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The Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ
PASCHA NOSTRUM
Church of the Resurrection, New York
May 2015
My dear People:
It appears at last that spring has sprung. I am not a hater of winter as so many seem to
be, though even for me, there seemed to be quite a lot of it this year! We did not have
nearly the snow that Boston had, but we certainly had equally cold temperatures, and
on many, many days frigid Arctic air more usual in Ottawa or Moscow was our lot.
We did have a large amount of snow, and unlike previous years, it did not melt quickly
as it remained frigid for weeks! It also seemed to happen that the snow came at
particularly inopportune times: early morning Sundays, starting in mid-afternoon
before Evensong, on festivals, and of course this year on my birthday, which was the
day that the city essentially shut down, although not, as it turned out, with any good
reason.
Our May Festival with its outdoor procession will take place on the third Sunday of
this month. As I have said elsewhere, this Church was known for many years for two
things: being more or less moribund (indeed when I came here, many of our
neighbours thought we were closed) and for having cars parked in front towed away,
often with nasty notes pinned on them! To-day I find that we are most known
amongst our neighbours for three things: the blessing of animals and pets in October,
for the spring procession of Our Lady outdoors which goes by Orsay during brunch
hours, and formerly as the home of the neighbourhood’s favourite dog, our dear
departed Louis the Great Pyrenees. Certainly we give lots of interest and perhaps
entertainment to those having their brunch outdoors at Orsay, but it is very touching
also to see the many in the streets who recognise that we are engaged in a spiritual act
of worship, and stop to make their devotions. From within several buildings we pass
emerge doormen or superintendents, who make the sign of the Cross and sometimes
even kneel down. Over the twelve years we have done this, several people have turned
up at High Mass and remarked that they first knew of us through this procession, and
once very touchingly, the housekeeper of a neighbour who saw the procession, came to
the door asking to go into the church to light a kindle before the statue of Our Lady of
Fatima whom she had seen passing by in procession. (Our statue of Our Lady of
Guadalupe was purchased for us and given with the proviso that it be used in
December around her feast day. A member of our school staff made this gift, and she
did so out of her great love for Our Lady of Guadalupe. Our statue of Our Lady of
Walsingham was obtained by Father Swain through the Shrine.)
You will see notice later in this number of Pascha Nostrum of our High Mass on
Ascension Day. This festival, commemorating Our Lord’s Ascension into heaven forty
days after his Resurrection, is one of the most important of the church year, but often
now gets short shrift. In point of fact, the Ascension makes sense of Easter, as it
supplies the “what for” clause. So he rose from the dead, you might be asked, why? The
answer is the Ascension, so that he can go to heaven to prepare a place for us. Likewise
with Christmas the question may come, so God was born a baby, so what? The answer
is clear at Epiphany: so that that baby can grow to adulthood and drawn all men,
regardless of creed, race, class, gender, or any other condition, to himself. It also
reminds us that the 40 days of Lent which we have kept as a penitential exercise has as
its corresponding number the 40 days of Eastertide which we keep as festival time, and
which ends on Ascensiontide. The end of this season of Easter is shown by the
extinguishing of the Paschal Candle which stands for the presence of Our Lord’s Risen
Body here on earth. It is extinguished just after the Gospel on Ascension Day in a
dramatic ceremony. Curiously, in some churches, this is forgotten and the candle can
be found lit much later, even to Whitsunday, and even beyond this date, it is carelessly
left out in the church. The octave of Ascension Day is the season of Ascensiontide, and
this is followed by the octave of Whitsunday, the day that the Holy Ghost first
descended on the Apostles and the Church. This introduces the long period of Sundays
after Pentecost or Trinity (both numbering customs exist).
An enormous debt of gratitude goes from the Congregation at large to all those who
did such a great deal of work during Holy Week. Some decorated the church, some
prepared food and drink downstairs, some served at the altar, our resident and
honorary assistant clergy put in long hours, and the Music Department faced
mountains of notes on the page. All did a marvellous job, and made Holy Week and
Easter special and meaningful for all of us who were here. We especially wish to thank
those who took time out of their busy schedules to make the commitment to be at Mass
Thursday night, Friday noon and Saturday night. In one sense, that was the most
important contribution to be made: the gift to God of your presence and your
concentration. We had very good attendance on Palm Sunday and Easter Day (the
largest in several years), and we are taking small strides towards having more and more
parishioners attend services during the Sacred Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good
Friday & the Easter Vigil). The latter is very important, and we hope to see an increase
there next year also.
