VE Day 65th Anniversary

On the feast of the Apparition of St Michael, the 8th of May 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered, ending war in the European Theatre of World War II; the Empire of Japan surrendered later that same year, on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin – thus, to the intercession of the great Archangel and to Our Lady may the end of the most murderous war of all history be piously attributed.

In 1950, the corporeal Assumption was declared a dogma.  By the mid-1950's, the first ransacking of the Calendar removed this feast of the Archangel (his other, on the 29th of September, remained), since it was represented as secondary and historically obscure; how lucky that Pius XII had done what he did, since otherwise the dreadful Bugnini, who rang rings around the 'Hamlet' Pope (Paul VI), would most certainly have arranged to suppress the feast of the Assumption as well!