The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Feb 2)

Presentation at the Temple by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1342

This feast has acquired several names over the centuries - the Purification of Our Lady; Candlemas Day (for the blessing of candles which takes place before Mass);  and in the Novus Ordo calendar, the Presentation of Our Lord.  It is also set aside as a special day for Consecrated Life in the Church.

Pope Benedict XVI's sermon of 2010 for the feast explains:

"On the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple we are celebrating a mystery of Christ's life linked to the precept of Mosaic Law which prescribed that 40 days after the birth of their first-born child parents should go to the Temple of Jerusalem to offer the infant to the Lord and for the ritual purification of the mother (cf. Ex 13:1-2, 11-16; Lv 12:1-8). Mary and Joseph also fulfilled this rite, offering to comply with the law a couple of turtle doves or pigeons. In giving a deeper interpretation to these things we understand that at this moment it is God himself who is presenting his Only-Begotten Son to humanity through the words of the elderly Simeon and the Prophetess Anna. Simeon, in fact, proclaimed Jesus as the "salvation" of humanity, a "light" for all the nations and a "sign that is spoken against", because he would reveal the thoughts of hearts (cf. Lk 2:29-35). In the East this Feast was called Hypapante, a feast of encounter. In fact, Simeon and Anna, who met Jesus in the Temple and recognized him as the Messiah so long awaited, represent humanity that encounters its Lord in the Church. Subsequently, this Feast also spread to the West, where above all the symbol of light and the procession with candles which gave rise to the term "Candlemas" developed. This visible sign is intended to mean that the Church encounters in faith the One who is "the light of men" and in order to bring this "light" into the world, receives him with the full dynamism of her faith.

In conjunction with this Liturgical Feast, as from 1997, Venerable John Paul II decreed that a special Day of Consecrated Life be celebrated in the whole Church. In fact, the sacrifice of the Son of God symbolized by his presentation in the Temple is the model for every man and woman who consecrate their life totally to the Lord. The purpose of this Day is threefold: first of all to praise and thank the Lord for the gift of consecrated life; secondly to promote knowledge and appreciation of it among the whole People of God and lastly to invite all those who have dedicated their life totally to the cause of the Gospel to celebrate the marvels that the Lord has worked in them. As I thank you for coming here in such numbers, on this Day dedicated particularly to you I would like to greet each one of you with great affection men and women religious and consecrated people and to express to you my cordial closeness and heartfelt appreciation for the good you do at the service of the People of God."

You can read more on this feast from Pope Benedict XVI's 2011 sermon here.

Our Lady of Guadelupe (December 12)

In 1531, the Virgin Mary appeared four times before Juan Diego and one more before Juan Diego's uncle.

The first apparition occurred on the morning of December 9, 1531, when a native Mexican peasant named Juan Diego saw a vision of a maiden at a place called the Hill of Tepeyac, which would become part of Villa de Guadalupe, a suburb of Mexico City. Speaking to Juan Diego in his native Nahuatl language (the language of the Aztec empire), the maiden identified herself as the Virgin Mary, "mother of the very true deity" and asked for a church to be built at that site in her honor. 
Based on her words, Juan Diego then sought out the archbishop of Mexico City, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, to tell him what had happened.

As the bishop did not believe Diego, on the same day, Juan Diego saw the Virgin Mary for a second time (the second apparition); she asked him to keep insisting.  On Sunday, December 10, Juan Diego talked to archbishop for a second time. The latter instructed him to return to Tepeyac Hill, and ask the lady for a miraculous sign to prove her identity. That same day the third apparition occurred when Diego returned to Tepeyac and, encountering the Virgin Mary reported the bishop's request for a sign; she consented to provide one on the following day (December 11).  By Monday, December 11, however, Juan Diego's uncle Juan Bernardino had fallen sick and Juan Diego was obliged to attend to him.

In the very early hours of Tuesday, December 12, Juan Bernardino's condition having deteriorated overnight, Juan Diego set out to Tlatelolco to fetch a priest to hear Juan Bernardino's confession and minister to him on his death-bed.

