Deadcarts and Plague Pits?

One should always act as if all depends on one’s own efforts, and pray as if all depends on God: this is based on the truth that God, the Primary Cause of all, deigns to work through a multitude of secondary causes, and all such causes are true causes of their ultimate effects: I exist because of God, but also because of my parents, my grandparents, and so on.

We should also always have hope and trust, both supernatural and natural: so we do not give in to paranoia, nor overcritically distrust what is told us, but prudently and rationally weigh up what we learn. For this reason, I hope and trust that the current coronavirus outbreak, though serious, will not lead to “deadcarts and plague pits”; still, while praising all medical staff who are striving to contain and control this new disease, we should also pray to God that he save us from pestilence.

The following antiphon and versicle are taken from the Cantuale Romano-Seraphicum, no. 122, p. 136f. (I have corrected what is given at Gregobase by reference to this book, which basically meant two notes had to be moved up one step each.) Its Critical Epilogue notes that this is a Prose traditionally sung by Franciscans against the pest or plague, and its music derives from two older sources, a prose and a trope. According to other sources, supposedly this anthem was taught by St Bartholomew to a nun at a convent of the Poor Clares at Coimbra in 1317... whatever of this pious account, it ought be noted that the poetic references in the antiphon to Our Lady as Star of the Sea, and thus to her as a glorious Star able to deliver us from the malign influences of the stars, do not commit us to a belief in astrology!

The Collect following (addressed to Our Lord, and having a rather unusual Gallican ending) is taken from old prayer books I have collated. UPDATE: I have given the slightly abbreviated text of the collect as used in the 1823 Breviarium Romanum used by the Capuchins.

Aña. Stella cæli exstirpávit, * quæ lactávit Dóminum: 

Mortis pestem quam plantávit primus parens hóminum.

Ipsa stella nunc dignétur sídera compéscere, 

Quorum bella plebem cædunt diræ mortis úlcere.

O piíssima stella maris, a peste succúrre nobis.

Audi nos, Dómina, nam Fílius tuus nihil negans te honórat.

Salva nos, Jesu, pro quibus Virgo Mater te orat.

V. In omni tribulatióne et angústia nostra.

R. Succúrre nobis, piíssima Virgo María.

Orémus.

Oratio.

Deus misericórdiæ, Deus pietátis, Deus indulgéntiæ, qui misértus es super afflictiónem pópuli tui, et dixísti Angelo percutiénti pópulum tuum: Cóntine manum tuam: ob amórem illíus Stellæ gloriósæ, cujus úbera pretiósa contra venénum nostrórum delictórum quam dúlciter suxísti: præsta auxílium grátiæ tuæ; ut ab omni peste, et improvísa morte secúre liberémur, et a totíus perditiónis incúrsu misericórditer salvémur, per te, Jesu Christe, Rex glóriæ. Qui vivis et regnas in sǽcula sæculórum. R. Amen.

******

Antiphon. 

The star of heaven, who nourished the Lord, rooted up the plague of death which the first father of mankind planted: may that same star now deign to counter the constellations whose strife strike down the people with the ulcer of a terrible death. O most pious star of the sea, save us from the plague. Hear us: for thy Son honoureth thee, denying thee nothing. Save us, Jesus, for whom the Virgin Mary prayeth to thee.

V. In our every tribulation and anguish.

R. Succour us, most loving Virgin Mary.

Let us pray.

Collect.

God of mercy, God of pity, God of pardon, who hadst pity on the affliction of thy people, and didst say to the Angel that slew thy people, Hold thy hand: for the sake of the love of that glorious Star, whose precious breast thou didst so sweetly suck, against the poison of our faults; supply the help of thy grace, that we may securely be delivered from every disease and unprovided death, and may mercifully be saved from the inroads of all perdition, through thee, Jesus Christ, the King of glory, who livest and reignest world without end. R. Amen.

Fr Blake on Our Lady as Model Communicant

Fr Ray Blake has a most devout and thought-provoking post about Our Lady, the perfect model of all communicants, truly a Spiritual Vessel uniquely fit for the Lord.  Indeed, were we not commanded to communicate, who could imagine himself worthy to receive Christ?  But Truth Himself saith, Take, eat.  With the Centurion, Holy Church bids us pray, "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed."  And thus we too are graced, healed, hallowed by His Presence.  "Come to my heart, Lord Jesus: there is room there enough for Thee."

Maria, quæ mortalium

The good nuns at Carmel sang this hymn as a recessional after Mass on Saturday, last day of the Christian year, the Mass having been a Votive of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  What a good prayer it is! "When all other succour faileth, Our Lady's grace helpeth." (The Mirror of Our Lady.)

O Mary, you are swift to hear

Whoever calls on you in pray'r

And lovingly you answer all:

Keep us forever in your care.

Be near us if the fearful bonds

Of sin's allurements snare us here.

Break quickly the entangling chains

And free our hearts of guilt and fear.

Come to our aid if worldly dreams

Dazzle our sight, our wills betray,

Let not our minds, forgetting God,

From saving pathways turn away.

Come with your aid when troubles come,

Misfortunes threaten, dangers near, 

Bring peace to all our earthly days

Until eternal day is here.

To us your children ever be

A stronghold at that final hour

That with your aid we may attain

The joys of heaven, by your power.

To Father, Son and Spirit be

All glory, honour, praises given

Who clothed you with his wondrous grace

And crowned you Queen of earth and heaven.

Amen.

— Maria, quæ mortalium: translated by Sr Mary Paula OCD of Long Beach Carmel.

St Ildephonsus in Praise of the Virgin

To-day being Saturday, Our Lady's day, in honour of the Ever-Virgin I post this excerpt below from the little book of St Ildephonsus of Toledo on the perpetual virginity of Holy Mary (lib. de virginitate perpetua Sanctæ Mariæ, cap. 1, circa finem), partly in the original Latin, and partly - filling in the gaps - in a modern Italian translation (one being the descendant of the other).

('Tis said that, so pleased was the Virgin by his defence of her honour, she condescended to come down from heaven to Toledo Cathedral, and bestowed upon him a chasuble; the Feast of the Descent was celebrated in after ages at Toledo as a memorial of this.)

Ecce enim virgo ex Deo, virgo ex homine, virgo attestante angelo, virgo judice sponso, virgo ante sponsum, virgo cum sponso; indubitata virgo, etiam dubitante sponso.  Virgo ante Filii adventum, virgo post Filii generationem; virgo cum Filii nativitate, virgo post Filium natum.

Feconda per il Verbo, ripiena del Verbo, fecondissima per il Verbo, degna del parto del Verbo; per l’umana natività, per la legge umana, per i costumi umani, per la condizione umana, per l’umana verità, illæsa, incorrupta, inviolata, intemerata, integerrima davvero.  Ma per divina grazia, per divino favore, per divino dono, per divina invenzione, per divino consenso; 

Novo opere, nova efficacia, nova operatione, novo effectu, novo partu, cum conceptu virgo, per conceptum virgo, in conceptu virgo, post conceptum virgo, per partum virgo, in partu virgo, cum partu virgo, post partum virgo.  Virgo cum nascituro, virgo cum nascente, virgo post Filium natum.  Conjunx dicta et virgo, conjunx assumpta et virgo, conjunx credita, et virgo cum conjuge simul et prole perennis virgo, ignota semper conjugio, ignota complexa, ignota tactu, ignota maritali collegio.

