MARY, MY GUIDE
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O Mary, my Mother,  most lovely and mild,
Look down upon me, a weak, lonely child.
From the land of my exile, I call upon thee;
Oh, Mary in pity look kindly on me.
If thou shouldst forsake me, oh where should I go,
My comfort, my hope in this valley of woe?
When the world and its dangers and terrors I view,
Sweet hope comes to cheer me, in pointing to you.
Then Mary, in pity, look down upon me.
Tis, the voice of thy child that is calling on thee.
In sorrow and darkness be still at my side.
My comfort, my refuge, my hope and my guide.                                                                             Amen.

A coloring picture of the same image above can be found below.

 Her children rose up and called her blessed. (Prov. xxxi. 28.)

1. When Our Lord ascended into heaven, we are told that the apostles went back to Jerusalem with great joy (St. Luke xxiv. 52). But there was none of them so joyful as Mary. Her sacred heart overflowed with happiness and delight. The greatest possible joy for her was thus to witness the triumph of her Son and to hear the angels welcoming the King of glory to His throne in heaven.

2. Yet Mary's life must have been one long desire after heaven, more so than ever after Jesus had ascended. Still she had no wish even for the heavenly paradise as long as it was God's will that she should remain on earth. She was quite content to wait. Am I resigned and patient when the will of God contradicts my inclinations and desires?

3. Why was Mary left on earth? To comfort and sustain, to instruct and advise the first disciples of Christ. None knew like her the secrets of His Sacred Heart; none had such an instinctive perception of what He would desire in the many doubts and difficulties that arose; none could impart such sweet consolation to the afflicted. How often the disciples beheld in her their Mother! In heaven she is still our comforter, adviser, guide.

                                                       The Mother sits all worshipful,
                                                             With her majestic mien;
                                                    The princes of the infant Church
                                                    Are gathered round their Queen.
                                                             
                                                           Source: The Catholic Girl's Guide, Imprimatur 1905
A coloring picture can be found below.

WHILE I was at Rome, in 1845, I had the happiness of making the acquaintance of a good and holy priest named Don Biaggio. He had just succeeded as Superior of the Society of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood to the venerable founder of the society, Gaspard del Bufalo, who had died in 1839, after a life which had been not only holy and apostolic, but resplendent with the glory of miracles.

Among other wonders which Don Biaggio related to me, and of which he had been the eye-witness and sometimes even the happy instrument, the following would doubtless interest my readers. I will relate it, as far as possible, in his own words:

"I was then twenty-three years of age," he said to me," and it was in the year 1814. Pius VII had just returned in triumph to his beloved Rome. From my childhood I had desired to become a priest, but work and study had insensibly impaired my health. I had, nevertheless, been able to ascend the first steps of the sanctuary; I was a deacon. The disease of the lungs from which I suffered had now rapidly developed; I was subject to an intermittent fever, and the doctors spoke most seriously of my case. I did not deceive myself as to the decline of my health, and with the probability of an early death I sought and obtained the favor of being ordained a priest one year before the canonical age.

The fatigues of the examination and the retreat preparatory to my ordination exhausted
the little strength which remained to me. I became seriously ill, and the doctors called in consultation informed me, after a careful examination, that I had reached the third degree of pulmonary consumption, that it was not possible I should recover, and that I had better make all necessary arrangements without delay. The Roman physicians are men of faith and do not follow the deplorable custom, prevalent in some countries, of letting people die without knowing that they are dying, and consequently without being able to prepare themselves to appear before God.
"I decided to go to Loretto and to die there under the eyes of the Blessed Virgin beneath the shadow of the Santa Casa. The voyage was painful, but for a dying man a little suffering-more or less is of small consequence. Arrived at Loretto, I dragged myself to the Holy House, fervently entreating the Madonna to assist me in my last agony. I had been there a few days; my illness was increasing; (one morning when I was feeling weaker than usual, I went early to the sacred sanctuary of our Blessed Mother. According to my custom I knelt down for an instant, leaning against the wall. . . . A young priest whom I did not know, whom I had never seen, came and knelt down near me. We were alone, or almost alone. He then said in a low voice, as though speaking of me, but with his eyes fixed upon the miraculous Madonna: 'Bisogna anche' che presto faccia la missione'—He also must give the mission.  I looked at him; it was evident that he was speaking of me. Therefore, still upon my knees, I answered: 'I would do so willingly if I could. . . . But I did not come here to preach; I am in consumption; I am come to die.' 'No, no,' replied the priest with a bright smile; "let us have confidence in Mary!"--"Abbiamo fede in Maria"and he added: "Dite meco un'  'Ave Maria"—'Say an Ave Maria with me.' I repeated the angelical salutation with him, scarcely knowing what it all meant . . . . - ~

