The Daisies Are In Bloom

When I woke up this morning the sun was already up. And when I went out my front porch to where my Mama Mary's shrine is, the sun was shining brightly on the red and pink daisies in bloom, on the pink roses and the few clematises nearing the end of their flowering season.

Then I remembered today is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, who made the Battle of Lepanto a victory of the followers of her Son against those who do not believe that God is a Father Who has a Son.

October is also the month we are urged to pray the Rosary daily, which is a meditation on the life of Jesus from His Incarnation to His passion, death, resurrection and the assumption into heaven of His Blessed Mother.

My little shrine of Our Lady manifests my family's love for the Mother of Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God. It is meant to honor her and her Divine Son.

When our Savior was hanging on the cross, He gave us the mother He loves to also be our mother. That is why we love her. She is the mother of the Lord. And she points us to Jesus. Remember the wedding at Cana?

When I was working for a family corporation many years ago, my female boss, a member of a Born Again Christian group, who was very kind to me, claimed that God is a jealous God and would disapprove of Mary being loved and honored the way Catholics do.

My then executive assistant, who belonged to the same denomination, also questioned how we hold the mother of our Savior in the very high esteem that we do. I gave her a detailed and lengthy biblical support of Catholics' love and honor for her. She was apparently convinced but then respectfully said: "But not too much, Sir."

Someone closely related and dear to me, now an ex-Catholic, said that she cannot understand why in the Rosary we pray a lot more Hail Marys than the Our Father. She obviously did not see that the Hail Mary in itself references Jesus, the "Fruit of her womb" and that the Rosary is a meditation on the life of our Savior. She did not see that the rosary beads begin and end with the Crucifix.

Do we love and honor Mary more than we love and honor our Lord Jesus?

The answer is we cannot love Mary more than her Son Jesus loves her and who blessed her with grace for her role in mankind's redemption through her FIAT.

Remember what Jesus did for His mother at the wedding at Cana?

If we love and honor His mother also, will our Lord not be pleased?#