The Month of the Rosary

Learning from a mother’s gaze

by Jeanette DeMelo

This month, the month of the Rosary, the articles featured in the Denver Catholic Register focus largely on our Blessed Mother and the great gift that we have been given in the Holy Rosary.  One such article was written by Endow board member Jeanette DeMelo. 

In the article she writes, “knowing the condition of our lives and the distress in the world around us, peace sometimes may seem impossible—but not for God.  And historically, at the center of God’s dynamic attempt to reach us is Mary—given to us as our Blessed Mother.”

Jeanette also writes that “this month of October, the month of the rosary, is a perfect time to learn from Mary to gaze interiorly at Jesus’ face so that we, too, can grow in love and union with him.”

To read the full article, click here.

Join the Endow Prayer Team!

One of the holy tasks Endow has been blessed with is the call to pray for our shepherds – the bishops and priests of the Church.

All are welcome to join their voices with their sisters in Christ. Members would be separated by space but joined in heart as they pray for clergy as well as for the many various intentions from other Endow women.  Prayer requests will be solicited and shared regularly with the group.

If you are a woman of prayer who feels she would like to join this special calling, please e-mail us.  Click here.

“Pray constantly and for all things give thanks…this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”

                                                                                                                     1Thess 5:17

Spiritual Motherhood Resources

Church Documents:
1.  Eucharistic Adoration for the Sanctification of Priests and Spiritual Maternity:  In this document from the Congregation for the Clergy in Rome, addressed to all the bishops of the Church on December 7, 2007, we read: “The vocation to be a spiritual mother for priests is largely unknown, scarcely understood and, consequently, rarely lived, notwithstanding its fundamental importance. It is a vocation that is frequently hidden, invisible to the naked eye, but meant to transmit spiritual life.” For the complete document, click here. 
2.  Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women):  This apostolic letter is very foundational to ENDOW.  The references to Spiritual Motherhood can be found in paragraph 21.  Click here for the complete apostolic letter. 

Related Articles: 
1.  Zenit.org:  “Priests Need Prayers:  Prefect Explains Spiritual-Motherhood Initiative” by Cardinal Humes.  Click here. 
2.  Adoro te Devote:  “Pondering Spiritual Motherhood” by Adoro, thoughts on being a spiritual mother from a consecrated virgin.  Click here.
3.  National Catholic Register:  “Mother’s Prayer Profits Priest” by Joseph Pronechen.  Click here.  
4.  Vultus Christi:  “Spiritual Motherhood for Priests” by Fr. Mark Kirby.  Click here.
5.  Vultus Christi:  “A Little Catechism on Spiritual Motherhood” by Fr. Mark Kirby.  Click here.
6.  Denver Catholic Register:  “Caring for the Priest’s Soul:  Spiritual Motherhood” by Julie Filby.  Click here.

Prayers for Priests: 
1.  USCCB Website:  Click here.
2.  Adoremus:  Click here. 
3.  Homestead:  Click here.
4.  Rosary for the Bishop:  Click here.  (Rosary for the Bishop is a program which aims to show support for Catholic Bishops by maintaining an ongoing web-based spiritual bouquet.)

Year for Priests Resources:
1. Vatican Website:  The Vatican has dedicated a special page to resources regarding the Year for Priests.  Click here. 
2. USCCB Webiste:  The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops has also dedicated a special page to the Year of the Priests.  Click here.  (For videos, click here!)
3. Archdiocese of Denver:  The Archdiocese of Denver also has a page with additional resources for the Year for Priests.  Click here.
4.  Vultus Christi: ”What can I do for the Year for Priests” by Fr. Mark Kirby.  Click here.

Prayer for Priests

O Jesus, we pray for your faithful and fervent priests, your unfaithful and lukewarm priests, your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields, your tempted priests, your lonely and desolate priests, your young priests, your old priests, and the souls of your priests in purgatory.  We pray for your priests in special need of spiritual, emotional, or physical healing, for priests who have left the Church, and for the souls of the priests who will die today.  But above all, we recommend to you the priests dearest to us:  the priests who baptized us, the priests who absolve us from our sins, the priests at whose Masses we assist and who give us your Body and Blood in Holy Communion, the priests who teach and instruct us; all the priests to whom we are indebted in any other way.  O Jesus, keep them all close to your heart and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity.  Amen.

