Most loving Father, you will us to give thanks for all things, to dread nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on the One who cares for us. Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, and grant that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested unto us in your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Virgin Mary — Mary of Nazareth is the mother of Jesus Christ, the woman through whom the Word became flesh. The Gospels show her at every hinge of the gospel: the Annunciation, where she gave her consent to God; the Magnificat, where she sang of a Lord who lifts up the lowly; the foot of the cross, where she did not flee; and the upper room at Pentecost. The church honors her above every other saint as Theotokos, the God-bearer, the title given by the Council of Ephesus in 431, and as the first and truest of disciples.