E allora certamente, allora indubbiamente, allora sicuramente, allora veramente vergine santa, vergine beata, vergine gloriosa, vergine onorabile.  Ma dopo la generazione del Verbo incarnato; dopo la nascita del Dio fatto uomo; dopo la generazione dell’uomo assunto in Dio; dopo la nascita dell’uomo unito a Dio, vergine piú santa e santissima; vergine piú nobile e nobilissima; vergine piú onorabile e onorabilissima; vergine piú augusta e augustissima.

Ave Maria!

In prole mater, in partu virgo

Over at the latest website of Sentire cum Ecclesia (whereby David Schütz appears to be on the way to as many instantiations as Doctor Who), yours truly has been intervening in a big way in the discussion about what is meant by Our Lady's virginity in partu, attempting to defend the traditional doctrine thereof.  

(Warning: this topic is sometimes discussed with too much expatiation of details that really require a holy reserve.)

With the Church, we pray in honour of the Ever-Virgin (from the Dominican Little Office of Our Lady):

Dignare me laudare te, Virgo sacrata: da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos.

(Vouchsafe me to praise thee, sacred Virgin: give to me strength against thine enemies.)

— Antiphon at Prime

In prole mater, in partu virgo, gaude et lætare, Virgo Mater Domini.

(In offspring a mother, in birthgiving a virgin, rejoice and be glad, Virgin Mother of the Lord.)

— Antiphon at Sext

Beata mater, et intacta virgo, gloriosa Regina mundi, intercede pro nobis ad Dominum.

(Blessed Mother, and intact Virgin, glorious Queen of the world, intercede for us with the Lord.)

— Antiphon at None

Post partum, Virgo, inviolata permansisti: Dei Genetrix, intercede pro nobis.

(After childbirth, O Virgin, thou didst remain inviolate: Mother of God, intercede for us.)

— Antiphon at Lauds

Ethiopian Excess

Most embarrassingly, owing to an incident some centuries back when a Jesuit was briefly Patriarch of Ethiopia and tried to forcibly Romanize his horrified flock, the nickname for Catholics in Ethiopia is "Enemies of Mary"!

What in Catholicism seemed so anti-Marian?  Well, consider the monastic dispute between the Tigrenses (monks of Tigre) and Dabra-libanenses (monks of Dabra-Lebanon?)...  (I am relying on Gordillo's Compendium Theologiæ Orientalis (Rome, 1950), so forgive me for imperfectly rendering his Latin.)

The first-named votaries denied Our Lady the worship of latria (thanks be), and adhered to the formula "To the Theotokos honour and glory agrees, and to her Son worship agrees" – a formula known for short as "and to her Son", wa-la-Waldâ.  The second group, however, preferred instead to say "To the Theotokos, together with her Son, worship agrees" (!) – or "together with her Son", za-mysla Waldâ, for short.  Thanks be to God, Who thus preserved the Ethiopians from entire Mariolatry, King John IV ruled in favour of the first opinion.  It is distressing, though, that matters ever came to such a pass.

Such ignorant error is only comparable to the Coptic error of the middle ages that made confessing to a thurible (!) an acceptable substitute for the Sacrament of Confession...

(I can think of some Traddies who'd just love an excuse to take up the latter!)

Kolbe and Bulgakov

Further to what I noted below about daring ideas in Mariology, it is instructive to compare the similar Marian insights of the martyr St Maximilian Mary Kolbe, O.F.M. (1894-1941) and Archpriest Sergei Nicolayevich Bulgakov (1871-1944), a not uncontroversial Russian Orthodox theologian.

Now Kolbe, with holy daring, wrote that Our Lady is almost the incarnation of the Holy Ghost.  He framed most arrestingly the thought that she was so guided and governed by God's Spirit as to be in moral union with Him, though she and the Paraclete remained two separate persons: which is more or less what Nestorius asserted of Jesus Christ as being a very holy man in moral union with the Person of the Eternal Word.

(Indeed, living a life suffused by the Holy Spirit is what the saints are called to, as St Philip Neri rather alarmingly demonstrated...)

Rather than quote Kolbe at length (his opinions about the Immaculata can easily be googled), I pass on to quote a representative passage from the less-easily-accessible writings of Bulgakov, which he introduces by saying "We must... be perfectly clear about the theological implications and the dogmatic meaning of venerating her who is called 'more honourable than the Cherubim and incomparably more glorious than the Seraphim'" (quoting the famous Megalynarion sung in the Divine Liturgy):

There is no personal, human incarnation of the third Person of the Trinity. But although the third Person is not personally incarnated as a human being in the same sense as the Son of God was, there is that one human, created personality which is the vessel filled by the Holy Spirit. She so completely surrendered her human, personal life as to make it transparent to the Holy Spirit, testifying about herself, 'Behold he handmaid of the Lord.' This being — the Blessed Virgin — is not the personal incarnation of the Holy Spirit but becomes his personal, living receptacle, an absolutely Spirit-bearing creature [Pneumatophoros?], a Spirit-bearing human being. For although there is no personal incarnation of the Spirit, there may be such a thing as personal Spirit-bearing, in which a created personality is completely surrendered in its createdness and is, as it were, dissolved in the Holy Spirit. This interpretation [sic; lege 'interpenetration'?] by the Spirit amounts to a change of kind. The Virgin is wholly deified, full of grace, 'a living temple of God'. Such a Spirit-bearing personality radically differs from the God-man, for she is a creature, but she differs as radically from the creation in its createdness, for she is raised and united to the divine life. And through this spiritualization is realized the image of God in man. It must therefore be admitted that in heaven the human figure of the Mother of God, together with that of the God-man Jesus, jointly manifest the integral pattern of man. The ikon of our Lady and her Child, the Logos and the creature receiving him and filled with the Holy Spirit, in indivisible unity forms the pattern of man in his integrity. The God-man and the Spirit-bearer, the Son and the Mother, manifesting the revelation of the Father through the Word and the Spirit, manifest the fullness of God's copy in man, or, the other way round, of the pattern of man in God.

— from S.N. Bulgakov, The Burning Bush (Kupina Nepolimaya) (1927), quoted, translated from the end of pp. 137-142 in the original Russian, in A Bulgakov Anthology, J. Pain & N. Zernov, edd. (London: SPCK, 1976), 92.  [The notes in square brackets are my own.]

Bulgakov's doctrine was roundly criticized by the Orthodox in the 1930's as most problematic; he was charged with making Our Lady into a goddess, a Fourth Hypostasis, and so forth; notoriously, in one passage in The Burning Bush, he called her "a creature, but also no longer a creature".  Given the three-way split of the Russian Orthodox jurisdictions in the diaspora then, there is some suspicion of politicking and intrigue in the accusations of heresy directed against him.

I also find it ridiculous that the Orthodox, of all Christians, would condemn a man for taking deification (theosis) so seriously, indeed, finding it in its logical apex in the Mother of God.  He clearly says that the Holy Ghost does not have a personal incarnation; he "rightly divides the word of truth"; he exalts Holy Mary as the Pneumatophoros in truth – to quote a Catholic source in entire agreement with this, one of the official catechetical texts prepared by the Theological-Historical Commission for the Great Jubilee, entitled The Holy Spirit: Lord and Giver of Life, "Mary is the pneumatophoros (bearer of the Spirit) to the highest degree".

The same source approvingly quotes from two Byzantine writers who seem to anticipate Bulgakov: "Mary from the beginning was united with the Spirit... her participation in the Spirit became a participation in being", wrote Theophanes of Nicæa; and the great Nicolas Cabasilas wrote that Mary had a "spiritualized body, that is, one transformed by the Spirit".