It is a pity that Whitsunday this year falls on the Memorial Day week-end, as so many
are away from homes and therefore unable to be in their own parish churches.
Whitsunday is the third most important feast of the church year, and should certainly
receive its due. Christmas has an obvious pull on our hearts for cultural and emotional
reasons, and those of us who keep Holy Week, have a special rejoicing when Easter
comes round, also in that it is both our Feast of Title and the Queen of all Feasts.
Whitsunday is sometimes a bit more difficult for people to understand. It
commemorates, first of all, an historical event, the descent of the Holy Ghost, an event
which was witnessed by many people. It also commemorates, however, the existence of
the Holy Ghost himself, both in the life of the Blessed Trinity, in the life of the
Church, and in the life of each of us. The riot of red in the sanctuary reminds us that
red is the colour of fire, the tongues which lighted on the apostles’ heads, but also the
colour of blood, as only one of the twelve Apostles who went out after Whitsunday to
convert the world escaped martyrdom – St John - and he nearly suffered that fate at the
hands of an angry mob in Rome. In recent years, people have become slightly
suspicious of Whitsunday as it is sometimes identified in their minds with Pentecostal
churches and their odd goings-on. I can assure you that any such connection is in the
minds of the Pentecostalists themselves, if indeed they have heard of this feast,
probably doubtful. The fabulous Drexel Red high mass set is always worn on this day
(it is usually worn also on SS Peter & Paul, unless it is ferociously hot, in which case
the utility red set is used).
Finally, it is my pleasure every year as your parish priest, to sing the re-introduction of
the ALLELUIA at the Easter Vigil and begin the celebration of the Resurrection anew
for that year. This is always particularly special in that it is not only the greatest feast
of the Christian Year, as for all Christians, but it is also our Feast of Title and it was
under this mystery that the church was consecrated forever to God in 1957. It had been
known by this title since 1907, and previously since 1866 as the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre. As many will know, this double title, which might seem odd, is in fact also
the dedication of the very first Christian church, on the site of the tomb of Christ in
Jerusalem, known both as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the
Resurrection, so we are in the best of company! In this year of our Lord Two Thousand
Fifteen, our prayer is two-fold: that the blessings of new and unending life in Christ
may excite all of us to greater devotion and participation in the life of our church, and
that this new and unending life in Christ will be vouchsafed to all our dear departed.
Affectionately, your Friend and Pastor,
Barry E. B. Swain
SS James and Phillip
May is the Month of Our Lady
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SS PHILIP & JAMES
St Athanasius, BCD
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INVENTION OF THE HOLY
CROSS
Martyrs of England & Wales
St Pius V
St John before the Latin Gate
Patronage of St Joseph
Apparition of St Michael
St Gregory Nazianzus
EASTER V/Rogations
Rogation Monday
Rogation Tuesday
Our Lady of Fatima/Vigil
ASCENSION DAY
St John Baptist de la Salle
St John Nepomucene
SUNDAY AFTER
ASCENSION/MAY
FESTIVAL
Octave
Octave
Octave
Octave Day
Monthly Requiem
Vigil of Whitsun
WHITSUNDAY
WHIT MONDAY
WHIT TUESDAY
Whit Wednesday
Whit Thursday
Whit Friday
Whit Saturday
TRINITY SUNDAY
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Fidelity to the Apostles’ Teaching
For a good Rector for St Paul’s K Street
Washington DC
The SSC
Pope Francis I
Parish
Andrew, our Bishop
The Guild of All Souls on its patronal festival
Our Parish School
Return of the Harvest in due season
For a blessing on all human labour
Asking the intercession of Our Lady
People of the Ascension, Chicago
Asking the Intercession of Our Lady
Confessors & Penitents
Parish
Temperate weather
Our Sister Parish, St Magnus the Martyr, London
St Cuthbert’s Church, Philbeach Gardens, London
May Chantry List
Those preparing for Sacraments tomorrow
Parish
Gifts of the Holy Ghost
Those being ordained at this time
Faculty & Students of the General Seminary
Our Parish Musicians
The Society of Mary
Parish
Tomb of St. Pius V
May Agenda
Sunday, Low Mass 8.30 a.m., High Mass 11.00 a.m.,
Solemn Evensong & Benediction, 5.00 p.m.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday & Friday, Low Mass, 12.15 p.m.
