***My View of Mary***

        As a former Protestant, I found that changing my view of Mary was not easy. After I became a Catholic, I finally fell head over heels in love with Jesus, and through him, with Mary too. Jesus and his Mother are inseparable. Since our earthly parents are never perfect, we all yearn for an ideal father and an ideal mother in our hearts. The Lord God, who is the Father of Jesus, is, of course, also our perfect Father. When Christ on the cross gave his mother to be our mother, our yearning was fulfilled. Since Jesus is divine, God would never have him born through an ordinary, sinful woman. Therefore, I believe in the Church's doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, declaring that she was conceived without sin. That appropriately made her the greatest saint of all. I believe that she is the woman clothed with the sun and with the moon under her feet, as depicted in Revelation 12. The miraculous Our Lady of Guadalupe image preserved in Mexico shows exactly that. In 1917, Mary, during her apparitions at Fatima, promised that in the end, her Immaculate Heart would triumph over evil. Today, the Lord is using her to battle evil around the world through many apparitions. To me now, she is the most beautiful mother there is. I see her helping me do God's will always. When you love her, you end up loving Jesus even more.