IS ANYONE LISTENING?     When Blessed Jose Maria Escriva, found of Opus Dei, asked, "What is the first thing necessary for devotion to Mary?" he himself answered:   "The first thing necessary is to realize that She is alive." We must realize that, assumed body and soul into Heaven, Her real motherly heart is beating with love for us and She is constantly waiting for our slightest response. This is especially true when we wish to draw closer to the Sacred Heart through the mysteries of Her own Immaculate Heart.   We need but LOOK at the Rosary and realize that Our Lady Herself carried it when She appeared at Lourdes and at Fatima. Why, except that She longs to share with us Her mysteries?   First Words at Lourdes   Bernadette was amazed at seeing Her in the grotto, beautiful but silent. At first no words were spoken. It seemed almost as though Our Lady were waiting for Bernadette to speak. Then noticing the Rosary on Our Lady's wrist, Bernadette took out her own Rosary and said the prayers...one after the other.   Still not speaking, Our Lady took Her Rosary and counted the beads with Bernadette. Only at the end of the decade did She speak at Lourdes for the first time. She then JOINED St. Bernadette saying: Glory be tot he Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.   From the moment we take the Rosary in our hands, Our Lady is waiting to her us and to join our hearts to Hers in its mysteries.   Her Special Sign   That is one of the special things about the Rosary; it IS REAL in our hands...Her gift which we can see and feel.   As a loving and knowing mother, Our Lady did not just tell us to say certain prayers, but gave us this visible, real Rosary with which She Herself appeared in every vision of Fatima asking us over and over to use it.   And there is another gift of Our Lady which is real and which we can see and feel and which She also held out to us at Fatima: The Scapular.   St. Claude, to whom Jesus chose to have St. Margaret Mary reveal the messages of His Sacred Heart, tells us of the great value of this gift of Our lady to draw us into Her own Immaculate Heart. He says that even though the Church tells us, and the saints tell us, and our faith tells us: I need but reach out and TOUCH my Scapular, and I know."   When asked why Our Lady appeared in the final vision of Fatima holding the Scapular out to the world, Sister Lucia said: "Because She wants everyone to wear it. It is the SIGN of consecration to Her Immaculate Heart."   It is a sign that Our Lady, in Her maternal love, is morally present with us. It is a sign, like the Rosary, that SHE IS WAITING TO HEAR our every word! We need but reach out and TOUCH it and we know.   Her Image   When we pray before the Blessed Sacrament, Our Lady is present in a most special way, because Her Heart is but one Flame of Love with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.   Still another way to help us realize that Our Lady is present to us by Her love and by Her intercession is Her statue.   Like the Rosary and the Scapular, Our Lady's images are most helpful in making us aware of Our Lady Herself.   In the city of Rome there are more than one hundred images of Our Lady which have been crowned by Popes and which are called "miraculous" because of great favors obtained by persons praying before them. Not all of them are beautiful. Indeed some very old ones are dark, and hardly beautiful at all. But they represent Her who is more beautiful than all other women. They present Her to us.   Doctor of the Church   St. Alphonsus, a doctor of the Church, tells us that when we go into church, we should first go to the Blessed Sacrament to visit Our Lord, and then go to Our Lady's statue to"visit" Our Lady.   The holy doctor knows that Our Lord is PRESENT when we visit Him in the tabernacle, but he reminds us that Our Lady's statue represents Her presence to us, a presence of intercession and love. And while we cannot have the real presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist in our homes, we can have statues of Him and of Our Lady which represent another kind of real presence: that of Their Love.   There is a fourth way both to be aware that Our Lady is listening when we say the Rosary and to show that we KNOW She is listening: Have an intention for each bead.   You are asking the all powerful Queen of Heaven to PRAY for you in each Hail Mary. For WHAT are you asking Her? Think of it! Before you begin each decade, THINK in the light of that particular mystery, what you want Our Lady to do for you, for someone you love, for the nation, for the world...   On the first Saturday of the month , during those fifteen minutes with Our Lady, thinking about the mysteries of the Rosary, think about all the treasures hidden in those mysteries FOR WHICH YOU FORGET TO ASK.   There is one intention which fits all the mysteries and which Our Lady seems to delight in hearing: "Send for the graces of your Flame of Love to all mankind." As Our Lady of All Nations, She asks us to pray that now Our Lord will send His Spirit over all the earth...that the Holy Spirit may live in all peoples,everywhere, "to preserve them from corruption, destruction, and war."