This popular prayer, a favorite of many Catholics, dates back to the 15th century and takes its name from the first Latin word of the prayer, "memorare," which means "remember." The Memorare is of unknown authorship, although it has been attributed to St. Augustine (354-430), St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) and, with more reason, to St. Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153). St. Bernard's sermons on Mary were famous, and it was his Cistercian monks in the monastery of Citeaux in the 12th century who popularized the name "Our Lady" for Mary. The Memorare has also been attributed to the French cleric Claude Bernard (1588-1641), known as the "poor priest" of Paris, whose homilies contain passages that echo its words. No matter who wrote this prayer, it was Father Bernard who did much to popularize it, teaching it in hospitals and prisons, where Mary's intercession was effective in working miracles of grace. The first manuscript of the Mem
For hundreds of years, spiritual directors in the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, have used the metaphor of an onion to explain the spiritual life. I have referred it for decades because it is a perfect symbol, an image that really is worth a thousand words. It is easy to become discouraged when I seem faced with the same issues, wounds and weaknesses again and again. The mistake is to believe that nothing has changed since the last confession and subsequent experience of grace. That the encounter with the Divine was ineffective, that it was a failure. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The reality is that I am human and as an earthling, living in a body, made from dust, I must allow the Holy Spirit to transform me slowly. 
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