As once with the mystical paradoxes of Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) in his Cherubimic Wanderer, Bulgakov's holy effusions I think are unfairly dealt with when read suspiciously: I believe him orthodox insofar as these passages go.  Then again, I am not conversant with the depths of his "sophiology", his doctrinal focus on Sophia, the Wisdom of God...  (Not that he referred to Sophia in the New Age feminist manner of course!)

Marian Irreverence

De Maria numquam satis is the famous dictum; but to this ought be added the advice of Newman's confessor: Love Our Lady ever so much – so long as you love Our Lord a good deal more.  Holy Mary herself would agree!  In this posting, I am sorry to appear as dismissing aught of true and rightful devotion to Our Lady, but the extremes of superstition and irreverence ought always to be avoided: those who make her lawful love ridiculous and repellent are as bad as those who revile her.  Dignare me laudare te, Virgo sacrata: da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos.

This said, it ought be squarely faced that there are extremes of Marian devotion that overstep the mark and become perverse, attracting the scoffing of the world and of heretics, gleeful to find ammunition for their attacks upon sacred doctrine.  I write not here of gullible middle-aged females devouring the latest heavy volume of saccharine messages allegedly authored by some Madonna making repeated apparitions! – as a friend of mine put it, Our Blessed Lady could hardly be fairly represented as the source of such feeble-minded rubbish.  (Approved private revelations, such as those of Fatima, tend to be rather deeper and more concise.)

No, I write rather of Mariological excesses in the theological sense: such as those of some zealous Counter-reformation writers (Jesuits, I think) who tried to encourage the use of the classical term dea ("goddess"!) for the Blessed Virgin!  Unsurprisingly, they were pulled firmly into line: while Our Lord Himself applied the text "Have I not said, ye are gods" to the children of men, and while we may hope to be  partakers in the Divine Nature, as St Peter tells us, it is, frankly, literal idolatry to name the Mother of God in such wise; we may speak of the Divine Virgin, using the adjective, but using the noun Goddess, never!  There was a like dispute among the Ethiopians in past centuries, as to whether the Virgin ought be worshipped and adored the same as her Son: thankfully, the monks contending for such idolatry were ruled out of court.

Two other forms of Marian irreverence by excess of zeal come to mind: the forbidden devotion to the "Most Pure Blood" of Mary, and the initially-indulgenced but then suppressed invocation of Mary as "Virgin-Priest".  The second instance I will comment upon below; as to the first, I seem to recall that in the late nineteenth century, there were some who would parallel the cultus of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord (by the price of Which, infinitely valuable by reason of being united in one hypostasis with the Eternal Word, we were on Calvary all of us redeemed) with an analogous veneration of Holy Mary's blood.  

Referring to blood when speaking of the Virgin, it must immediately be said, is productive only of unpleasant associations: it is male sonans, evil-sounding.  It conjures up, for instance, most inappropriate comparisons with the Spanish obsession with purity of blood (limpieza de sangre), an imagined category directed against the Jews – of which chosen nation Our Lady is the Rose!  Even worse notions of outmoded racial theories (the "one-drop rule") and vile applications of theories of bloodlines better suited to dog- and horse-breeding spring to mind.  Libera me de sanguinibus, Deus, Deus meus!  

Similarly, while the Aristotelian theory (repeated by Aquinas in his Summa Theologiæ, III, 31, 5) had it that conception occurs by fertilization of the maternal blood, and hence in this antique conception (!) Our Lady's blood is the sole source of Christ's Human Nature, this idea is quite incorrect.  Finally, what could be more gross than to make a repellent allusion to the Gospel woman suffering an effluxion of blood, the Hæmorrhissa?  (Forgive me, O Virgin Most Holy, for even mentioning such matters.)  No wonder such a spectacularly grotesque and irreverent proposed cult of Our Lady's blood was firmly forbidden by Rome as piarum aurium offensiva.

The cult of Our Lady as Virgin-Priest is another matter, and quite an interesting one.  All Christians – Christ's Mother not least – are of course priests by reason of their baptismal incorporation into Christ, the One Priest and Mediator of the New Testament: that is why we can intercede for our fellow men with God, which is the very office and ministry of a priest and mediator, and why we can offer spiritual sacrifices and the sacrifice of our own life, all in union with the One Sacrifice of the Lord.  But all Christians – even Holy Mary – are not sharers of the ministerial priesthood, which Our Lord granted to His Apostles and their ordained successors alone, by reason of His blessed words at the Last Supper, Do this in memory of Me.  

The Fathers (St Epiphanius in particular) testify to the truth that Our Lady was never a priest in this second sense of holding the ministerial priesthood – indeed, this is a valuable and core testimony to the impossibility of women's ordination, since of all women Holy Mary would surely have been one could this have been possible, and yet was not.  While at the foot of the Cross Our Lady shared to the greatest extent possible in the Passion of her Son (hence her not uncontroversial title of Co-redemptrix, meant as the greatest creaturely exemplar of the Apostle's remark in an Epistle that we are co-redeemers with Christ, making up what is lacking in His Passion), it is therefore misleading to refer to her there as a priest, or, worse still, priestess! – since this confuses the baptismal with the ministerial priesthood.  I recall that it was in St Pius X's time that this debate occurred, and an invocation of the Blessed Virgin under this title was first indulgenced, then removed from the Raccolta: for such a title was adjudged fatally ambiguous.  In 1927 such a cult was altogether prohibited.

There is also an overpious thought (rejected by Father Faber, I'm happy to say! sorry to accuse him of holding this), to the effect that by some peculiar miracle (a would-be wonder that I would term unedifying and thus needless, hardly becoming the God of order), some portion of cells in Our Lord's sacred Humanity remained the flesh of His Mother (why? bizarre folly!), and that therefore within the Sacred Host, yea, within the Eucharist, was present not just Jesus Christ but also somehow the Holy Virgin.  Again, this is quite mad, not to say biologically impossible and offensive to pious ears.

Newman quite rightly says, in his Letter to Pusey, Note V:


"An error of this sort [that our Lady is in the Holy Eucharist] was held by some persons, and is condemned in the following language by Benedict XIV. [i.e. by Cardinal Lambertini], as has been pointed out to me by my old and valued friend, Father Faber: 'This doctrine was held to be erroneous, dangerous, and scandalous, and the cultus was reprobated, which in consequence of it they asserted was to be paid to the most Blessed Virgin in the Sacrament of the Altar.'

Still to-day there are controverted questions: as mentioned above, while the last Ecumenical Council wrote of Mary as possessing the titles of Mediatrix and Advocate, this was at once said to be understood as subject to Christ of course, and the title Mediatrix of All Graces, though well-founded and attested, is not used so much at present, let alone Co-redemptrix; the fear being that these may be misunderstood and productive of scandal.  

(I once saw a website referring to Our Lady as "Mystical Co-Creatrix", conveying the Baroque thought that, as God predestined Our Lord's Human Nature and Our Lady in the first divine decree, first in order of importance before all else, in some sense the universe was made for her as well as in, with and for Him, and thus God "had Mary in mind" when creating!)

There are also curious theologumena, Eastern and Western.  For example, one theological opinion among the Orthodox is that God not merely hears and grants the prayers of the Theotokos and the saints, but has even granted them actual power to work wonders on His behalf; and in the Akathist, the Church famously sings, "Most Holy Theotokos, save us", where a Western parallel would only say "pray for us".  

In the same category of surprising, even daringly bold statements falls St Maximilian Kolbe's exaltation of the Virgin as being so in tune with the Holy Ghost as to be almost – almost – an incarnation of the Paraclete: but without, of course, actually being One Person in union with Him.  If he had said that she was, that were blackest heresy!  But he did not go too far.  In this regard we may see Our Lady as a Woman so infused with the Spirit as to be in a moral union with the Divine, rather as Nestorius erroneously thought that Our Lord was a mere moral union of a very holy man with the Eternal Word, each remaining a distinct person – and after all, to live completely in tune with the Spirit of Christ is the goal of Christian living, as exemplified by St Philip Neri.

