Blessed Virgin Mary – Page 23

Our Lady of the Rosary

O God, Whose only-begotten Son by His life, death and resurrection hath purchased for us the rewards of eternal salvation, grant we beseech Thee, that meditating on these mysteries in the most holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may both imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise.

I want to recommend Ruth Rees’s The Rosary in Space and Time which is an accessible and exceptional look into the most important devotional prayers we have: the Rosary. She explores the biblical, liturgical, and practical dimensions of the rosary. A convert from Judaism and a professional actress and writer, Rees brings us (me) to a deeper appreciation of this compendium of the Gospels.

Mary’s 7 sorrows

Father, as your Son was raised on the cross, his mother Mary stood by him, sharing his sufferings. May your Church be united with Christ in his suffering and death and so come to share in his rising to new life, where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Today’s feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary follows yesterday’s feast of the Triumph of the Cross. As the liturgical year progresses we see some things change in the liturgical atmosphere as we prepare, believe it or not, for the end of the liturgical year: our focus on the Paschal Mystery of the Lord (i.e., the life, death, resurrection & ascension of the Lord) becomes more present to us.

Liturgically the Church dedicates a day to the spiritual martyrdom of Mary, Jesus’ own mother. The feast of Our Lady of Sorrows has not only a spiritual depth but a real human one: it strikes at the core of our heart. What human being goes through life without some sort of pain? Like all mothers, Mary was wounded and pained at various times in her life by the absence of her son and the pain and death he had to suffer. No mother delights in her child’s misery, no mother sits by while her child’s humanity is in jeopardy. Consider what the mothers of soldiers go through waiting for her son or daughter to return from war. Imagine the terrible, heart wrenching pain that many mothers felt when they were told their child was killed in Iraq. I know of the pain my own paternal grandmother faced when her son was killed in a car accident more than 40 years ago; a pain that never truly healed nor spoken of…

The feast we observe today reminds us of the humanity of not only Mary, but of Jesus. For as we know, Mary always points to her son: the cross brought incredible suffering for Jesus while it saved all of humanity by trampling down sin and death; Careful observing the suffering as Mary did requires our attention, too, because Christ saved us in and through our humanity. This point is driven home countless times a day as I walk past a replica of Michelangelo’s Pieta (see the pic above); I am confronted with the sorrowing Mother Mary holding the dead body of her son in her arms, the very arms which cuddled him as an infant.

The Cistercian monks and Servite friars have given the Church an apt liturgical feast to indicate the depth of humanity Mary had in standing by her son, an experience foretold by Simeon. The feast has also be called Our Lady of Compassion, yet another intersection of theology and human reality.

Here are the seven sorrows of Mary:

The prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35)
The flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15)
Loss of the Child Jesus for three days (Luke 2:41-50)
Mary meets Jesus on his way to Calvary (Luke 23:27-31; John 19:17)
Crucifixion and Death of Jesus (John 19:25-30)
The body of Jesus being taken from the Cross (Psalm 130; Luke 23:50-54; John 19:31-37)
The burial of Jesus (Isaiah 53:8; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42; Mark 15:40-47)

Our Lady of Sorrows

Stabat Mater dolorosa

iuxta crucem lacrimosa,

dum pendebat Filius.

The grieving Mother stood

beside the cross weeping

where her Son was hanging.

Cuius animam gementem

contristatam et dolentem

pertransivit gladius.

Through her weeping soul,

compassionate and grieving,

a sword passed.

O quam tristis et afflicta

fuit illa benedicta

mater Unigeniti!

O how sad and afflicted

was that blessed

Mother of the Only-begotten!

Quae maerebat et dolebat

pia mater cum videbat

nati poenas incliti.

Who mourned and grieved,

the pious Mother, with seeing

the torment of her glorious Son.

Quis est homo qui non fleret,

matrem Christi si videret

in tanto supplicio?

Who is the man who would not weep

if seeing the Mother of Christ

in such agony?

Quis non posset contristari,

piam matrem contemplari

dolentum cum Filio?

