• =?UTF-8?Q?25_March_=E2=80=93_St_Marie=2DAlphonsine_Danil_Ghattas?=

    From rich@1:396/4 to All on Wed Mar 24 10:06:44 2021
    From: rich <richarra@gmail.com>

    25 March =E2=80=93 St Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghattas

    =C2 Palestinian Nun and Founder of the Dominican Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary of Jerusalem (the Rosary Sisters), the first Palestinian
    congregation, Mystic, Apostle of the Holy Rosary =E2=80=93 born as Soultane=
    h
    Maria Ghattas on 4 October 1843 in Jerusalem and died on 25 March 1927
    at Ain Karim, Jerusalem of natural causes. Patronage =E2=80=93 the Dominica=
    n
    Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary of Jerusalem.

    Sultanah Maria Ghattas was born in Jerusalem on 4 October 1843 and
    baptised on 19 of November the same year. On 18 July 1852, she
    received the Sacrament of Confirmation from the hands of His Beatitude
    Giuseppe Valerga, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.

    At the age of 14, she joined the Congregation of St Joseph of the
    Apparition as a Postulant. On 30 June 1860, she received the Holy
    Habit of the Religious of St Joseph of the Apparition and took the
    name of Sr Marie-Alphonsine. Two years later, in 1862, she pronounced
    her three vows. In Bethlehem where she was assigned, she was entrusted
    with the teaching of Catechism. Besides, she founded Confraternities
    and Associations and promoted the devotion to Our Lady through the
    prayer of the Rosary.

    She was favoured with several apparitions of Our Lady who revealed to
    Mother Marie- Alphonsine Her desire to begin the Congregation of the
    Rosary. The Virgin Mary appointed Fr Joseph Tannous as her Director to administer the Congregation of the Rosary.

    Father Tannous rented for the first five postulants =E2=80=93 including Sr Marie-Alphonsine =E2=80=93 a modest house in Jerusalem in which they entere=
    d
    on 24 July 1880. H.B. Vincent Bracco, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem,
    vested them with the Holy Habit on 15 December 1881. Mother
    Marie-Alphonsine went through many difficult time prior to obtaining
    the dispensation from her vow of obedience to the Superiors of St
    Joseph and the permission to enter the new Congregation of the Holy
    Rosary. Father Tannous was always there to help her during those
    critical times. On 6 October 1883, she received the Habit of the
    Rosary Congregation from the hands of Msgr Pascal Appodia, Patriarchal
    Vicar. On 7 March 1885, together with the first eight sisters, Mother Marie-Alphonsine was admitted to profession and pronounced her three
    vows in a ceremony presided over by Vincent Bracco, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.

    On 25 July 1885, Mother Marie-Alphonsine was assigned, together with
    another sister, to Jaffa in Galilee. There, one day, a miracle
    happened =E2=80=93 Nathira I'd, a young girl, fell into a deep cist=
    ern filled
    with water. The only thing that Mother Marie-Alphonsine could do was
    to throw her large rosary of 15 decades in the well, to invoke Our
    Lady to help them and to go into the church with other girls to pray
    the Rosary. Nathira came out safe and sound, saying that she saw a
    great light and a ladder shaped like a Rosary which assisted her in
    climbing her way out.

    In October 1886, she was sent to a new foundation in Beit Sahour (the Shepherds' village) where, it was expected, she would open a school=
    ..
    In 1887, together with three sisters, she left Beit Sahour for Salt,
    the first mission in Trans-Jordan. Two years later she was sent to
    Nablus but soon taken to the Mother House in Jerusalem for health
    reasons. Once healed, she was sent to Zababdeh. In 1892, she was sent
    to Nazareth to assist Fr Tannous on his deathbed.