Finally, mention ought be made of the technical distinction between consecration to God, and consecration (some now prefer to term this "entrustment") through Mary to God: St Louis de Montfort himself pointed out that if Marian consecration were considered an end in itself, rather than a sure path to God, it would be a most dangerous delusion.

Let Our Lady have the last word: "Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye."  (St John ii, 5b.)  True devotion to Our Lady leads us ineluctably to obey Her Divine Son.

Mary's Month

Autumn is well and truly with us here, as the cooler, rainier weather and the fall of leaves demonstrates: "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, / Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;" has been the couplet (by Keats) on my mind.

How then is autumnal May Mary's month?  Primarily, I would hazard, because it is part of Eastertide, and Our Lady is the supreme masterpiece of Christ's Victory: not only redeemed, but perfected from the first moment of her existence; not only saved from every fall into sin, but preserved, "spirit, soul and body", and already assumed in body and soul into that perpetual triumph and glory which will be the lot of the Saints after the General Resurrection.  

If Christ is the First-Begotten from the Dead, His Virgin Mother is the signal exemplar of His grace.  She is God's masterpiece, and so it behooves us, at this season of rejoicing, to rejoice and be glad in her: Gaude et lætare, Virgo Maria, alleluia: Quia surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia.  

It is a pious belief and well-founded that Christ, rising from the dead, went first to His Mother to shew her that He had returned: this rewarded her great faith, in that she alone did not despair at His Death, but knew that He would rise again. Hence, when the holy myrrh-bearing women found the tomb empty, He was to be found (as decades before at the Epiphany) "with Mary His Mother".  Mary Magdalen was rewarded for her penitent zeal by beholding Christ Risen; but Christ's appearance to the Immaculate Virgin necessarily preceded His appearance to the Magdalen.

This May, we sing Regina cæli thrice each day until its very end, for those following the Traditional Calendar; and the 31st of May is very fittingly kept as the feast of Our Lady as Queen: for such a great Lady is very obviously a Queen, just as Christ is the true King.  May their reign extend into every heart!

Even Heretics Get it Right Sometimes

Amusingly, when looking up some details about the Second Council of Nicæa (787), which restored the cult of holy icons, I found reference in its acts to the condemnation it pronounced upon the false iconoclast council of Constantinople (754); and interestingly enough, amongst that pretended synod's decrees against icons, I found these perfectly orthodox anathemas, which attest to the fact that in the eighth century, all - iconoclast and iconodule alike - believed in the most potent intercessory virtues of the Saints and, above all, of the All-Holy Ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of God:

(15) If anyone shall not confess the holy ever-virgin Mary, truly and properly the Mother of God, to be higher than every creature whether visible or invisible, and does not with sincere faith seek her intercessions as of one having confidence in her access to our God, since she bare him, [let him be anathema.]

(17) If anyone denies the profit of the invocation of Saints, [ditto.]

Even while condemning, wrongly, the use of images, the invocation of the Saints and above all of the exalted Virgin was strongly maintained.

Let modern-day heretics note that the united witness of the past (even when the Great Church was torn by factions) is against them.

May the Mediatrix of all graces, Suppliant Omnipotence, who touched the hem of the Divinity in becoming Mother of God, Queen of heaven, the highest and humblest under God, be ever the Morning Star of all Christian people, heralding her Son Christ, the Sun of justice, and obtain for us mercy from Him, to the glory of the Trinity and for our salvation.

Elevation of the All-Holy

The Byzantines have the curious custom (strange to Westerners) of elevating a triangular portion of bread, named the Panagia (All-Holy), in honour of Our Lady, at the end of the main monastic meal. Lifting it up, the priest cries "Great is the Name" and all reply "of the Holy Trinity" and then he cries (while moving the morsel horizontally, so as to complete making the Sign of the Cross with it) "All-Holy Theotokos, save us" (sôson hêmas), to which all reply "Through her intercessions, O God, have mercy and save us".

By its taking up, it is in a manner offered to God and blessed; and with it a blessing is imparted to all the faithful present who glorify the Lifegiving Trinity and invoke the Mother of God, thus implicitly commemorating the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, Who, being One of the Trinity, became Man to save us. It is a blessing to us when we bless God, and bless Him in His Saints, especially in God's Mother.

The Orthodox assert that this act is of apostolic origin - they state that after Our Lord's Ascension, the Apostles wherever they were always set aside some bread as Our Lord's portion at table (till He come again), which they would partake of, leaving a morsel, and had the custom of blessing the Trinity when lifting this last piece up at the end of the meal (recalling Christ's Ascension), ending by saying, "O Lord Jesus Christ, save us". However, soon after Our Lady's Dormition, she appeared to them in heavenly glory at the very moment they were conducting this dinnertime ritual - revealing that she had been resurrected and assumed into heaven - and they were so astonished that they spontaneously exclaimed, "All-Holy Theotokos, save us": and this has been said instead ever since.

The loaf for this purpose (which has been blessed at the Liturgy) is brought into the monastic refectory with some fanfare, and all come eventually to receive of it, perhaps dipping it in the wine provided and waving it over the censer if these be present. The triangular portion kept back until the end of the meal is set aside in a sometimes elaborate vessel on a table - the panagiarion - by itself, oft with a candle and even a censer before it, and there may be icons of the Trinity and the Blessed Virgin with it also. (Occasionally, even a chalice of wine is present - the whole rite is redolent of Eucharistic symbolism.)

This fragment of bread is a reminder that the Virgin Mary was blessed above all women to bring forth her Son Who is the Living Bread come down from heaven to nourish us unto everlasting life of soul and body. The portion is triangular to call to mind the Trinity, One of Whom became incarnate of the Virgin Mary to save us; and it is lifted up to make the Sign of the Cross to recall Christ's saving Passion. It is offered as a blessing of Our Lady, or, more correctly, through her as His Mother it is offered to bless Him Who was born of her. By being lifted up, it is exalted from humble bread to a vehicle of blessing; this also calls to mind Holy Mary's unique glorification in her bodily Assumption into heaven.

(Please consult Aquaro's article on the Lifting of the Panagia for more information.)

******

Forgive me for even mentioning it, and I cast no aspersions upon this decent and orthodox rite, but there once was a most unusual heretical practice that fraudulently resembled this one - for the sect of the Collyridians, against whom St Epiphanius wrote in his Panarion (late 4th C.), were mad women who idolatrously worshipped the Virgin Mary, and vainly offered unto her small cakes and bread rolls, feigning to act as priests!

In this they emulated, not the true Israel of God, but the disgraceful perversions of those who bowed down before the Moon-goddess or demon: "...the women knead the dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven..." (Jer. vii, 18). Unfortunately there are not lacking crazies to-day who claim this as a wretched warrant for goddess-worship and other heterodox nonsense, deceiving and deceived.

Vigil of the Assumption

Heaven with transcendent joys her entrance graced,

next to his throne her Son his Mother placed;

and here below, now she's of heaven possessed,

all generations are to call her blessed.

– Thomas Ken, "Her Virgin eyes saw God incarnate born"

I like the words of an Anglican blogger - that the St Mary the Virgin was assumed into heaven that she might perpetually intercede for us.

