Feast Days of Our Blessed Mother for Every Day of the Year
From
THE WOMAN IN ORBIT
Compiled by Sister Manetta Lamberty, S.C.C.
Copyright 1966
Click on today's date
AUGUST
August 1: OUR LADY OF PITY
This title refers to Mary’s compassion or grief on Calvary and was very common in medieval England. The pertinent image ultimately became the Pieta as we now know it: “Our Blessed Lady holding the afflicted Body of her dear Son, as He was taken down from the Cross, lying in her lap, named, the image of Our Lady of Pity.”The devotion to Mary’s sorrows had its origin in meditation on Our Lady and St. John standing at the foot of the Cross on Calvary, her “compassion” in the deepest meaning of the word, “suffering with”.It is first found in the writings of St. Anselm of Canterbury, 1109, and other monks of his age, then in an office attributed to St. Bonaventure and was later developed by such mystics as Blessed Henry Suso, Tauler, Gerson, and St. Bridget. Many hymns were devoted to the theme of which few are now remembered, except STABAT MATER DOLOROSA, and the theme inspired many pictures and statues, especially in the form of the pieta.
Pope Leo XIII who had a special devotion to Mary’s sorrows and issued an encyclical letter on the subject, founded at the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris - a confraternity of Our Lady of Compassion or of Pity whose members pray for the return of Great Britain to the Catholic Faith; St. Pius X extended its object to all English-speaking peoples. Churches dedicated to Our Lady of Compassion or of Pity are known in England today.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 2: OUR LADY QUEEN OF THE ANGELS IN COSTA RICA
One of the most popular shrines in Central America is that of Our Lady Queen of the Angels in Costa Rica. Cartage, the scene of the miracle is today a town of 10,000 people, situated a few miles east of San Jose, the beautiful capital of Costa Rica.A pious tradition has it that one evening in August, 1635, a mulatto girl named Juana Pereiram, who was perhaps a slave, went to a neighboring forest for firewood. There she found resting on a huge stone, a little image about eight inches high, of dark color, cut in stone, and depicting the Virgin holding the Infant Jesus in her arms.Juana, happily, took the image home and placed it in a small basket. The next day as she went to get some more wood, she found on the same stone an image which seemed identical; she took this home with her, thinking she now had two; but when she reached home, she found the image from her little basket missing. She locked up the image in a box, using a key, for she thought someone had carried the image back to the place she had found it originally.She went to the woods the third day and found the statue back in its place. Upset and afraid, she rushed home, opened her box to find the “other” one was not there. She went to the pastor, told him what had happened and left the image with him. The priest put the image in a safe, intending to examine it more closely later. When he looked for the image the next day it was gone. He went to the woods, found the image there, took it home and put it into the tabernacle with the Blessed Sacrament. Next morning, at Communion time, he noticed that the statue was gone again. After Mass, in company with other priests, the pastor went to the stone in the woods and found the image of Our Lady resting on it. Then and there all realized that the “black Virgin” (La Negrita as she is called by the Costa Ricans) wished a church to be built in her honor on that spot. “La Negrita” wanted the whites to understand that white or black, we are all children of the one and same God and consequently, brothers. She wished to be revered as the Queen of Angels, to be Queen of the Colored.”This is the simple unadorned story of the origin of the devotion that thrills the heart of every Catholic Costa Rican.Today, at first sight, the venerated image with its priceless reliquary looks like a monstrance. The reliquary from its base to its crown is about thirty-six inches in height. All of the bishops and archbishops of Costa Rica have vied with each other in honoring Mary, the Queen of the Angels, and venerated her image.The present imposing shrine with its splendid architectural design – the fourth to be built in Mary’s honor – was begun shortly after the prior one was destroyed by an earthquake in 1910. On April 26, 1926, the image was solemnly crowned with great splendor. In July, 1955, on the occasion of the impressive commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the apparition, Pius X granted the title Minor Basilica to the Shrine of Our Lady of the Angels of Cartage. August 2nd, the day on which the image is yearly commemorated as an apparition, was declared a national holiday by the government of Costa Rica in 1932.Thus has the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady of the Angels, captured the hearts of the Catholics of Costa Rica, who form 95% of the population of seven hundred-thousand. There are a few thousand Negroes in Costa Rica. The first colored priest of that country was ordained in 1948. May this little Catholic country, conspicuous for its harmonious cooperation of Church and State ever enjoy the protection of the Angels and their Queen, La Negrita of Costa Rica. <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 3: OUR LADY OF BOWS