In order to avoid being delayed by the Virgin and ashamed at having failed to meet her on the Monday as agreed, Juan Diego chose another route around the hill, but the Virgin intercepted him and asked where he was going (fourth apparition); Juan Diego explained what had happened and the Virgin gently chided him for not having had recourse to her. In the words which have become the most famous phrase of the Guadalupe event and are inscribed over the main entrance to the Basilica of Guadalupe, she asked: "No estoy yo aqui que soy tu madre?" (Am I not here, I who am your mother?).

She assured him that Juan Bernardino had now recovered and she told him to gather flowers from the top of Tepeyac Hill, which was normally barren, especially in December. Juan followed her instructions and he found Castilian roses, not native to Mexico, blooming there. The Virgin arranged the flowers in Juan's tilma, or cloak, and when Juan Diego opened his cloak before archbishop Zumárraga on December 12, the flowers fell to the floor, and on the fabric was the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

The next day, on December 13, Juan Diego found his uncle fully recovered, as the Virgin had assured him, and Juan Bernardino recounted that he too had seen her, at his bed-side (fifth apparition); that she had instructed him to inform the bishop of this apparition and of his miraculous cure; and that she had told him she desired to be known under the title of Guadalupe.

The bishop kept Juan Diego's mantle first in his private chapel and then in the church on public display where it attracted great attention. On December 26, 1531 a procession formed for taking the miraculous image back to Tepeyac where it was installed in a small hastily erected chapel. In course of this procession, the first miracle was allegedly performed when an Indian was mortally wounded in the neck by an arrow shot by accident during some stylized martial displays executed in honour of the Virgin. In great distress, the Indians carried him before the Virgin's image and pleaded for his life. Upon the arrow being withdrawn, the victim made a full and immediate recovery.

Juan Diego was canonized in 2002, under the name Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin. 

December 8: Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Class I

From Ineffabilis Deus, the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius IX on the Immaculate Conception (December 8, 1854):

 "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful."

Some of the reasoning leading up to the definition:

"God ineffable -- whose ways are mercy and truth, whose will is omnipotence itself, and whose wisdom "reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly" -- having foreseen from all eternity the lamentable wretchedness of the entire human race which would result from the sin of Adam, decreed, by a plan hidden from the centuries, to complete the first work of his goodness by a mystery yet more wondrously sublime through the Incarnation of the Word. This he decreed in order that man who, contrary to the plan of Divine Mercy had been led into sin by the cunning malice of Satan, should not perish; and in order that what had been lost in the first Adam would be gloriously restored in the Second Adam. From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world. Above all creatures did God so lover her that truly in her was the Father well pleased with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully.


SUPREME REASON FOR THE PRIVILEGE: THE DIVINE MATERNITY

And indeed it was wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin that she would triumph utterly over the ancient serpent. To her did the Father will to give his only-begotten Son -- the Son whom, equal to the Father and begotten by him, the Father loves from his heart -- and to give this Son in such a way that he would be the one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was she whom the Son himself chose to make his Mother and it was from her that the Holy Spirit willed and brought it about that he should be conceived and born from whom he himself proceeds.[1]

LITURGICAL ARGUMENT

The Catholic Church, directed by the Holy Spirit of God, is the pillar and base of truth and has ever held as divinely revealed and as contained in the deposit of heavenly revelation this doctrine concerning the original innocence of the august Virgin -- a doctrine which is so perfectly in harmony with her wonderful sanctity and preeminent dignity as Mother of God -- and thus has never ceased to explain, to teach and to foster this doctrine age after age in many ways and by solemn acts. From this very doctrine, flourishing and wondrously propagated in the Catholic world through the efforts and zeal of the bishops, was made very clear by the Church when she did not hesitate to present for the public devotion and veneration of the faithful the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin.[2] By this most significant fact, the Church made it clear indeed that the conception of Mary is to be venerated as something extraordinary, wonderful, eminently holy, and different from the conception of all other human beings -- for the Church celebrates only the feast days of the saints.

