A Word About Asking Mary, the Angels, and Saints to Intercede for us
Many Christians have a problem with the practice of people (usually Catholics) asking Mary, the angels and saints to pray for and intercede for us. Catholics, and other Christians, are sometimes accused of worshipping Mary and even worshipping statues.
In regards to Mary, Catholics and many other Christians with a devotion to Mary do not worship her. They rightly believe that worship is due to God alone. Catholics and other Christians do, however, venerate Mary. In other words, they honor the Blessed Mother with great reverence and devotion because she is the Mother of God. Mary is the model of perfect love and obedience to Christ. God preserved Mary from sin, and she conceived our Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit, bringing Christ into our world. Catholics can’t help but honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is full of grace, the Mother of God and our Mother, for her “yes” to God that made the Incarnation possible. Without the Incarnation, we would not have salvation. Mary is the most beautiful model of total submission to the will of God. Catholics do not view Mary as equal to Christ, but rather venerate Mary because of her relationship to Christ. Frankly, we cannot accept Jesus as our Brother without accepting Mary as our loving Mother too. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “Mary’s role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it” (CCC 964).
For those who would like additional information on Mary, an excellent reference on Our Blessed Virgin Mary can be found on the “Meet Your Mother” webpage on the St. Bonaventure Catholic Church website.
In regards to statues, Christians use statues, paintings, and other artistic devices to recall the person or thing depicted. Just as it helps to remember one’s mother by looking at her photograph, so it helps to recall the example of the saints by looking at pictures of them. Catholics also use statues as teaching tools. In the early Church they were especially useful for the instruction of the illiterate. Many Protestants have pictures of Jesus and other Bible pictures in Sunday school for teaching children. Catholics also use statues to commemorate certain people and events, much as Protestant churches have three-dimensional nativity scenes at Christmas.
Heavenly Patrons for the Confraternity of Warriors in Christ
Four Heavenly patrons have been chosen and asked to specifically pray and intercede for the Confraternity of Warriors in Christ.
The four patrons are 1) Mary – Queen of Peace; 2) Saint Michael the Archangel; 3) Saint Monica and; 4) Mother Angelica
Mary has been given many titles, Queen of Peace is particularly relevant to the Confraternity of Warriors in Christ. Mary has the heart of a warrior, which she exhibited as she followed her Son as he carried His cross to Calvary. She stood strongly at the foot of the cross as her Son was brutally crucified.
Saint Michael the Archangel has already defeated Satan once (Revelation 12: 7-8) and is the perfect Champion to advocate for our Confraternity of Warriors in Christ.
Saint Monica was chosen as a patron because of her great example of persistently praying for the conversion of her husband, mother-in-law and son (St. Augustine). How many of our families today have loved ones who have abandoned their faith? Saint Monica can add her powerful prayers to the Confraternity of Warriors in Christ to help all members who are praying for family members and friends to return to their faith.
Mother Angelica, although not given the official designation as “saint” yet by the Catholic Church, was chosen as a patron because of her remarkable ability to spread the Word and Truth and Love of God thorough her miraculous creation and development of one of the most powerful and influential religious media outlets ever created, EWTN. Similar to the Confraternity of Warriors-in-Christ, she started alone, with an idea inspired by the Holy Spirit. Before she was finished her broadcasts would reach over 100 million homes. She is more than well suited to advocate for the growth of our Confraternity of Warriors-in-Christ.
Finally, any Confraternity of Warriors in Christ member who is in Heaven is a saint and we ask all members who are saints to continue to pray and advocate for us here on earth. Their prayers are powerful indeed and will bring great benefit to our Confraternity members.
For more on these Heavenly patrons, click the Tabs below.
Our Lady Queen of Peace
The Blessed Virgin Mary was given the great privilege to be the Mother of God, and God entrusted his infant Church to St. Peter and the apostles under the guidance of Mary, Mother of Divine Grace. There are many titles of Mary by which she is known, including two titles – Mary Queen of Peace; and Mystical Rose – both of which we have chosen as our Heavenly patron for the Confraternity of Warriors in Christ.