Our Lady of Bows is a shrine in London. It is explained that Mary’s image there, having been carried away by a storm together with more than 600 houses in the year 1071, fell uninjured with such violence that it broke into the pavement and sunk more than 20 feet into the earth, whence it was never possible to draw it out.The shrine is, therefore, an underground memorial to Mary and now forms a possible air-raid shelter with a shrine. Our Blessed Mother has anticipated modern warfare by one thousand years. She always provides a refuge for her children. <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 4: OUR LADY OF DORDRECHT
Our Lady of Dordrecht in Holland was built by Saint Sauters on the spot designated by an angel, as it is said, who was sent by the Blessed Virgin. Saint Sauters afterward received the crown of martyrdom in the same church where the shrine was erected.To render her memory more celebrated, God caused a fountain to flow, after her death, which, through the intercession of the Saint and recourse to Mary, cured fevers. The healing water soothes troubled minds, brings relief to aching brows and strength to weakened limbs, as Mary’s sick children come for aid to her. <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 5: OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS
Improbable as it is for snow to fall during August, history tells of a snowfall that seemed more impossible, namely in Rome, Italy. August 5, 352, snow fell during the night in Rome.There lived in the Eternal City a nobleman, John and his childless wife, blessed with much of this world’s goods. They chose the Mother of God as the heir to their fortune and prayed that she might make known to them how to do this. In answer, the Virgin Mother during the night of August 5, appeared to John and his wife and also to the Holy Father, Pope Liverius, directing them to build a church in her honor on the crown of the Esquiline Hill. The Sign? “Snow will cover the crest of the hill”. The flakes fell silently during the night, blanketing the peak of the historic hill. Quickly the news spread and crowds gathered to throng up the hill and behold the white splendor. When it became known that the snow was a sign from Mary, the people spontaneously added another to her long list of titles, Our Lady of the Snows.The church built there is now known as Saint Mary Major. It is the Mecca of Mary’s millions of children, one of the most popular churches in the world. There Mary has been pleased to secure various and many blessings as numerous and varied, as the flakes of snow that fell that August night. The church built by John and his wife, restored and enlarged at various times was known by different names: the Basilica of Liberius, St. Mary of the Crib because it enshrines relics of Christ’s Crib; lastly, St. Mary Major, to distinguish it from the many other Roman churches dedicated to the Mother of God; Major, means Greater. It is one of the four basilicas in which the pilgrims to Rome must pray in order to gain the indulgences of the Holy Year. Most fitting do we call Mary Our Lady of the Snows. The white blanket of that August night symbolizes Mary, pure as the driven snow; her blessings and graces, numerous and varied as the falling snowflakes.Science tells us that every snowflake is different in form and make-up: size, outline, structure, ornamentation, are all without limit, infinite in wondrous beauty, startling complexity, perfect symmetry as they fleet, dancing down from the sky. What a wonderful figure of the blessings Mary obtains for us! Snow changes the face of the earth, painting even a field of mud with a white coat. The grace of God won through prayer to Mary, also changes the face of the earth. Snow preserves the heat of the earth, protects vegetation, supplies moisture with slow effectiveness.Grace serves similar purposes: it preserves the warmth of God’s love in our hearts; it protects the soul from the chill of temptation and sin; it nourishes the soul with new life.We see a further symbolism in this feast. There are millions of people living in lands of ice and snow who have not yet come to the knowledge of Mary and her Divine Son. We might ask that with the actual snowflakes, she shower down upon them the graces of the true Faith.In particular, may that land where snow falls long and heavily, Russia, come to share in a fall of graces through prayer to her whom we honor on August fifth as “Our Lady of the Snows”. <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 6: OUR LADY OF COPACABANA
