BIG C CATHOLICS

The Annunciation is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Mary that she would become the Theotokos (God-bearer). Despite being a virgin, Mary would miraculously conceive a child who would be called the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her son Jesus, meaning “YHWH delivers”. Most of Christianity observes this event with the Feast of the Annunciation on 25 March, nine full months before Christmas. According to the Bible (Luke 1:26), the Annunciation occurred in “the sixth month” of Elizabeth's pregnancy with the child who would later become known as John the Baptist.

Abortion Blackout is calling upon the faithful in the United States of America to wear black every Friday as a public witness to the horror of abortion and as a call for it's end in this country

Merciful and loving God, you give us* this Lenten desert for our purification, for our chance to become your faithful friends. Because we are wearied by our sins and exhausted by the weight of our guilt, the devil seeks to tempt us further away from you. Let us hear his false promises with your ears and see his counterfeit prizes through your eyes. With your Word in our mouths, we reject his poisonous gifts and run to you for our salvation.

Rallies for religious freedom are scheduled to take place March 23 at noon at over 100 cities around the country. The rallies, coordinated by Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League and Monica Miller of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, have gained the endorsement of dozens of pro-life organizations. “The Obama administration’s attempt to force all Americans to buy coverage for sterilization and contraceptives, including drugs that induce abortion, is a radical incursion into freedom of conscience,” Stand Up for Religious Freedom states on its web site. “The Rally for Religious Freedom--popularly known as the ‘Stand Up Rally’--will launch an ongoing, grassroots effort to stand in solidarity with the American Catholic bishops and other religious leaders denouncing the HHS Mandate, educate the general public about what’s truly at stake in this controversy, and demand that Congress reverse this assault on our cherished freedoms--or effect that reversal through the democratic proce

Under the new HHS mandate, Catholic schools, hospitals & churches will be forced to participate in practices that are contrary to Catholic Church teaching. We must stand up and demand that our religious liberty is respected. For more visit: www.catholicvote.org

There is an excellent station streaming online at AveMariaRadio.net  for faithful Catholics and seeking Christians. I highly recommend this apos- tolate and the programming it offers.

Today's Collect: Grant, we pray, almighty God, that by Saint Joseph's intercession you Church may constantly watch over the unfolding of the mysteries of salvation, whose beginnings you entrusted to his faithful care. And in this day and age when the free exercise of our faith is under attack in our land, the intercessions of good St. Joseph, protector of Mary and Jesus, patron of the Church, is especially needed.