Christkindlmarkt

The Dayton Liederkranz-Turner Christkindlmarkt will offer a centuries old German Christmas Market tradition that originated in Nuremberg, Germany on Dec. 9-11.  The public is invited, with free admission and free parking.  There will also be a Christmas Concert that Saturday from 8-9 pm (when the booths will be closed).  For more information call 937-223-9013 or click into DaytonGermanClub.org.

Click this link for a list of all of the current Marian Events by geographical position.

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You are invited to help us pray for our Prayer Corner intentions.  Please take a look! This site has been updated and enhanced and now allows users to directly submit prayer requests or to volunteer as a prayer partner for these intentions!

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Cardinal Man Urges Catholics To Focus On Christ After Reports Of Weeping Marian Statue
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, November 16, 2005 (UCAN)

Following claims that a Marian statue shed tears, Cardinal Jean Baptiste Pham Minh Man has asked Catholics to focus on Christ and to await results of the Church's investigation of those claims.

"The Church is always very careful about determining whether a phenomenon is a miracle or not," the cardinal-archbishop of Ho Chi Minh City said in a letter sent to all parishes Nov. 4.

The 71-year-old Church leader said no conclusive evidence has emerged yet to substantiate claims that the Marian statue in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in downtown Ho Chi Minh City actually "cried." Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's commercial capital, is 1,710 kilometers south of Ha Noi.

"So I am planning to set up a committee to investigate the phenomenon," he said in his message, which he asked parish priests to read during Sunday Masses on Nov. 6 and to post at venues where Catholics gather.

Thousands have flocked to Cong Xa Paris Square in front of the cathedral following rumors that the Marian statue there shed tears on Oct. 29.

The crowds have been coming to pray, sing Marian songs, recite the Rosary and to satisfy their curiosity. Many said they saw tear marks on the cheek of the statue, which was erected in 1959. It is a little more than three meters tall, atop a pedestal of approximately the same height.

At times, the streets leading to the square have been so packed with people that policemen and municipal workers have had to set up barriers to prevent motorbikes and cars from approaching the area.

"Being responsible for instructing you and journeying with you in the faith, I would like to remind you of the basic truth of the Christian faith--that is Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life," wrote the cardinal in his letter.

As he counseled Catholics to await the results of the investigation, Cardinal Man urged them "to keep our souls peaceful so that we can avoid actions and words that cause not only Catholics but also non-Catholics to misunderstand and misjudge."

He exhorted the people to "listen to God's voice in our hearts, and act according to His word, not according to our passing feelings." He also asked them to build their faith life on the word of God that offers love, justice and peace to all.

A Catholic doctor who married a Buddhist man 21 years ago and subsequently stopped attending church told UCA News that on Oct. 29, after hearing the rumors, she and her daughter visited the statue.

Looking up at the face through a pair of binoculars, she said, she saw the statue weeping. "My daughter and I prayed at the statue until 4 p.m. the next day, and then we attended Sunday Mass," the woman said.

A photographer who has taken photos of tourists visiting the cathedral for 15 years said he saw "a line of tears on Mary's face and believed in the strange phenomenon."

"The Blessed Mother cries as other women do because their children are disobedient or are committing sins, so we must keep ourselves free from sin and avoid temptations," the 45-year-old man said.

However, his wife noted that "people have the right to believe or not believe in the phenomenon."

Teresa Trang, who had come with some women from Binh Thuan parish to recite the rosary, stated her belief that "the Blessed Mother cries since people commit a lot of sins, especially abortion."

Some Catholics told UCA New they were concerned about comments some priests made to state-run newspapers on Oct. 30 and 31. One of the priests, Father Jean Baptiste Huynh Cong Minh, the cathedral parish priest, reportedly referred to the alleged phenomenon as "a groundless rumor." He said that as the statue is placed out in the open, dirt could have accumulated on it, and the alleged tear marks could have been marks left by the rain.

Father Minh, who is the archdiocese's vicar general, the highest local Church official after Cardinal Man, said he had asked all priests to tell Catholics not to believe the rumor.

Other priests suggested that people with ulterior motives might have spread the rumors. In the wake of the claimed miracle, photos of the Marian statue reportedly were selling for 30,000 dong (US$2). Many people have reported having their pockets picked or necklaces stolen as they jostled in crowds.

Some Catholics told UCA News it was too early for the priests to comment on the phenomenon when the local Church has yet to do so officially. However, some said belief in the phenomenon also should wait for official Church approval. Marie Nguyen Thi Ngoc Quynh, who works for a local newspaper, said, "I will believe in the phenomenon only when the Church recognizes it."

Some Buddhists UCA News talked with at the site said they found it difficult to believe the phenomenon, but came to pray to the Blessed Mother anyway.

Maria Crocifissa Curcio: Her Life
Founder of Carmelite Missionary SistersTo Be Beatified
Vatican City, November 10, 2005

The Holy See issued a biography of Maria Crocifissa Curcio (1877-1957), founder of the Carmelite Missionary Sisters of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, who will be beatified Sunday in St. Peter's Basilica. The following excerpt tells about her devotion to Mary.

In 1890, at age 13, she succeeded, not without difficulty, in enrolling in the Carmelite Third Order. Because of her regular attendance at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and her deep devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, who "had captured her heart since childhood" by assigning her the mission of "making the Carmel re-flourish," her knowledge of Carmelite spirituality made her understand the divine plans in store for her.

Nazareth Project Uniting Christians, Jews and Muslims
Multimedia Center to Focus on Mary
Nazareth, Israel, November 9, 2005

A bishop of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem is promoting a new high-tech multimedia center dedicated to Mary of Nazareth. The project is coordinated by the Mary of Nazareth Association, which arose in France. Auxiliary Bishop Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo is the delegate of the Assembly of the Bishops of the Holy Land whose goal is to support the initiative. The Marian center is being established, using buildings around the Basilica of the Annunciation, to focus on the mystery of the Mother of God.

