By Matthew Hazell

Many Catholics often associate particular times and seasons of the liturgical year with Our Lady. Advent is one such season, in which the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary falls, and as we get closer to Christmas, we especially remember her bearing the Son of God in her womb.¹ The month of May has long been dedicated to Our Lady, with Marian pilgrimages, crownings and processions a regular feature of this month. But the Church, in her liturgy, also has a Marian emphasis in the autumn months—in fact, during this time the liturgy leads us through the whole life of Our Lady, showing us the theological and spiritual importance of the Blessed Virgin in the life of faith.

 

September 8—The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The feast day of the birth of Our Lady is a perfect place to start. The importance of this day is illustrated by the fact that the universal calendar of the Roman Rite constantly presents us with celebrations of the ‘heavenly birthdays’ of the Saints, but it commemorates the earthly birthdays of three persons only: the Lord Jesus Christ (25 December), Saint John the Baptist (24 June), and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Indeed, in one of his homilies preached for the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Andrew of Crete (d. 726/740) wrote:

[T]his first day of the feasts, which is graced by God, bearing the light of virginity above its head and gathering as its crown as much as possible from the untouched flowers of Scripture’s spiritual meadows, offers creation a new joy. Have courage, it says, this festival is a birthday and a remodelling of the race. For a Virgin now is born and nursed and moulded; and a Mother is prepared for God, the All-Ruler of the ages.²

The first Eve, through the fall of mankind, became the mother of sin and death (cf. I Tim. 2:14), but this is the feast day when the New Eve, the Mother of the living, was born: “death came through Eve, but life has come through Mary.”³ Saint Peter Damian (d. 1072/73) also describes this feast as that which “gives men a unique joy: the beginning of all human salvation.”⁴ In the same manner, the Collect of the Mass asks “that the solemnity of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin may bring deeper peace to those for whom the birth of her Son was the dawning of salvation.”Through the Secret prayer, the liturgy teaches us that, just as the virginity of Our Lady was preserved intact throughout her whole life by the power and grace of God, we too are reliant on the Lord to take away our sins (nostris nos piaculis exuens) and purify us through the Sacrifice of the Mass:

May the humanity of your Only Begotten Son come, O Lord, to our aid, and may he, who at his birth from the Blessed Virgin did not diminish but consecrated her integrity, by taking from us now our wicked deeds, render, on the solemnity of her Nativity, our oblation acceptable to him, Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Postcommunion, which in some ancient sacramentaries was used in Lent,⁵ continues this theme of purity and repentance, with an eye to our eternal destiny, asking that our Holy Communion “may provide us with medicine both in this worldly life and for eternity.”

The Most Holy Name of Mary—12 September

The early autumn continues with the feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary, on the universal calendar since 1684. It was originally celebrated on the Sunday in the Octave of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary,⁶ but was moved by Pius X in 1911 to its current date in memory of the victory won at the Battle of Vienna (1683) over the Ottomans by the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Poland. Like the feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, it is most apt that we celebrate the name of Mary shortly after the feast of her Nativity.

The Collect of this feast day echoes the themes of purity and repentance found in the orations for Our Lady’s Nativity, while also adding to them:

Grant, we pray, almighty God, that your faithful, who enjoy the protection of the most holy Virgin Mary and delight in her Name, may by her pious intercession be delivered from all evils on earth and merit to attain eternal joys in heaven.

Just as the armies under the command of King John III Sobieski had been placed under the Name and protection of Our Lady before their victory at the Battle of Vienna, we too also enjoy the protection and intercession of the Blessed Virgin, as we pronounce her holy Name. As Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) says in one of his homilies—read on this day at Matins in the pre-1961 Roman Breviary:

In dangers, in hardships, in every doubt, think of Mary, call out to Mary. Keep her in your mouth, keep her in your heart. Follow the example of her life and you will obtain the favour of her prayer. Following her, you will never go astray. Asking her help, you will never despair. Keeping her in your thoughts, you will never wander away. With your hand in hers, you will never stumble. With her protecting you, you will not be afraid. With her leading you, you will never tire. Her kindness will see you through to the end. Then you will know by your own experience how true it is that “the Virgin’s name was Mary” (Lk. 1:27).⁷

Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows – 15 September

On the octave day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the liturgy presents her to us as Mater Dolorosa, Mother of Sorrows. In fact, this is the second time in the liturgical year where this happens: Friday in Passiontide is also dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows. The latter celebration, just before Holy Week, is very appropriate—but its repetition on 15 September is no less appropriate. In the Nativity of Our Lady, we celebrated the beginning of human salvation, but our joy in the saving work of God is ultimately rooted in the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Mother. The Collect proclaims this, beginning with the first of Our Lady’s sorrows, the prophecy of Simeon that a sword would pierce through her soul (Lk. 1:34-35):

O God, in whose Passion, according to the prophecy of Simeon, a sword of sorrow pierced through the sweetest soul of Mary, the glorious Virgin and Mother, mercifully grant that we, who reverently call to mind her sorrows, may obtain the happiness your Passion has gained for us.

Saint Paul tells us that, to gain Christ, we are to “share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10). Our Lady not only gives us the preeminent example of this, but uniquely cooperates in her Son’s work of salvation: she is the Mediatrix standing by the Cross, her soul pierced by her maternal compassion and suffering, uniting herself to the sacrifice of Christ.⁸ The Secret of this day’s Mass alludes to this:

We offer you prayers and sacrificial gifts, O Lord Jesus Christ, humbly beseeching that, as we prayerfully recall the Piercing of the sweetest soul of your blessed Mother Mary, we may, by the merits of your death and the manifold intercession of her and the Saints who stood by her at the foot of the Cross, merit our reward with the blessed.

In both the Collect and Secret, we again see the theme of our eternal destiny, and our hope that we may be made partakers of heaven with Our Lady and all the Saints. The same is also true of the Postcommunion prayer, in which we ask that we may “obtain…every good effect of salvation.”

Our Lady of Ransom—24 September

The feast of Our Lady of Ransom, which commemorates the founding of the Mercedarian Order by Saint Peter Nolasco (d. 1256) for the ransom of Christian captives who had become slaves of the Moors in Spain, reiterates the themes of protection and repentance we have seen in the autumn Marian feasts. The Collect is as follows:

O God, who through the most glorious Mother of Your Son, for the deliverance of Christians from the power of the pagans graciously willed to enrich your Church with new offspring; grant, we pray, that by the merits and intercession of she whom we piously venerate as the founder of so great a work, we may be delivered from all our sins and from the captivity of the devil.

This feast reminds us that as the members of the Mercedarian Order delivered their fellow Christians from worldly slavery, in like manner we too are delivered from slavery to sin (see Romans 6:15-23). Moreover, just as through Our Lady of Ransom a new religious order was born and founded, we too have the great benefit of her motherly intercession.

Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary—7 October

We have thus moved from the birth of Our Lady, to her naming, to her standing by the Cross of her Son, to her maternal intercession in the life of the Church. Through all of these celebrations, the liturgy shows to us Our Lady’s protection, her purity, and her motherly aid. The feast of the Most Holy Rosary allows us to enter more deeply into the life of the Blessed Virgin, and thus into the life, death and resurrection of her Son, dedicated as it is to the mysteries of the Rosary. The Collect for the Mass, which is also used to conclude the recitation of the Rosary in many places, sums this up:

O, God, Whose only-begotten Son, by His life, death and resurrection, has purchased for us the rewards of eternal life; grant, we beseech Thee, that, meditating upon these mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Likewise, the Secret asks that the Lord may “give us the right dispositions” as we offer—along with our very selves—the bread and wine which will become the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. As with the feast of the Seven Sorrows, there is a Lenten link here, since this same phrase (his muneribus offerendis convenienter aptari) is used at the beginning of the Secret for Ash Wednesday, when we celebrate the beginning of our Lenten fast and our annual journey towards the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord in the Sacred Triduum. In the same way, on this feast of the Most Holy Rosary, we ask to be given these “right dispositions” so that “through the most holy mysteries of the Rosary we may call to mind the life, passion and glory” of the Lord Jesus and be “made worthy of his promises.”

The Postcommunion echoes that of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, asking that through the prayers of Our Lady “we may gain strength from the mysteries we celebrate and obtain the effect of the sacraments we have received.” We should always think about eternity and on the things of God, since one of the effects of Holy Communion is to make us fit for heaven and sharers of Christ’s divinity: “grant that, by the mystery of this water and wine, we may be made partakers of his divine nature, who vouchsafed to be made partaker of our human nature” (Ordo Missae, Offertory).

The Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary—11 October

Finally, the autumnal Marian feasts conclude with the Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin—her fundamental role in salvation history, for which God preserved her from original sin and to which she gave her fiat (Lk. 1:38). We have celebrated her Nativity as the beginning of salvation, called on her holy Name in every trial and tribulation, commemorated her sorrows and suffering with her Son, have had joy in our deliverance from slavery to sin through her intercession, and called to mind the mysteries of the Holy Rosary. All this culminates in our celebration of her divine maternity, since as the ever-Virgin Mother of God, she is also Mother of the Church. It is most suitable, then, for the Collect of her Annunciation to be reused on this feast:

O God, who willed that at the message of an Angel your Word should take flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, grant that we, who pray to you and believe her to be truly the Mother of God, may be helped by her interceding before you.

The Secret, also used on the feasts of the Holy Name of Mary and Our Lady of Ransom,⁹ asks that the sacrifice of the Mass may “bring us prosperity and peace now and for evermore.” The Postcommunion provides yet another Lenten-Marian connection, as it has been taken up from Monday in Week 2 of Lent:

May this Communion, O Lord, cleanse us of wrongdoing and, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, make us heirs to the medicine of heaven.

That the liturgy links the Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin with Lent in this way is no surprise: our Lenten journey towards the foot of the Cross is, in part, made alongside Our Lady, and we should, perhaps, also be reminded that our prayer, fasting and almsgiving should not be confined to Lent alone. The Blessed Virgin Mary is an icon of the Church, and each of us is called to imitate the example of her maternal love.

Woman, behold your son…Behold, your mother!” (Jn. 19:26-27) Through these autumn feasts of Our Lady, Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church, the Traditional Roman Rite leads us to that true devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary which Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort wrote of:

God wishes that His holy Mother should be at present more known, more loved, more honoured, than she has ever been…[The faithful] will experience her sweetnesses and her maternal goodnesses, and they will love her tenderly like well-beloved children. They will know the mercies of which she is full, and the need they have of her succour; and they will have recourse to her in all things, as to their dear advocate and mediatrix with Jesus Christ. They will know what is the most sure, the most easy, the most short, and the most perfect means by which to go to Jesus Christ; and they will deliver themselves to Mary, body and soul, without reserve, that they may thus be all for Jesus Christ.¹⁰

Endnotes

¹ For instance, the Gospel of Ember Wednesday in Advent is the Annunciation of the angel Gabriel to Our Lady (Luke 1:26-38), and the Offertory and Communion chants for the 4th Sunday of Advent are taken from Luke 1:28 (Ave, Maria, gratia plena…) and Isaiah 7:14 (Ecce, virgo concipiet…) respectively.

² Homily 1, “On the Nativity of the Supremely Holy Theotokos,” in J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Graeca 97:805-820, at 807-808. English translation in Mary B. Cunningham, Wider than Heaven: Eighth-Century Homilies on the Mother of God (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008), pp. 71-84, at p. 72.

³ Saint Jerome, Letter 22, 21; see also Second Vatican Council, Lumen gentium, n. 56; Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 494.

⁴ Homily 45, “On the Nativity of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, II,” in J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Latina 144:740-748, at 741: et singulare praebet hominibus gaudium, quae totius exstitit humanae salutis exordium.

⁵ See, for example, the eighth century Gelasianum Vetus (n. 117) and Prager Sakramentar (n. 47, 3).

⁶ This simplex Octave was abolished by Pius XII in 1955, with the rubrical changes in the Decree Cum nostra hac aetate (23 March 1955) of the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

⁷ Homily, “In Praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” II, 17. English translation in Marie-Bernard Saïd, Homilies in Praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Cistercian Fathers Series 18-A; Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1993), pp. 15-31, at 30-31.

⁸ Second Vatican Council, Lumen gentium, nos. 58, 62.

⁹ It is, in fact, used on several other Marian feasts throughout the year, as well as on Saturday Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

¹⁰ A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin (trans. F.W. Faber; London: Burns and Lambert, 1863), pp. 33-34.