And hence the very words with which the Sacred Scriptures speak of Uncreated Wisdom and set forth his eternal origin, the Church, both in its ecclesiastical offices and in its liturgy, has been wont to apply likewise to the origin of the Blessed Virgin, inasmuch as God, by one and the same decree, had established the origin of Mary and the Incarnation of Divine Wisdom.

ORDINARY TEACHING OF THE ROMAN CHURCH

These truths, so generally accepted and put into practice by the faithful, indicate how zealously the Roman Church, mother and teacher of all Churches, has continued to teach this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. Yet the more important actions of the Church deserve to be mentioned in detail. For such dignity and authority belong to the Church that she alone is the center of truth and of Catholic unity. It is the Church in which alone religion has been inviolably preserved and from which all other Churches must receive the tradition of the Faith.[3]

The same Roman Church, therefore, desired nothing more than by the most persuasive means to state, to protect, to promote and to defend the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. This fact is most clearly shown to the whole world by numerous and significant acts of the Roman Pontiffs, our predecessors. To them, in the person of the Prince of the Apostles, were divinely entrusted by Christ our Lord, the charge and supreme care and the power of feeding the lambs and sheep; in particular, of confirming their brethren, and of ruling and governing the universal Church.

VENERATION OF THE IMMACULATE

Our predecessors, indeed, by virtue of their apostolic authority, gloried in instituting the Feast of the Conception in the Roman Church. They did so to enhance its importance and dignity by a suitable Office and Mass, whereby the prerogative of the Virgin, her exception from the hereditary taint, was most distinctly affirmed. As to the homage already instituted, they spared no effort to promote and to extend it either by the granting of indulgences, or by allowing cities, provinces and kingdoms to choose as their patroness God's own Mother, under the title of "The Immaculate Conception." Again, our predecessors approved confraternities, congregations and religious communities founded in honor of the Immaculate Conception, monasteries, hospitals, altars, or churches; they praised persons who vowed to uphold with all their ability the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. Besides, it afforded the greatest joy to our predecessors to ordain that the Feast of the Conception should be celebrated in every church with the very same honor as the Feast of the Nativity; that it should be celebrated with an octave by the whole Church; that it should be reverently and generally observed as a holy day of obligation; and that a pontifical Capella should be held in our Liberian pontifical basilica on the day dedicated to the conception of the Virgin. Finally, in their desire to impress this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God upon the hearts of the faithful, and to intensify the people's piety and enthusiasm for the homage and the veneration of the Virgin conceived without the stain of original sin, they delighted to grant, with the greatest pleasure, permission to proclaim the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin in the Litany of Loreto, and in the Preface of the Mass, so that the rule of prayer might thus serve to illustrate the rule of belief. Therefore, we ourselves, following the procedure of our predecessors, have not only approved and accepted what had already been established, but bearing in mind, moreover, the decree of Sixtus IV, [4] have confirmed by our authority a proper Office in honor of the Immaculate Conception, and have with exceeding joy extended its use to the universal Church.[5]

THE ROMAN DOCTRINE

Now inasmuch as whatever pertains to sacred worship is intimately connected with its object and cannot have either consistency or durability if this object is vague or uncertain, our predecessors, the Roman Pontiffs, therefore, while directing all their efforts toward an increase of the devotion to the conception, made it their aim not only to emphasize the object with the utmost zeal, but also to enunciate the exact doctrine.[6] Definitely and clearly they taught that the feast was held in honor of the conception of the Virgin. They denounced as false and absolutely foreign to the mind of the Church the opinion of those who held and affirmed that it was not the conception of the Virgin but her sanctification that was honored by the Church. They never thought that greater leniency should be extended toward those who, attempting to disprove the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, devised a distinction between the first and second instance of conception and inferred that the conception which the Church celebrates was not that of the first instance of conception but the second. In fact, they held it was their duty not only to uphold and defend with all their power the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin but also to assert that the true object of this veneration was her conception considered in its first instant. Hence the words of one of our predecessors, Alexander VII, who authoritatively and decisively declared the mind of the Church: "Concerning the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, ancient indeed is that devotion of the faithful based on the belief that her soul, in the first instant of its creation and in the first instant of the soul's infusion into the body, was, by a special grace and privilege of God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, her Son and the Redeemer of the human race, preserved free from all stain of original sin. And in this sense have the faithful ever solemnized and celebrated the Feast of the Conception."[7]

