In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
It's great to see everybody here on this first Saturday, and a first Saturday in Advent.
So I'd like to speak to you about devotion to Our Lady in the context of the coming of Christ.
The Advent season, in fact, prepares us for the celebration of Christmas, the first coming of Christ.
Our Lord, we know, when he comes into the world, and does so through Our Blessed Lady.
And just a quick theological consideration, and then I'll illustrate it with a lengthier example.
So just bear with me on the theology, but it's important.
But theologically, we see that when God makes himself most present in the world, and when the closest possible union between God and man happens, it happens through Our Lady, and in Our Lady.
Okay, the fullness of time comes.
God makes himself present in the world by taking on a human nature, the incarnation, in one divine person.
The divine nature and the human nature are united.
And the divine person of Jesus, God, man, united, strictest union possible.
That happens through Our Lady, in Our Lady, in her womb.
So, devotion to Our Lady is not just something optional, it is something essential.
We find God not somehow outside of devotion to Our Lady.
The two are not parallel and in competition with one another.
Both are integral to the Catholic faith because we see God, and yet we find him in Mary, through Mary.
That's, by the way, why the devil hates devotion to Our Lady so much, and it's not funny, but we could say funny for rhetorical purposes.
It's funny, scary.
How many people fall for that scrupulous deception that if you pray to Mary, somehow, somehow she will become an obstacle between you and God?
And the devil makes us fall for that.
So many people outside of the church and inside of the church are so fearful and scrupulous when it comes to devotion to Our Lady.
The devil puts these thoughts in their minds because he knows the exact opposite is true.
The more you approach Our Lady, the more you find God.
So the devil's gonna make you try to do the opposite.
Distance yourself from Our Lady.
She's an obstacle.
Don't get too close.
You'll draw away from God.
And now the example, a very concrete example.
Why does the devil hate Our Lady so much?
Well, I love to give examples in my sermons, and they abound.
You know, the fruits of devotion to Our Lady are abundant.
As you know, one of our apostolates is collecting these stories.
St. Maximilian thought that was one of the most important ways to spread devotion to Our Lady.
Show how devotion to Our Lady bears fruit, how it changes lives, how it changes people.
Show that, and that'll be the most convincing way to spread devotion to Our Lady, and we try to do that.
Find examples which are abundant, not difficult to find.
Preach about them, make them into videos.
We have a YouTube channel with plenty of these videos, in fact.
But, so one example that I recently encountered, medical doctor, we recently did a video with her, and I'll just give you a super short paraphrased version in her own words of what happened to her.
So, Dr. Sheila Kuzmic, now a retired doctor in Rhode Island, she says, I was raised Catholic, but not catechized.
I went through the motions of my faith, but that's basically it, just literally, they were just motions.
She was so poorly catechized that she did not even know God, did not have a relationship with God, did not even know a lot about our Lord himself, very poorly catechized.
But, but, she learned a devotion to Our Lady from her own mother, and that's all she had.
She saw her mom praying to Our Lady, and she fell in love with Our Lady, specifically the Memorare, you know that prayer, remember our most gracious Virgin Mary's, that prayer just enchanted her.
She loved Our Lady, loved that prayer, but didn't have much besides that.
Long story very short, I went to medical school, became a pediatrician, and she says, I always had a sense that certain things were evil, but she never had enough of a conviction to actually oppose that evil.
For example, I always had a sense that contraception was evil, that abortion was evil, but I never had the courage to stand up to it.
So she says, for example, when working in different, even, again, she was kind of on the good side.
She didn't become like a totally evil person.
She was, again, going through the motions of the faith, volunteering her time as a doctor, and she says, you know, sometimes I would be in circumstances in which, you know, the charity that I was working for would be involved in contraception, and I knew enough to not want to be involved in that myself.
I didn't want to prescribe it to people myself, but I wasn't strong enough to oppose it.
I would refer them or have others prescribe it instead.
She wasn't willing to stand up for it as evil.
She wasn't willing to say, this is really harmful to people, this is sinful, this offends God, this harms patients.
Again, she had a sense that there were commandments that she had to keep, but not enough of a sense to actually live in chastity.
Got into a relationship with a man, a fellow doctor, and for nine years, they lived together in sin.
