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Rev. Fr. Anthony Mary, MFVA originally is from Cologne, Minnesota. Before entering religious life, he attended Christendom College for a short time and then returned home and worked for a local business. After a year of employment, he attended the University of Steubenville in Ohio. While in college he visited the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word and entered in 1993. In June of 2000 Br. Anthony was ordained to priesthood and served as Vocation Director, Novice Master and MFVA Council. He currently serves as the Postulant Director, EWTN Board Member, Director of Priestly Formation and Community Servant. |
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Rev. Bryce Sibley Fr. Bryce Sibley was ordained to the Holy Priesthood July 15, 2000. He is a native of Lafayette Louisiana and presently the pastor at St. Anne's in Mamou, Louisiana. Fr. Sibley has his licentiate degree from the Roman John Paul II Institute of Marriage and Family and wrote his thesis on "Man and Woman as Imago Dei in the thought of John Paul II." He has several publication out and is able to read Italian, French, and Spanish. Fr. Sibley teaches Ecclesiology, Moral Theology, Theology of the Body, and a course on the thought of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Education: S.T.L., Marriage and the Family, Pontifical Lateran University (John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family), 2001 Dissertation: Man and Woman as Imago Dei in the Thought of John Paul II S.T.B., Theology, Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, 1999 B.A., St. Joseph Seminary College, St. Benedict, LA, 1996. Post-Ordination Teaching Experience Professor, 2007 Notre Dame Seminary, New Orleans, LA Course: Introduction to Moral Theology I Professor, 2006-present Aquinas Institute for Theology and Catholic Studies Courses: Introduction to Catholic Moral Theology (Fall 2006), Introduction to John Paul II's Theology of the Body (Fall 2008), Master's Level Ecclesiology (Spring 2009) Assistant Debate Coach, 2004-present Teurlings Catholic High School, Lafayette, LA Teacher, 2001-2003 Sacred Heart Catholic High School, Ville Platte, LA Courses: Introduction to Philosophy,Moral Theology Coached Debate Team, 2002-2003 . |
Catholics have always turned instinctively for help to the Mother of God in times of need. And so, in 2012 we turn to Our Lady for help. Many of the values that shaped our Country from the beginning seem to be at risk. Pope Benedict XVI and the American Bishops have noted the erosion of religious freedom in the United States, the first value guaranteed by the Constitution.
This Novena to the Mother of God for the Nation will remind us of some of the central truths of the faith, in particular, the Incarnation, passion, death, resurrection of the Lord and Mary's unique role in our salvation. It will be, in a way, a catechism lesson that challenges us to a deeper conversion to Christ and a more generous life of charity.
The proximity of the Novena to the 2012 Presidential Election will also offer an opportunity to pray for all of our government officials and seek Divine Assistance in the elections.
Download a copy below of Novena to the Mother of God for the Nation written by Fr. Frederick L. Miller, S.T.D., 2012.
September 29 - October 7
Join us in prayer with this Novena for the Nation
The Divine Motherhood of Mary
Airs live Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2012 at 8 AM ET
Lo, the star which the Wise Men had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. – Matthew 2: 9-11
Prayer
We fly to your patronage,
O holy Mother of God;
Despise not our prayers in our necessities,
But ever deliver us from all dangers,
O glorious and blessed Virgin.
Reflection
James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore from 1877 to 1921, explained to his flock why Catholics delight to honor Mary with the title Mother of God:
When we call the Blessed Virgin the Mother of God, we assert our belief in two things: First – That her Son, Jesus Christ, is true man, else she were not a mother. Second – That He is true God, else she were not the Mother of God. In other words, we affirm that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word of God, who in His divine nature is from all eternity begotten of the Father, consubstantial with Him. He was in the fullness of time again begotten, by being born of the Virgin, thus taking to Himself, from her maternal womb, a human nature of the same substance with hers.
But it may be said the Blessed Virgin is not the Mother of the Divinity. She had not, and she could not have, any part in the generation of the Word of God, for that generation is eternal; her maternity is temporal. He is her Creator; she is His creature. Style her, if you will, the Mother of the man Jesus or even of the human nature of the Son of God, but not the Mother of God.
I shall answer this objection by putting a question. Did the mother who bore us have any part in the production of our soul? Was not this nobler part of our being the work of God alone? And yet who would for a moment dream of saying “the mother of my body,” and not “my mother?”
The comparison teaches us that the terms parent and child, mother and son, refer to the persons and not to the parts or elements of which the persons are composed. Hence no one says: “The mother of my body,” “the mother of my soul”; but in all propriety “my mother,” the mother of I who live and breathe, think and act, one in my personality, though uniting in it a soul directly created by God, and a material body directly derived from the maternal womb. In like manner, as far as the sublime mystery of the Incarnation can be reflected in the natural order, the Blessed Virgin, under the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, by communicating to the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, as mothers do, a true human nature of the same substance with her own, is thereby really and truly His Mother.
It is in this sense that the title of Mother of God, denied by Nestorius, was vindicated to her by the General Council of Ephesus, in 431; in this sense, and in no other, has the Church called her by that title.
Prayer
God, our Almighty Father, by becoming a man your Son revealed the goodness and holiness of human conception, pregnancy, and birth. With tender maternal love, the Virgin Mary conceived your eternal Son, carried him beneath her heart, and brought him to birth. No intervention of yours in human history illustrates more clearly the greatness and dignity of woman than the Incarnation. May Mary help all to believe that the man she bore, Jesus Christ, is truly your eternal Son-made-man. May she help all to appreciate the wonder of conception, pregnancy, and birth. Draw all women in our society to her motherly embrace. Help them understand that their children are created by you at the moment of their conception and belong to you in this life and in the next. Father, protect all women from attacks against their maternal fecundity. Guard them from those who war against them and their dignity through the promotion of contraception, sterilization, and abortion. We ask this through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.