Answer to a Novena

      I just wanted to post this small favor that Mary granted me.  I did a novena to her under the title of "Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal," a novena which ended on November 27th, the day which Our Lady appeared to St. Catherine and manifested to her the miraculous medal design.  I have had a devotion to Mary but specifically through the Miraculous Medal for some time now but I don't think that I ever did a novena like this one. 
      Here is what happened...I have also had a love for Eucharistic Adoration for some time and here at the seminary we have typically had it on Saturdays and Sundays.  I became aware that many guys had been struggling with their prayer life so I thought it might be helpful for the seminary in general to have Adoration on a daily basis.  When I first brought it up, there was some opposition, mostly for theological reasons or liturgical reasons.  I mostly figured that it had to do somewhat with spiritual warfare and people's negative experience of Adoration or those that attend Eucharistic Adoration regularly.  Whatever the case, I knew that it would take prayer for this to pass and it was not favorable.  In the words of a seminarian...it would take something of a miracle for it to come to pass. 
      It's too complicated to mention all the details that I had to cover in proposing this idea to the seminary but it essentially took about 3 weeks and it was supposed to start today, the first Monday of Advent.  I finished the novena, by providence during Eucharistic Adoration at the Co-Cathedral...I arrived at the seminary the following Sunday after night prayer to find a note stuck in my door saying...."Eucharistic Adoration...ok...it will be done as you proposed it..." or something along those lines....can you imagine the joy I felt when I read that.  So we had it this morning...very early...very simple...but very beautiful and I know in my heart that Our Blessed Mother was behind it all!!!

Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal....pray for us!