculous roses fell from his tilma and Our Lady’s miraculous image appeared on it.

The Bishop took the tilma to his private chapel where he venerated Our Lady’s portrait before the Blessed Sacrament. From there it was moved to the new sanctuary that Our Lady had requested, that was erected at Tepeyac Hill within two weeks. The tilma was processed to the new chapel on December 26, 1531 by thousands of church and civil dignitaries, Indians and Spaniards.

Thousands of Indians and Spaniards soon came to the chapel to venerate Our Lady’s portrait and to listen to St. Juan Diego relate the story of her apparitions and messages.

The tilma was venerated in the first sanctuary from 1531 to 1622 when construction began on the Old Basilica. It was venerated in a temporary church until the completion of the Old Basilica in 1709. The New Basilica Shrine in Mexico was dedicated on October 11, 1976.

These churches were built in response to Our Lady’s expressed earnest wish, “That a sanctuary be built here to my honor. Here I will demonstrate, I will exhibit, I will give all my love, my compassion, my help and my protection to the people.”

Our Lady requested a material church so that she, the Mother of the Church, could replace the false goddess Tontantzin and her temple and build us up as temples of the Holy Spirit in the spiritual Church, the mystical Body of Christ. Her love, help and protection for the people were demonstrated time after time.

Altars, shrines, statues and churches dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe spread from Mexico throughout the world to Italy, Spain, France, England, Sweden, Japan, Poland and the United States.

There is a beautiful Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. On the walls are inscribed the words, “Who is she who comes forth like the rising dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, like the rainbow gleaming amid luminous clouds, like the bloom of roses in the spring?” The altar depicts in mosaic the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The mosaic walls show streams of pilgrims coming to venerate her as they continue to do at the Basilica Shrine near Mexico City by the thousands daily and up to twenty million annually.

The Basilica Shrine in Mexico holds 10,000 people inside and many more can see into it from the plaza outside. The Miraculous Image is enshrined behind bullet-proof glass with three frames of gold, silver and bronze. It is located on a wall behind the main altar twenty-five feet above three moving walkways that carry the pilgrims to view it from below.

More pilgrims go to the Mexican Basilica Shrine than any other religious place on the earth. They come in throngs of a cross-section of humanity from all over the world, many finishing the last hundreds of yards of their pilgrimage on their knees. They have answered in confidence Our Lady’s call to St. Juan Diego to bring her their love, their cries and their sorrows. She fulfills her promises and hears them. She remedies and alleviates their sufferings, necessities and misfortunes. All find something to love in Our Lady of Guadalupe who is the light that shines above the darkness of this age.

Hopefully, now many will visit her new shrine in LaCrosse, Wisconsin and receive these graces from Our Lady of Guadalupe whom Pope John Paul II named, Mother of Hope, Star of the New Evangelization and Queen and Mother of America.

[CE Editor's note: To avoid confusion over the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of America, please note: The patroness of the United States is the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. The Patronal Catholic Church of the United States is the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception located in Washington, D.C., which was built to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary as Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, the Patroness of the United States. It is right and good for Catholics in the United States to honor the Blessed Virgin by her many titles: Our Lady of Guadalupe; Mother of Sorrows; Mary, Help of Christians; Our Lady of Fatima; Our Lady of Lourdes; etc.  But the preeminent way that we Catholics in the Unites States honor Mary is as Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.]

Husband of Mary

From Scripture we know that the great virtue of St. Joseph was his obedient faith. "He did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary as his wife" (Mt. 1:24). He did this in spite of the fact that Mary's pregnancy was apparently visible to everyone. He took her in the mystery of her motherhood and acted in obedient faith, as did Mary when she said, "Let it be done to me according to your word" (Lk. 1:38). "Blessed are they who have not seen, yet have believed" (Jn. 20:29).

As the Second Vatican Council teaches, "The obedience of faith must be given to God as He reveals Himself. By this obedience of faith man freely commits himself entirely to God, making the full submission of his intellect and will to God who reveals and willingly assenting to the revelation given by Him." St. Joseph is the model of this obedient faith. He obeyed the command of the angel and took Mary as his wife in marriage and virginity in a communion of love with God and each other.

