VIRGIN MOST MERCIFUL

(1) MARY, you are most merciful because you love souls most tenderly. Your heart is full of compassion for all, and you use your influence with God to relieve the needs of all mankind. When the Archangel Gabriel came to announce to you that you were chosen by God to become the Mother of His Son, you could have declined. You accepted even though you knew that untold sufferings would await you, and that you would become the Queen of Martyrs. You accepted for the love of sinful man. Had you not given your consent, we would have remained without a Redeemer.

At the marriage feast of Cana you noticed how distressed the newly married couple were when the wine began to fail. You immediately brought a request to your Son: "They have no wine" (John 2,8). Jesus heard your prayer and worked His first miracle by changing water into wine because you asked Him.

In heaven you love us even more than you did on earth. Your mercy is also greater because now you have a clearer understanding of our misery.

(2) MARY, you love us more tenderly and care for us more earnestly in our temporal and spiritual needs than our own mothers can. Eve was a cruel stepmother to us; through her the infernal serpent breathed into the first man his deadly poison. But you are a true Mother to us; you have prepared for us the remedy against this poison. After the fall, man became subject to sin, misery, disease and death. God, who is rich in mercy, gave us Jesus and you. No two persons were more animated with tenderest sentiments of compassion and mercy. Jesus willed to become like one of us and chose to know sorrow. As the Mother of Sorrows you became the loving Mother of mankind beneath the cross. In you there is nothing stern or terrifying; you are full of mildness and mercy. I thank God who in His great goodness gave me such a gentle, loving and powerful intercessor before His throne.

(3) MARY, the history all ages proves how merciful you are. Thousands upon thousands of Christians who have found help in their needs through you, acknowledge with one voice that you are the merciful Virgin who rescued them from great dangers, saved them from eternal death, and granted them innumerable blessings.

Virgin Most Merciful, may your mercy teach me to be merciful and unselfish. I cannot imitate you if I care only for myself and disregard the misery of others. I entreat your help for suffering mankind and for myself in my miseries. May your great mercy and goodness also encourage me to be kind towards my fellowmen, to treat all charitably, to bear patiently with their weaknesses, and to help them in their needs, that you may prove yourself a Mother of Mercy to me.

O God, Whose compassion is without limit, show us Your mercy on earth through the most holy intercession of Mary, the Mother of Your Son, that we may merit to attain eternal glory. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen. (Feast of Mary, Mother of Mercy, Sat. before the 4th Sun. of July)