Saturday, Low Mass, Noon; Rosary follows
An evening of chamber music with the Clarion Music Society and our own
David Enlow accompanying on the fortepiano. A night of Viennese Classics at
the Church of St Thomas More, 65 East 89th Street, 1 May, at 8.00 p.m.
Tickets start at $35.00
The Rogation Procession, which takes us outdoors briefly to bless the front
garden, will take place on Sunday, 10 May at High Mass. We pray for the
return of God’s blessings to us through nature, and for a blessing on all human
labour. The new Drexel Violet set will be worn.
The May Procession, one of our major neighbourhood outreach occasions,
will be Sunday, 17 May, after High Mass. The procession wends completely
around the block and many passers-by ask what is happening and can be told
about our church and Our Lady. We will have flyers for you to give out
should they ask. It also reminds our friends and neighbours that we are here!
We hope you will all take part.
_______________________________________________________________________
New Friends of the Resurrection or renewals:
Elizabeth Clark, Greenwich, Conn., $250
______________________________________________________________
The Holy Trinity
Music
3 – Invention of the Holy Cross
High Mass, 11.00 a.m.
Josef Gabriel Rheinberger,
Missa Sanctae Crucis, Op. 151
Solemn Evensong & Benediction, 5.00 p.m.:
Canticles: Sir C. V. Stanford in A,
Anthem: King John IV of Portugal, Crux Fidelis
10 – Easter V (Rogations)
High Mass & Procession, 11.00 a.m.:
Mozart, Missa Brevis in B-flat, K. 275
Solemn Evensong & Benediction, 5.00 p.m.:
Canticles: Daniel Purcell in E Minor,
Anthem: Gerald Finzi, Lo, the Full Final Sacrifice
14 – Ascension Day, Thursday, 7.00 p.m.
Franz Schubert, Mass No. 4 in C
(with orchestra)
Gerald Finzi, God is Gone Up
17 - Sunday after Ascension
High Mass, 11.00 a.m. (May Festival)
F. J. Haydn, Kleine Orgelmesse
Solemn Evensong & Benediction, 5.00 p.m.:
Canticles: Sir C. V. Stanford, Magnificat for Double
Chorus, Op. 164,
Anthem: Sir Edward Elgar, Ave Maria
24 May - Whitsunday
Pierre de Manchicourt, Missa Veni Sancte Spiritus
31 May – Trinity Sunday
High Mass, 11.00 a.m.:
G. P. da Palestrina, Missa Te Deum Laudamus
Gustav Holst, Short Festival Te Deum
The First Pentecost
FEASTS OF OUR LADY
By Father Swain
The first Marian feast was called the Commemoration of Mary and was kept on the
Sunday before Christmas, this was later transferred to August 15th. Other major feasts
of the BVM are her Nativity (8 Sept.), Annunciation (25 March), Purification (2 Feb.),
Visitation (2 July), Seven Sorrows (15 Sept.), Presentation in the Temple (21 Nov.),
Our Lady of the Snows (5 Aug.), Our Lady of Mt Carmel (16 July), and the Holy
Name of Mary (12 Sept.)
The earliest recorded vision of the BVM is supposed to be that of St Gregory
Thaumaturgus (d. c. 270), recorded in a panegyric almost certainly by St Gregory of
Nyssa. The most famous modern apparitions are her apparitions to St Bernadette at
Lourdes (1858) and to the three children at Fatima in Portugal (1917). Very well known
in the Western Hemisphere, and extremely important to Spanish speaking Catholics,
is her apparition at Guadalupe to the Indian peasant Juan Diego in 1531 emphasising,
among other things, that the indigenous peoples were just as much children of God as
the conquering Spaniards, a truth which some Spanish and Portuguese colonists found
inconvenient.
The Feast of Our Lady’s Nativity on 8th September, is the logical celebration of the day
nine months after the Feast of her Immaculate Conception on 8th December. Its history
goes back to the 8th century in the East to two sermons of St Andrew of Crete, and in
the West to Pope Sergius (687-701). It was not universally observed in the West until
the 11th century, and has survived in the Book of Common Prayer 1662. On this feast, of
course, we meditate on Our Lady’s being born to her mother, St Anne, with her father,
St Joachim, looking on. It stresses the fact that although free from all original sin, Our
Lady was part of a normal human family.