As the foster father of Jesus, St. Joseph showed Him all the natural love and affection of a father's heart. He placed his life at the service of God in total self-giving for our Savior who grew up in his house. And Jesus grew "in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man" (Lk. 2:52).

Worker

The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker is celebrated on May 1. This Feast was instituted by Pope Pius XII in order to impress on our minds the dignity of human work and the principles according to which it should be carried on. He chose St. Joseph as the model and helper of all workers.        

From the example of St. Joseph, we should learn that we work in obedience to God's command for our earthly needs while at the same time hoping to attain our heavenly reward. He who was obedient to God's commands took care of the Holy Family by his skill and labor will not fail to extend his help and protection to his co-workers.

On His part, Jesus "was obedient to them" (Lk. 2:51) and thereby sanctified His daily work with St. Joseph. Work was the daily expression of love in the Holy Family. Work, which was a consequence of Original Sin (see Gn. 3:17-20), was now redeemed by Jesus who labored at the workbench with St. Joseph. Work is a human good which transforms nature and makes man, in a sense, more human.

Pius XII decreed that the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker should be celebrated on May 1^st, the traditional Workers' Day. He hoped that St. Joseph's patronage would promote peace between workers and their employers and end the strife that too often marred their relationship.

Pope Paul VI said, "St. Joseph is the model of those humble ones that Christianity raises up to great destinies; he is the proof that in order to be a good and genuine follower of Christ, there is no need of great things — it is enough to have the common, simple and human virtues, but they need to be true and authentic."

Pope Pius IX declared St. Joseph to be the "Patron of the Catholic Church". We place our confidence in his protection because he will protect the Church family just as he protected the Holy Family.

Pope John Paul II prayed, "May St. Joseph become for all of us an exceptional teacher in the service of Christ's saving mission, a mission which is the responsibility of each and every member of the Church: husbands and wives, parents, those who live by the work of their hands or by any other kind of work, those called to the contemplative life and those called to the apostolate… ."

Peacemaker

The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in the United States and revealed her title as "Our Lady of America, The Immaculate Virgin." She also said, "I am the Immaculate One, Patroness of your land." She appeared to Sister Mildred Neuzil in several apparitions that began in 1956 and continued until her death on January 10, 2000 at the age of 83. The devotion to Our Lady of America is the only canonically approved devotion that is based upon apparitions of Our Lady in the United States.

On March 11, 1958, Our Lady of America spoke to Sister Mildred about St. Joseph. She said, "My holy spouse has an important part to play in bringing peace to the world." 

In confirmation of Our Lady's statement that St. Joseph "has an important part to play in bringing peace to the world", he told Sister Mildred on his feast day, March 19, 1958:

Dear child, I was king in the little home of Nazareth, for I sheltered within it the Prince of Peace and the Queen of Heaven. To me they looked for protection and sustenance, and I did not fail them.

I received from them the deepest love and reverence, for in me they saw Him whose place I took over them.

So the head of the family must be loved, obeyed, and respected, and in return be a true father and protector to those under his care.

In honoring in a special way my fatherhood, you also honor Jesus and Mary. The Divine Trinity has placed into our keeping the peace of the world.

The imitation of the Holy Family, my child, of the virtues we practiced in our little home at Nazareth is the way for all souls to that peace which comes from God alone and which none other can give.

Father

The Fatherhood of God is the source of human fatherhood. St. Joseph acted as the father of Jesus. Fathers are called to love and lead their families as a model of God the Father's love for them. St. Joseph is the model father. He came to Sister Mildred and said that fathers must come to him to learn obedience to authority, the Church and the laws of their country. Fathers also must imitate his great purity of life and the deep respect that he held for his Immaculate Spouse.

On the eve of his Feast, March 18, 1958, he came to Sister and said:

All Fatherhood is blest in me whom the Eternal Father chose as His representative on earth, the Virgin-Father of His own Divine Son. Through me the Heavenly Father has blessed all fatherhood, and through me He continues and will continue to do so till the end of time.

My spiritual fatherhood extends to all God's children, and together with my Virgin Spouse I watch over them with great love and solicitude.