Immaculate at her own conception, ever sinless, graced and all-holy in her life, virginal in her conception of the Eternal Word, sacred in her overshadowing and indwelling by the Holy Spirit, blessed for her firm believing and stedfast adherence to the will of God, blest for her firm and stedfast stance at the foot of the Cross, blest for her continual intercession for the nascent Church and for every Christian soul bequeathed her by her Son, blest in her sacred repose, blest in her assumption into the celestial tabernacle and nuptial chamber on high, wherein her Son reigns on a starry throne - for all ages, in the heaven of heavens above all the heavens, in the Empyrean, by the power of the Almighty there abide a Man and a Woman, the Sacred Humanity of Our Lord, and the all-glorified Mother of God.

As was said at Mass to-night, the Assumption marks God's acceptance of creatureliness into His perfect heaven. What must it be to be so glorified, superglorified, that one is brought to be united body and soul with God in heaven evermore - a grace second only to that of the hypostatic union! In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum... Signum magnum apparuit in cælo, mulier amicta sole... (St John i, 1; Apoc. xii, 1)

As the Preface at Mass has it (echoing the Marian decree of Vatican II, contained in its larger work on the Church), Our Lady in heaven is the image and exemplar of the Church and each soul, that we may see in her made perfect what is our most high calling. And therefore with angels and archangels and the whole company of the heavenly host, even now here on earth let us join in their worshipping song without end, joining in the Eucharistic Sacrifice as our point of cross-over from this world to the Father: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus...

Finally, in the offering of the Sacred Victim - Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso, est tibi, Deo Patri omnipotenti, in unitate Spiritus Sancti, omnis honor et gloria - and the unspeakable grace of reception thereof, we have our foretaste of what bliss Our Lady ever has with her Son our Lord: God grant that we prove worthy of what we have received in mystery, that we may too one day made perfect be forever with the Lord. (But we must not rest: Newman frighteningly says that there are many who are now growing in grace and virtue that yet shall not come to be saved!)

Very appropriately, especially as I've been reading it daily in the Little Office, we sang at Mass the great Marian hymn of Venantius Fortunatus, Quem terra, pontus, sidera, in Neale's incomparable translation, for the central dogma of all Mariology is that Mary is Mother of God - all stems from it, from her Immaculate Conception to her Corporeal Assumption and everlasting Queenship:

The God whom earth, and sea, and sky

adore, and laud, and magnify,

who o'er their threefold fabric reigns,

the Virgin's spotless womb contains.

The God whose will by moon, and sun,

and all things in due course is done,

is borne upon a Maiden's breast,

by fullest heavenly grace possessed.

How blest that Mother, in whose shrine

the great Artificer Divine,

whose hand contains the earth and sky,

vouchsafed, as in His ark, to lie.

Blest, in the message Gabriel brought;

blest, by the work the Spirit wrought;

from whom the great Desire of earth

took human flesh and human birth.

All honor, laud, and glory be,

O Jesu Virgin-born, to Thee,

all glory, as is ever meet,

to Father and to Paraclete. Amen.

(Look at my posting from last year on this solemnity, gentle reader, for links to two fine Assumption hymns...)

Enemies of Our Lady

Ethiopian Orthodox, sad to say, long called Catholics "enemies of Mary", for they had had bitter experiences of forced Romanization under the one and only Jesuit to be Abuna of Ethiopia, who had reacted against their overzealous doctrines about Our Lady (one group of monks contended that she ought be adored and worshipped!) by attempting to stamp out such abuses, and ended up only further alienating the Abyssinians from the Holy See, in the process earning for Catholics an embarrassingly anti-Marian reputation in that African empire.

De Maria numquam satis, of course, but one must also follow the advice of Cardinal Newman's confessor, who gave him the sage counsel to "love Our Lady as much as you like, so long as you love Our Lord a good deal more". I personally avoid an irreverent overfamiliarity by not all the time baldly speaking of "Mary" and "Jesus" (at the mention of which holy names all Catholics should bow their heads), but by referring to them as "Our (Blessed) Lady" and "Our (Blessed) Lord" respectively.

In regard to the Blessed Virgin (another esteemed title) in particular, I follow the good example of St Clement Mary Hofbauer, second founder of the Redemptorists (and evident model of the F.Ss.R., besides being the namesake of their Christchurch priest), who, if he heard talk of "Mary" without a fit and proper title, would ask "Which Mary do you mean?" - since the Mother of God deserves better than to be spoken of with but scant regard, maybe slightingly, even contemptuously. If even an Archangel in addressing her named her as Full of Grace, with what reverence ought fallen men call upon her, the All-Holy Ever-Virgin Theotokos?

I thoroughly disapprove of the modern Catholic mode speaking of her so plainly and as it were dismissively - just as too many scruple even to name Jesus as Lord and Christ: one fears such irreverence tends to or even signals doubt and disbelief. Against such dangerous laxity (for as Trent avers, irreverence cannot be separated from impiety) I make a stand, and call upon Holy Mary to help me: Dignare me laudare te, Virgo sacrata: da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos.

The Scriptures bear solemn witness to the debt we owe one so highly exalted by the Lord, both implicitly and explicitly (as Livius teaches, following the Fathers, and thinking with the Church). First and foremost, we have the very self-prophecy of Our Lady in her Magnificat, whereby she gave all the glory to God for His great works in her, yet nonetheless in simple admission of the truth declared that "All generations shall call me blessed" - as my Douay notes, Let Protestants examine whether they are any way concerned in this prophecy.

Those who deny the Mother are but a step from denying the Son; as for their generation, as Proverbs declares (xxx, 11f), "There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother, a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness" - as they themselves madly aver, when denying any notion of baptismal regeneration.

As Esau hated Jacob for receiving his father's blessing (Gen. xxvii, 41), so such enemies of Holy Mary love her not, but even hate and curse her in their folly. They are like the pagan Balaam, whom God Himself forbade to curse the people He had blessed (Num. xxii, 12); and at best, like him (Num. xxxii, 20), they are so constrained by Truth as to bless despite their trying to resist doing so.

If any reject and revile God's Mother, what must be their punishment, if the Lord of old appointed (Deut. xxvii, 16) that whoso honoureth not father and mother shall be accursed? Such men are sons not of Abraham, but of the Devil (cf. St John viii, 44), a murderer from the beginning and the Father of lies. "But we are not ignorant of his devices" (II Cor. ii, 11), that ensnare and corrupt - as the Protoevangelium reveals, there shall be enmity between the Serpent and the Woman, between his seed and hers (Gen. iii, 15): but hers is the victory, for by the power of God, the grace of the Lord, she and all her true children, the brothers and co-heirs of her Firstborn, Christ, shall tread down Satan and crush him (cf. Rom. xvi, 20f); Gaude, Maria Virgo, cunctas hæreses sola interemisti in universo mundo.

Let us come to the throne of grace (Heb. iv, 16), and with the Magi fall down and adore Our Lord when we find Him with Mary His Mother (St Matthew ii, 11). Let us follow the advice of the Apostle, not merely in saluting every Saint in Christ Jesus (Phil. iv, 21), but let us salute Mary, who has done so much for us (Rom. xvi, 6), let us render honour to whom honour is due (Rom. xiii, 7), let us give glory and honour and peace to one who worketh good (Rom. ii, 10), to she who is full of grace, blessed of all women and of all generations, for having believed all that was told her by the Lord, blessed above all in bearing the Blessed Fruit of her womb (St Luke i, 28. 42. 45. 48), she who by her childbearing has saved us all (cf. I Tim. ii, 15), the rose among thorns, Mary of the race of Judah (cf. Heb. vii, 14), "of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things God, blessed for ever. Amen." (Rom. ix, 5)

Late-night Reading

Cyberspace provides many useful resources; I've just skimmed through one of them, a quite excellent work:

Mary in the Epistles, or, The Implicit Teaching of the Apostles concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary contained in their writings, by Thomas Livius, C.Ss.R. (London: Burns & Oates, 1891).