"When we had finished, Gaspard del Bufalo (for it was he) rose, signed to me to follow him, and we went out together from the Santa Casa in silence. We crossed the great basilica in which the Holy House of Nazareth is enclosed like a relic, and when we had reached the outer square del Bufalo turned toward me with the look of one inspired. He told me that the Holy Father had entrusted to him the charge of 'giving a series of missions in this part in order to efface as far as possible the fatal effects of the Revolution, of Voltairianism, and of foreign occupation; that he desired to begin by Loretto in order to obtain the help and protection of the Blessed Virgin; but that he was still alone and needed companions. "You will come with me," he added with singular authority. "We will commence the mission to-morrow; you shall preach at such an hour, I at another;" and there, upon the spot, he arranged the order of the services. I thought I was dreaming, I seemed to have been conscious of no kind of physical sensation, either during the Ave Maria or afterward.

"Subjugated by a secret force, and confiding in Mary, who can obtain everything from her divine Son, I made no objection; and the following morning, God and our Blessed Lady helping me, I began to give a series of missions with the servant of God, which continued almost without interruption during twenty-three or twenty-four years, up to the time of his holy, happy death. From that day I have never been ill; nor felt my lungs in the least degree affected."

Don Biaggio died also a few years after in the odor of sanctity. I received this account from his own lips.
          Source: "The Faith That Never Dies or The Priest of God in the Catholic Home,"        
                                                                                                                          Imprimatur 1900
A coloring picture for the children can be found below.

Dawn has always been a symbol of hope. Most of us do not like the darkness, even though we know of nothing definite to fear in it . When it is dark enough, yes: you can see the stars, and darkness hides much of the man-made ugliness of city streets. The darkness of unconsciousness brings merciful oblivion to one who is having an operation. But our minds were made to seek out and to understand, and they can never be satisfied with the darkness. One need not be a little child, terrified of the unknown, to appreciate that light is more pleasant than darkness.

When in the beginning "light was made" and God divided the night from the day, He might have left it at that, a simple change from dark to light. But God is all beauty and color is His creature. Out of the reach of man (who, if he could lay hands on it , would probably try to change it) God placed between the night and the day the radiant curtain of the dawn. For all time it was to shine there as a promise, heralding the day. God has tried in so many ways to make His children happy! The world had been a long time in spiritual darkness, shuddering under the frown of its Creator's anger, when dawn lighted its undeserving skies with the first lovely streaks of light. This long advent of four thousand years is remembered yearly in the prayers of the Church for Advent, often under the symbol of light dispelling the darkness:

"The night is past and the day is at hand; Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light.. ."

"O house of Jacob, come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord our God . . "

The world's Redeemer was its light and salvation. So it is that the hope, the promise, and the loveliness of dawn should be early associated with Our Lady, who gave to the world its Lord of Light. "Morning Star," we call her in the litany; in the Canticle of Canticles she is prefigured by the words,

"Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising?"

To us looking back, as to those patriarchs looking ahead for the long four thousand years, "Mary is the dawning, Christ the perfect day." Dark as the world may seem today, it can never be quite dark again since Mary came on earth. For Mary, whose birth was the dawning hope for mankind, brought to us the Light of the world.

Few people were aware that anything unusual had happened the day that Mary came to earth. Kings and princes did not care that a little daughter had been born to Joachim and Anna. A few relatives came to congratulate the parents; friends brought gifts and asked, of course, what the baby's name was going to be. Miriam? Well, that was nothing strange; there were many Hebrew girls called Miriam. To those who think that public opinion is so vital to success and that nothing will prosper without advertising, the obscurity of Mary's birth is a direct challenge. It is like the noiseless dawn that rises daily whether man looks or not. There are people who are sure that the world will not go around without their management, people who never have time to look at the dawn or to remember that God does things quietly and with certainty. Perhaps they are related to the neighbors who said one to another, on a day long ago, "Joachim and Anna have a child—a daughter, unfortunately—they call her Miriam," and then forgot all about it . God wanted it to be so, that Mary would grow up lovely and unnoticed among her relatives and neighbors. The less they knew of her, the less they would distract her from her great work in life.