And she says, I kept going to confession about it because I kind of knew this is probably not right, you know, living with a man outside of marriage, even though he's promising to marry me, but it's taken one year, two years, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, you know, to begin with, that's sinful.
But again, she kind of knew, but not enough to oppose it.
She says, I even kept going to confession about it, but I never changed anything.
I kept living with him, sinning with him, had no plans to stop, terribly, and no priest even ever tried to make her stop.
Despite the fact that she went to confession, no priest ever admonished her about this, sadly.
Again, it's partially the times that she grew up in, and unfortunately, that's, that's unfortunately the situation that she was in.
No priest even tried to stop her either.
But now getting to the point.
One day, I went to a place my mom told me about where Our Lady was supposedly appearing.
Again, this is not really a key part of the story, but just the circumstances.
She goes to this place.
Her mom calls her.
Hey, Sheila, there's this apparition of Our Lady happening somewhere down there in Georgia where you are.
At that time, she was living in Florida, not far from Georgia.
So she went.
She says, I didn't see any apparitions.
I didn't participate in any apparitions.
On the grounds where these apparitions were supposedly happening, though, I found a beautiful statue of Our Lady, and I just went to pray in front of Our Lady.
You know, just, again, it's the only thing she knew about the faith, you know, just this devotion to Our Lady.
And obviously, Our Lady's gonna take her away from God, right, the story's gonna end bad.
Come on, people, that's, no.
It's the exact opposite's gonna happen.
So she goes to pray in front of Our Lady, and in front of the statue of Our Lady, you know, she's really thinking about her life, and she entrusts the relationship she's in to Our Lady.
She says, Mother Mary, I entrust this relationship to you.
I've been with this man for nine years.
This just can't go on forever.
It's bothering me.
Just please, just resolve this situation.
And that's it.
When I went to my hotel room that evening, I tried to read a book about the commandments, and as soon as I got to commandment number one, you shall not have false gods before me, she doesn't know how to describe it, doesn't know what it was, but was just struck by this undeniable sense of her own sinfulness.
At that moment, God made his presence felt.
At that moment, I understood how much I had been offending God my whole life, and yet, how much he loved me despite of it all, how he had been near to me my whole life, even though I was far.
So she says, okay, I just, again, long mystical experience summarized just for the sake of brevity here, so you're not here a long time listening to me, but this amazing experience back home, just struck by her own sinfulness.
I can't go on like this.
I can't keep offending God.
I drove back home.
I went to confession, finally made a good one with a true purpose of amendment.
I ended my sinful relationship immediately.
I began to observe the 10 Commandments.
I began to pray every day, to go to the sacraments worthily.
I became coherent in my medical practice, and I realized that Our Lady had never forgotten me, right?
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection was ever left unaided.
So after years and years and years of praying this prayer every day, guess what, Our Lady didn't forget about her.
She answered my prayers.
Dr. Kuzmic entrusted her relationship to Our Lady.
Within hours, it was resolved.
Within hours, she was right with God.
Within hours, she was a fervent Catholic.
Within hours, she was on the right path.
U-turn.
If you wanna hear the longer version of this story, it'll be on our YouTube channel soon, okay?
But that, by the way, is why the devil hates devotion to Our Lady, because it always ends like this.
Our Lady's heart is a refuge where he cannot enter.
So he's gonna tell you, don't hide in that refuge.
Don't hide there.
Don't go there.
It's gonna give us very credible reasons not to go in there, because, oh, you're running away from God if you go into that Immaculate Heart.
You won't find God there.
Our Lady will take you away from God.
Baloney.
He knows the exact opposite is true, so we must do the exact opposite.
Saint Maximilian says, even if a person has one foot in hell his whole life, as long as he holds onto devotion to Our Lady, as long as he's in that refuge, just one foot, the devil knows he can't have that soul.
It always ends like this.
Our Lady will never forget that person.
God has given victory to Our Lady.
She is always victorious.
That's why the devil hates devotion to Our Lady so much.
That's why we should love her, run to her, invoke her, pray to her, trust her.
Let's say the memoriary together.
Remember, oh, most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left unaided.
Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, oh, Virgin of virgins, my mother.
To thee do I come.
Before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful.
Oh, Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy, hear and answer me, amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.