Handmaids and Warriors Newsletter: May 2026

I have a new feature to present here on my blog.  This is a newsletter written by one of my fellow Lay Dominicans of my fraternity, Alice.  Alice writes a monthly newsletter for two groups, a male group dubbed the St. Michael Warriors and women’s group she calls the Handmaids of Mary.  The intent of the groups are to pray for the guidance and protection of the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV.  The only requirements for her groups are, in addition to whatever prayers you normally pray daily, to pray three Hail Mary’s and one St. Michael the Archangel prayer for the Pope.  If you are interested in joining her group and receiving her newsletter, leave a comment and we’ll figure out how to get your email on her list. 

So I helped Alice edit her May newsletter, and I enjoyed it so much that I thought it might be a nice feature on my blog. I offered to post her newsletters and she agreed. I want to be clear, this is all Alice’s writing below.  I just tweaked the language a little bit.  This dovetails nicely with today’s Solemnity of the Ascension.

Before the newsletter, let us pray: For Pope Leo XIV

Hail Mary, full of grace…

Hail Mary, full of grace…

Hail Mary, full of grace…

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

 

Alice’s newsletter:

 

  St. Michael Warriors

                                                        Deus omnes amat et malum non praevalebit

                                                       “God loves everyone and evil will not prevail”

 

                                                                            He has Risen

                                                                       He has Risen Indeed!!!

 

As promised in March I write Mary’s answer to a Joseph when he asked Mary “how may I serve you” when they were betrothed.  Mary was 14 years of age, Joseph 33 a native of Nazareth and one of the descendants of the royal race of David. In her shyness Mary called on the angels to attend her when she spoke to Joseph. In the glorious company of angels Mary spoke to Joseph, “my lord and spouse, I acknowledge myself as more beholden than any other creature to God, so at a tender age I consecrated myself to God by a perpetual vow of chastity in body and soul;  I beseech thee my master, to help me in fulfilling this vow while in other things I will be thy servant, willing to work for the comfort of thy life as long as mine shall last.”

The most chase Joseph, full of interior joy at the words of his spouse, replied,  “My mistress, in making known to me thy chaste and welcome sentiments, I had not opened my thoughts to you before knowing your own; I desire thee to know at the age of twelve years I made a perpetual vow of chastity to the Most High.  On this account I will gladly ratify this vow in order not to impede thy own.  I promise to aid thee in serving and loving Him according to thy full desires.” 

By Divine operation the two most holy and chaste spouses felt an incomparable joy and consolation.  They immediately set out from the temple in Jerusalem and settled in Nazareth.

As in past letters I called to mind the apparitions of Mary who comes to earth to show us the way for our times.  Our Blessed Mother reminds us how peace will come to the earth if we follow her messages. Mary wants us to know, as in Our Lady of Guadalupe, that she loves us.  As in Our Lady of Fatima, she wants to show her wounded heart asking us for consolation.  As in Our Lady of La Sallette, she wants us to see her weeping over the abuse of Sundays.  Mary also brings gifts to help us to defeat Satan: the rosary, the scapular, the Miraculous Medal, the springs of holy water for healing the sick.  These are the treasures found only in the Catholic Church.

There are many Catholic treasures that help us in times of need. Such a as when  Pope Pious IX, who during the French Revolution, Rome was being ransacked, displayed in the Vatican the Veil of Veronica and the relic of the true cross.  The Veil of Veronica began to have a strange glow for everyone in the city to see,  the people prayed  to these relics and the French were driven out of Rome.

Another mighty prayer to drive Satan away also happened at the same time of the French Revolution, the prayer the Golden Arrow given to a Carmelite nun by Jesus who said, “this Golden Arrow prayer will wound my heart delightfully and heal the wounds inflicted by the blasphemy of using Gods name in vain.” 

GOLDEN ARROW PRAYER 

  Let us pray: May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most mysterious, and unutterable 

Name of God be always praised, blessed, loved, adored, and glorified in heaven and on earth and under the earth by all the creatures of God and by the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ in the most Holy Sacrament of the altar.

 If we would say that prayer whenever we heard the name of God taken in vain it would console the Sacred Heart delightfully!

So now the Thursday of Holy Ascension is upon us …He goes before us to prepare a place for us, so that where I am you may be also…. In my father’s house there are many mansions.

 

Alice

Handmaid of the St. Michel Warriors

Meditation for the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

Today is Ascension Thursday, forty days after the Resurrection.  As I’ve read, only the dioceses of Boston, Hartford, New York, Omaha, and Philadelphia have in the United States today as a Holy Day of Obligation.  More than likely if you are reading this, the celebration of the feast for you is pushed over to Sunday.  Well, after some early confusion, I realized I had to get to Mass today, and I did.  It was worth it.  The readings are wonderful.  Today’s Gospel is taken from Mark’s Ascension narrative.