The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, often called Lady Day, is the 25th
March, and was formerly used as one of the “Quarter Days” in England on which rents
were due. In addition to this, until the 18th century, it was New Year’s Day in England,
and the years were numbered from that day forward. If you therefore find an event
which occurred on March 1, 1700, it would have been 1699 at that time! This feast
depends of course on the fixed date of Christmas, and is simply nine months’
beforehand on the theory that the gestation period of God must have been a perfect
nine months. In any case, the date of Christmas was a chosen one, as the original date
(if indeed it was not 25 December) was unknown to later Christians. It occurs very
early in the history of the Church, in the Gelasian Sacramentary (ca. 750), and in the
Acts of the Council of Trullo (692), it is exempted specifically from the ban on feasts
in Lent. Interestingly, in Spain, the hierarchy did not feel this exemption was
warranted, and its fixed date was 18 December. Even to-day in Spain, though the
Annunciation is of course kept on the date of the Universal Church, 18 December
remains an important feast of Our Lady in preparation for Christmas, the Feast of the
Expectation BVM, at which sumptuous blue vestments are worn, in the Spanish
tradition. This feast of course commemorates the apparition of the Archangel Gabriel
to Our Lady in the Holy House, putting God’s proposition to her, inviting her to be the
Mother of his Son. She agrees to this at once, referring to herself as the handmaid of
the Lord. Indeed her only question is one of practicality – one which might occur to
anybody! The Hail Mary prayer, one of the most commonly recited in the Christian
world, is based on this passage in the New Testament, and the occurrence is one of the
Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary. It is the feast day of the Holy House of the Shrine of
Our Lady of Walsingham. One of the interesting perquisites afforded this feast (and
the Feast of St Joseph) is that their statues are unveiled for the day if these feasts occur
in Passiontide, as the Annunciation did this year. One of our new stained glass
windows depicts this event.
The feast of Our Lady’s Purification, sometimes called the Presentation of Our Lord
(simply the other side of the coin), is on 2 February. It recalls the moment when Our
Lady and St Joseph went to the Temple to give thanks for the safe delivery of their
child and the survival of his Mother (not at all a foregone conclusion in that day). The
“sin offering” was offered by the Mother who had just given birth, and the first male
that opened the womb was himself offered to God. Of course, Our Lady had no sin,
original or actual, and their son was already God from before all time, so both actions
were completely unnecessary, though not without meaning. It is a deep lesson that
God Himself followed his own law and it is therefore just that much more important
for us. The procession with candles (they were carried in the ancient rite in the
Temple) always occurs on 2 February, the fortieth day, for it was on that day that those
things were required to take place. Even if the feast is displaced (by one of the Pre-Lent
Sundays, or here, by our Feast of Consecration), the Mass of the Feast goes to the next
day, Monday, but the blessing of candles, and procession with them remains on the
Sunday. Though an exceedingly tiresome and impractical occurrence, it is a valuable
reminder of our connection to our Old Testament heritage. One of our new stained
glass windows depicts this event also, showing the aged priest Simeon and the
prophetess Anna in the foreground, welcoming the baby whom they know to be the
Christ, and his Mother and foster-Father, St Joseph, watching apprehensively behind.
The offering of the two turtle-doves is seen below.
Almost immediately after the Annunciation, Our Lady spends no time contemplating
her future, working out practicalities or being stunned by this change in her life. She
has been told by the Archangel that her cousin Elisabeth has conceived a child in her
old age, and Our Lady hastens to her to help in any way she can. It is typical that she
disdains her needs for those of her kinswoman. Once she enters the house, the infant
St John Baptist, still in Elisabeth’s womb, moves for joy: the first genuflection to Our
Lord. Our stained glass window shows Elisabeth receiving her (identifiable by her
halo slogan “Benedicta tu in mulieribus = Blessed is the fruit of thy womb”. Our Lady
approaches, and her halo has on it the words of her joyous song, the Magnificat:
“Magnificat anima mea = My soul doth magnify the Lord”. Both the infant children
are suggested in the wombs of their mothers. This window, and the feast itself, remind
us of the sanctity of the lives of children from the moment of their conception. The
feast day occurs in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite on 2 July, and in the
Ordinary Form on 31 May.
Another important feast of Our Lady is that of her Seven Sorrows. There are, in
reality, two of these feasts with essentially the same focus but from a different angle.
