25 February 2026

Ad Jesum per te, Maria : 6/33

The Psalms of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary


Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak: heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.
Miserere mei, Domine, quoniam infirmus sum; sana me, Domine, quoniam conturbata sunt ossa mea. [Ps. VI. 3]

By way of preparation for the great Feast of the Annunciation, I am re-posting a daily commentary on each of the Psalms of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin
The commentary includes text published by Father Ethelred L. Taunton in 1903.
 
To read the commentary on today’s Psalm, click on the following link:
 
👉  Psalm 45

Here is an excerpt:

Fluminis impetus lætificat civitatem Dei :
sanctificavit taberndculum suum Altissimus.

The fury of the river maketh glad the City of God : the
Most High hath made His tabernacle holy.

There is another obvious interpretation to this verse. The fury of the flood of sorrow which overwhelmed the Queen of Martyrs, never caused her, the City of God in which He was pleased to dwell, to lose for a single moment the interior joy which made her ever keep singing in her heart the Magnificat. The very fury of the flood was an increase of joy, thrilling her with a grief beyond compare, as it did, yet it was happiness also ; for in all she saw God's holy Will, and knew that He was doing it.

Previous Psalms

Prayers 

The following prayers follow the model written by St Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort and are recited in preparation for the renewal of consecration* to Lord Jesus Christ our King, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on the Feast of the Annunciation. *PEEKPTEE&A


Veni Creator Spiritus [To see a translation of this hymn to the Holy Spirit, click here:  👉 Veni Creator Spiritus ]

Ave Maris Stella
 
Magnificat
 
Gloria 
+       +        +

The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.
SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 
 


Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam. 


He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.

24 February 2026

Ad Jesum per te, Maria : 5/33

The Psalms of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary


Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak: heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.
Miserere mei, Domine, quoniam infirmus sum; sana me, Domine, quoniam conturbata sunt ossa mea. [Ps. VI. 3]

By way of preparation for the great Feast of the Annunciation, I am re-posting a daily commentary on each of the Psalms of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin
The commentary includes text published by Father Ethelred L. Taunton in 1903.
 
To read the commentary on today's Psalm, click on the following link:
 
👉  Psalm 44

Here is an excerpt therefrom:

Astitit regina a dextris Tuis in vestitu
deaurato : circumdata varietate.

Upon Thy right hand did the Queen stand in golden
array : girt about with variety.

Who is the Queen but our ever dear and blessed Lady? What the golden array but her peerless sanctity ; what the variety with which she is girt about but the assemblage of all those faithful souls who have ordered their life towards God in imitation of her who kept all the words in her heart. 

Thou, O Queen, art thyself the immaculate law, the faithful testimony of the Lord, the lucid precept, the right judgment, the holy fear of God, the sweet meditation, herald and interpreter of the entire God. It is to be noted, as St. Basil (379) remarks, that the Hebrew word for queen here used means a “queen consort” ; thereby teaching us that her dignity is derived from Christ and not inherent of her own right or merit. And observe, she stands at the King’s right hand, denoting the unassailable firmness of her position ; but she does not sit, as our Lord does, at the Father’s right hand. But the place, as Bellarmine (1621) points out, denotes not only precedence of honour, ranking above the angels themselves, but her blessed and prosperous state in His kingdom.

Audi filia, et vide, inclina aurem Tuam : et
obliviscere populum Tuum, et domum patris
Tui.

Hearken, daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear:
forget also thine own people and thy Father’s house.

If we interpret the Queen as our Lady, we may see here two persons who speak. It may be the Psalmist
speaking according to the flesh to her who was his descendant ; or it may be God, the Father, speaking to her, the
immaculate Bride. But truly this is one of the passages which above all others shows how inexhaustible are the
meanings of the Psalter. An Eastern writer calls this verse, and the following, the bridal song of the Mother of
God. St. Athanasius, comparing the words of the Angel Gabriel with those of the Psalmist, dwells on the
daughter of the one contrasted with the Mary of the other. If we take the Church to be the “Queen” (and,
indeed, the one explanation does not interfere with the other, Mary being the Mother of the whole Church, the “Neck” which joins the Body on to its Divine Head), we may see here, with St. Augustine, an exhortation to
forget her Judaic origin, to cast behind her the coldness of the letter and to enter into the liberty of the spirit.