Queen of Peace
Mary has the heart of a warrior. She is the very image of one who exhibits peace through strength. Her strength did not fail her as she stood at the foot of the cross and endured the agony of watching her Son being crucified. Just before His death Jesus made her the Mother of John, and of us all, when He told her ” Behold your son.” (John 19:26).
From the most ancient times the Blessed Virgin Mary has been honored. Her intercession as the Mother of God and the Queen Mother behind the Throne of the almighty King and Lord Jesus Christ is sought by all the faithful who fly to her in all their dangers and needs. We, as members of the Confraternity of Warriors in Christ also fly to her and ask for her powerful intercession and prayers.
We know our Blessed Mother is an intercessor because of her role in the first public miracle Jesus performed. Because of her intercession, Jesus transformed water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana. (John 2)
Mary, Queen of Peace, intercede for us!
St. Michael the Archangel
The word “saint” comes from the Latin word “Sancta”, which means holy. Although Saint Michael the Archangel isn’t a saint in the same sense as humans who are designated as saints, it is still common and proper to refer to him as “Saint” (Holy) Michael. He is an angel, and the leader of all angels and of the army of God. This is what the title “Archangel” means, that he is above all the others in rank.
St. Michael has four main responsibilities or offices, as we know from scripture and Christian tradition.
The first is to combat Satan.
The second is to escort the faithful to heaven at their hour of death.
The third is to be a champion of all Christians, and the Church itself.
And the fourth is to call men from life on Earth to their heavenly judgment.
Very little is known about St Michael other than what we know from scriptures, and these references to him are sparse.
In Daniel, St. Michael is mentioned twice. The first time as one who helped Daniel, and the second time he is mentioned with regard to the end times of the world when he will stand for the “children of thy people.”
His next mention comes in the Epistle of St. Jude, where St. Michael is said to guard the tombs of Moses and Eve and has contended with Satan over the body of Moses.
The final mention is in Revelation, where St. Michael and his angels do battle with the dragon.
There are other scriptures where St. Michael is implied, but not mentioned by name, such as the angel; who defends the gate to Paradise, who defends against Balaam, and “who routed the army of Sennacherib.”
Today, St. Michel is invoked for protection, especially from lethal enemies. He is also the patron of soldiers, police and doctors and is a perfect patron for the Confraternity of Warriors in Christ.
St. Michael, protect us!
Saint Monica
St. Monica was born in 332 in or near the North African town of Tagaste, some forty miles from the port city of Hippo. Her parents were native Africans, related ethnically to present day Berbers. Although she was a Christian and her parents were devout Christians, when she was 22 years old they gave her in marriage to a pagan, Patricius, who was s city administrator in her hometown and was twice her age. Patricius had a violent temper and loose morals.
Whatever Monica felt towards her betrothed, she was obedient to her parents’ will, consoling herself with the thought that here was a lost soul that was being entrusted to her, and she determined to sacrifice herself to the task of guiding this soul onto the path to salvation. Nevertheless, she could not have anticipated just what this sacrifice was to entail. In the days and weeks after the marriage, she became increasingly and painfully aware of the abyss that lay between her and her husband. He was annoyed by her prayers; he found her charity excessive; he could not understand her desire to visit the sick; he could not fathom her love for slaves. At every step in her Christian walk, Monica met with countless hindrances.
Prayer was Monica’s strength, and the joys of motherhood further served to mitigate the bitterness of her circumstances. She bore two sons and a daughter, whom she nurtured in the faith with great diligence and ultimate success. As a boy, writes Blessed Augustine, “I already believed, and my mother and the whole household, except for my father. Yet he did not prevail over the power of my mother’s piety in me, that as he did not believe, so neither should I. For it was her earnest care that Thou my God, rather than he, shouldst be my father” (Confessions 1.11). To Monica’s great sorrow, Patricius would not have the children baptized. And when Augustine began to show promise of intellectual brilliance, Patricius sent him for higher education to Carthage, where the youth gradually fell prey to youthful passions.
As young as she was, Monica bore her cross with remarkable fortitude and spiritual maturity. She realized that her husband’s weaknesses and moral failings stemmed from the fact that he had not yet been enlightened by the Gospel, that he lacked the grace of God. She shed bitter tears in his absence, but she knew that a man who did not love God could not be expected to be constant in his affection towards one of His creatures. With firm hope, she prayed constantly and persistently that God Himself would grant her husband faith and love for Him, which alone are able to inspire a man with the desire to lead a chaste life.
