FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (April 18, 2008)--Beginning on Thursday, May 1 (Solemnity of the Ascension), to Saturday, May 10 (day before Pentecost), believers from all over the world are invited to participate in a worldwide novena for a renewed descent of the Holy Spirit, a "New Pentecost," for our day.

International lay leaders, as well as cardinals, bishops, clergy, and religious have given their support to this Pentecost prayer novena. Among the most noteworthy supporters are Mother Angelica, foundress of the worldwide Catholic network EWTN; Ambassador Howard Dee, former Vatican ambassador from the Philippines; Michael O'Brien, renowned Canadian novelist and social commentator; and Sister Briege McKenna, O.S.C., an Irish Sister of St. Clare, who has an international ministry to priests and bishops.

As part of the Pentecost Novena, participants are called to pray the Rosary, along with their choice of prayers calling for a new descent of the Holy Spirit into the hearts of all peoples through the intercession of Mary, Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate.

During his recent papal visit to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI specifically requested to implore God for a “new Pentecost for the Church in America”: “As we give thanks for these precious past blessings, and look to the challenges of the future, let us implore from God the grace of a new Pentecost for the Church in America. May tongues of fire, combining burning love of God and neighbor with zeal for the spread of Christ’s Kingdom, descend on all present” (St. Patrick’s Cathedral, April 19, 2008).  This novena seeks to respond to Pope Benedict in imploring the grace of a new Pentecost for the entire Church and world in our presently threatening global situation.

2008 Worldwide Pentecost Novena

Thursday, May 1 – Saturday, May 10

For a Renewed Descent of the Holy Spirit in Our Day

“As we give thanks for past blessings, and look to the challenges of the future, let us implore from God the grace of a new Pentecost for the Church in America. May tongues of fire, combining burning love of God and neighbor with zeal for the spread of Christ’s Kingdom, descend on all present.”

Pope Benedict XVI, Papal Visit to the United States, April 19, 2008

Our world is in great danger. It is under constant threat from unprecedented acts of terrorism and war, disasters of nature, economic crises, mass hunger, moral decline, attacks on human rights and the sanctity of human life.

As people of faith, we know we are engaged in a colossal battle between the Gospel of Life and the "culture of death." We are deeply concerned, but not without hope. More and more people realize that our world needs conversion. More and more people realize that our efforts alone will not be enough. We need the help of heaven.

As the great feast of Pentecost approaches, this is the opportune time for a mass appeal to the Lord to send again and anew His Holy Spirit over our wounded world. Let us respond to and extend the call of our beloved Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI for a “new Pentecost” for the entire Church and world.

This is the time to gather around Mary, as the Apostles did in the Upper Room 2,000 years ago, in praying for a New Pentecost in our day. We share the deep inspiration that the Lord entrusted our time and our world in a special way to the Immaculate Heart of His Mother. Remembering her promises, we make an urgent call on her motherly advocacy. Through the power of her maternal intercession as Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate, the Lord will work miracles and send His Holy Spirit.

Please join us in praying the Pentecost Novena Prayer, starting Thursday, May 1 (Solemnity of the Ascension) to Saturday, May 10 (day before the Solemnity of Pentecost).

Pray every day the Holy Rosary.

Add to it from among these prayers:

"Come Holy Spirit, come through Mary."

Pray the following powerful prayer:

"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father,

send now your Spirit over the earth.

Let the Holy Spirit live in the hearts of all nations,

that they may be preserved

from degeneration, disaster and war.

May the Lady of All Nations,

the Blessed Virgin Mary, be our Advocate. Amen."

The beautiful Pentecost prayer of the Church:

"Veni Sancte Spiritus…"

Pray as your heart leads you …

Prayer can change the world. Prayer is great in the eyes of the Lord and will also lift up your own life. International lay leaders, as well as cardinals, bishops, clergy, and religious have given their support to the prayer novena. Among the most noteworthy supporters are Mother Angelica, foundress of the worldwide Catholic network EWTN; Ambassador Howard Dee, former Vatican ambassador from the Philippines; Michael O'Brien, renowned Canadian novelist and social commentator; and Sister Briege McKenna, O.S.C., an Irish Sister of St. Clare, who has an international ministry to priests and bishops.

Please join us. Time is short. Let us use this time of mercy!  Please feel free to distribute and translate this flyer.

The following presents the messages from Jesus to Anne regarding the value of suffering in His instructions to His Lay Apostles (Volume X: Jesus Speaks to His Apostles). The messages are both sublime and powerful, and we share them with you. Anne, a visionary from Ireland, has received permission from her local ordinary, Bishop Leo O’Reilly, for the distribution of messages which she receives from Jesus, God the Father, Our Blessed Mother, the angels and saints (see article, "Discernment of Lay Apostolate of Jesus Christ the Returning King," Marian Private Revelation section). – Ed.

September 23, 2004

Jesus

Dear children, I dedicate this little volume to My servants, those who seek to spread My message of love and salvation. Dearest souls, so bravely serving the Kingdom, your reward will be great. Many of you have been pulled from sin and darkness yourselves and brought to the Light. I welcomed your return as if you were My only child. The place reserved for you in My heart felt complete when you came back to Me. Truly and completely do I love you.

