Immaculate Conception Novena

Starting November 29th, I am joining over 6,000 Catholics to pray the Immaculate Conception Novena.

I’m looking forward to the answered prayers from this amazing saint! With so many faithful Catholics around the world praying this novena, I thought you’d like to join too. :)

Do you have any special petitions to bring to Mary?

You can sign up for handy email reminders to get the the novena prayers here: Immaculate Conception Novena

Let’s get all the Catholics we know to pray this novena together for the Immaculate Conception!

"Holy Mother, Pierce me through, In my heart, each wound renew, of my Savior, Crucified."

Other Posts on Our Lady of Sorrows: Mary's Martyrdom,  Stabat Mater

Happy Birthday Blessed Mother!

"Hence the Mother of our Lord is announced. An angel foretells her birth. It was fitting that in this, too, she, who was to be the human Mother of the one true and living God, should be marked out above every one else..."

"In the fullness of time, as the divine apostle says, the angel Gabriel was sent to this true child of God, and saluted her in the words, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." Beautiful is the angel's salutation to her who is greater than an angel..."

"...she who was worthy of grace had found it. She found grace who had done the deeds of race, and had reaped its fullness. She found grace who brought forth the source of grace, and was a rich harvest of grace. She found an abyss of grace who kept undefiled her double virginity, her virginal soul no less spotless than her body; hence her perfect virginity."

"Then the messenger of truth answered her: "The Holy Spirit shall come to thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. Therefore He who is born to thee shall be called the Son of God. '...And she, listening in holy reverence to that sacred name, which she had ever desired, signified her obedience in words full of humility and joy: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word.'"

~St. John Damascene, Sermon I on the Dormition of Mary

Bl. John Paul II on Our Lady - Happy Birthday Mama Mary!

Quote of the Day: Pope John Paul II on the Incarnation

"The Incarnation is the fruit of an immense Love, which spurred God willingly to share our human condition to the full. In becoming man, the Word of God brought about a fundamental change in the very condition of time. We can say that in Christ human time was filled with Eternity." 
~Pope John Paul II 

Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary

"The traditional image of Our Lady of the Rosary portrays Mary who with one arm supports the Child Jesus and with the other is offering the Rosary Beads to St. Dominic. This important iconography shows that the Rosary is a means given by the Virgin to contemplate Jesus and, in meditating on His life, to love Him and follow Him ever more faithfully. It is this message that Our Lady has also bequeathed to us in her various apparitions. I am thinking in particular of the apparition in Fatima...Presenting herself as Our Lady of the Rosary she insistently recommended the daily recitation of the Rosary to the three little shepherd children, Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco, in order to obtain the end of the war. Let us also accept the Virgin's motherly request, pledging to recite the Rosary with Faith for peace in families, nations and throughout the world."
~Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Oct. 7, 2010

"To recite the Rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ."

~Pope John Paul II

"The Rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next. The power of the Rosary is beyond description."
~Archbishop Fulton Sheen

"Among all the devotions approved by the Church none has been so favored by so many miracles as the devotion of the Most Holy Rosary."
~Pope Pius IX

"The Rosary is the compendium of the entire Gospel."
~Pope Pius XII

"No one can live continually in sin and continue to say the Rosary: either they will give up sin or they will give up the Rosary."
~Bishop Hugh Doyle

"It has always been the habit of Catholics in danger and in troublous times to fly for refuge to Mary, and to seek for peace in her maternal goodness; showing that the Catholic Church has always, and with justice, put all her hope and trust in the Mother of God. And truly the Immaculate Virgin, chosen to be the Mother of God and thereby associated with Him in the work of man's salvation, has a favour and power with her Son greater than any human or angelic creature has ever obtained, or ever can gain."
~Pope Leo XIII, 1883 Encyclical on Devotion of the Rosary

"I myself have often encouraged the frequent recitation of the Rosary. From my youthful years this prayer has held an important place in my spiritual life...The Rosary has accompanied me in moments of joy and in moments of difficulty. To it I have entrusted any number of concerns; in it I have always found comfort. Twenty-four years ago, on 29 October 1978, scarcely two weeks after my election to the See of Peter, I frankly admitted: “The Rosary is my favorite prayer. A marvellous prayer!...Against the background of the words Ave Maria the principal events of the life of Jesus Christ pass before the eyes of the soul. They take shape in the complete series of the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries, and they put us in living communion with Jesus through – we might say – the heart of his Mother. At the same time our heart can embrace in the decades of the Rosary all the events that make up the lives of individuals, families, nations, the Church, and all mankind. Our personal concerns and those of our neighbour, especially those who are closest to us, who are dearest to us. Thus the simple prayer of the Rosary marks the rhythm of human life.”"
~Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter on the The Rosary of the Virgin Mary


Resources on the Rosary: What is the Rosary? and How to pray it, History behind the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, Lepanto - 1874 Poem by G.K. Chesterton, Apostolic Letter - The Rosary of the Virgin Mary by Pope John Paul II, 1883 Encyclical - Devotion of the Rosary by Pope Leo XIII,