Mary, Take Over! an anointed, inspirational account of how the Blessed Mother -- as  Undoer of Knots -- should be handed our daily trials large and small as we watch her work wonders with them -- turning obstacles into miracles! This booklet is by the same group that brings us 'Mary Undoer of Knots' and though small brims with powerful examples of how the Virgin Mary can enter any situation -- can help you against any 'Goliath' -- and make things  better than ever. click here

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DURING SPECIAL WEEK DO WE SPOT THE HIDDEN LINKS BETWEEN MARY IN FRANCE AND SPAIN AND LATER IN MEXICO

The appearance of the Virgin in 1830 at Rue du Bac in Paris marked the beginning of the modern Age of Mary. It was where the Miraculous Medal was formed with the prayer that included the words, "O Mary, conceived without sin." At that apparition the Blessed Mother streamed down graces from what looked like precious jewels on her fingers -- like the burnished objects many describe who glimpse Heaven ("with jewels set in gold and dressed in brocades," Psalm 45:13). Unbeknownst to most, the seer, Saint Catherine Labouré, said she was told that the apparition had been meant to turn the vicinity -- this spot in Paris -- into a massive place of healing and that when this did not occur, Mary moved on to the south of France and Lourdes, where she outright identified herself by saying, "I am the Immaculate Conception" -- and which became the intended massive pilgrimage spot. And so it is that the woman who was to give birth to our Savior had no sin -- no darkness, had not a touch of uncleanness, had no baggage from the generations. Her Son, totally clean, carried a Cross -- the baggage -- for the sins of humanity. It is a mission for us in our own families: to cleanse in an interior way so that we do not pass on darkness to future generations -- that we clean house, that we seek, as best we can, like her, with her help, to be immaculate.

Many believe that there are just a dozen or so apparitions that have been officially accepted by the Church through the ages. This is an error. There are hundreds. Beginning in the first century with Mary's appearance to James at Zaragoza in Spain and then places like Le Puy in France later in the first century, there have been uncounted times when priests and bishops, hearing of a miracle (a dream, a vision, or finding a miraculous image of the Madonna) have proceeded to the site and built a chapel or some sort of commemoration there, altars that in many cases grew into churches and even basilicas and cathedrals.

So was the Church formed in Europe in its early days.

Time and time again, as at Rue du Bac, the Blessed Mother sent miracles or appeared in an area or hamlet where there was war or plague, where there was hunger, saying that if men repented, they would be protected, there would be a bubble of her immaculate protection. One of the reputedly miraculous objects in the first century was an image in unstained wood of Mary and Child said to have been painted by the Apostle Luke (other accounts have it created in the sixth century), an image Pope Gregory the Great paraded through the streets of Rome when an epidemic ravished that city.

The plague was stopped (announced by an apparition near the Vatican of the Archangel Michael) and the image was eventually sent, as a papal gift, to Spain -- to a hamlet there on the plain of Estremadura called Guadalupe, not to be confused with Mexico! (Guadalupe meant "hidden channel.")

During the Muslim invasions it was buried and remained so for centuries, eventually unearthed, replicated, and venerated. It is said that Christopher Columbus carried a copy of it across the Atlantic.

There is thus this link between the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe -- celebrated within days of each other. At Guadalupe in Mexico (no one is quote sure how it got the same name), there was of course another miraculous image, one that like the Miraculous Medal has led to the conversion of millions of Indians. If the Miraculous Medal and Lourdes were about her conception, Guadalupe, where she appears pregnant, may have been about His. It is as Our Lady of Guadalupe, in that form, that so many modern wonders -- miraculous images -- are now reported in North America, indicating perhaps the need for protection against plague, as well as the urgency for conversion, indicating too again the crucial mission we have in life to cleanse for future generations.

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