Previous Psalms

Prayers 

The following prayers follow the model written by St Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort and are recited in preparation for the renewal of consecration* to Lord Jesus Christ our King, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on the Feast of the Annunciation. *PEEKPTEE&A


Veni Creator Spiritus [To see a translation of this hymn to the Holy Spirit, click here:  👉 Veni Creator Spiritus ]

Ave Maris Stella
 
Magnificat
 
Gloria 
+       +        +

The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.
SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 
 


Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam. 


He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.

23 February 2026

Ad Jesum per te, Maria : 4/33

The Psalms of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary


Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak: heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.
Miserere mei, Domine, quoniam infirmus sum; sana me, Domine, quoniam conturbata sunt ossa mea. [Ps. VI. 3]

By way of preparation for the great Feast of the Annunciation, I am re-posting a daily commentary on each of the Psalms of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin
The commentary includes text published by Father Ethelred L. Taunton in 1903.
 
To read the commentary on today's Psalm, click on the following link:

👉  Psalm 23

Here is an excerpt:

Attollite portas principes vestras et elevamini portæ æternales : et introibit Rex gloriæ.

Lift up your gates ye princes and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors ; and the King of Glory shall come in.

There are six principal meanings of this verse.

1. The first applies to Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday after His many wanderings, even as the Ark finally rested on Mount Sion.
2. The second, adopted by St. Gregory the Great, refers it to our Lord’s descent into hell, His bursting the gates of brass, and smiting the bars of iron in sunder. St. Epiphanius has, in one of his sermons, a magnificent passage in which he represents our Lord attended by an army of angels, Michael and Gabriel in the fore-ranks, demanding admission at hell-gate, bursting open the unwilling doors, tearing them from their hinges, casting them forth into the abyss, commanding that they shall never be raised any more. Christ, he exclaims, Christ the Door is present ; unto God the Lord belong the issues of death.
3. The third signification would see in this verse the exclamation of the angels attending our ascending
Lord. O faith, exclaims Gerohus, O eternal gate by whose present vision thou art perfected and exalted !
And thou, O hope of the elect, which fixed on eternal blessings canst never disappoint, now exult, now
rejoice, for lo, the King of Glory is about to enter in, to disappoint His servants of no part of the
blessings which have been promised by thee.
4. The fourth meaning, St. Augustine’s, is that the princes are the kings of the world who are called, by
accepting the Gospel, to permit the King of Glory to enter into their several territories. This would give
to the verse the idea of a prayer for the Propagation of the Faith that the earth which is the Lord’s might
be His by faith, hope, and charity.
5. The fifth meaning sees in the verse a prophecy of the Incarnation ; and on this account it forms the
offertory in the Mass for the Vigil of Christmas. This sense is adopted by St. Jerome, though here also
he would find a spiritual reference to the virtual opening of the gates of heaven by the fact of our Lord
taking flesh.
6. The sixth interpretation is in this wise : Ye who were once the sharers of sin, but are now not only free, but princes, as gods, kings, and priests, lift up your gates, removing the barriers which sin puts between you and God, and those once gone be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors of virtue and holiness which cannot pass away, and then the King of Glory shall enter His palace of the believing soul. So St. Bruno, and Richard Rolle, after Origen.

Previous Psalms

Prayers 

The following prayers follow the model written by St Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort and are recited in preparation for the renewal of consecration* to Lord Jesus Christ our King, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on the Feast of the Annunciation. *PEEKPTEE&A


Veni Creator Spiritus [To see a translation of this hymn to the Holy Spirit, click here:  👉 Veni Creator Spiritus ]

Ave Maris Stella
 
Magnificat
 
Gloria 
+       +        +

The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.
SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 
 


Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam. 


He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.

22 February 2026

Ad Jesum per te, Maria : 3/33

The Psalms of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary


By way of preparation for the great Feast of the Annunciation, I am re-posting a daily commentary on each of the Psalms of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin
The commentary includes text published by Father Ethelred L. Taunton in 1903.
 
To read the commentary on today’s Psalm, click on the following link:

 👉    Psalm 18


Here is an excerpt:

In sole posuit tabernaculum suum : et ipse
tamquam sponsus procedens de thalamo suo

In the sun He hath set His tabernacle : and He Himself as a
Bridegroom coming forth from His chamber.

In this and the following verse the Church has, from the beginning, seen a marvellous type of the Incarnation. In the sun He hath set His tabernacle. In the literal sense, of natural objects, the sun is the best and clearest representation of the Creator. So the wise man in Ecclesiasticus : The sun when it appeareth declareth at his rising a marvellous instrument, the works of the most High. In it many nations of the earth have seen the image of the God they adore. But for us, knowing that it shall pass away and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, it is but God’s tabernacle. The true Sun is that which shall no more go down, when the Lord shall be our everlasting Light and the days of our mourning shall be ended. 