There is an ancient tradition that Mary was presented in the temple at the age of three, and that she lived there among the virgins dedicated to work in the temple until she was of marriageable age. Since she must have been the most beautiful of all women, the loveliest in all ways—being without sin—it is hard to imagine that nobody noticed how beautiful she was. We may take it for granted that they did. But Mary was God's, wholly and entirely.

During her entire lifetime she took not a single step to be noticed by anyone. Today if a child is unusually pretty or talented, someone is sure to say, "Let us send her to Hollywood!" There, seeking fame, she will be photographed and publicized: her face will appear in a thousand cheap places; her beauty will become the property of all. And after a few years no one will remember her, because someone else has taken her place. No one ever has or ever will succeed in eclipsing the beauty of Mary, who lived in obscurity nearly two thousand years ago. The beauty of her sinless soul, something so tremendous that words cannot describe it or brush depict it, has been the theme of more masterpieces than all other subjects put together.

Not a Christian home in twenty centuries that has not had her picture i it , not an artist who did not try with all his art to carve or paint her image. Churches all over the world today, even though they may be in ruins, still testify to the love mankind has poured at her feet for all these sad years. She has been enshrined in marble, in stone, in glass, in wood and jewels, in song and story, on canvas, in masterpieces so lovely that all ages will revere them. Countless artists have laid aside their tools with regret on finishing her image, breathing an apology that they had portrayed her so poorly:

                                                         "For artist's brush can never trace
                                                            The beauty, Mother, of thy face;
                                                              And if on earth 'tis fair to see,
                                                              O what must it in heaven be?"

We do not know how Our Lady looked on earth (please God we shall some day see in heaven), and artists who have pictured her make her in their highest ideal of beauty, whatever that may be. To the Chinese she is a gentle, slant-eyed oriental lady; to the Indian, the fairest Indian maiden that ever lived; to Italian, Spanish, Flemish artists, she was the loveliest lady of their national type. All this is as it should be, for whereas she was in fact Jewish by race, she is the Mother of all the world's children of every race and color. She is Mother to the Russian peasant who guards her ikon under pain of death, to the German woodcarver who makes her image in wood, to the army chaplain, to the busy mother of a family, to the six-year-old bringing his first holy card picture of her home fro school. She was the same sweet mother to the artist of the Sistine Madonna in the sixteenth century, to those who carved her image in the stones of great cathedrals in the thirteenth, to the crusader who carried her blue banners before Acre in the twelfth, to the Christians who painted her symbols on the walls of the catacombs in the early centuries of the Church. She is not only placeless but also timeless in her love for all of us.

Only think, child of Mary, how wealthy you are, no matter how poor the world may think you! When a child has lost his mother we are very sad, for it seems as if he has nothing more to lose. But God foresaw that on a day long ago, when in the tiny daughter of Joachim
and Anna, He saw the beauty of His handiwork and willed to share it with us. Never, since Our Lady came on earth, will any of us be without a mother. Not only shall we benefit by the Light that is Christ, but also, little as we deserve it , we shall share in the beauty of the dawn of salvation, Mary, His Mother.

"I am the Mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope... .In me is all hope of life and of virtue. . . . My memory is unto everlasting generations."

Source: Our Lady's Feasts, Imprimatur 1945
A coloring picture can be found below.

Refrain:
On this day, O Beautiful Mother!
On this day we give thee our love;
Near thee, Madonna, fondly we hover,
trusting thy gentle care to prove.

On this day we ask to share, dearest Mother,
thy sweet care;
Aid us e'er, our feet astray, wandering from
thy guiding way.

Refrain

Queen of Angels, deign to hear, thy dear
children's humble pray'r;
Young hearts gain, O Virgin pure, sweetly
to thyself allure.

Refrain

A coloring picture can be found below.

 
O Maiden! let thy heart like a fragrant garden be;
Flowers fair of virtue thy Mother loves to see;
Then sweet thy prayer shall sound in that fond Mother's ear,
And when thou needest help, that Mother will be near.

She strengthens thee to conquer in the arduous strife;
And when thou standest at the crossways of thy life,
Thou shalt feel a heavenly breath to guide thee right;
The rough ways shall be smooth the dark ways be made light.

