The Rosary in a Year (with Fr. Mark-Mary Ames) - Day 68: Fancy Friends

Episode Date: March 9, 2025

Many of us have “fancy” friends in our lives, and sometimes we are the “fancy” friend: someone whose role, talents, or connections are able to help us out. However, Fr. Mark-Mary explains that we all have the best “fancy” friend in Mary, our Mother and Queen. Reading from the book of Revelation, he explores how we can have total confidence in Mary as we bring our petitions to her. Today’s focus is the mystery of the Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth and we will be praying one Our Father, three Hail Marys, and one Glory Be. For the complete prayer plan, visit https://ascensionpress.com/riy.

Hi, I'm Father Mark Mary with Franciscan Friars Renewal, and this is the Rosary in the Year podcast, where through prayer and meditation, the rosary brings us deeper into relationship with Jesus and Mary and becomes a source of grace for the whole world. The Rosary in the Year is brought to you by Ascension, and this is Day 68. To download the prayer plan for Rosary in the Year, visit ascensionpress.com forward slash rosary in the year or text R-I-Y to 33777. You'll get an outline of how we're going to pray each month and it's a great way to track your progress.

The best place to listen to the podcast is in the Ascension app. There are special features built just for this podcast and also recordings of the full Rosary with myself and other friars. On behalf of myself and the whole team here at Ascension, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's helped support this podcast financially. Your support is so appreciated and helps us to reach as many people as possible. And if you haven't already, please consider supporting us at ascensionpress.com forward slash support.

The fifth glorious mystery is the coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth. Revelation chapter 12 verses 1-5. In a great sign appeared in heaven a woman clothed with the sun, with a moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child, and she cried out in her pings of birth in anguish for delivery. And another sign appeared in heaven, behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven to cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child

that he might devour her child when she brought it forth. She brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne. You know, friends, at this point in my life, I don't have a lot of fancy friends. Some of my friends have fancy friends, but I don't really have fancy friends. By fancy friends, I mean kind of people in high places.

I have had, however, a couple of experiences of people kind of being, being in charge of smaller little things or having particular access. I think back to when I was a young kid, probably seven or eight, my parents were the chairman of our parish fiesta. So that was like the church carnival and my parents weren't charged of it. And because my parents were the chairman, I got to go down early while they're setting up

and play all the little fair games. My particular favorite was the one where you throw like a baseball at these like milk cartons set up on a little stand. I don't know that I was particularly good at it, but I loved the loud noise they made when I did hit them. Or later on, you know, having special access to the funnel cake. So for me, you know, my parents being in charge of this little fiesta was like awesome. And I'd like to think one of the joys for them of doing it is that it brought joy to me, their son,

and also their daughter, my older sister, but also, you know, that their work brought a whole lot of joy to a whole lot of other people. One other kind of cool, fancy friend I had was a friend of mine who was playing the part of Fantine, Fantine, I don't know how you guys would say it, and like the off-Broadway, the traveling performance of Les Mis. And so she got us tickets to come see the show, myself and a couple friends in Philadelphia. And at the end, she's like, hey, do you want to come up on stage? And so, yeah, awesome. So we got to go up on stage and see how it all worked and see all the different parts.

In my life, a particular type of friend in high place with particular authority or access is the fact that a lot of my best friends are priests. And so, I rarely have to wait in line for confession. I'm often around a friend, give them a call or send them an email, or I'm just around them like, hey bro, do you have time for confession? And of course, myself being a priest, I'm able to extend this both in the context of confession, or also, you know, if I have some friends visiting and they're like, hey, what time? Like, we're trying to work our schedule, what time's mass? Parishion is in the area.

I'm like, hey, you know what? I'm a priest. We can celebrate mass whenever you get here. And so, whenever you do it, I'll just celebrate mass in the friary chapel. There's many joys to the priesthood, but being able to make the sacraments, to be able to bless people in this way, is a particular joy of mine. For the last two years or so, I've been what we call the local servant, which is the friar in charge of a friary, like the local superior.

We use the word local servant. And as I talk to people and they often ask me like, hey, so what's your favorite part of being a local servant? One of my favorite parts, if not my favorite part, I can bless our neighbors. I can bless the poor who come to us, kind of however favorite parts, if not my favorite part, I can bless our neighbors. I can bless the poor who come to us kind of however I want because I don't have to ask anybody else permission. And so, for example, on weekdays, we serve meals to a number of day laborers

and homeless who come to our door because I'm the boss. Like, you know, if we've got some extra dessert, desserts, we had, you know, some wedding cupcakes donated left over from wedding. We have some Oreos. I don't have to ask permission or try somebody down to see, okay, is it okay if I give this? I can just do it. And it really is one of the great joys of my, one of the great uses of my authority

that I can just bless people. I can look into whatever treasures we have and give them freely. Because if you will, like that is how I like to and desire to use my authority. So my friends, today we are praying with and reflecting on the fifth glorious mystery, which is the coronation of Mary as Queen of heaven and earth. My brothers and sisters, the good news is this. We now have the best of friends in the highest of places.

Our Lady, our Mother reigns in heaven and she is Queen of heaven and earth. And what is the nature of her queenship? What is she doing with this authority, with particular access? She is pouring out graces. Our Lady is again and again going to the storehouse of grace, the font of grace, which is the heart of God, the heart of her son.

And she is lavishly and lovingly pouring out these graces upon us. Our Lady, our Queen is at work, giving us new access to privileged places, particularly the privileged place of intimacy with her son. She is at work. Again, our Lady, our Mother, our Queen loves to bless us

with her authority and our particular access as queen of heaven and earth. I'm gonna go to the encyclical letter of Pope Pius XII proclaiming the queenship of Mary. This was in 1954, and this is the opening paragraphs. From the earliest ages of the Catholic Church, a Christian people, whether in time of triumph or more especially in time of crisis has addressed prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the queen of heaven.

So what Pope Pius XII here is opening with, which is really important is this, just a reminder that from the very beginning to the earliest ages, when we were in times of trial, we brought petitions to Orly asking for her help as queen of heaven. When we were in times of triumph, Okay, so it goes on to say, and this is really beautiful. And never has that hope wavered, which they placed in the mother of the divine king, Jesus Christ. Nor has that faith ever failed, by which we are taught that Mary, the virgin mother of God, and here's the part that I really want to emphasize, that Mary, the mother of God, was the mother of the divine king, Jesus Christ. Nor has that faith ever failed by which we are taught that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God,

and here's the part that I really want to emphasize, that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, reigns with the Mother's solicitude over the entire world, just as she is crowned in heavenly blessedness with the glory of a Queen. My brothers and sisters, our friend in high places, in the highest of places. The queen is our mother and she reigns with the mother's solicitude. And so as Christians have done from the earliest of ages, let's go ahead and look in our own life. Are we in a time of trial, time of triumph, a little bit of both? Let us come to our Lady.

Let us come to our Queen. Those areas where we need help, let us bring our petitions with total confidence and hope where we have places of triumph and joy. Let us share these with joy and veneration. And my brothers and sisters, let us rejoice in the glorious news that our Lady, Queen of heaven and earth, loves us and serves us and reigns with the mother's solicitude.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary

mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be.

World without end. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. All right, brothers and sisters, thanks for joining me, praying with me again today. I look forward to continuing this journey with you again tomorrow. All right, Poco Poco friends. Bye now.