Cultivate my heart Oh God!

Cultivate my heart Oh God
Turn me not unto my own ways of self-indulgence
for spiritual prosperity.
Keep me as your child crying out as
a beggar for your mercy and grace.

Make my heart unto your own in vocation
to carry out your will.
May the eyes of my new heart be always
fixed on your face Lord Jesus.
Transform my vision to see through Your
eyes of Love for Your Children:
Who are starving, even though they may appear full;
who are in poverty, even though they may have riches;
and are dead, even though they act fully alive.

I ask Mother Mary to help me consecrate my self
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus to be His vessel;
to help feed the hungry, and help care for the poor,
and bring the dead back to the true Life in Him.

Amen
Francis Ambrose of Divine Mercy T

Experiancing the Seven Joys of Mary

To follow through with my blog statement on May 26th, 2007; “I hope to explain in an upcoming article my journey that brought me to start praying the Franciscan Crown thanks to Saint Francis of Assisi.” The following is my attempt by sporadic means of communication to fulfilling that promise.
Finding the crown on the Franciscan website and the rosary on John Michael Talbot website both on December 24th,2005 was providence on God’s timing to break me out of shooting from the hip type prayers. I was undisciplined and unfocused in my prayer life, and still am at times, but I have no excuse for not having the tools of devotion in front of me. These tools have been past down to us in the Church by beloved Fathers like Saint Francis of Assisi, and Saint Bonaventure who had a great impact on Marian devotion.

In addition to developing this Marian devotion, the Franciscans are credited with adding the final words to the Hail Mary, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. In 1263, Saint Bonaventure, Minister General of the Order, encouraged liturgical devotion honoring the mystery of the Visitation. Saint Bonaventure also popularized the daily triple recitation of the Angelus which it is believed Saint Francis initiated after visiting the Holy Land. Francis was deeply impressed by the Muslim practice of stopping to pray several times a day, and desired to Christianize this pious custom. A Franciscan pope, Sixtur IV (1471-1485), introduced the feast of the Immaculate Conception and the feast of Saint Joseph as husband of Mary. He also issued the first papal pronouncement encouraging the rosary as in invaluable instrument of personal and societal conversion.
Taken from The Franciscan Crown a beautiful booklet available in most Catholic Book stores
Courtesy of The Franciscan Friars of Marytown

A Franciscan master brought the devotion into the Church as a discipline among the Franciscan monks, but a young boy devotee of Mary was
the initial receiver of the devotion.

The Franciscan Crown, or the Rosary of the Seven Joys of
the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an ancient sacramental
treasured by the Franciscan order. Father Luke Wadding,
a well-known Franciscan historian, dates the inception of
this chaplet to 1422, the entrance date into the novitiate
of the order of an unnamed pious young man. This young
devotee of Mary had been accustomed, before his entrance,
to decorate a statue of the Virgin with crowns of fresh
flowers. This practice was forbidden to him in the
novitiate, and fearing a lack of devotion to his Queen,
he determined to leave the order. In a vision, Our Lady
appeared to him and told him, "Do not be sad and cast
down, my son, because you are no longer permitted to
place wreaths of flowers on my statue. I will teach you
to change this pious practice into one that will be far
more pleasing to me and far more meritorious to your
soul. In place of the flowers that soon wither and
cannot always be found, you can weave for me a crown
from the flowers of your prayers that will always remain
fresh."Thereupon, Our Lady requested the young friar to
say one Our Father and ten Hail Mary's in honor of seven
joyous occasions in her life:
(1) the Annunciation, (2) the Visitation, (3) the birth
of Christ, (4) the adoration of the Magi, (5) the finding
of Jesus in the Temple, (6) the resurrection of Our Lord,
and (7) the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into Heaven.
As the vision faded, the overjoyed novice began to recite the
prayers as she had instructed him to do. While he was
devoutly praying, the novice master passed by and saw an
angel weaving a wreath of roses. After every tenth rose, he
inserted a golden lily. When the wreath was finished, the
angel placed it on the head of the praying novice.The novice
master demanded under holy obedience that the novice
explain to him the meaning of the vision. The novice
complied, and the novice master was so impressed with what
he had heard that he immediately told his brother friars.
The practice of reciting the Crown of the Seven Joys soon
spread to the entire Order.
Taken from "A Handbook of Catholic Sacramentals" by Ann Ball,
published by Our Sunday Visitor.

Experiencing the Franciscan Crown as devotion to Christ has opened the door for the Holy Spirit to teach me a greater respect and reverence of the work of God reflected in the gospel. In stating the sentence above it may sound correct, but on a deeper level the Holy Spirit is bringing me to a place of a personal communion of relationship with Jesus’ family with heart-felt interaction.


· The Holy Spirit spoke to me about letting go of my previous thoughts about Mary and receiving her for whom she really is.
· Mother of our Lord who gave her body as the Holy of Holies, the tabernacle of God in her whom, and raising Him out of complete obedience to His Father.
· She is full of grace… full of the Holy Spirit with all purity and love for all that God bestows upon her.
· When a casual friend wants you to be a close friend they invite you to meet their family. Jesus makes clear in during His ministry that all those that are His disciples are His Mothers, and Brothers, and Sisters(Matthew 12:46-50). “ Friendship with Jesus fellowship Divine O’ what blessed sweet communion Jesus is a friend of mine.”
· Mary finding Jesus in the Temple became to me a real vocal point of relationship with the real Jesus. I can see the picture now Mary and
Joesph running back into Jerusalem where they had left Him three days prior, not knowing where He may be. Jesus is twelve, the age of Jewish rite of passage for a boy entering into manhood, now illegible to converse with other men. We find Him inside conversing with Canon lawyers and doctors of the law about Holy Scripture. When questioned by His Mother He answer's;"Did you not know that I would be found in my Fathers house?" I believe that the joy that filled Mary's heart was that she found her son Jesus after anxious searching. But Mary and Joesph totally missed Jesus point stated in His rhetorical question. How many times do we run around thinking we lost Jesus when His same rhetorical question is spoken into our busy, narcissistic, relativistic, instant gratification, high tech, information overload, and cynical age?
The gospel according to Luke makes clear that they didn't understand His statement, even though Mary witnessed the depth of that relationship with the Father in her son(Luke 2:40-52). The perfect preadolescence of Jesus childhood shared in the Holy family was already aligning with the Fathers plan of salvation birthed in their hearts at the time the angel spoke His name"Jesus"(Luke 1:26-33). They continued to listen to the Father by living dependent on the Word of God in their hearts(Luke 2:4-19).
· All seven joys give me a deeper heart felt appreciation to be in the family of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through the blessings of our Mother Mary. She welcomes me to experience the joys of her Son Jesus by taking me to the very moment of life experience in devotion with Him, in Him , and by Him. Thanks be to God for the riches of devotion past to us through our Holy Mother and ever Virgin Mary!