Mary Immaculate, Star Of The Morning

Let us celebrate the motherhood of the Virgin Mary, and let us worship 
Christ the Lord, her Son.       
                                                                                          Church Prayer

The Lord chose her before she was born.

– The Lord chose her before she was born.

To live in his holy dwelling-place.

– The Lord chose her before she was born.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

– The Lord chose her before she was born.

                                                                         Responsory  Lauds Universalis

     Hail Mary, full of grace,

    the evening’s kingdom

    lying at your feet;  

    our longing vast

                                                       as light                                                       

    from the dead

                      and dying stars                  

                            covering                          
   our nothingness

    you fold back

     and come into.

    O Holy Mary,

     your voice so sweet

       through these straits of dust,

      these empires of sand

        vanishing through our hands,

      opening to you, blue,

     blue Mother of God

    we pray,

       as the morning keeps,

        the morning keeps,

        on the shores of sleep,

         the shores of sleep.

Lord, may our souls come close to your Mother
who have blocked her luminous grace
by the ways of the world;
by the ways of self,
that lead far away.

O, Mother of tenderness, of mercy, pray for us. You, cradling the divine in your person, gazing on the face of God become babe looped in the dark recesses of your sacred womb, now in your arms. What beauty your very shadow exudes, the passing light of you singing in the silences of our frail awe. The immeasurable gift of God, through you, giving His only son for us who refuse and murder in our sleep in so myriad of ways.  Yet, contemplating your face, we see the Church reflecting Christ’s luminosity over all of us in His radical gathering.  His Body proclaiming through the weave of centuries that we are “no longer a slave but a friend.”  What love for humankind in sharing the beloved Child with us in this unending love song our Father is singing through Jesus Christ our Lord and his tender Mother.  On this Solemnity of Mary, no words, just kneeling and gazing upon this love that comes blinding all the same.