Among the passengers of a ship lost in a storm near Rio de Janeiro, were some Brazilian pilgrims returning from a visit to the shrine of the Virgin of Copacabana in Bolivia. They called upon the Virgin to intercede for them, and, they were landed safely on the Brazilian shores. In token of gratitude, they called the spot Copacabana—and it has since become one of the world’s favorite resorts.In Bolivia, however, the original Copacabana does not suggest gay social life; it spells a wonderful story of faith and love. Enclosed by beautiful sloping mountains overlooking the Mary-blue of Lake Titicaca, lies the tiny cove called Copacabana. The name means “one who looks at the precious stone”, because in the distance, lovely to see, stretches the majestic, ice-capped necklace of the Cordillera of the Andes. In this spot, in the days of the Inca Empire, lived good Indians whose sole duty was to prepare for journeys of worshippers to the Island of the Sun, some miles out on the lake. Copacabana, accordingly, became the center of much Incan activity, for the Incas were fanatic in their visits to the island shrine.The missionaries who came with the Spanish conquerors naturally planted the cross in all big Inca centers, and a church was built in Copacabana. It was dedicated to St. Ann. However, the Mother of the Blessed Virgin seemed to frown on this honor, for the town soon fell into disrepute, and the Indians moved away until only a few souls remained. Those who stayed believed that if the town were dedicated to some other saint, the town would prosper; but the agreement on the identity of the new patron could never be reached.In the year 1581, a young Indian lad, Francisco Yupanbi, desired earnestly that his town be dedicated to Our Lady. In secret he started to construct a statue of the Virgin and Child to be presented to the village. For more than a year he labored day and night. When he called in the townspeople to see the result, they laughed at him in scorn, for Francisco knew nothing of art, and his statue proved it. Undaunted, but burning with the desire to complete the task, the youth went off to visit all the great cities of Bolivia in order to study under the masters who were decorating churches and monasteries. Finally after months of disappointments and successes, he finished his labor of love—a Virgin with all of the features of his own race, in her arms an Infant no different than the thousands of Indian babies Francisco had known so well. He called in his teachers and other artists, and they were astonished; he had created a veritable work of art; but for him it was a labor of love, representing his “Little Mother”, the virgin who could save his native town of Copacabana. He hastened with his precious burden to his home; but as he arrived, he was met by a delegation of citizens, who had come to drive him and his silly lump of plaster away. But the Virgin smiled on Francisco; when the box was opened the hostile attitude changed; when they saw the love that had been caught in the face of the Madonna, they welcomed Francisco and his dear burden to the town. The warmth of love engulfed Copacabana, and soon a church was built for the Mother and her Child. Jewels from devout persons far and near poured into the shrine; distant pilgrims came day after day.Francisco entered a monastery where he died a happy, holy man. Many legends grew up around his statue; it is said that if you look at her and think her beautiful, it is a sign that you are in her favor; if not, your soul is ugly. Many cures and miracles have been attributed to this Virgin, the greatest, that of faith—she stands as a monument of the faith of Francisco Yupanbi and to the faith of the millions of Indians who came after him; of poor and rich, mighty and lowly, who have revered this simple piece of clay that reminds them of their “Mamita”, the little Mother of everyone. <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 7: OUR LADY OF SCHIEDAM