Moreover, our predecessors considered it their special solemn duty with all diligence, zeal, and effort to preserve intact the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. For, not only have they in no way ever allowed this doctrine to be censured or changed, but they have gone much further and by clear statements repeatedly asserted that the doctrine by which we profess the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin is on its own merits entirely in harmony with the ecclesiastical veneration; that it is ancient and widespread, and of the same nature as that which the Roman Church has undertaken to promote and to protect, and that it is entirely worthy to be used in the Sacred Liturgy and solemn prayers. Not content with this they most strictly prohibited any opinion contrary to this doctrine to be defended in public or private in order that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin might remain inviolate. By repeated blows they wished to put an end to such an opinion. And lest these oft-repeated and clearest statements seem useless, they added a sanction to them...."

November 21: Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, Class III; St Columbanus, Memorial

c1460-5

The basis for the feast of the Presentation lies in the infancy narrative contained in the Protoevangelium of James, which was possibly written around 145 AD, though the feast itself dates from 543.

Some modern historians claim the Protoevangelium is a fraud, as it does not reflect an awareness of the Judaism of the time, claiming, for example, that the idea of temple virgins is a conflation of Roman practice.

In reality, however, there are explicit Old Testament references to vows of celibacy. In addition, there were several contemporary Jewish groups with close connections to Jesus and his family, such as the Essenes, that did practice celibacy. And we also have from Scripture the story of the Prophetess Anna (Lk 2:25-35), who lived constantly in the Temple.

Accordingly, though not inspired Scripture, the early date of the Protoevangelium of James suggests that it should be taken seriously as relating a genuine early historical tradition regarding to Our Lady.

According to the text, Mary's parents, Joachim and Anne, who had been childless, received a heavenly message that they would bear a child. In thanksgiving for the gift of their daughter, they brought her, when still a child, to the Temple in Jerusalem to consecrate her to God, and she was educated for her future role there.

St Columbanus




St Columbanus (540-615) was an Irish monk missionary responsible for founding many monasteries on the continent.  His brand of monasticism was much stricter and more penitential in orientation than St Benedict's, and the two rules were often used in combination.

St Columbanus suffered early temptations, and sought out advice from a holy woman who advised him to retire from the world; his decision was, however, strongly opposed by his parents.

His first master was Sinell, Abbot of Cluaninis in Lough Erne. Under his tuition he composed a commentary on the Psalms. He then went to the monastery of Bangor under St Comgall. There he embraced the monastic state, and for many years led a life conspicuous for fervour, regularity, and learning.

At about the age of forty he seemed to hear incessantly the voice of God bidding him preach the Gospel in foreign lands. At first his abbot declined to let him go, but at length he gave consent.
Columbanus set sail with twelve companions.  They eventually arrived in France around 585.

He and his followers soon made their way to the court of Gontram, King of Burgundy, who invited him to establish a monastery at Annegray in the solitudes of the Vosges Mountains.  After a few years the ever-increasing number of his disciples oblige him to build another monastery, which he established at Luxeuil, in 590.  A third followed at Fontaines.

His efforts ran into opposition from the local bishops, however, in part because he insisted on the Irish rather than Roman date for the celebration of Easter, but after assorted appeals to Rome, appears to have given way on this.