(An advertisement in my 1904 copy of Dale alerted me to this, and sure enough a quick google turned this up.)

43,73€

Just arrived from an antiquarian bookstore in Germany: a 1939 edition (with binding a bit loose at the front and back) of the Officium parvum Beatæ Mariæ Virginis et Officium Defunctorum, cum Psalmis Gradualibus et Pœnitentialibus ac Litaniis Sanctorum e Breviario Romano excerpta - Latin only, printed at Ratisbon. It gives all these services in full, and, for Our Lady's Hours, prints them all out for the three 'seasons' - during the year, at Advent, and after Christmas. As an added bonus, it contains the special Office for All Souls Day.

This slim little volume (16 by 10 by 1 cm) I've acquired to have the Little Office and so forth in a neat hardback pocketbook - I currently keep the 1997 Carmel Books edition (paperback, slightly thicker and less tall) in my jacket pocket, but thought I should upgrade it. What would be nice would be a Vademecum Christianum, with Little Office, divers prayers, New Testament and Imitation of Christ all-in-one, but they're rare as hens' teeth, and very expensive.

I'll look at getting this otherwise very useful volume rebound... since I paid, ummm, oh dear, AU$85.13 for it, I think I ought treat it very carefully! But for to-night I'll use it to read Vespers.

Now, to acquire a real Book of Hours - that would really cost serious money...

Commemoratio de omnibus Sanctis

(Please excuse the rather unorthodox Trinity depicted!)

One feature of the pre-1962 Little Office that I like is the Commemoration, at Lauds and Vespers, of all saints - which in a sense is a condensation into one collect (actually, two under one conclusion) of the six or so commemorations in the pre-1912 Breviary. I esteem it because it is an excellent general intercession, rather like the preces in fact; when praying Our Lady's Hours, I follow the '62 rules, but immediately after the Fidelium I then recite this Commemoration:

Aña. Sancti Dei omnes, intercedere dignemini pro nostra omniumque salute.

(All ye Saints of God, deign to intercede for our and all men's salvation.)

V/. Lætamini in Domino, et exsultate, justi.

R/. Et gloriamini omnes recti corde.

(Rejoice in the Lord, and exult, ye just.

(And glory, all ye upright of heart. - Ps. 31:11)

Oremus.

Protege, Domine, populum tuum, et Apostolorum tuorum Petri et Pauli, et aliorum Apostolorum patrocinio confidentem, perpetua defensione conserva.

Omnes Sancti tui, quæsumus, Domine, nos ubique adjuvent, ut dum eorum merita recolimus, patrocinia sentiamus: et pacem tuam nostris concede temporibus, et ab Ecclesia tua cunctam repelle nequitiam: iter, actus, et voluntates nostras, et omnium famulorum tuorum, in salutis tuæ prosperitate dispone: benefactoribus nostris sempiterna bona retribue: et omnibus fidelibus defunctis requiem æternam concede. Per Dominum...

(Protect, Lord, Thy people, and by Thy everlasting defence preserve them that trust in the patronage of Thy Apostles Peter and Paul, and the other Apostles.*

(May all Thy Saints, we beg, Lord, everywhere help us, that when we recall their merits, we may feel their patronage: both grant us peace in our times, and drive away all wickedness from Thy Church: dispose our way, acts and wills, and that of all Thy servants, in the prosperity of Thy salvation: repay our benefactors with everlasting good things: and give eternal rest to all the faithful departed. Through...)

It may be seen that these collects answer to seven petitions:

1. for the patronage of SS Peter and Paul, and all Apostles;
2. for the patronage of all Saints;
3. for peace;
4. against the enemies of Holy Church;
5. for our salvation and that of all;
6. for benefactors;
7. for the dead.

[* This first prayer I said to-day while paying a visit to the Church of the Apostles in town, with a devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and a Rosary - then lighting some candles and some more petitions entrusting all and sundry to Our Lady, ut mos est.]

Byzantine Origins?

Many of the longer non-scriptural antiphons and such of the Roman Rite, such as those appointed for Lauds and Vespers of the Octave Day of Christmas (used in the Little Office for Christmastide till the Presentation), are in fact translations from Greek troparia.

I wonder if Greek origins lie behind certain of the well-known Marian versicles (also used in the Little Office), such as Dignare me laudare te, Virgo sacrata - Da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos, or Post partum, Virgo, inviolata permansisti - Dei Genetrix, intercede pro nobis, and Gaude, Maria Virgo - Cunctas hæreses sola interemisti in universo mundo: for the latter two seem to stem from parts of one of the Roman Matins responsories for the Annunciation, and this text itself seems to betray a Greek liturgical origin by its very floridity, although its roughly rhyming lines may instead shew it a native Latin composition (I give its verse in its older form, as preserved in the Dominican Breviary; the Roman now quotes St Luke i, 45 - Beata es quæ credidisti: quia perfecta sunt ea, quæ dicta sunt tibi a Domino):

R/. Gaude, Maria Virgo, cunctas hæreses sola interemisti,

quæ Gabrielis Archangeli dictis credidisti:

* Dum Virgo Deum et hominem genuisti,

et post partum, Virgo, inviolata permansisti.

V/. Gabrielem Archangelum scimus divinitus te esse affatum:

uterum tuum de Spiritu Sancto credimus imprægnatum:

erubescat Judæus infelix, qui dicit Christum ex Joseph semine esse natum.

* Dum Virgo Deum et hominem genuisti,

et post partum, Virgo, inviolata permansisti.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.

* Dum Virgo Deum et hominem genuisti,

et post partum, Virgo, inviolata permansisti.

(R/. Rejoice, Mary Virgin, all heresies alone thou hast crushed, who believed the things Gabriel Archangel said, * When, a Virgin, thou brought forth God and Man, and after birth, inviolate thou remained a Virgin. V/. We know Gabriel Archangel to have spoken by divine agency to thee: we believe thy womb was impregnated by the Holy Ghost: may that unhappy Jew blush, who said that Christ was born of the seed of Joseph. * When, a Virgin, thou brought forth God and Man, and after birth, inviolate thou remained a Virgin. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. * When, a Virgin, thou brought forth God and Man, and after birth, inviolate thou remained a Virgin. )

Placebo and Dirge

The perfect devotion for a cold rainy Friday, after watching some horror: sitting in my study, reading Vespers, then Matins (Nocturn II) and Lauds of the Dead - what our longfathers before us called Placebo and Dirge (Dirige) from the first antiphons of these Offices. It is not for nothing that the sacred liturgy bids us pray for the dead by putting on our lips first-person cries for mercy, and the anguish of Job. "Man, born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries..." (Job xiv, 1 - the opening of the first Lesson of Nocturn II.)

But thanks be to God! "When the fulness of time was come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them who were under the law..." (Gal. iv, 4-5a) - here is the answer to the questionings of Job. The Hours of the Blessed Virgin go with the Office of the Dead very well: point counterpoint. Having read her Hours (but for Compline), the late evening hour was right for the thought of the last things.

And so, fortified, off to bed.

A Return to the Basics

Sometimes, in the spiritual life, one is well advised to return to the basics.

That is, I think, what I've been doing: remembering Our Saviour's dying words of commendation, "This is thy Mother," I have returned to a stronger Marian devotion - not that I ignored the Holy Mother of God! - and readjusted my prayer life accordingly, according to the short formula of consecration ad Jesum per Mariam: "I am all Thine, and all that I have is Thine, O most loving Jesu, through Mary, Thy Holy Mother."

