The 2nd Glorious Mystery: The Ascension

"Before Jesus Christ died for us, Paradise was closed against us. In His Ascension we see that Jesus has opened it for all those that love Him. What a pity that, after our Savior has suffered so much to obtain Paradise; this happy kingdom, so many foolish sinners should renounce it and give themselves up to hell for worthless pleasures...for a mere nothing! Let us beseech Mary to obtain for us the light to see clearly how miserable are the goods of this world, and how great the delights that God offers in the world to come to those that love Him."

With God the prayers of the saints are the prayers of his friends but the prayers of Mary are the prayers of his mother.

Thank you, Jesus.

Padre Pio, ora pro nobis.

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/259431/padre-pio-13-facts-about-the-saint-to-know-and-share

"Christ is everything to us! If you want to heal a wound, He is the doctor; if you are burning with fever, He is the source; if you are oppressed by iniquity, He is justice; if you need help, He is the strength ; if you fear death, He is the life; if you desire Heaven, He is the way; if you are in darkness, He is the light... Taste and see how good the Lord is: blessed is the man who is in Him. lay down your hope."

Saint Ambrose of Milan

'Photius promised everything, and was accordingly consecrated, but by the very same Gregory, and took possession of the See. Six months had not yet passed over, since his consecration, and he had broken all his oaths and promises; he persecuted St. Ignatius, and all the ecclesiastics who adhered to him; he even got some of them flogged, and by promises and threats induced several to sign documents, intended for the ruin of his sainted predecessors. Not being able to accomplish his design, he laid a plot, with the assistance of Bardas, that the Emperor should send persons to take information, to prove that St. Ignatius was privately conspiring against the state.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

St Thomas Aquinas: “The Eucharist is the sacrament of love: it signifies love, it produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life.”

Church of St Augustine, Turin, Italy

On the Annunciation and the Perpetual Virginity

Dixit autem Maria ad angelum: Quomodo fiet istud, quoniam virum non cognosco? Mary said to the angel, How can that be, since I have no knowledge of man?

The tense used in verse 34, "I have no knowledge of man" is a present, which must in the nature of the case be translated either as a perfect or as a future. If the Angel had said anything to suggest (what was in fact, tradition assures us, the case) that the conception of our Lord in the womb was to take place immediately, it would have been natural to give the verb a past significance, "since I have never yet had knowledge of man". But there is no such indication given in verse 31; and the straightforward explanation of the Blessed Virgin's bewilderment is thereby automatically excluded.

It is unthinkable that an engaged woman should be puzzled by a prophecy, undated, about the future career of her son, merely on the ground that the marriage has not yet been consummated. Thus there can be no satisfactory explanation of the passage except a fixed determination on the part of the betrothed woman that her marriage shall not be consummated; "I have no intention of the kind," she says, using the same formula as that used by our Lord in John 7:8. That she had taken a vow of virginity is thus made extremely probable, without being actually asserted.

-Msgr Ronald Knox's Commentary on the Gospels (The Annunciation in the Gospel of St Luke Ch 2)

Today we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

«²⁸And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!”»
Luke 1:28 (RSVCE)

«By the authority of Jesus Christ Our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful».
–Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (1854)