The first Sunday of Advent signals a time of waiting and preparation for the coming of Our Lord Jesus. The Advent wreath helps us to meditate on this ‘waiting’ period before the arrival of Christmas. It is circular to indicate the fact that God is eternal, without beginning or end. It is a crown made […]
Tota pulchra es Maria, et macula originalis non es in te. Tu gloria Ierusalem, tu laetitia Israel, tu honorificentia populi nostri, tu advocata peccatorum.O Maria! O Maria! Virgo prudentissima, Mater clementissima, ora pro nobis, intercede pro nobis, ad Dominum Iesum Christum. You are all beautiful, Mary, and the stain of original sin is not in […]
The 21st November is the World Day of Cloistered Life —Pro Orantibus Day (“For Those Who Pray”). It was instituted by Pope Pius XII in 1953 on the day in which we celebrate the liturgical feast of the presentation of Mary in the Temple. To honour this special day, we visit the Chapel of the […]
This year, 2020, is completely different to other years due to the ongoing pandemic that is gripping the world. It causes us to reflect more frequently on the meaning of death and the fragility of human life. Of course, thinking about the end of our lives can be disconcerting because we do not know how […]
This year we celebrate the 70° anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption of the ever-Virgin Mary into heaven. Christians have always believed in this truth. In fact, from the first centuries of Christianity, oral accounts about the end of the life of the Virgin were handed down in the Judeo-Christian community. […]
Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci, better known as Pietro Perugino (1450-1523), was an Umbrian painter of the High Renaissance who realised the exceptional fresco entitled ‘The Handing of the Keys to St Peter’ between 1481/2 in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City, Rome. The fresco forms part of a series of mural decorations that gave the Sistine […]
‘Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against […]
The splendid mosaics in the apse of St Mary Major’s Basilica in Rome narrate the life story of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Of particular interest is the “Dormitio Mariæ”, the Dormition of Mary, which is found just below the central mosaic. The mosaic depicts the Marian mystery that the Eastern Church refer to as the […]
The 26th July is the feast of St Joachim and Anna, Jesus’ grandparents, and therefore we wanted to turn our attention to this Roman parish dedicated to Saint Joachim which is adorned with remarkable beauty and has been entrusted to the Redemptorist Father’s since 1898. In 1878, when the Ripetta bridge was built and the […]
Here is the interview of Sr Emanuela on the EWTN News Nightly programme. Sr Emanuela talks about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our visits of Art and Faith to the Vatican Museums and how the COVID pandemic has provided the ‘opportunity’ for the Missionaries of Divine Revelation to use Social Media as […]