A Most Holy Name

... Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most Holy.
Blessed be her Holy and Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her Glorious Assumption.
Blessed be the Name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
Blessed be St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse ...
- The Divine Praises

We celebrate the feast of the Holy Name of Mary on Sept. 12. And the devil probably can't stand it.

Why? Because Mary represents the beginning of the end for him. Jesus, her Son, defeats the devil decisively through His incarnation. When Jesus is crucified, dies, and is buried, tradition tells us He descends into hell, binds the power of the devil and his angels, and sets free many souls who'd died before the coming of Christ. Now the Church must continue the work of Jesus in the world until the end of time - which includes winning back the world and history from the power of the lord of the world (the devil) through prayer, sacrifice, and the sacraments.

Final victory
And Mary's Immaculate Conception and perfect holiness throughout her life is the prelude of the final victory. She is the woman in whom the devil never had any part, the one with perfect enmity with the serpent (see Gn 3:15). She is the woman who gives birth to the Messiah, and so she is the woman of Revelation 12, clothed with the sun, with the moon at her feet, and the crown of 12 stars on her head. The devil is defeated by her and her Son, and goes raging about the earth until his time is up.

No, the devil can't stand the name of Mary.

So let us never fail to call upon Mary in times of temptation and darkness, Mary who is called the "star of the sea," who is "our life, our sweetness, and our hope," who is the dawning of Jesus, the Sun of Justice. Let us faithfully pray the Rosary for peace in the world and the triumph of the Immaculate Heart, calling upon the name of Mary with every Hail Mary again and again until we come home to heaven or heaven comes to earth at the end of the world.
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MBK

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