We are starting a novena to Our Lady of Bethlehem in preparation for a spiritual and physical journey that we will be embarking on.  The novena starts on Thursday, May 17th and ends on Friday May 25th .  Please keep my family and our fellow pilgrims in your prayers.

The pilgrimage will be made for the following intentions:

• To make Our Lady of Bethlehem known and Loved
• In reparation for the offenses committed against the sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary
• For Conversion of our own hearts, our families, Town, State, Country, the World
• To pray for the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart
• Personal reparation and private intentions of family, friends and bloggers (whom have asked for prayers) 

You are invited to join the novena to Our Lady of Bethlehem.

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Prayer to Our Lady of Bethlehem

Dear Lady of Bethlehem, Virgin most pure, Mother of our Savior, may the memory of the cold on the night Thy Divine Child was born bring Thy powerful intercession to bear upon the world’s coldness towards the Babe of Bethlehem. Send down into the hearts of all people some warmth of the flames of love that Thy Immaculate Heart gives forth.

Do Thou who suffered such great loneliness when Thy Son was taken from Thee, look with pity upon the void in the hearts of those who know and love Him not. Bring Him to them and with Him His Angels and Saints that they too may be our intimate friends. Do Thou who journeyed wearily to Bethlehem look down with mercy upon humankind trudging along the way of evil, lost and confused. Do Thou guide us to the path of Thy Son and the habitation He had prepared for us.

Look down with compassion upon us, as we commend to Thy maternal care the needs of Holy Mother Church, our beloved Country, our families. We all place all at Thy blessed feet. Through Thy powerful intercession may God grant to us and to the whole frightened world the grace of mutual understanding and the sacred Peace of Bethlehem.

Do Thou also regard with favor our beloved Father Junipero Serra, who brought Thy image to this land and whose remains rest in peace in Thy sanctuary. May he who in life held Thee in such great honor and who first made Thy Son known on these shores, be found worthy to have his name entered on the list of those whom the Church calls Saints.

Our Lady of Bethlehem, pray for us now, pray for us in every need, and be Thou with us at the hour of our death. Amen.

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OUR LADY OF BETHLEHEM

This series was written by Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D… It his the author’s hope that this series of articles will encourage more Catholics to come in greater numbers to visit her and pay her homage, raising a clamor to the careless religious authorities that she should be given a place of greater prominence.

• Our Lady of Bethlehem Part 1 – Her Roots in America
• Our Lady of Bethlehem – Part II – She Begins to Conquer California
• Our Lady of Bethlehem – Part III – Carmel Mission, Her Final Home & Junipero Serra
• Our Lady of Bethlehem – Part IV – Secularization, Abandonment & Restoration of Her Statue

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We might journey in a spirit of penance, fasting and giving alms along the way. We might do so joyously, in thanksgiving for blessings received, or in a spirit of supplication for blessings desired. Or we might do so simply to be blessed by being in the presence of holy relics or by walking on ground hallowed by Our Lord or the Saints. Whatever our more particular purposes, leaving behind what is comfortable to us and visiting a strange place is a way to get out of a "spiritual rut" and step outside our normal routines which can sometimes keep us distracted or focused on the wrong things — or perhaps focused too much on otherwise good things. When made with the right attitude, pilgrimage is a way to "lose" our lives for His sake.