Then, in the mystical sense, the sun and the tabernacle are the Lord’s abiding in the Womb of Mary ; and the writers do not fail to quote from Ecclesiasticus that text : As the sun when it ariseth in the high heavens so is the beauty of a good wife in ordering her house. The sun is also the spotless soul of Mary shining with the splendour of her pre-eminent redemption, a meet resting place for the most High God, the tabernacle He Himself hath made holy. The tabernacle is the flesh of the Lord which was united for ever to His Divinity. Or again, as they who go out to war dwell not in houses or tents, so our Lord going forth to His war with Satan dwelt in the tabernacle of His flesh while He entered into the conflict with and when He overcame His enemy. 

As a Bridegroom cometh out of His chamber. And here none can fail to see the Lord’s entrance into the world from the Womb of Mary. The Bridegroom, hereafter to be betrothed to the Church on the Cross, came forth, as it were, in the morning of that day of which the sufferings of Calvary were the evening. The Eternal Light, says St.John of Damascus (c. 756), which, proceeding from the Co-eternal Light, had His existence before all worlds, came forth bodily from the Virgin Mary, as a Bridegroom from His chamber.

Previous Psalms

Prayers 

The following prayers follow the model written by St Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort and are recited in preparation for the renewal of consecration* to Lord Jesus Christ our King, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on the Feast of the Annunciation. *PEEKPTEE&A


Veni Creator Spiritus [To see a translation of this hymn to the Holy Spirit, click here:  👉 Veni Creator Spiritus ]

Ave Maris Stella
 
Magnificat
 
Gloria 
+       +        +

The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.
SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 
 


Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam. 


He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.

21 February 2026

Ad Jesum per te, Maria : 2/33

The Psalms of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary


By way of preparation for the great Feast of the Annunciation, I am re-posting a daily commentary on each of the Psalms of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin
The commentary includes text published by Father Ethelred L. Taunton in 1903.
 
To read the commentary on today's Psalm, click on the following link:

 👉   Psalm 8


Previous Psalms



👈 This is an image of King David, author of the Psalms, by Willem Vrelant (early 1460s), Bruges, Belgium. 


Prayers 

The following prayers follow the model written by St Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort and are recited in preparation for the renewal of consecration* to Lord Jesus Christ our King, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on the Feast of the Annunciation. 
*PEEKPTEE&A


Veni Creator Spiritus [To see a translation of this hymn to the Holy Spirit, click here:  👉 Veni Creator Spiritus ]

Ave Maris Stella
 
Magnificat
 
Gloria 
+       +        +

The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.
SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 
 


Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam. 


He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.

20 February 2026

Ad Jesum per te, Maria : 1/33

The Psalms of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary


By way of preparation for the great Feast of the Annunciation in thirty-three days’ time, I am re-posting a daily commentary on each of the Psalms of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin
The commentary includes text published by Father Ethelred L. Taunton in 1903.
 
To read the commentary on today’s Psalm, click on the following link:

 👉   Psalm 94





👈 This is an image of King David, author of the Psalms, by Willem Vrelant (early 1460s), Bruges, Belgium. 


Prayers 

The following prayers follow the model written by St Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort and are recited in preparation for the renewal of consecration* to Lord Jesus Christ our King, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on the Feast of the Annunciation.
*Of PEEKPTEE&A


Veni Creator Spiritus [To see a translation of this hymn to the Holy Spirit, click here:  👉 Veni Creator Spiritus ]

Ave Maris Stella
 
Magnificat
 
Gloria 
+       +        +

The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.
SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 
 


Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam. 


He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.

11 February 2026

In Apparitione Beatæ Mariæ Virginis

The Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes


Our Lady of Lourdes (1877). Virgilio Tojetti (1851–1901).
Today in 2019 I made a consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the first time, using the method of St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (1673–1716) as found in his work True Devotion to Mary.

I renewed the consecration on the feast of the Immaculate Conception on the 8th of December 2019, including this time the members of my family.

Thereafter, the consecration has been renewed formally each year on the feast of the Annunciation, and on a daily basis using the Totus Tuus prayer below.

Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per te Maria.

Laudetur Jesus Christus et Maria Immaculata. Amen.

For those desirous of reading True Devotion to Mary, here is one of several on-line sources:


with preparation for total consecration.

👑   👑   👑

The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.
S
UB
 tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.
 


Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.


He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. [Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-3]