The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary - CCO Dedication Services across Canada

Today, the Church universal celebrates the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady.

Master of the Osservanza (c. 1440), Birth of the Virgin

The central panel of the triptych shows the newly born Virgin Mary being washed by midwives in the foreground, with her mother Saint Anne in the bed. In the left wing Saint Joachim is told the news of the birth; in the right wing two women are seen in a domestic setting. The source is The Golden Legend.

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The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Impart to your servants, we pray, O Lord ,the gift of heavenly grace, that the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin may bring deeper peace to those for whom the birth of her Son was the dawning of salvation. Through our Lord.

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CCO COMMITMENT SERVICE

Across Canada today in dioceses where Catholic Christian Outreach is present on university campuses, lay missionaries, their family, friends, the students they serve and their benefactors (spiritula and material) will gather with the local bishop, if he is available, to proclaim their commitment to the Lord who has called them to this service.

Because I had booked travel to attend the installation of Archbishop Charles Chaput, ofm cap as Archbishop of Philadelphia, we agreed to anticipate the Ottawa commitment service on Tuesday evening at Blessed Sacrament Church. 

CCO founders Angele and Andre Regnier, members of the CCO headquarters office staff and members of the missions at Ottawa and Carleton universities came together for this happy and edifying commitment service at the close of Mass.  There was also a reception in the parish hall afterwards.

Recently, after extensive consultation and revisions, the CCO Study Guides were presented for the imprimatur, which I granted.  Those not yet translated into French are in process.  Here is one of the Bible-based study guides on the theme of Obedience.  Others are entitled Discovery (Decouverte), Source, Growth, Commission. 

The other foundation document is called The Ultimate Relationship/ La Relation ultime.

More information on CCO may be found on their website: www.cco.ca.

 

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Here is the Prayer that the Missionaries proclaimed as part of their commitment service:

The Apostle’s Prayer

Lord, when you called Abraham, he responded, “Ready.”

When you called Isaiah, he answered, “Here I am Lord.”

When the angel Gabriel called out to Mary, she responded, “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word.”

Lord, I hear you calling my name.

I hear you entrusting me with the task of building your kingdom.

Like those holy men and women who have gone before me,

I give you my ‘yes’!

I will go anywhere you want me to go.

I will do anything you want me to do.

I will say anything you want me to say.

Holy Spirit I welcome you and ask you to guide me.

Form in me an apostle’s heart

filled with love for Christ and zeal for souls.

I will commit myself with courage and generosity

to the New Evangelization.

I will build, brick-by-brick, the city of God inside the city of man.

Amen.