He also ran into trouble with the local king: the young King Thierry, to whose kingdom Luxeuil belonged, was living a life of debauchery, and was encouraged in this by his grandmother (his regent) who wanted no rivals for power.  Thierry, however, continued to visit the saint, who admonished and rebuked him, but in vain.

St Columbanus was taken prisoner but escaped, whereupon the King attempted to deport him to Ireland.   The ship, however, was driven ashore and the captain freed him, and he made his way to Metz, Mainz and Switzerland and Italy to evangelize, ending up at Bobbio.

The Rule of Saint Columbanus embodied the customs of Bangor Abbey and other Celtic monasteries. Much shorter than the Rule of Saint Benedict, the Rule of Saint Columbanus consists of ten chapters, on the subjects of obedience, silence, food, poverty, humility, chastity, choir offices, discretion, mortification, and perfection.

In the seventh chapter, Columbanus instituted a service of perpetual prayer, the laus perennis, by which choir succeeded choir, both day and night.

The Rule of Saint Columbanus was approved of by the Synod of Mâcon in 627, but it was superseded at the close of the century by the Rule of Saint Benedict. For several centuries in some of the greater monasteries the two rules were observed conjointly.

St Stephen of Hungary (OF)/St Joachim (EF), Aug 16

In the ordinary form, today is the feast of St Stephen of Hungary (c967-1038), of whom the martyrology (of 15 August) says:

"At Albareale in Hungary, St. Stephen, king of the Hungary, Confessor, who was the first to convert the Hungarians to the faith of Christ.  He was received into heaven by the Virgin Mother of God on the very day of her Assumption..."

In the Extraordinary Form, today is the feast of St. Joachim, father of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary (in the Benedictine calendar his feast was celebrated together with St Anne's a week or so back).

August 15: The Assumption of Our Lady

The Assumption is perhaps the most important of the Marian feast of the year, and a Holy Day of Obligation (even in countries that have largely abandoned the concept such as Australia).

The Diurnal offers a choice of two versions of the Office for this feast - the first is the ‘new approved Office’ was written after the official proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption.

And in honour of the feast, Psalm 121 (122), 'I rejoiced when they said to me, let us go into the house of the Lord', in the setting from the fabulous Vespers of the Blessed Virgin by Monteverdi.

Presentation of the BVM (November 21)

It is also today the memorial of St Columba:


"In the monastery of Bobio, the departure from this life of St. Columban, abbot, who founded many convents and governed a large number of monks. He died at an advanced age, celebrated for many virtues."

Seven Sorrows of the BVM (EF/Ben62)/Our Lady of Sorrows (OF)

This is one of those rare feasts that still (even in the Ordinary Form, at least as an option) retain a sequence, viz the Stabat Mater.

Most Holy Name of Mary (EF/OF), September 12

Not, for some reason, included in the 1962 Benedictine calendar, but certainly in the calendar of the Universal Church.

C17th
Battle of Vienna, 1683

Older editions of the martyrology note that the feast was established in response to her aid at the Battle of Vienna, in 1683:

"The Feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary, celebrated by order of the Sovereign Pontiff, Innocent XI, on account of the signal victory gained over the Turks, at Vienna in Austria, through her protection."

The  most edition, however, gives a more politically correct account of the rationale for the feast:
"The Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a day on which the inexpressible love of the Mother of God for her Holy Child is recalled, and the eyes of the faithful are directed to the figure of the Mother of the Redeemer, for them to invoke with devotion."

St Timothy (Benedictine)/Immaculate Heart of Mary (EF)/Queenship of the BVM - Aug 22



Jacopo di Montepulciano, c1340

 From the martyrology:

"At Rome, on the Ostian road, the birthday of the holy martyr Timothy. After he had been arrested by Tarquinius, prefect of the city, and kept for a long time in prison, as he refused to sacrifice to the idols, he was scourged three times, subjected to the most severe torments, and finally beheaded."

St Timothy was martyred in 311.

Assumption of the BVM (Aug 15)

St Maximilian Kolbe (OF)/Vigil of the Assumption (EF/Benedictine), Aug 14

Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe, O.F.M. Conv. was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar, who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz, in 1939.  You can read more about his inspiring life here.

