Mary's Month

Our Lady of Pew, Westminster Abbey.

The Anglican theologian Hugh Montefiore, formerly Bishop of Birmingham, wrote of the Blessed Virgin: "Christians rightly honour and venerate her as one of the great saints of God. God had signally honoured her by choosing her to be the mother of Jesus.".  Actually, so does Islam: here's a little list of the tittles of the BVM in the Qu'ran.

• Qānitah: Mary is so called in LXVI: 12. The term implies, not only constant submission to God, but also absorption in prayer and invocation, meanings that coincides with the Islamic tradition of Mary spending her childhood in the temple of prayer. In this way, Mary personifies prayer and contemplation in Islam.
• Siddiqah: She who confirms the truth or She who has faith. Mary is called Siddiqah twice in the Quran (V: 73-75 LXVI: 12). The term has also been translated, She who believes sincerely completely.
• Sājidah: She who prostrates to God in worship. The Quran states: “O Mary! Worship your Lord devoutly: prostrate yourself” (Quran III: 43). While in Sujud, a Muslim is to praise God and glorify Him. In this motion, which Muslims believe to be derived from Marian nature, hands, knees and the forehead touch the ground together.
• Rāki’ah: She who bows down to God in worship. The Quran states: “O Mary! Bow down in prayer with those men, who bow down.” The command was repeated by angels only to Mary, according to the Muslim view. Ruku' in Muslim prayer during prayer has been derived from Mary’s practise.
• Tāhirah: She who was purified (Quran III: 42)
• Mustafia: She who was chosen. The Quran states: “O Mary! God has chosen you and purified you and again he has chosen you above all women of all nations of the worlds” (Quran III:42).
• Sa’imah: She who fasts. Mary is reported to fast one-half of a year in some Muslim traditions.

Personally, I couldn't disagree with any of those descriptions of Our Lady.  Perhaps she could be a patron of Inter-Faith dialogue?  In that spirit, let us praise her in the Orthodox idiom:

It is truly meet and right to bless you, O Theotokos,

Ever blessed and most pure, and the Mother of our God.

More honourable than the Cherubim, 

and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim,

Without defilement you gave birth to God the Word.

True Theotokos, we magnify you! 

 

From the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.

Our Lady of Good Counsel.

 Image of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Genazzano, Italy.

"O Holy Virgin, to whose feet we are led by our anxious uncertainty in our search for and attainment of what is true and good, invoking you by the sweet title of Mother of Good Counsel, we beseech you to come to our assistance, when, along the road of this life, the darkness of error and of evil conspires towards our ruin by leading our minds and our hearts astray. 

O Seat of Wisdom and Star of the Sea, enlighten the doubtful and the erring, that they be not seduced by the false appearances of good; render them steadfast in the face of the hostile and corrupting influences of passion and of sin. 

O Mother of Good Counsel, obtain for us from your Divine Son a great love of virtue, and, in the hour of uncertainty and trial, the strength to embrace the way that leads to our salvation. If your hand sustains us, we shall walk unmolested along the path indicated to us by the life and words of Jesus, our Redeemer; and having followed freely and securely, even in the midst of this world's strife, the Sun of Truth and Justice under your maternal Star, we shall come to the enjoyment of full and eternal peace with you in the haven of salvation. Amen."

Prayer to Our Lady of Good Counsel composed by Pope Pius XII 

This is a particularly Augustinian remembrance of the BVM. The the veneration of the Blessed Virgin under the title of "Mother of Good Counsel", springs from the fact that there is a miraculous picture in the Augustinian church at Genazzano near Rome. Which doubtless appeals to the current Pope, who is deeply Augustinian in his theology, and to us Anglicans - whom the late Martin Thornton in his "English Spirituality" noted were essentially Augustinian (Jesuit and Franciscan spirituality never really entered our marrow in the same way allegedly).  It is the appeal for divine wisdom in an uncertain age that strikes me in the prayer of the Pope who had to lead a Church through the horrors of Fascism.  A prayer for today really.  and perhaps especially for world leaders.

The Miraculous Medal

I hate following the trend so will ignore Advent Sunday this year! (in blogging at any rate!) 

On this day, Saint Catherine Labouré had a vision which led to that well known religious artefact, the Miraculous medal

On November 27, 1830, she had a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary during her evening meditations. The Virgin appeared inside an oval frame, standing on a globe, wearing many rings of different colors, most of which shone rays of light over the globe. Around the margin of the frame appeared the words Ô Marie, conçue sans péché, priez pour nous qui avons recours à vous (O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee). As St Catherine watched, the frame seemed to rotate, showing a circle of twelve stars, a large letter M surmounted by a cross, and the stylized Sacred Heart of Jesus crowned with thorns and Immaculate Heart of Mary pierced with a sword. Asked why some of her rings did not shed light, Mary reportedly replied, "Those are the graces for which people forget to ask." Catherine then heard Mary ask her to take these images to her father confessor, telling him that they should be put on medallions, and saying "All who wear them will receive great graces."  Catherine did so, and after 2 years of investigation and observation of Catherine's normal daily behaviour, the priest took the information to the  archbishop without revealing Catherine's identity. The request was approved and medallions began to be produced. Those who wore the medal felt that they had received great blessings, and the medal came to be referred to as the "Miraculous Medal". They proved to be popular, and the medals spread worldwide.

The chapel in which Saint Catherine experienced her visions is located at the mother house of the Daughters of Charity in Paris. Her body lies in a glass coffin at the side altar of the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, 140 Rue du Bac, Paris. The incorrupt bodies of Saint Catherine Labouré and Saint Louise de Marillac, a co-founder of the Daughters of Charity, are interred in the chapel, which continues to receive daily visits from Catholic pilgrims today.

The chapel in Paris

Religious nick-nacks don't stir me much either way (but I happen to have a medal on a rosary somewhere) but the idea of the Mother of God continuing to pray for us as she did for the 1st disciples does.  A hymn puts it nicely:

Let us weave our supplications,
she with us and we with her,
for the advancement of the faithful,
for each faithful worshiper,
for the doubting, for the sinful,
for each heedless wanderer.
Hail Mary, hail Mary, hail Mary, full of grace.

May the Mother's intercessions
on our homes a blessing win,
that the children all be prospered,
strong and fair and pure within,
following our Lord's own footsteps,
firm in faith and free from sin.
Hail Mary, hail Mary, hail Mary, full of grace.

For the sick and the aged,
for our dear ones far away,
for the hearts that mourn in secret,
all who need our prayers today,
for the faithful gone before us,
may the holy Virgin pray.
Hail Mary, hail Mary, hail Mary, full of grace.

Praise, O Mary, praise the Father,
praise thy Savior and thy Son,
praise the everlasting Spirit,
who hath made thee ark and throne
o'er all creatures high exalted,
lowly praise the Three in One.
Hail Mary, hail Mary, hail Mary, full of grace.

Mother of God pray for us!

And it being the 1st Sunday of Advent, Alma Redemptoris Mater seems appropriate:

Loving Mother of our Savior, hear thou thy people's cry Star of the deep and Portal of the sky! Mother of Him who thee made from nothing made. Sinking we strive and call to thee for aid: Oh, by what joy which Gabriel brought to thee, Thou Virgin first and last, let us thy mercy see.

V. The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary R. And she conceived by the Holy Ghost.

Let us pray.

Pour forth we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts, that we to whom the Incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may, by His passion and cross, be brought to the glory of his Resurrection; through the same Christ, our Lord. Amen.