O Child of Mary! in thy youth's springtide,
Go to that Mother dear, and without fear
To her thy joys, thy grief, thy hopes confide.
In life, in death, whatever may betide
--
If foes assail, let not thy courage fail.
Her arm will thee protect, her wisdom guide.
Source:  The Catholic Girl's Guide, Imprimatur 1905

Do you know how to say the rosary? What a question to ask! Why, of course you do - everybody knows. A t least everybody ought to know. Everybody ought to know, just the way a certain boy and girl that I once saw in church knew how.

They were kneeling down in front of me during a visit that I made to the Blessed Sacrament—a long, long visit. And so I could not help noticing how the rosary beads slipped through their fingers, not fast and carelessly, but bead by bead, slowly and thoughtfully. I could see that they were really saying the rosary. After about fifteen minutes I saw that they had gone round the circlet once. I wondered what they were going to do next. Well, would you believe it ! They began at the beginning again and carefully, reverently went round the circlet again. "Mighty good young people," said I to myself.

I could see that they were thinking hard. Their eyes were either fixed on the tabernacle or else modestly cast down upon the rosary. Not once did they look around in church. Can you guess what they were thinking about? Why, they were thinking about the respective mystery of the rosary; they were meditating on it. I can just imagine how, during the first joyful mystery, for instance, they saw Mary kneeling in her little home in Nazareth, praying in the silence of her tidy room. Then they saw the Archangel Gabriel suddenly appear before her and tell her that she was to be the Mother of God. They seemed to hear the angel's and Mary's answer, and. her question. Then thought of how Our Lady bowed her head and gave her consent. Yes; she would become the Mother of God, since she could be the Mother of God and still be a Virgin. Then they thought of how the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Jesus Christ, at the very moment when Mary consented; became Man in her womb, and Mary began to be the Mother of God. Then they thought of how the angel departed and told the good news to Heaven and then get ready to come down to the earth and tell it to men on that first Christmas night when he appeared to the shepherd and brought them good tidings of great joy. Of some such things they were thinking during each mystery, I'm sure—always something different, of course, because each mystery is different and tells us something else about the life of Our Lord or His Blessed Mother. In fact, there is no better life of Jesus and Mary than just the holy rosary. Yes; I'm sure these two children were thinking of such things, because they looked just like a boy and a girl who knew how to say the rosary. And, as you know, to say the rosary the way it ought to be said, one must think, meditate.

As I watched this boy and girl I noticed that their lips were moving. I wonder what their lips were moving for. Can any of you guess ? Why, of course you can! They were moving because they were saying the Hail Mary over and over again, and the Our Father and the Glory at every ten Hail Marys. Yes ; that's it. The roses of the Hail Marys were dropping from their lips.

You see, they knew that in order to say the rosary well one must also say the Hail Marys and other prayers. The rosary is not only a mental prayer, a prayer in which we think of holy things, but it is also a vocal prayer, a prayer in which we pronounce certain words and thus sanctify the lips and the gift of speech.

I noticed that this boy and girl were pronouncing the words slowly and distinctly, and yet in a low whisper, so that they could hardly hear themselves. And certainly no one else could hear them—no one but the angels and Mary and God. That is the way to pray. One should never be so loud when alone as to disturb others the least little bit. Of course, when praying aloud with others, one should join in heartily, so that the prayer may be like one harmonious choir of music to God—the music of prayer.

And yet I could see that those two were saying the prayers distinctly and devoutly. They at least formed every word with the tongue and lips. That was fine. I'll tell you why that is so very important. In order to gain an indulgence for a prayer, you know, except for a very few extraordinary cases, that prayer must be really vocal, that is, it must be pronounced with the lips, even though one does not hear it distinctly oneself. I really think these two children knew this. They knew, too, so it would seem, that the rosary is a highly indulgenced prayer. Maybe they were using rosary beads that a priest had blessed and enriched with five or six hundred days indulgence for each Our Father and Hail Mary. How wonderful it is to be thus able easily to gain so many precious indulgences for the poor souls in purgatory or for oneself. Why, also in this way the rosary is a real gold mine of spiritual benefits.

Finally I saw the boy and girl I am talking about devoutly kiss the rosary's crucifix and arise and leave the pew. Each one made a pious genuflection. At the entrance each one took holy water and made the sign cross. "Mighty good children," I thought to myself.
Now, I suppose you are wondering how I happened to see all that when I was making that long visit to the Blessed Sacrament. Well, I really could not help seeing, since I was up in the choir gallery and the children, who, by the way, did not even know that I was there, were down in the body of the church. And it  wasn't really a distraction for me to notice all that, It only helped me to pray better than ever; for I felt that I was not going to let any boy or girl get ahead of me in devout prayer if I could help it. But it surely would take a good one to beat two such children.

