Paradise, St. Joseph and Our Lady

Mary Vitamin for March 15^th

Topic: Paradise, St. Joseph and Our Lady

Quote:

"Joseph, meanwhile, in the midst of his labours and his poverty esteemed himself superlatively rich, because in Mary he possessed the rarest and most precious treasure on earth. Her presence was paradise to him."

Edward Healy Thompson, M. A., The Life and Glories of Saint Joseph, (Tan Books: 1980), 193.

Meditation:

St. Louis de Montfort

"I declare with the saints: Mary is the earthly paradise of Jesus Christ the new Adam, where he became man by the power of the Holy Spirit, in order to accomplish in her wonders beyond our understanding. She is the vast and divine world of God where unutterable marvels and beauties are to be found. She is the magnificence of the Almighty where he hid his only Son, as in his own bosom, and with him everything that is most excellent and precious. What great and hidden things the all- powerful God has done for this wonderful creature, as she herself had to confess in spite of her great humility, "The Almighty has done great things for me." The world does not know these things because it is incapable and unworthy of knowing them."

True Devotion to Mary, #6

Resolution:St. Joseph, in preparing for your feast day, I will unite myself with you so that I may learn that Our Lady is my paradise: The Virgin Earth in which the Tree of Life was conceived.

St. Joseph, please remind me today to turn to and dwell in my paradise.

Marian Vow:

"The Marian Vow, in fact, makes one the 'absolute property' of the Immaculate, and, therefore, tends to assimilate little by little to Her, up to 'transubstantiation' into Her, as St. Maximilian says (SK 508), up to transfiguration into Her, and so one might come to paraphrase St. Paul thus: 'It is no longer I who live, but it is the Immaculate who lives Jesus in me.'"

Marian Seraphic Pathways, Directory #23

I give this resolution to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Thanks be to God for graces received.

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