Today is also the Vigil of the Assumption in the traditional calendar.

SS Anne and Joachim, parents of the BVM

Tradition, drawing on the (non-canonical but very early) Gospel of James, gives us Saints Joachim and Anne as the names of the father and mother of the Mother of God.   While not part of the Scriptural canon, there is no reason to doubt the historical veracity of the text (the normal scepticism of some modern commentators notwithstanding).

In the Protoevangelium of James, Joachim is described as a rich and pious man of the house of David who regularly gave to the poor and to the temple (synagogue) at Sepphoris.  However, as his wife was barren, the high priest rejected Joachim and his sacrifice, as his wife's childlessness was interpreted as a sign of divine displeasure. Joachim consequently withdrew to the desert where he fasted and did penance for forty days. Angels then appeared to both Joachim and Anne to promise them a child. Joachim later returned to Jerusalem and embraced Anne at the city gate.

History of the feast

In the Roman calendar this is the feast of St Anne only, as the martyrology suggests:

"The departure from this life of St. Anne, mother of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of God."

In the Benedictine calendar however both saints are celebrated on the same date.

The feast of St Joachim was added to the Roman Calendar in 1584, for celebration on March 20, the day after the feast day of Saint Joseph.

In 1738, it was transferred to the Sunday after the Octave of the Assumption of Mary. As part of his effort to allow the liturgy of Sundays to be celebrated, Pope Pius X transferred it to August 16, the day after the Assumption, so that Joachim may be remembered in the celebration of Mary's triumph.   It was then celebrated as a Double of the 2nd Class, a rank that was changed in 1960 to that of 2nd Class Feast.

In the Roman Catholic calendar of saints (in 1969) it was joined to that of Anne, for celebration on July 26.

The Eastern Orthodox Churches and Greek Catholics commemorate Joachim on September 9, the Synaxis of Joachim and Anne, the day after the Nativity of the Theotokos.

Feast of the Visitation (July 2)

Jacques Daret c1434

In Verbum Domini, Pope Benedict XVI commented on the story of the Visitation as follows:

"This close relationship between God’s word and joy is evident in the Mother of God. Let us recall the words of Saint Elizabeth: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Lc 1,45). Mary is blessed because she has faith, because she believed, and in this faith she received the Word of God into her womb in order to give him to the world. The joy born of the Word can now expand to all those who, by faith, let themselves be changed by God’s word. The Gospel of Luke presents this mystery of hearing and joy in two texts. Jesus says: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (Lc 8,21). And in reply to a woman from the crowd who blesses the womb that bore him and the breasts that nursed him, Jesus reveals the secret of true joy: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!” (Lc 11,28). Jesus points out Mary’s true grandeur, making it possible for each of us to attain that blessedness which is born of the word received and put into practice. I remind all Christians that our personal and communal relationship with God depends on our growing familiarity with the word of God. Finally, I turn to every man and woman, including those who have fallen away from the Church, who have left the faith or who have never heard the proclamation of salvation. To everyone the Lord says: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Ap 3,20).

May every day of our lives thus be shaped by a renewed encounter with Christ, the Word of the Father made flesh: he stands at the beginning and the end, and “in him all things hold together” (Col 1,17). Let us be silent in order to hear the Lord’s word and to meditate upon it, so that by the working of the Holy Spirit it may remain in our hearts and speak to us all the days of our lives. In this way the Church will always be renewed and rejuvenated, thanks to the word of the Lord which remains for ever (cf. 1P 1,25 Is Is 40,8). Thus we too will enter into the great nuptial dialogue which concludes sacred Scripture: “The Spirit and the bride say: ‘Come’. And let everyone who hears say: ‘Come!’” The one who testifies to these things, says: ‘Surely I am coming soon!’. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”. (Ap 22,17)."