The first is the Friday after Passion Sunday, and this Feast concentrates on the Passion
itself and her role in it, and has a very Passiontide feel, though it is kept in white
vestments as one of her feasts. (Or blue vestments as we do). The other feast, the
Seven Sorrows, is kept on 15 September, a day chosen because it is the day after the
Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and emphasises her triumphant role as the
one who stood by the foot of the Cross gaining the palm of martyrdom without having
undergone death. It is the church’s tribute to the woman who first walked in the way
of her Son, and the price she paid for that devotion. Statues of Our Lady in this guise
are often made with seven swords through her heart as she is said to have undergone
seven sorrows, just as she celebrated Seven Joys (cf. the popular Christmas carol).
A feast of Our Lady which seems to have little resonance to-day but a long provenance
and very important formerly is her Presentation in the Temple. Originally perhaps just
conceived of as a book-end to the feast of Her Son’s Presentation, it became a very
important feast in the East by the 8th century, and remains one of the “Twelve Great
Feasts” in the Orthodox Church. In the West, it was a gradual development from the
later Middle Ages on. It had a very odd history in the Breviary and the Missal, as
Sixtus IV added it (1471-1484 – the builder of the Sistine Chapel and the founder of the
Sistine Choir - though we should not hold that against him!), but Pope St Pius V
removed it again and it was not made universal until 1585.
May 13 is the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, the most popular of the modern apparitions,
which took place in 1917, in Portugal. The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God,
appeared six times to three shepherd children ("The Three Seers") near the town of
Fatima between May 13 and October 13, 1917. Appearing to the children, the Blessed
Virgin told them that She had been sent by God with a message for every man, woman
and child living in our century. Her message centred round three secrets, which seem
to have had to do with the Great War (then raging), the coming threat of Atheistic
Communism which was to be opposed by the consecration of Russia to Our Lady, and
death threats to future Popes (this seems to have come true at the 1981 assassination
attempt on Pope John Paul II). Pope Pius XII (before becoming Pope), Pope Paul VI,
Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have all visited Fatima. Pope John Paul II
sent the bullet which was recovered from his body after the attempt on his life to
Fatima, where it was attached to her crown and remains to this day.
February 11th is the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. Lourdes is essentially an overgrown
formerly tiny, sleepy little town in the Haute-Pyrénées in France. It is one of the twin
see cities of the Diocese of Tarbes and Lourdes, but in the 19th century, was a very
insignificant place. In 1858, a fourteen year old peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous,
began to have visions of the Blessed Virgin in the grotto of a rock just outside the town
where she was sent to gather firewood by her mother. She came from a very poor
family, and her father often applied for temporary work tending the town dump. Our
Lady directed her to dig in the ground, and a large spring immediately sprang up,
miraculous healings soon were reported to take place, and pilgrims began to flock there,
at first the villagers, then people from far away. At first, the church was extremely
suspicious and sceptical, and Bernadette was treated as a crackpot, even her parents
doubted her. Finally, during one of the visions, she gathered up the courage to ask “the
Lady” her name. She replied, smiling, and in the Pyrenean dialect, “J’y sois l’Imaculée
Conception”, “I am the Immaculate Conception”. This dogma had just been
proclaimed in 1858, and certainly was not yet being taught in remote parochial schools
nor did Bernadette attend school very often. She told the Dean of Lourdes the Lady’s
response and he was thunderstruck. The other event that led to official recognition was
that Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Eugénie, of Spanish noble birth and very
devout, obtained a bottle of water from the spring, and administered it to her son,
H.I.H. The Prince Imperial during a serious illness. The Prince almost immediately
began to improve, and the Empress ascribed this to the Lourdes water. In 1862, the
pilgrimage received official recognition, a small church was built above the grotto, then
next to it from 1883 to 1901, the magnificent church of the Holy Rosary. The crypt
above the grotto and a vast underground church were built, and dedicated to St Pius X
by Angelo Cardinal Roncalli (the future Pope St John XXIII) in 1958. Untold numbers
of pilgrims have visited the shrine, and a medical bureau exists there to investigate
alleged cures. It is a rule that none of the adjudicating doctors and nurses can be
Catholics. St Bernadette herself entered the religious life at a Convent in Nevers
shortly after the furor died down, and became a model religious, never speaking of her
extraordinary experience and desiring to be treated as a “regular nun”. The Novice
Mistress hated her and was jealous of her, and made her go through a form of the most
severe hazing. When it was finally discovered that St Bernadette was dying of
tuberculosis of the bones, the Novice Mistress was horrified as St Bernadette had
suffered in secret all this time, whilst also enduring her insults and extra work
uncomplainingly. The feast was a local one from 1891 to 1907 when Pope St Pius X
extended it to the Universal Church. St Bernadette died young of tuberculosis in 1879,
and was subsequently canonised herself in 1933, and her body, not embalmed, remains
uncorrupt to this day. Her feast day is the octave day of the feast of Our Lady of
Lourdes, 18 February. One of our stained glass windows depicts this entire story.