The fruit from her many prayers, her long-suffering, and her steadfast application of the Gospel precepts took a long time to mature. It was only after sixteen years that Patricius was baptized. Nor did Monica enjoy for long her husband’s company at the Lord’s Supper, for he died only a year later, in 371. Nevertheless, her aim had been to sanctify her husband for eternal life, and, by the Grace of God, this she had achieved. It remained for her to extricate her wayward son Augustine from the delusion of his passions and his acceptance of the Manichean heresy (all flesh is evil). This required another fourteen years of persistent prayer. When at last his heart, too, was converted, her joy was complete.
Augustine is revered by the Catholic Church as one of its great saints and wrote many insightful works that continue to help people today better understand God and how they can have a personal relationship with Him.
Monica was present at Augustine’s baptism at the hands of St. Ambrose in Milan at Pascha, 387, and they were returning to Africa when they stopped to rest in the port city of Ostia. One evening they had a long conversation in which she said to him, “Son, for mine own part I have no further delight in anything in this life. What I do here any longer, and to what end I am here, I know not, now that my hopes in this world are accomplished” (Confessions 9.10). Indeed, she had excellently fulfilled her purpose in life, and, after a brief illness, God took her that she might receive her due reward with the saints in His eternal kingdom. She was buried in Ostia, a fact verified by the inscription on a stone tablet discovered there by archaeologists in 1946.
One of the most famous passages from her son St. Augustine’s book “The Confessions” is “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
Without the persistent prayers by St. Monica for her son, the world would have never been blessed by this great theologian, whose thoughtful writings and insight have drawn so many to realize the truth of the only one and true God. As a patron saint for the Confraternity of Warriors in Christ, we ask St. Monica to pray for all our members who are praying for family members to come, to know and to become disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.
St. Monica, pray for us!
Mother Angelica, 1923 – 2016
Rita Antoinette Rizzo, the future Mother Angelica, was born in an Italian ghetto area in southeast Canton, Ohio on April 20, 1923. After her father abandoned them, she went with her mother and four brothers to live in her grandparents’ home.
Her grandfather ran a family-oriented saloon, a center of immigrant activity from which Rita learns about prostitutes, the mob, holy Italian women and ethnic diversity.
On October 2, 1946, Rita Rizzo makes her first professional vows as Sister Mary Angelica at the Sancta Clara Monastery in Canton, Ohio. In 1960 she takes the title of Mother Angelica for the first time and then founds Our Lady of Angels Monastery in Irondale, Alabama in 1961.
In 1962, Mother Angelica records her first talk, entitled “God’s Love for you.”
In 1978 Mother Angelica, armed with $200, 12 cloistered nuns with no broadcasting experience, and the unlimited power of the Holy Spirit took the first steps God’s plan for her that would eventually lead to a world-wide television and radio network broadcasting powerhouse – EWTN – which would reach over 100 million homes by 1995.
Interestingly enough, in 1989 Mother Angelica felt St. Michael the Archangel’s sword touch her shoulder and she heard the words “I will ever be at your side, and we will fight together.” St. Michael is another one of our Heavenly Patrons that you can read more about on this webpage. So the involvement of Mother Angelica and St. Michael the Archangel in the Confraternity of Warriors-in-Christ won’t be the first these two have worked together battling the spiritual forces of evil.
Mother Angelica – pray for the expansion of the Confraternity of Warriors-in-Christ!
Warriors Triumphant
Scripture tells us we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1). Some of these “witnesses” will be Confraternity of Warriors members who are now in Heaven. Just as in the Body of Christ, we have the Church “Militant” (those still on earth), the Church Suffering (those souls in Purgatory) and the Church Triumphant (those saints in Heaven), the Confraternity of Warriors members who are in Heaven can also be described as Warriors “Triumphant”. We ask that all Warriors Triumphant continue to fulfill their promise to pray for all other Confraternity members – and their prayers should be very powerful based on what the Book of James tells us.