[It just struck me - in the framed painting of the Madonna and Child with St Philip Neri, that I have hanging here before me, is not St Philip gesturing with one hand to me, and with the other to Jesus and Mary? Is he not recommending me to them?]

For this reason, I feel that the daily recitation of her Little Office has borne fruit, focussing on a doable and beneficial cycle of psalms; and I resolve to be constant again in daily Rosary (something I've badly let slide) - as its Collect says, may we meditate on its mysteries, and obtain their promises. Meditation I need: the Rosary brings before one the central mysteries of our salvation. Little things, too, I aim at: not just the thrice-daily Angelus (as almost always), but a Memorare, a Sancta Maria succurre, and Our Lady's Litanies. Wearing the Scapular, carrying my Rosary with miraculous medal, trusting in the Blessed Virgin's tender care: this is right.

When all other help fails, Mary aids. "As a child has rest in its mother's arms, even so my soul."

I close with the Sancta Maria succurre miseris, since it isn't as well known as it ought be, considering how it is one of the major indulgenced Marian prayers; once attributed to St Augustine, it is now known to be part of a longer prayer by Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres; it occurs at first Vespers for sundry Marian feasts, and in mediæval times was the standard Magnificat anthem in the Hours of the Virgin:

Sancta Maria,

succurre miseris,

juva pusillanimes,

refove flebiles,

ora pro populo,

interveni pro clero,

intercede pro devoto femineo sexu.

Sentiant omnes tuum juvamen,

quicumque celebrant tuam sanctam commemorationem.

(Holy Mary,

succour the miserable,

help the fainthearted,

comfort the sorrowful,

pray for the people,

plead for the clergy,

intercede for consecrated women.

May all feel thine aid,

whosoever celebrate thy holy commemoration.)

Ecclesiasticus xxiv, 1-31

For ten days now I've been considering, at Matins of the Blessed Virgin, the lessons taken from Ecclesiasticus xxiv; just now, comparing the different recensions of the Little Office, such as the Carmelite, I have considered how (as Cardinal Bea did with his editio amplior) piously to supplement it. As a theoretical suggestion, perhaps at Our Lady's Matins, as each day the Nocturn recited is alternated (the first, on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays; the second, on Tuesdays and Fridays; the third, on Wednesdays and Saturdays), so perhaps the three Matins Lessons could have alternatives.

It so happens providentially that Ecclus xxiv, 1-24 (which Holy Church reads in praise of the Virgin - literally, Wisdom personified refers to the Book of the Law, but, as Holy Mary is perfectly conformed to God's will, she can be named Lady Wisdom, for her every behaviour can serve as a rule for Christians) can be subdivided into nine lessons (plus two verses already used as the short chapters at Vespers and Compline), so that the first three could be used on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the last three on Wednesdays and Saturdays, while the middle three, which are the existing lessons, could be kept for Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays.

I append below my suggestions, plus a Marian commentary on these texts:

Suggested Matins Lessons for Tuesdays and Fridays

Ecclus xxiv, 1-4

Sapientia laudabit animam suam, et in Deo honorabitur, et in medio populi sui gloriabitur, et in ecclesiis Altissimi aperiet os suum, et in conspectu virtutis illius gloriabitur, et in medio populi sui exaltabitur, et in plenitudine sancta admirabitur, et in multitudine electorum habebit laudem.

(Wisdom shall praise her own self, and shall be honoured in God, and shall glory in the midst of her people, and shall open her mouth in the churches of the most High, and shall glorify herself in the sight of his power, and in the midst of her own people she shall be exalted, and shall be admired in the holy assembly, and in the multitude of the elect she shall have praise.)

As Our Lady spoke by her own blessed mouth, magnifying the Lord, she indeed sang in praise of what He had wrought in her, but only so as to give God the glory and testify to the truth: and she has been ever the glory and the refuge of good Christian people, the delight of pious folk, she who is the Mother and image and peerless archetype of the Church, the mistress of all churches, admired and exalted by the faithful and ever praised: "For all generations shall call me blessed".

Ecclus xxiv, 4b-7

Et inter benedictos benedicetur, dicens: Ego ex ore Altissimi prodivi, primogenita ante omnem creaturam. Ego feci in cælis ut oriretur lumen indeficiens, et sicut nebula texi omnem terram. Ego in altissimis habitavi, et thronus meus in columna nubis.

(And among the blessed she shall be blessed, saying: I came out of the mouth of the most High, the firstborn before all creatures: I made that in the heavens there should rise light that never faileth, and as a cloud I covered all the earth: I dwelt in the highest places, and my throne is in a pillar of a cloud.)

The Holy Mother of God is indeed blessed among all women, blessed among the blessed, being sanctified and hallowed in her Immaculate Conception by the Holy Ghost, and rendered Virgin of Virgins, yea, holy among all the saints. She is the firstborn, because peerless and most beloved, daughter of God the Father, who created her as the unique fit Mother of His Onlybegotten Son: and by the same eternal decree by which the Incarnation was foreordained, so was she conceived in the Mind of God. Through her has it been effected that Christ, the Light of the world, should come down from heaven and illuminate all that sit in darkness and the shadow of death, rising as the Sun of justice that never shall set. As a cloud covers the earth and waters it, so have ever been her anxious prayers for all, that God would make alive all souls by the secret influx of grace. Assumed into heaven on high, there she dwells, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of heaven and earth, enthroned above the clouds.

Ecclus xxiv, 8-11a

Gyrum cæli circuivi sola, et profundum abyssi penetravi: in fluctibus maris ambulavi. Et in omni terra steti: et in omni populo, et in omni gente primatum habui: et omnium excellentium et humilium corda virtute calcavi.

(I alone have compassed the circuit of heaven, and have penetrated into the bottom of the deep, and have walked in the waves of the sea, and have stood in all the earth: and in every people, and in every nation I have had the chief rule: and by my power I have trodden under my feet the hearts of all the high and low.)

That is, the Blessed Virgin has been raised up to the very heights of heaven, bodily, at her Assumption, after she had plumbed the very depths of sore torment and grief when compassionating her Son's most bitter Passion at the hands of malefactors (for Scripture very often represents evil by the uproarious sea), and she stood at the foot of the Cross when her heart would break, and by her maternal intercession has served Providence by obtaining great graces for all peoples, bequeathed her by Christ: and has trodden down the proud of heart (above all, that wily serpent, Satan), while the humble-hearted have delighted to submit themselves to her most gentle suasion.

Current Matins Lessons

(to be kept for Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays)

Ecclus xxiv, 11b-13 [Matins, Lesson i]

Et in his omnibus requiem quæsivi, et in hæreditate Domini morabor. Tunc præcepit, et dixit mihi Creator omnium: et qui creavit me, requievit in tabernaculo meo. Et dixit mihi: In Jacob inhabita, et in Israël hæreditare, et in electis meis mitte radices.

(And in all these I sought rest, and I shall abide in the inheritance of the Lord. Then the creator of all things commanded, and said to me: and he that made me, rested in my tabernacle, and he said to me: Let thy dwelling be in Jacob, and thy inheritance in Israel, and take root in my elect.)

Our Lady, true Daughter of Sion, abode with those whose inheritance is the Lord, and in Him she ever remains and rests. The Creator of all willed that the Eternal Word take flesh in Mary, and sent a heavenly embassy, a holy angel, to announce His suit, and ask her consent: she consenting, He that made her rested in her tabernacle. Her portion was with her people, those of the covenant made with Jacob and Israel, the Chosen of God.