Who would not be have compassion

on beholding the devout mother

suffering with her Son?

Pro peccatis suae gentis

vidit Iesum in tormentis

et flagellis subditum.

For the sins of His people

she saw Jesus in torment

and subjected to the scourge.

Vidit suum dulcem Natum

morientem, desolatum,

cum emisit spiritum.

She saw her sweet Son

dying, forsaken,

while He gave up His spirit.

Christe, cum sit hinc exire,

da per matrem me venire

ad palmam victoriae. Amen.

Christ, when it is henceforth in need to pass away,

grant that through your Mother I may come

to the palm of victory. Amen.

Holy Name of Mary

You have been blessed, O Virgin Mary, above all other women on earth by the Lord, the Most High God, for God has so exalted your name that human lips will never cease to praise you.

Lord our God, when Your Son was dying on the altar of the cross, he gave us as our mother the one he had chosen to be His own mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary; grant that we who call upon the holy name of Mary, our mother, with confidence in her protection may receive strength and comfort in all our needs.

This feast was restored an optional memorial in our sacred Liturgy by the Servant of God Pope John Paul II when he published the 2002 Roman Missal (the translation is due out this century). The Preface of today’s Mass is worth adding to our examination of conscience today and I highly recommend using the liturgical texts to assist us here. In part the Preface reads:

“… But by Your loving providence the name of the Virgin Mary also should echo and re-echo on the lips of the faithful people who turn to her with confidence as their star of hope, call on her as their mother in time of danger, and seek her protection in their hour of need.”

The sentiments expressed by the Church’s Liturgy ought to call to mind the venerable prayer of the Memorare in which we ask Mary in confidence to be at our side at all times. Those who remain close to Mary, the Mother of God are always helped.

Good question: What Happened at Medjugorje?

A fitting look into a Marian apparition on the Feast of the Nativity of Mary at First Things, “What Happened at Medjugorje?” It’s amazing that this “apparition” of the Blessed Virgin is getting a lot of press these days.

Saint Anselm’s prayer for the Birth of Our Lady

In Honor of Our Lady’s Nativity

Saint Anselm of Canterbury

Vouchsafe
that I may praise thee, O sacred Virgin; give me strength against thine
enemies, and against the enemy of the whole human race. Give me strength humbly
to pray to thee. Give me strength to praise thee in prayer with all my powers,
through the merits of thy most sacred nativity, which for the entire Christian
world was a birth of joy, the hope and solace of its life.

When thou wast born,
O most holy Virgin, then was the world made light. Happy is thy stock, holy thy
root, and blessed thy fruit, for thou alone as a virgin, filled with the Holy
Spirit, didst merit to conceive thy God, as a virgin to bear Thy God, as a
virgin to bring Him forth, and after His birth to remain a virgin.

Have mercy
therefore upon me a sinner, and give me aid, O Lady, so that just as thy
nativity, glorious from the seed of Abraham, sprung from the tribe of Juda,
illustrious from the stock of David, didst announce joy to the entire world, so
may it fill me with true joy and cleanse me from every sin.

Pray for me, O
Virgin most prudent, that the gladsome joys of thy most helpful nativity may
put a cloak over all my sins. O holy Mother of God, flowering as the lily, pray
to thy sweet Son for me, a wretched sinner. Amen.

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

It is the nativity of the glorious Virgin Mary, sprung from the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Juda, of the renowned family of David.

We beseech Thee, O Lord, grant to Thy servants the gift of Thy heavenly grace, that as the childbearing of the Blessed Virgin was the beginning of salvation, so the joyful festival of her nativity may bring us an increase of peace.

Today is one three days on the liturgical calendar that the church celebrates someone’s birth; the other two are Jesus and John the Baptist. What we know of the birth of Mary comes from the extra-canonical gospels: The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary and the Proto-evangelium of Saint James. This is one of those feasts that came from Eastern Church, likely in Syria in the 6th century. It gained popularity that in the 7th century it was added to liturgical calendar of the Church of Rome (It was Pope Sergius I who wrote a Litany and organized a procession for the feast.) and the collects are found in various missals. Various dioceses may have some type of observance beginning in the 8th to the 10th centuries. That said, in some parts of the Church where the missals included the collects of the Assumption, this feast of Nativity of Mary is absent.