St Bernadette Soubirous (April 16): visions of Our Lady

From the martyrology:

"In the city of Nevers in France, St. Mary Bernard Soubirous of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity, also called the Christian Institute. She was favoured with frequent apparitions and conversations at Lourdes with Mary Immaculate, the Mother of God. In 1933 her name was added to the roll of holy virgins by Pope Pius XI."

Feast of Mary, Mother of God? (aka New Year, aka Circumcision of Christ aka Octave Day of Christmas)

This Sunday's feast is curious in that it has undergone a number of name changes in recent years - yet retained its key text, viz  St Luke 2:21, which describes the circumcision of Our Lord.

Traditionally, this Sunday would have been the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord. The feast celebrated the first time the blood of Christ was shed, and thus the beginning of the process of the redemption of man. It also serves to demonstrate that Christ was fully human, and his obedience to Biblical law.

In the 1962 Calendar (including the Benedictine Universal Calendar), all of the traditional texts for the feast are retained, but the name is dropped in favour of the Octave Day of the Nativity.

In the Novus Ordo calendar, it has become the Feast of Mary, Mother of God, apparently for reasons of ecumenism (with the Eastern Orthodox).

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

September 8: Nativity of the BVM, Class II

Giotto

July 2: The Visitation, Class II

c15th

May 24: Our Lady Help of Christians: world day of prayer for China

Today is the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, patroness of Australia and New Zealand and other places, so do spare a prayer for the conversion of those countries if you would. 

But Pope Benedict XVI has particularly asked that this be a day of prayer for the persecuted faithful in China, and has composed a prayer to be said for this purpose:

Virgin Most Holy, Mother of the Incarnate Word and our Mother,

venerated in the Shrine of Sheshan under the title "Help of Christians",
the entire Church in China looks to you with devout affection.

We come before you today to implore your protection.

Look upon the People of God and, with a mother’s care, guide them
along the paths of truth and love, so that they may always be
a leaven of harmonious coexistence among all citizens.

When you obediently said "yes" in the house of Nazareth,
you allowed God’s eternal Son to take flesh in your virginal womb
and thus to begin in history the work of our redemption.

You willingly and generously cooperated in that work,
allowing the sword of pain to pierce your soul,
until the supreme hour of the Cross, when you kept watch on Calvary,
standing beside your Son, who died that we might live.

From that moment, you became, in a new way,
the Mother of all those who receive your Son Jesus in faith
and choose to follow in his footsteps by taking up his Cross.

Mother of hope, in the darkness of Holy Saturday you journeyed
with unfailing trust towards the dawn of Easter.

Grant that your children may discern at all times,
even those that are darkest, the signs of God’s loving presence.

Our Lady of Sheshan, sustain all those in China,
who, amid their daily trials, continue to believe, to hope, to love.

May they never be afraid to speak of Jesus to the world,
and of the world to Jesus.

In the statue overlooking the Shrine you lift your Son on high,
offering him to the world with open arms in a gesture of love.

Help Catholics always to be credible witnesses to this love,
ever clinging to the rock of Peter on which the Church is built.

Mother of China and all Asia, pray for us, now and for ever. Amen!

And for a little Australiana, a hymn composed for the feast:

May 7: Office of Our Lady on Saturday in Eastertide***

Just a little note to point out that the Monastic Diurnal omits an important rubric in the Office of Our Lady during Eastertide, namely the addition of an alleluia to the end of each of the antiphons and versicles (for Prime to None).

So Lauds is as noted in the Diurnal, with the antiphons and psalms of Saturday, chapter and hymn of the Office of Our Lady on Saturday during the year, but short responsory of Eastertide, versicle and Benedictus antiphon of the season, as set out on MD (135).

At Prime to None, use the antiphons of Our Lady on Saturday with an Alleluia added to the end of each of them; chapter verses as usual; versicles with an alleluia added to the end of each line; together with the collect of Our Lady from Lauds.


NB: The opening section in the video is the Compline antiphon, not the antiphon for the Canticle at Lauds!