Some years ago, Bishop Latino gave us priests a book for Christmas entitled Behold Your Mother: Priests Speak about Mary, edited by Stephen Rossetti. It talks about the special relationship that we priests have with Mary. It really touched my heart to read these reflections by different priests about how they see Mary in their lives and in their priesthood. We have a lot of different days in the Church in which we honor Mary; I enjoy being able to honor Mary in a special way through our Church’s liturgical celebrations. Just last Sunday, we celebrated the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary. This upcoming weekend, on August 22, is the feast of the Queenship of Mary.
Today, we celebrate Mary as Our Lady of Knock, an apparition of the Blessed Mary which good place in 1879 in the village of Knock in county Mayo, Ireland. On August 21 of that year, 15 people of that village saw an apparition of Mary with St Joseph, St John the Evangelist, a lamb, and a cross. They watched that vision in the pouring rain for two hours. It is now an important place of pilgrimage where many miraculous healings have occurred.
Our psalm today declares: “The Lord speak of peace to his people.” One of the titles assigned to Mary is the Queen of Peace. In the Catholic faith, we see Mary bringing us closer to the values of God’s kingdom, the values of peace, reconciliation, healing, wholeness, and justice. Mary indeed does all she can through her motherly love for us to guide us to the light of Christ and to help us grow ever closer to her Son.
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