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

“Go into the whole world

and proclaim the gospel to every creature.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved;

whoever does not believe will be condemned.

These signs will accompany those who believe:

in my name they will drive out demons,

they will speak new languages.

They will pick up serpents with their hands,

and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.

They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

 

So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them,

was taken up into heaven

and took his seat at the right hand of God.

But they went forth and preached everywhere,

while the Lord worked with them

and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.

~Mk 16:15-20

This is the famous snake handler passage.  Do not do this.  People have actually died following this.  How is one supposed to read it?  It’s a sign of the power of evangelizing, not the literal prevention from harm.

More importantly, Fr. Geoffrey Plant provides the theological underpinnings of the Ascension.

 

The Glory Cloud is the key to the passage! 

 

Meditation: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.”

 

 

Sunday Meditation: Jesus’ Great Prayer

After Jesus has ascended and the apostles retreat to pray, the lectionary recalls what certainly the apostles recalled closed up in the upper room Jesus great prayer before the Passion.

 

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said,

“Father, the hour has come.

Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,

just as you gave him authority over all people,

so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him.

Now this is eternal life,

that they should know you, the only true God,

and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.

I glorified you on earth

by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.

Now glorify me, Father, with you,

with the glory that I had with you before the world began.

 

“I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world.

They belonged to you, and you gave them to me,

and they have kept your word.

Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,

because the words you gave to me I have given to them,

and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you,

and they have believed that you sent me.

I pray for them.

I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me,

because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours

and everything of yours is mine,

and I have been glorified in them.

And now I will no longer be in the world,

but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.”          

Jn 17:1-11

No matter how I searched, I could not find a good homily or exegesis on YouTube for this week’s Gospel.  So I give you this dramatization of Jesus with his great prayer of John 17. 

 

Here is a verse to meditate on: “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”

When Jesus tells you what eternal life is, you should listen.

 

Faith Filled Friday: The Ascension and a Prayer

Yesterday was Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord, otherwise known as Ascension Thursday.  I want to offer a prayer and an image for the occasion.  . 

This came out of last month’s Magnificat: “A Prayer for Eternal Life” by St. Anselm, who lived from 1033 to 1109.  He lived quite a life.  Born in Italy, became a Benedictine monk in France, and an archbishop in Canterbury England.  He was a theologian and philosopher and involved in some of the political disputes of the day.  He wrote this really beautiful prayer.

 

A Prayer for Eternal Life

 

My Lord and my God, my joy and the hope of my heart, tell my soul if this is that joy which you spoke to us about through your Son: Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full.  For I have found a fullness of joy that fills the whole heart, mind, and soul, indeed it fills the whole of a man, and yet joy beyond measure still remains.  The whole of that joy cannot enter into those who rejoice, but those who rejoice can enter wholly into that joy.

 

Speak, Lord, to your servant, in the depths of his heart, tell him if this is that joy that your servants enter into when they enter into the joy of their Lord?  But, of course, that joy in which your chosen ones will rejoice, neither has eye seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man.

 

So as yet, Lord, I have not spoken about or understood how greatly your blessed ones rejoice.  They will rejoice as much as they love, and they will love as much as they know.  How much will they know you, Lord, how much will they love you?  Truly in this life, neither has eye seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, how much they will know and love you in that life.

 

The painting is by Benvenuto Tisi, a sixteenth century Italian painter.  The Ascension of Christ from 1520.

 

The Ascension is what led to our eternal life!

 

Faith Filled Friday: The Ascension of Christ

It's wonderful to be able to go to mass on a weekday.  I don't get the opportunity unless it's a holy day of obligation, as was Thursday, The Ascension of the Lord.  I found a church not too far from where I work and went to the early mass and got to work only an hour late, which I made up by staying an extra hour.  The pastor had a wonderful, inspiring homily about how the Ascension should cause us to shine and be Christ-like.  Oh I forgot already how he made that connection.  Homilies seem to float right through my mind, even ones that inspire me, but he did make that connection artfully.

Now can you guess what the name of the church I found?  It's named after my newly found favorite saint, The Church of St. Catherine of Siena!  Is God telling me something or what?  I'm going to try to get there on occasions when I can.  Thank you St. Catherine!

I also found this photo of what looks like a metal relief of the Ascension.  I don't know where it's from, but it's very lovely.