This really is the month for Mothers!

The month of May has always been a special month! We celebrate our mothers and the Queen of all mothers, the Blessed Virgin Mary! But for my family it is an extra special month because my mothers birthday is this month as well! Actually, today is her birthday! I would like to wish my mother a very happy birthday! I love her very much and can't thank her enough for loving me, supporting me, and for giving birth to me! Without her love I would not be alive or the man that I am today. So thank you mom! I love you!

Speaking of a mothers choice, Mary, Queen of all mothers and parents, made a choice that was very hard, and that choice was to love God with her full being and then to birth, care for, mother, and love the Son of Man, our Lord, Jesus Christ. It was through her "YES" that we came to know Christ and to be saved by his great act of love.

One devotion to the Blessed Mother that I hold dear to my heart (literally) is wearing a scapular of our Lady of Mount Carmel. The scapular is a special devotion to our Blessed Mother that forms a special relationship between the person wearing the scapular and the Blessed Mother.

The earliest form of the Scapular promise states simply that wearers of the brown scapular, the Carmelite habit, will be saved. In the first place this meant Carmelite religious who remained faithful to their vocation. Later the small Brown Scapular became popular with the laity as a sacramental.

The nature of the spiritual help associated with the Brown Scapular came to be described in greater detail and specificity. A traditional formulation of the Scapular Promise is "Take this Scapular. Whosoever dies wearing it shall not suffer eternal fire. It shall be a sign of salvation, a protection in danger and pledge of peace."

As we continue this month celebrating all our moms let us continue to pray to THE MOM, the mother of our Lord, the Queen of all children, asking for her intercession and protection.