BIG C CATHOLICS

Since the 16th century Catholic piety has assigned the month of August to the veneration of the Blessed Virgin's Immaculate Heart. The physical heart of Mary is venerated (and not adored as the Sacred Heart of Jesus is) because it is united to her person and is the seat of her love (especially for her divine Son), virtue, and inner life. Such devotion inspires a similar love and virtue to grow within us. This devotion received new emphasis from the visions given to Sister Lucia, the oldest of the visionaries of Fatima, in her convent in Pontevedra, and later, Tuy, Spain, between 1925 and 1930. In the visions Our Lady asked for the practice of the Five First Saturdays to help make amends for the offenses committed against her heart by the blasphemies and ingratitude of men. On December 10, 1925, Mary appeared along with the Child Jesus to Lucia. The Holy Virgin showed Lucia Our Lady's heart surrounded by thorns. At that, the Christ Child said: "Have compassion on the

The Portiuncula indulgence can be gained on August 2nd, or in remote areas of the world where Mission Chapels are not open during the week, the first Sunday of August. We owe this indulgence to the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi. In the year 513, four hermits came to Italy and built a small chapel in the vicinity of Assisi. The Benedictines named it the Portiuncula Church and administered it until the 13th century. St. Francis beseeched the Benedictine Abbot to let his Order have the church. Over time, the Portiuncula Church was enlarged and beautified. The miraculous origin of the Portiuncula indulgence is as follows. Jesus, Mary and a host of angels appeared to St. Francis. Jesus said to him, "Francis you are very zealous for the good of souls. Ask me what you want for their salvation." Francis replied "Lord, I a miserable sinner beg You to concede an indulgence to all those who enter this church, who are truly contrite and have confessed their sins. And I beg

July 25th is the Feast of Saint James, son of Zebedee, also known as James the Greater, an Apostle of Jesus, and the first Apostle to be martyred. He was a son of Zebedee and Salome, the brother of St. John the Apostle. It was Jesus who called St. James and his brother St. John, "sons of thunder". James (with Peter and John) had the privilege of witnessing the Transfiguration, the raising to life of Jairus’ daughter and Our Lord’s agony in the garden of Gethsemane. James was a fisherman by trade when Jesus called him to be a disciple. He preached the Gospel in Iberia (the present day country of Georgia), Spain and the Holy Land. Tradition holds that Mary appeared to St. James before her Assumption . He was beheaded in Jerusalem in 44 AD at the order of Herod Agrippa. The Roman officer who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial. Later, the officer walked beside James to the place of execution. Overcome by conviction, he declared his new faith

Via the World Apostolate of Fatima USA . The International Pilgrim Virgin Statue (IPVS) of Fatima was sculpted in 1947 by famous sculptor José Thedim. The image reflects the precise instructions of Sister Lucia (the surviving seer at Fatima). Her desire was that the pilgrim image represent Our Lady’s position when she revealed herself as the Immaculate Heart to the Shepherds in 1917. So many miracles and signal graces have been reported wherever the statue has traveled that, in 1951, Pope Pius XII remarked: " In 1946, we crowned Our Lady of Fatima as Queen of the World and the next year, through Her Pilgrim Statue, She set forth as though to claim Her dominion, and the favors She performs along the way are such that we can hardly believe what we are seeing with our eyes ." The tour begins during the Jubilee Year of Mercy. The Fatima message and Our Lady’s warnings of great evils that marked the 20th Century — WWII, famine, persecution of the Church, much suffering

We have updated and expanded this post see " Ten Amazing Facts About the Miraculous Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe ". In honor of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, [December 12th] here are seven amazing facts about the image of Our Lady as seen on Saint Juan Diego 's tilma that defy scientific explanation and argue in favor of its miraculous origin and divine provenance. Our Lady of Guadalupe first appeared on December 9th, 1531. According to the account, the Virgin Mary told Juan Diego, an Indian convert, to tell Bishop Juan de Zumárraga to build a chapel. Bishop Zumárraga asked Diego for a sign as proof that it was truly the Mother of God. Our Lady instructed Diego to gather some roses in his tilma [popular piety attests that Mary arranged the roses in the tilma herself] and present them to the bishop. As Diego did this, the roses fell to the floor, revealing the miraculous image. 1. There is no under-sketch or under-drawing on the image.  Infrared photogra