Ecclus xxiv, 14 [Vespers, Little Chapter]

Ab initio et ante sæcula creata sum, et usque ad futurum sæculum non desinam: et in habitatione sancta coram ipso ministravi.

(From the beginning, and before the world, was I created, and unto the world to come I shall not cease to be, and in the holy dwelling place I have ministered before him.)

Before all time, God decreed that the Second Person of the Trinity would become Man, and thereby willed that Holy Mary be made the free instrument of His saving Incarnation. Never shall the Blessed Virgin die, for she reigns with Christ forever: and as her delight was to nurture her Divine Son, so evermore she delights to serve Him in heaven by doing His will, praying for sinners and the just, obtaining from Him the favours He delights to bestow through her.

Ecclus xxiv, 15-16 [Matins, Lesson ii; also used for the Little Chapters at Terce and Sext]

Et sic in Sion firmata sum, et in civitate sanctificata similiter requievi, et in Jerusalem potestas mea. Et radicavi in populo honorificato, et in parte Dei mei hæreditas illius, et in plenitudine sanctorum detentio mea.

(And so was I established in Sion, and in the holy city likewise I rested, and my power was in Jerusalem. And I took root in an honourable people, and in the portion of my God his inheritance, and my abode is in the full assembly of saints.)

The chosen people of God were the elect company in which Holy Mary was in due process of time born of her holy righteous parents Joachim and Ann, and was brought forth among the tribes of Israel, and introduced to the Holy City, and the Temple: she, in herself the new and perfect Sion and Jerusalem, chosen to become the wondrous City of the Living God, the Holy One of Israel, to be made flesh in her womb, to be our Peace. Exalted to heaven, she dwells with all the holy children of God.

Ecclus xxiv, 17-20 [Matins, Lesson iii; verse 20 is also the Little Chapter at None]

Quasi cedrus exaltata sum in Libano, et quasi cypressus in monte Sion: quasi palma exaltata sum in Cades, et quasi plantatio rosæ in Jericho: quasi oliva speciosa in campis, et quasi platanus exaltata sum juxta aquam in plateis. Sicut cinnamomum et balsamum aromatizans odorem dedi; quasi myrrha electa dedi suavitatem odoris.

(I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and as a cypress tree on mount Sion. I was exalted like a palm tree in Cades, and as a rose plant in Jericho: as a fair olive tree in the plains, and as a plane tree by the water in the streets, was I exalted. I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon and aromatical balm: I yielded a sweet odour like the best myrrh.)

The Virgin compares herself to stately trees and flowers, images of the righteous planted in Israel to bear goodly fruit for God – she, the humble and meek, a little one, was magnified and exalted by the Lord, growing from the tiniest into the greatest, raised up from earth to heaven, having in herself borne Heaven made a Son of earth: well may all called to be citizens of heaven shelter under her care. She is perfumed with the sweet cinnamon odour of Christ, Who is as balm, being our Healing, and as myrrh the sad spice for embalming, for in His Passion and Death he suffered all pain, yet decayed not nor corrupted, and rose triumphant the third day.

Suggested Matins Lessons for Wednesdays and Saturdays

Ecclus xxiv, 21-23

Et quasi storax, et galbanus, et ungula, et gutta, et quasi Libanus non incisus vaporavi habitationem meam, et quasi balsamum non mistum odor meus. Ego quasi terebinthus extendi ramos meos, et rami mei honoris et gratiæ. Ego quasi vitis fructificavi suavitatem odoris: et flores mei fructus honoris et honestatis.

(And I perfumed my dwelling as storax, and galbanum, and onyx, and aloes, and as the frankincense not cut, and my odour is as the purest balm. I have stretched out my branches as the turpentine tree, and my branches are of honour and grace. As the vine I have brought forth a pleasant odour: and my flowers are the fruit of honour and riches.)

Being Immaculate, and ever avoiding all folly and sin, she kept herself beautified as a worthy tabernacle for the Incarnation of the Most High, as the precious Ark of the New Covenant, and ever maintained herself in entire purity of mind and body as a fountain enclosed, a garden compassed about, as befits one uniquely God's Mother, ever a Virgin: and in this she shews how all good Christians must strive by grace to keep pure as temples of the living God. She ever stretches forth the mantle of her maternal protection, shading fallen man from evil influences, thus honouring those born again as Christians with her gracious prayers. Holy Mary is as a plenteous vine, giving forth the sweet odour of Christ in bearing Him Who is our salvation. All her works are honourable and full of grace. As Mother and Mediatrix of grace, God's choicest blessings overflow from her into all hearts.

Ecclus xxiv, 24 [Compline, Little Chapter]

Ego mater pulchræ dilectionis, et timoris, et agnitionis, et sanctæ spei.

(I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope.)

The Holy Virgin, Queen and Mother of mercy, is our life, our sweetness, and our hope: by her perfect example, she teaches us what charity is, what holy fear, reverence and godly awe, what true knowledge is, eager adhesion to Him Who is Truth, and what wonderful hope we ought have in Him, her Son – our way, our truth and our life.

Ecclus xxiv, 25-27

In me gratia omnis viæ et veritatis: in me omnis spes vitæ et virtutis. Transite ad me, omnes qui concupiscitis me, et a generationibus meis implemini: spiritus enim meus super mel dulcis, et hæreditas mea super mel et favum.

(In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue. Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits. For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb.)

The Mother of God was filled with all grace at her Immaculate Conception, filled by the Author of grace, conceiving within her God the Son Who is the Source of all grace, ever and anon lifted by the indwelling Spirit to new heights of grace. She is graced with the way to follow Christ perfectly, with full grasp of His truth and of Him Who is Truth, and so in adherence to her example is all hope of true life and true virtue. She is Lady Wisdom, calling out in the way to whoso would find the Lord, bidding them imbibe her saving instruction and profit thereby unto life eternal. One so beautiful of face and still fairer in faith is ever to be loved and admired: by running to her, we come nigh unto God Who seats her above heaven with Himself. To be filled with her fruits is to obtain the graces God is pleased she should dispense, and above all to receive into ourselves Christ, the Blessed Fruit of her womb. Her spirit is sweet because pure and wholly graced, a nature so good and so supernaturalized as to be perfected in God. Her heritage, for those who love and follow her, is likewise richer than any lesser good.

Ecclus xxiv, 28-31

Memoria mea in generatione sæculorum. Qui edunt me, adhuc esurient, et qui bibunt me, adhuc sitient. Qui audit me non confundetur, et qui operantur in me non peccabunt: qui elucidant me, vitam æternam habebunt.

(My memory is unto everlasting generations. They that eat me, shall yet hunger: and they that drink me, shall yet thirst. He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting.)

Yes, as she herself declared, inspired by the Holy Ghost as St Luke records, the memory of the Blessed Virgin shall endure for ever: for the Almighty wrought marvels in her, and therefore all generations shall bless her. Of Mary there is never enough: we receive the Blessed Eucharist, the Most Holy Flesh and Blood of Christ, from her, who gave Him birth as Man: of her we receive Christ, for Whom we ever hunger and thirst, Whose sweetness is such that we ever desire more. If we listen to Our Lady, her last words ever remind us: Do whatever He tells you. In this practice, in such a hope, we can never be confounded. Her will is entirely conformed to the Lord's: hence, to follow her is to be a true imitator of her, as she is the perfect disciple of her Son Christ – therefore, to work out our salvation as she did is never to sin. Praising her, explaining her mysteries, is but to give the glory to God Who made such a marvel as Mary, and is but to point out so sure an Advocate and model, to follow whom and to seek whose aid is surely the safe short way to life.