    In 1893, Mother Marie-Alphonsine established a workshop in Bethlehem,
    to give work to poor girls. She remained 15 years in Bethlehem, at the
    end of those years full of zeal and enthusiasm, in 1909, she was
    recalled to the Mother House in Jerusalem where she remained till
    1917, when she was charged with the foundation of an orphanage in the
    town of Ain-Karem. There she could return to her life of prayer to
    fulfill Our Lady's wish that the Rosary may be recited perpetually.

    On 25 March 1927, Mother Marie-Alphonsine breathed her last while
    praying the rosary with her sister, Hanneh Danil Ghattas. Thus, Mother Marie-Alphonsine was distinguished by her total abandonment to the
    Divine Providence. She is the apostle of hope and trust in God and Our
    Lady. She firmly believed in our Lady's words: =E2=80=9CThe Rosary =
    is your
    treasure!=E2=80=9D

    =C2 His Holiness St Pope John Paul II announced the acknowledgement of
    the heroic virtues of Mother Marie Alphonsine on 15 October 1994 and
    in 1995 she was proclaimed =E2=80=9CVenerable=E2=80=9D.
    On 22 November 2009, she was Beatified in Nazareth. Her Canonisation
    Was on 17 May 2015 in St Peter's Square....

    The ceremony was attended by more than 2,000 Christian pilgrims from
    the Middle East and by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Four days
    before the Canonisation of Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghattas, the Vatican announced a treaty that reaffirms Palestinian statehood by the Holy
    See.

    The members of the order she founded ran schools, catechetical
    programs, clinics and orphanages throughout the Middle East.

    Blessed Mother Marie-Alphonsine, pray for us and for the Holy Land!

    see
    https://anastpaul.com/2020/03/25/


    Saint Quote:
    The heart is rich when it is content, and it is always content when
    its desires are fixed on God.
    --Saint Miguel Febres Cordero Mu=C3=B1oz

    Bible quote
    =C2 "Now (Finally) be patient, brothers, until the Lord's coming.=C2 T=
    hink
    of a farmer: how patiently he waits for the precious fruit of the
    ground until it has had the autumn rains and the spring rains!=C2 You
    too must be patient; do not lose heart, because the Lord's coming
    (parousias) will be soon."=C2 James 5:7-8:

    <><><><>
    Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord

    =C2 =C2 Together with Jesus, the privileged and graced Mary is the lin=
    k
    between heaven and earth. She is the human being who best, after
    Jesus, exemplifies the possibilities of human existence. She received
    into her lowliness the infinite love of God. She shows how an ordinary
    human being can reflect God in the ordinary circumstances of life. She exemplifies what the Church and every member of the Church is meant to
    become. She is the ultimate product of the creative and redemptive
    power of God. She manifests what the Incarnation is meant to
    accomplish for all of us
    =C2 =C2 Sometimes spiritual writers are accused of putting Mary on a
    pedestal and thereby discouraging ordinary humans from imitating her.
    Perhaps such an observation is misguided. God did put Mary on a
    pedestal and has put all human beings on a pedestal. We have scarcely
    begun to realize the magnificence of divine grace, the wonder of God=E2=80= =99s
    freely given love. The marvel of Mary--even in the midst of her very
    ordinary life--is God's shout to us to wake up to the marvelous
    creatures that we all are by divine design.
    =C2 =C2 =E2=80=9CEnriched from the first instant of her conception wit=
    h the
    splendor of an entirely unique holiness, the virgin of Nazareth is
    hailed by the heralding angel, by divine command, as =E2=80=98full of grace=
    '
    (cf. Luke 1:28). To the heavenly messenger she replies: =E2=80=98Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word' (Luke
    1:38). Thus the daughter of Adam, Mary, consenting to the word of God,
    became the Mother of Jesus. Committing herself wholeheartedly and
    impeded by no sin to God's saving will, she devoted herself totally=
    ,
    as a handmaid of the Lord, to the person and work of her Son, under
    and with him, serving the mystery of redemption, by the grace of
    Almighty God=E2=80=9D (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 56)

    --- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2
    * Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4)