Which only goes to show again the power of good example and how every boy or girl can be a real apostle of goodness just by his or her fair example in church—and elsewhere, too.

And now I am again at the end of my little talk. I was going to say more about the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, but I think that I have said enough. Say the rosary every single day at least once and say it the way I really do think the boy and girl mentioned above were saying it.

Come, my boys and girls, let's crown Mary with a crown of fairest roses, roses that have no thorns, by saying the rosary in the beautiful way suggested by this talk.

May the Mother of the Savior bless each and every one of you over and over again!

"Mary, Virgin mild, bless us with thy loving Child!"
                                                      Source: Talks to Boys and Girls, Imprimatur 1931

You can find a coloring picture for the children below.

Two poor old people, husband and wife, lived with much difficulty in a miserable little garret, for which they paid twenty francs a year. They often went to bed without any supper, and their breakfast very often consisted of a few hard crusts soaked in water. They could not bear to make their poverty known and ask for relief. Once they had lived in comfort, but little by little they had sold everything.

One Saturday they found themselves left without a penny, without a morsel of bread or food of any description. The wife was very infirm, the husband was sick and obliged to keep his bed. The day was passed in suffering, and when the night came they had eaten nothing. They wept and they prayed. The Sunday which followed was still more terrible. In the evening positive want drove the poor old woman forth with the intention of asking help; but when she tried to speak shame prevented her, and she returned to her room more exhausted and discouraged than before. For forty-eight hours they had eaten nothing. Their faces were pale and wan, their strength was almost gone.

"We must die, my poor wife," said the old man; "God has forsaken us."

The poor old woman did not answer. But a little time after she raised her head, and cried, as though struck with a sudden inspiration:

"Let us invoke the Blessed Virgin! She is the comforter of the afflicted and the refuge of those who suffer. She will deliver us. Wait," she added, " I have one little candle left. We will light it before her image; Mary will come to our aid."

The unfortunate people, reanimated by this last hope, rose with difficulty, and in the midst of the darkness of the night they found the candle, lighted it, and, placing it before a little statue of the Blessed Virgin, which had found no purchasers because it had no material value, they knelt down, and, leaning against each other, called to their aid her who is never, we are told, invoked in vain.

They wept bitterly. . . .

A workwoman who lived opposite, in the same street, had a sick child. She got up in the middle of the night to give it something to drink, and looking out of the window perceived the light in the little window of her two poor neighbors. She knew them a little, as they always spoke to each other when they met "Can those poor people be ill then?" she wondered. And urged by some instinct she put on her things, took a lantern, and went in to see them. She pushed open the door, and a heart-rending sight met her eyes. The two poor old people, gasping for breath and reduced to the last extremity, were rather prostrate than kneeling before the image of the Mother of the Saviour. Then they acknowledged their pressing want. The charitable neighbor hastened home immediately to fetch them broth and bread, and other little provisions. She comforted and ministered to them. The following day she went to tell the "Cure" and the president of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Both came at once to these unfortunate people, and kindly reproaching them for not having sent to them before, gave them immediate help, to be followed soon by more substantial assistance.

A few days after, as a crowning blessing, a little heritage came to them from a distant relation, and thus, forever secured from poverty, they relate to all who care to hear it the truly miraculous assistance which they received from the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Without the little candle, or rather without that confidence in Mary which suggested to them the pious idea of burning it before her image, the kind neighbor would not have come to their aid, and they would have died of want before the arrival of the heritage.
Source: "The Faith That Never Dies of The Priest of God in the Catholic Home,"    
                 Imprimatur 1900

A coloring picture for the children can be found below.

Bring flowers of the fairest,
Bring flowers of the rarest,
From garden and woodland
And hillside and dale;
Our full hearts are swelling,
Our Glad voices telling
The praise of the loveliest flower of the vale.

Refrain:
O Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May,
O Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May,

Our voices ascending,
In harmony blending,
Oh, thus may our hearts turn
Dear Mother, to thee;
Oh, thus shall we prove thee
How truly we love thee,
How dark without Mary
Life's journey would be.

Refrain

O Virgin most tender,
Our homage we render,
Thy love and protection,
Sweet Mother, to win.
In danger defend us,
In sorrow befriend us,
And shield our hearts
From contagion and sin.

Refrain.

