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
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