Our Lady of Czestochowa, a morning prayer

A Morning Prayer to

Our Lady of Czestochowa

Holy Mother of
Czestochowa, thou art full of grace, goodness and mercy. I consecrate to thee
all my thoughts, words and actions -my soul and body. I beseech thy blessings
and especially prayers for my salvation. Today, I consecrate myself to thee,
Good Mother, totally -with body and soul amid joy and sufferings to obtain for
myself and others Thy blessings on this earth and eternal life in Heaven. Amen.

Medjugorje & 2 popes

On the premise that the faithful require the truth, I am still wondering about the authenticity of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother at Medjugorje, especially with how one pope dealt with the cult and how the current pope is dealing with it. At the end of July I posted a question about the possibility of the apparitions being a hoax with the reduction to the lay state of the Franciscan priest who promoted the apparitions. With 30 million+ pilgrims since the messages were revealed, there seems to be some continued interest among the Church, Mariologists, and the faithful. I think we all need the discernment of the Church.

The day before the octave day of the Assumption an interview regarding the Medjugoje appearances was posted. Matt Abbott makes some interesting known.

After reading what Abbott’s article, I wonder if the lack of a more swift ecclesial judgment on Medjugoje’s validity whether this is a good example of justice delayed is justice denied.

Queenship of Mary

Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me
according to your word.

Father, you have given us the mother of your Son to be
our queen and mother. With the support of her prayers may we come to share the
glory of your children in the kingdom of heaven.

From the encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam of Pope Pius XII in 1954:

“We [Pope Pius XII] are
convinced that this feast will help to preserve, strengthen and prolong that
peace among nations which daily is almost destroyed by recurring crises. Is she
not a rainbow in the clouds reaching towards God, the pledge of a covenant of
peace? “Look upon the rainbow, and bless Him that made it; surely it is
beautiful in its brightness. It encompasses the heaven about with the circle of
its glory, the hands of the Most High have displayed it. “Whoever,
therefore, reverences the Queen of heaven and earth – and let no one consider
himself exempt from this tribute of a grateful and loving soul – let him invoke
the most effective of Queens, the Mediatrix of peace; let him respect and
preserve peace, which is not wickedness unpunished nor freedom without
restraint, but a well-ordered harmony under the rule of the will of God; to its
safeguarding and growth the gentle urgings and commands of the Virgin Mary
impel us.”

Pius XII wrote a stunning treatise on the Queenship of Mary showing
how through the millennia Mary was honored with the title of “Mother of God” and
therefore theologians and preachers have accorded her the title of Queen of Heaven
and Earth.

Read the entire encyclical of Pope Pius XII, Ad Caeli Reginam (1954)
and pray the prayer of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed
Virgin Mary as proposed by the pope.

A Solemn Act of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of
Mary

Most Holy Virgin Mary, tender Mother of men, to fulfill the desires of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus and the request of the Vicar of Your Son on earth, we
consecrate ourselves and our families to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, O
Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, and we recommend to You, all the people of our
country and all the world.

Please accept our consecration, dearest Mother, and
use us as You wish to accomplish Your designs in the world.

O Sorrowful and
Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, and Queen of the
World, rule over us, together with the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, Our King.
Save us from the spreading flood of modern paganism; kindle in our hearts and
homes the love of purity, the practice of a virtuous life, an ardent zeal for
souls, and a desire to pray the Rosary more faithfully.

We come with confidence
to You, O Throne of Grace and Mother of Fair Love. Inflame us with the same
Divine Fire which has inflamed Your own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Make
our hearts and homes Your shrine, and through us, make the Heart of Jesus,
together with your rule, triumph in every heart and home. Amen.

Venerable
Servant of God Pope Pius XII