Of Mothers the dearest,
Oh, wilt thou be nearest,
When life with temptation
Is darkly replete?
Forsake us, O never!
Our hearts be they ever
As Pure as the lilies
We lay at thy feet.
 
Refrain.

The four hundred and ninety years which the prophet Daniel had said would pass before the Messias was born, were slowly drawing to a close. The Romans had conquered and now ruled Judea. Herod, a pagan, was king in the palace at Jerusalem. The people hated him because he was not an Israelite. His hands were stained with blood and he lived in terror lest some Jew would strike him dead.

The Israelites prayed for the Messias to come quickly and rid them of this murderous Herod and make them the great nation they had once been. God told Simeon, a holy priest, that he should not die until his eyes had seen the Christ. He must, then, come soon for Simeon was growing very old.

There were living at that, time a holy man and woman of the tribe of Juda and of the family of David, named Joachim and Anna, and when their little daughter, Mary, was born, they determined to give her back to God. So when she was almost three years old, her parents took her to the great temple at Jerusalem and helped her up the long flight of marble steps. At the top stood the old high-priest waiting to receive her. It broke their hearts to leave her there but they were glad to have given to God their greatest treasure.

The little Mary grew up in the temple and learned to care for the beautiful lamps and sew on the vestments worn by the priests. There were many other little girls there and they all loved her, for she was so pure and truthful and kind. She had never committed the smallest sin, but her little companions did not dream that, unlike them, she had been born without original sin and that the instant God had created her soul. He had clothed it in sanctifying grace. Yet if she knew how holy and pure she was, she did not think more of herself on that account, but thanked God for having been so good to her. How happy her guardian angel must have been in caring for her!

Often the girls, as they grew older, would talk of the coming of the Messias, of the King, and wonder what He would be like and who His mother would be. Mary would hear one say:

"I am going to try to be very good and then perhaps God will let me be His mother,"
and another:

"I am going to pray and pray that God may choose me." Mary would listen to all and say nothing, for deep in her heart she felt that she could never be worthy to be the mother of the Christ. When she was about fifteen years old, the high priest told her that it was time for her to marry, and Joseph, a very holy man of about thirty-five or forty years of age, was chosen for her husband. He was a carpenter from the town of Nazareth, and so Mary left the temple and went there to live. Both worked hard, as they were poor, but they were very happy, for they loved God above everything else.

Far over the hills lived Mary's cousin, Elizabeth, and her husband, Zachary. He was a priest and offered sacrifices in the great temple when it was his turn. Their one sorrow was that they had no children. They had often prayed to God to give them a child and now they were growing very old. One day it was Zachary's turn to offer incense in the temple and all the people waited in the court whilst he went, clothed in his vestments, alone, behind the beautiful curtain, into the Holy Place or Sanctuary.

There on an altar of solid gold he burned the incense and watched the smoke rise in the air as a sign of the prayers the people sent up to God. Only a curtain hung between the Holy Place, where he stood, and the Holy of Holies, which had held the tent or tabernacle with the ark beneath. Over all had rested the miraculous cloud, a sign of God's presence among them. But the Holy of Holies had been empty for five hundred years and only a stone marked the spot where the lost ark had been.

As Zachary was burning the incense, there suddenly stood at the right of the golden altar the magnificent archangel Gabriel, who told him that he had been sent from Heaven by God to tell him that he would have a son, who should be called John, and who would be great before the Lord and prepare men's hearts for the coming of the Christ. Zachary had waited so long for a son that he doubted the angel's word and asked for some sign that he might know that it was true. Then Gabriel told him that he would be dumb and unable to speak a word until the boy was born, because he had doubted his message.

The angel vanished and Zachary, trembling with fear, left the Holy Place and stood before the people, who had become frightened at his long stay in the sanctuary. Zachary could not speak to them but let them know by gestures that he had received a message from God. Then he went home and by writing and signs told Elizabeth what had happened.

The fact that the stain of original sin never touched the soul of the Blessed Virgin is called her Immaculate or unspotted, conception. The Feast of the Immaculate Conception kept on the eighth of December, is a holy day of obligation.

Say the little prayer: ''O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee."

Questions

(1) Who were Anna and Joachim?
(2) Tell about Mary's life in the temple.
(3) What do you mean by her Immaculate Conception?
(4) On what day is this feast kept and how?
(5) Tell about Zachary's vision in the Holy Place.

Source:  Catholic Teaching for Children, Imprimatur 1898
A coloring picture is available below.