In a statement to ZENIT today, Bishop Marcuzzo explained that the project is a "small miracle" of "unity and peace," as it has united for the first time the churches of the Holy Land: Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant. The bishop said that the Jewish authorities favor this project and that it has the support of Muslim believers who venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary. "When you hear talk of the Holy Land, unfortunately you hear about conflicts, war, terrorism, violence, death," he said. "Here is a project that unites Christians of all denominations, including Protestants, and finally also Muslims and Jews."

The prelate described as "providential" the way in which the buildings near the basilica have been purchased, "next to the place in which the great mystery of the Incarnation was realized." Such purchases seemed impossible just a few years ago, he said. Twelve other similar centers around the world are being established. The prelate is confident that the center will be very useful for the local Church, which "really needs it," to be able to carry out "a pastoral program of the holy places." Bishop Marcuzzo, 60, explained that the project needs the support of Christians to be consolidated and believes it is an effective way to support the Holy Land.  See mariedenazareth.com.

On "Dei Verbum" and Reading Scripture
"The Church Always Draws From the Gospel"
Vatican City, November 6, 2005

Here is the conclusion of the address Benedict XVI gave today from the window of his study to the crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square before the midday Angelus. As a condition, "lectio divina" requires that the mind and heart be illuminated by the Holy Spirit, that is, by the inspirer himself of the Scriptures and to place oneself, therefore, in an attitude of "religious listening." This is the typical attitude of Mary Most Holy exactly as shown in the emblematic image of the annunciation: The Virgin receives the heavenly messenger while meditating on the sacred Scriptures, represented generally with a book that May holds in her hands, or on her lap, or on a lectern. This is also the image of the Church offered by the Council itself, in the constitution "Dei Verbum" (No. 1). Let us pray so that, like Mary, the Church is a docile handmaid of the Divine Word and proclaims it always with firm confidence so that "the whole world, hearing, will believe the proclamation of salvation; believing will hope, and hoping will love" (ibid.).

Charismatics Invited to '06 Meeting With Pope
Fatima, Portugal, October 27, 2005

A Vatican official invited the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships to prepare for next year's meeting of the Pope with new Church movements and communities.

Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, made that exhortation on the occasion of the first European conference of this organization of pontifical right, which opens in Fatima on Friday.

"Five days of blessings" is how this charismatic organization describes the meeting at the Marian shrine. The event's theme is "Eucharist and New Evangelization in the School of Mary."

The meeting in Fatima will highlight the importance of the Eucharist in charismatic communities.

The Holy Eucharist and Marian Devotion
Michael F. Hull--Teleconference on the Internet
October 31, 2005

Devotion to the Holy Eucharist and devotion to Our Lady are so closely bound as to be inseparable. As Mother and Son are united in an "indissoluble tie" (Lumen gentium, no. 53), so too devotion to Mother and Son are tightly linked. This is expressed most beautifully by the medieval religious poem "Ave Verum," immortalized as a motet by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1791.

In his encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, the late Pope John Paul II devotes the sixth and final chapter to Mary, which he entitles "At the School of Mary: 'Woman of the Eucharist'." Therein, the pope points out significant parallels in the lives of Jesus and Mary. For example, Jesus’ words at the Last Supper--"Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19)--echo Mary’s words at the Wedding at Cana--"Do whatever he tells you" (John 2:5). Likewise, Mary’s Fiat to the Archangel Gabriel (Luke 1:38) prefigures the Amen of each communicant at the reception of Holy Communion. Speaking of Mary’s own reception of Holy Communion after the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, John Paul remarks: "For Mary, receiving the Eucharist must have somehow meant welcoming once more into her womb that heart which had beat in unison with hers and reliving what she had experienced at the foot of the Cross" (EE, no. 56). Mutatis mutandis, we are also brought to the foot of the Cross in Holy Communion, where we are united not only with the Lord, but also with the stabat Mater dolorosa. Finally, we find Our Lord entrusting his Mother to St. John, who as the "beloved disciple" had such a prominent place at the bosom of Jesus at the Last Supper, and St. John to his Mother (John 19:26­–27). Holy tradition recounts how Mary and St. John eventually settled at Ephesus, the place where Mary kept so much in her heart until her Assumption (cf. Luke 2:33–35 and 2:51).

During the public ministry of the Lord, Mary is rarely in the foreground. Except for the Wedding at Cana--when Jesus prefigured his miracle of the Eucharist by turning water into wine at Mary’s request (John 2:1–11)--and at the foot of the Cross--when Jesus concluded his Passion (John 19:25)--Mary is always in the background. Her presence is always pointing toward her Son. And that is the very heart of Marian devotion: a strong, omnipresent, and relatively silent expression of devotion to the will of God oriented to his and her Son.

Throughout the history of the Church, the saints have understood this truth. Two examples will suffice. In the fourth century, St. Ambrose expressed the hope that all of his people would inculcate the spirit of Mary as a means to glorify God: "May the heart of Mary be in each Christian to proclaim the greatness of the Lord; may her spirit be in everyone to exult in God." Similarly, fourteen hundred years later St. John Bosco had a vision of two pillars anchoring the bark of Peter in the midst of a stormy sea: the pillar of the Eucharist and the pillar of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The larger pillar, that of the Eucharist, had the words "Salvation of Believers" and the smaller, that of Mary, "Help of Christians."

Mary is, indeed, the help of Christians, leading them to Jesus and the Eucharist. Devotion to Our Lady is always together with devotion to Our Lord, especially in the Eucharist, as the Church sings: "Ave verum corpus natum de Maria Virgine ..."

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