Click here to download a printable version of the Prayer for Priests.

How does one become a Spiritual Mother?

ENDOW would like to encourage every woman to become a spiritual mother to a priest. How does one do this? First, choose a priest – he may be known to you or not. (You may wish to choose your parish priest, for example.)  Resolve to take him under your wing in a spiritual sense and pray for him daily. Your prayer may take the form of quiet adoration before the Blessed Sacrament or perhaps Holy Mass one day a week offered especially for your priest. You may make sacrifices with him in mind and offer up daily trials as a penance.  In all these endeavors, let Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, whom John Paul II has called the “highest expression of the feminine genius” be your guide. Let her tender maternity, her unconditional love and her abundant faith in God be your model and inspiration.

Click here to complete the Spiritual Motherhood form

What is Spiritual Motherhood?

What is Spiritual Motherhood?

Spiritual motherhood is a beautiful concept. As with many beautiful things, we may sense it in our hearts, but attaching words to it can be difficult. It is hard to define specifically, as spiritual motherhood is often alluded to but is never clearly spelled out. It falls to us to glean what we can from our reading of Scripture and the reflections of popes, saints and holy people within our Catholic Tradition.

What seems to be the case is this: spiritual motherhood surely exists and it is as real as love. Part of the “feminine genius” John Paul II teaches about includes the gift of maternity, but when he speaks of maternity he is not limiting the experience solely to a biological reality. Speaking of motherhood in an Angelus address, the Holy Father has said “…[Feeling life within the womb] is a privilege of mothers, but all women in some way have an intuition of it, predisposed as they are to this miraculous gift.” By this he means that the things associated with motherhood, i.e., the acceptance of the other, the nurturing, the generosity and empathy, are all contained in the vocation of motherhood, but are not the exclusive province of the woman who has physically given birth. All women can know and act in these ways. Spiritual motherhood – which can be undertaken by any woman of any age or position in life – is a vocation within our larger vocation to holiness. When we undertake to mother someone spiritually, we gather that person close to our heart and offer him the special protection we would lavish on our own offspring. To care for his soul becomes our urgent mission. In prayer, we whisper his name before Almighty God. His worries become our worries; when he is tempted or confused or sorrowful, our maternal heart aches with him.  And when he comes to know success and joy, we rejoice with him. Realizing we are all members of the Body of Christ, it follows that when we tend to the spiritual health and well-being of one priest, we are helping in some small but significant way to care for the whole flock.

Honoring The Blesses Mother (May 2010)

In this, the month honoring Our Lady, we want to highlight Mary as the model for all women and especially for facilitators.  The below is a special exerpt taken from the website “To Teach:  Modern Questions.  Gospel Answers.” which is a USCCB Publishing for Catholic Educators. 

Mary, Model of Faith

After two thousand years, Mary still stands as our model of faith. As you read the three quotes below about Mary, consider in what ways do you walk a similar path as Mary did and what can you learn from her example.

Hail Mary, Mother of God,
You have given the world its true light,
Jesus, your Son – The Son of God.
You abandoned yourself completely to God’s call
And this became a wellspring
Of the goodness which flows forth from him.
Show us Jesus.  Lead us to him.
Teach us to know and love him,
So that we too can become capable of true love
And be fountains of living water
In the midst of a thirsting world.
—Pope Benedict XVI
God Is Love (Deus Caritas Est), 42

Mary, the Mother of the Lord, has received from the faithful the title of Advocate:  she is our advocate before God.  And this is how we see her, from the wedding-feast of Cana onwards:  as a woman who is kindly, filled with maternal concern and love, a woman who is attentive to the needs of others and, out of desire to help them, brings those needs before the Lord.
—Pope Benedict XVI
 Mary:  Spiritual Thought Series, 57

It is time for Catholics to share their familial relationship with the Mother of Christ and for other Christians to rediscover the remarkable example of the woman who was the first to hear and accept the Gospel.  All Baptized Christians can look to Mary as the Mother of the Church’s faith, hearing Jesus bestowing upon them the one whom he entrusted to be his beloved disciple:  “Behold, your mother” (Jn 19:27).  As a loving friend and sympathetic companion, Mary shares in the joys and sufferings of her fellow disciples, while ever confirming for them the great rewards of a life lived in faithfulness to the Gospel.
—Mary in Ecumenical Perspective