The following article is an excerpt from a chapter in the recently published Marian anthology, Mariology: A Guide for Priests, Deacons, Seminarians, and Consecrated Persons, Seat of Wisdom Books, A Division of Queenship, 2008. Fifteen international Mariology experts contributed to the text. The book features a foreword by Archbishop Raymond L. Burke and has 17 chapters divided into four parts: 1. Mary in Scripture and the Early Church; 2. Marian Dogma; 3. Marian Doctrine; and 4. Marian Liturgy and Devotion. The book is now available from Queenship Publications. To obtain a copy, visit www.queenship.org.
Asst. Ed.

Marian mediation and its foundations have been the subject of extensive study, easily available in the published acts of congresses (1), anthologies (2), collections (3), monographs (4), and articles (5). The theme has been analyzed along biblical, patristic, liturgical, magisterial and dogmatic lines. If every published study on Marian mediation over the past one hundred years were to be cited, the mere listing of titles would probably fill a large book. An adequate, clear grasp of the status quaestionis, however, can be had by consulting the references just listed. With a few important exceptions, post-conciliar studies generally give greater attention to the sources, while those prior to the Council, though not neglecting the sources, place greater emphasis on the speculative aspects of this question.

The goal of this study is to strike a happy balance between sources and reflection on the sources so as to arrive at a concise and correct understanding of Catholic doctrine on Marian mediation here and now in the economy of salvation. Our point of departure will be an elaboration of the problematic in the formularies whereby it has been handed on in the Church. Thereafter, via a reflection on the sources of this doctrine, both remote and proximate, we will point out in a brief, summary conclusion how the traditional speculative questions arise and what is their significance for theology and for the life of the Church (6).

During her April 29, 1951, apparition, Our Lady of All Nations explains the dogma of the Co-redemptrix with visionary Ida Peerdeman, saying that the definition of the dogma is "already predestined." Again, the visionary experiences the intense pains of the Cross when Our Lady steps aside, and then she witnesses Mary weeping at the feet of her Son as well as the sword that was directed towards Mary’s heart. Our Lady then exhorts Peerdeman to spread the message to the theologians that she is the Co-redemptrix with the Redeemer.
– Asst. Ed.

April 29, 1951

I see a bright light; the Lady slowly comes forth from it. Now I see her standing before me clearly, and she says,

I am standing here as the Lady of All Nations, and I come right now in order to show that I wish to be the Lady of All Nations. Listen carefully. You see me standing here upon the globe, against the Cross of the Son. You have not forgotten to pass on anything. Only that the loincloth was not there yet. It was worn by the Son; say this.

The following is excerpted from Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner's St. Maximilian M. Kolbe, Martyr of Charity: Pneumatologist, His Theology of the Holy Spirit (New Bedford, MA: Academy of the Immaculate, 2004).
--Asst. Ed.

Transubstantiation into the Immaculate

This usage, to many curious, of a term from Eucharistic dogma and doctrine by St. Maximilian, once in a letter and once in a conference, far from being the dangerous formula some see in it, is an original, yet deeply traditional insight of St. Maximilian. It describes very exactly the Marian mode of Eucharistic communion, or better the Eucharistic dimension of Marian mediation in the soul, precisely because it is the mediation of the Immaculate.

The first known instance of the saint’s use of this phrase occurs in a letter to Fr. Vivoda (1) where he is discussing total consecration to the Immaculate in a context clearly Trinitarian, where total consecration makes us property of the Immaculate, just as being Immaculate, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, makes her property of the Father (viz., Daughter and Handmaid) and Mother of the Father's Son. In some ineffable way by becoming her property we share in the Trinitarian life and in the missions of the Son and Holy Spirit. Being her property he defines as our being annihilated in Her, changed into Her, transubstantiated into Her, so as it were to be Her. We are her possessions as She is God s and as She comes to give birth to the Son of God, so transubstantiated into Her we come to give birth to the same Son in the hearts of belong to or will belong to the Immaculate. Divinizatio hominis usque ad Deum-hominem per Dei-hominis Matrem. A few years later in a radio address on the twentieth anniversary of the M.I. he summarized the same notion of total consecration as "transubstantiation" into the Immaculate thus: The Militia of the Immaculate is a global vision of Catholic life under a new form, consisting of our bond with the Immaculate, our universal Mediatrix with Jesus (2).

Never will anyone really be able to understand the marvelous riches of sanctification which are contained in the prayers and mysteries of the Holy Rosary. This meditation on the mysteries of the life and death of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the source of the most wonderful fruits for those who use it.

Today people want things that strike and move and that leave deep impressions on the soul. Nor has there ever been anything in the whole history of the world more moving than the wonderful story of the life, death and glory of Our Savior which is contained in the Holy Rosary. In the fifteen tableaux the chief scenes or mysteries of His life unfold before our eyes. How could there ever be any prayers more wonderful and sublime than the Lord's Prayer and the Salutation of the angel? All our desires and all our needs are found expressed in these two prayers.

Among all the virtues which shine as so many stars, or rather as so many suns in the heaven of the holy childhood of our thrice-hallowed Mary, I shall mention here twelve of the most remarkable.

Ben Stein—he's shown himself to be a pretty solid philosopher in "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." And he's catching a lot of heat for it. Just have a look at the tone of the majority of movie reviewers: resentful, dismissive, sarcastic.