Fathers must come to me, small one, to learn obedience to authority: to the Church always, as the mouthpiece of God, to the laws of the country in which they live, insofar as these do not go against God and their neighbor.

Mine was perfect obedience to the Divine Will, as it was shown and made known to me by the Jewish law and religion. To be careless in this is most displeasing to God and will be severely punished in the next world.

Let fathers also imitate my great purity of life and the deep respect I held for my Immaculate Spouse. Let them be an example to their children and fellowmen, never willfully doing anything that would cause scandal among God's people.

Fatherhood is from God, and it must take once again its rightful place among men.

Pure Heart

Jesus and Mary desire that the Pure Heart of St. Joseph be honored on the First Wednesday of each month. On March 30, 1958, he appeared to Sister Mildred and said:

I am the protector of the Church and the home, as I was the protector of Christ and His Mother while I lived upon earth. Jesus and Mary desire that my pure heart, so long hidden and unknown, be now honored in a special way. Let my children honor my most pure heart in a special manner on the First Wednesday of the month by reciting the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary in memory of my life with Jesus and Mary and the love I bore them, the sorrow I suffered with them. Let them receive Holy Communion in union with the love with which I received the Savior for the first time and each time I held Him in my arms.

Those who honor me in this way will be consoled by my presence at their death, and I myself will conduct them safely into the presence of Jesus and Mary.

So let us respond to the requests of St. Joseph and ask his intercession for the great gifts of God's protection, peace and presence.

From Scripture we know that the great virtue of St. Joseph was his obedient faith. “He did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary as his wife” (Mt 1:24). He did this in spite of the fact that Mary’s pregnancy was apparently visible to everyone. He took her in the mystery of her motherhood and acted in obedient faith, as did Mary when she said, “Let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). “Blessed are they who have not seen, yet have believed” (Jn 20:29).

As the Second Vatican Council teaches, “The obedience of faith must be given to God as He reveals Himself. By this obedience of faith man freely commits himself entirely to God, making the full submission of his intellect and will to God who reveals and willingly assenting to the revelation given by Him.” St. Joseph is the model of this obedient faith.

He obeyed the command of the angel and took Mary as his wife in marriage and virginity in a communion of love with God and each other.

As the foster father of Jesus, St. Joseph showed Him all the natural love and affection of a father’s heart. He placed his life at the service of God in total self-giving for our Savior who grew up in his house. And Jesus grew “in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Lk 2:52).

On his part, Jesus “was obedient to them” (Lk 2:51) and thereby sanctified His daily work with St. Joseph. Work was the daily expression of love in the Holy Family. Work, which was a consequence of Original Sin (see Gn 3:17-20), was now redeemed by Jesus who labored at the workbench with St. Joseph. Work is a human good that transforms nature and makes man in a sense, more human.

Pope Paul VI said, “St. Joseph is the model of those humble ones that Christianity raises up to great destinies; he is the proof that in order to be a good and genuine follower of Christ, there is no need of great things – it is enough to have the common, simple and human virtues, but they need to be true and authentic.

Pope Pius IX declared St. Joseph to be the “Patron of the Catholic Church.” We place our confidence in his protection because he will protect the Church family just as he protected the Holy Family.

Pope John Paul II prayed, “May St. Joseph become for all of us an exceptional teacher in the service of Christ’s saving mission, a mission which is the responsibility of each and every member of the Church: husbands and wives, parents, those who live by the work of their hands or by any other kind of work, those called to the contemplative life and those called to the apostolate.”

St. Joseph’s Oratory is located on Mount Royal in Montreal, Quebec. It has the second largest dome in the world, after St. Peter’s in Rome. The Oratory was built through the faith and signs and wonders performed by Blessed Andre Bessette in the early part of this century.

In the year 1916 alone, 435 people were healed. Brother Andre attributed all of these to the help of St. Joseph. He died at the age of 91 in 1937. Over a million faithful filed past his casket day and night for seven days. Pope John Paul II beatified him on May 23, 1982.

St Joseph and Blessed Andre, pray for us!

Dan Lynch is executive director of Jesus King and Our Lady of Guadalupe. To receive his free newsletter, click here.