The great summer festival of Our Lady, that of her Assumption, commemorates the
dogma, infallibly defined in 1950 by Pope Pius XII (the sole use of that privilege), that
Our Lady was assumed body and soul into heaven. Pope Pius deliberately left vague
the question of whether or not she underwent death before this. The dogma arises
from those of Original Sin and her Immaculate Conception. Original sin is the
doctrine that all mankind are heirs of the original sin of Adam & Eve, or to put it
differently, that human nature is inherently sinful. Baptism removes the taint of
original sin, though it does not prevent the person baptised from committing actual sin
later (as most all of us know, sadly!) The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception,
often wrongly confused with that of the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ through the
agency of the Holy Ghost, holds that in order not to infect Our Lord with the taint of
original sin, Our Lady was exempted from it by the prevenient grace of his Passion and
Death. Both the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption were widely held
doctrines, and certainly by the time of their definition (in 1854 for the former, and 1950
for the latter) nearly every Catholic already believed them. The Assumption centres
around the fact that it is Original Sin which condemns mankind to pain in childbirth,
to sickness and to death and the consequent destruction of the body until its
Resurrection at the end of time. Many ancient (non-canonical) texts tell various tales
of her death at Jerusalem, with all the Apostles present (others say that St Thomas was
not present, and later doubted her Assumption – obviously a parallel with the
Resurrection), but the doctrine in orthodox circles goes back to St Gregory of Tours in
594. By the end of the VIII century, it was universally kept in the West on 15 August,
and received an octave (always a sign of importance) in 847. It was supported by St
Augustine of Hippo, St Albertus Magnus, and St Dominic as well as St Bonaventure.
Repeated demands from the bishops and the faithful from 1870 on led to the infallible
definition in 1950 by Pope Pius XII. This action shocked many non-Catholics, but it
was a very legitimate organic development, and came as absolutely no surprise to
Catholics, all of whom had believed this for centuries. From 1950, Pope Pius instituted
new Mass propers (“Signum magnum…”), which replaced the older mass both in major
and minor propers. This new mass was part of the decree Munificentissimus Deus which
was promulgated at St Peter’s with great splendour on All Saints’ Day 1950. A frequent
Protestant objection was that Pope Pius somehow felt he had the power to admit people
to heaven, which of course was a complete misunderstanding of the whole sequence of
events.
As an octave had been given to the Feast of the Assumption, it was perhaps inevitable
that the octave day should eventually receive a title. The one chosen, in 1805, was the
Immaculate Heart of Mary. Devotion to her heart (i.e., her love for all mankind) was
fostered in the 17th century in France by St John Eudes, and many Catholics had felt
the benefit of her love and prayers for them over the centuries. A feast in honour of
her Immaculate Heart was felt to be only reasonable as a concomitant to that of her
Son’s Sacred Heart, the day after the Corpus Christi octave ended. Comments
attributed to the BVM at Fatima seemed to support this idea, and in 1942 at her request
Pope Pius XII consecrated the world to her Immaculate Heart and in 1944 created a
feast for the Universal Church on 22 August. In the Extraordinary Form it remains on
that day, but in the Ordinary Form, following the 1969 calendar, it has been moved to
the day after the Feast of the Sacred Heart, since that feast lost its octave and the
Saturday after it is now free.
Finally we turn to the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, which is 7th October. The
Rosary, a popular devotion composed of only a few, easily memorised prayers which
are all Scriptural, became very common in the Middle Ages, as many ordinary
churchmen could not read other prayers or the Psalter. As the number of Hail Marys
used was 150, it became known as the “People’s Psalter”. It was given by Our Lady
directly to St Dominic in a vision, and has always been especially associated with the
Dominicans. There are three sets of mysteries, the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious.
(An odd and misguided attempt to introduce a fourth set was put forth some years ago
by Pope St John Paul II.) This particular feast was instituted for 7 October because on
that day occurred the Battle of Lepanto, the victory of Christian naval forces over the
Turks, a battle which essentially ended the dominance of the Ottomans in the East,
and the constant threat of the Sublime Porte to Eastern Europe. The Pope of the day
had requested the Rosary to be recited for Victory, and it is sometimes known as Our
Lady of Victory.
The Venerable Bede