Our Lady of Schiedam is in Holland. The chronicle relates that a merchant, who had stolen this image, having embarked with the intention of selling it at a fair at Antwerp, could never get away from the port. Alarmed at this prodigy, he restored the image which he had taken away, and it was solemnly transported to the Church of St. John the Baptist.It was at the shrine of Our Lady of Schiedam that the mystic, St. Lidwina spent whole nights in prayer. Early in her life Lidwina was drawn toward the Mother of God and prayed a great deal before this miraculous image. The Mother of God revealed to her the extent of suffering Christ would ask her to endure, but likewise assured her that she, Mary, would sustain her through her grace and intercessory power. Mary was true to her word, as was St. Lidwina in accepting the will of God in imitation to Our Lady’s Fiat.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 8: OUR LADY OF KUEHN
The crops were poor; there was much sickness, but the Virgin would not let them plead in vain. She knew what hunger, poverty and pain was. She would help. Fervently, confidently, lovingly, the people gathered at Mary’s little shrine and asked their Mother for aid.Suddenly the image smiled and a sweet voice begged them to erect a church in her honor and to build it on this spot. Tomorrow she would show them where and how.The shrine of Our Lady of Kuehn, near Brussels, is singular in this regard, that the Blessed Virgin, appearing to her devotees, requested that a church be built in her honor; Mary even went so far as to mark out the dimensions with a line, which today is still visible.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 9: OUR LADY OF THE BURNING CLOUD (ATOM BOMB)
On Thursday, August 9, 1945, a blinding flash split the sky above Nagasaki. A great ball of fire appeared and stretched to a purple column 10,000 feet high and from its top burst a gigantic mushroom. A gray-white cloud rushed down on the city bringing darkness; a colossal wind swept over the rooftops; the whole city became a mass of flames. This was the atom bomb.Upon this scene Our Lady looked with pain and pity. When Catholic missionaries came to Nagasaki, after their entrance had been barred for centuries, the manner in which they convinced the natives that they were Catholic priests, was by showing them the rosary. Then the people fell on their knees and thanked God that their years of ardent prayer had been answered. In the absence of priests, they had gathered at the church and said the rosary always.Knowing that the inscrutable will of God permitted even such sufferings as the atom bomb, to come to His beloved children, Mary would not stop it. But that did not mean her Motherly care did not instantly bend to the stricken city, to Nagasaki, which was the ancestral seat of Japanese Catholicity where so many of her children cried day and night. Somehow this cloud of suffering must be pierced by the great fire of love.The Saint of the Atom Bomb, Dr. Paul Nagai, whose wife was buried in the ruins of their home, and who himself lived only five years after the explosion, his body gradually wasting away, was surely a ray of that love that Mary inspired. His devotion to Mary was childlike and entire. Her rosary was his constant prayer, and its mysteries formed a large part of the subject matter for his books and water colors. His spiritual attitude toward the bomb had much to do with the spiritualizing of the minds of Japanese in general on that tragic weapon. It was not unusual that death came to Paul Nagai on the first day of May—May Day, Mary Day.Out of the burning cloud had stretched the hand of his Mother. Out of the same symbol of destruction she reached down. From such a devastation of many, may come, through Mary, the resurrection of many to Eternal Life.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 10: OUR LADY OF RANSOM
Accustomed as we are through the established teachings of our Faith, to live and think in terms of a world that has been redeemed, we do not always appreciate the full measure of the deliverance that Christ’s coming brought to the souls of men. Without Him we should still be slaves of sin, of hell, of Satan. By one stroke He freed us from them all. We know this, our Faith teaches it, but do we appreciate its full meaning?Perhaps those who know from experience what it is to have the burden of an enemy occupation on one’s back in time of war, perhaps such, are in a better position to understand what a great boon it is to enjoy this inner freedom and to be able to love God as his adopted children, instead of being slaves of the devil. Christ, our Head, has gained for us the sovereign freedom of the children of God, so that we may now live, not in the remorse of sin and in the terror of chastisement, but in the possession of a soul delivered from evil and cringing fear. We can now look to God with filial hearts and, like His Son, live in fellowship with the Father. Every member of His Mystical Body shares with the Savior the joyful freedom of being a son of God, with the heartfelt yearnings and love of a son.In the deliverance of souls, Mary again had a great part. It was Christ alone who paid the price of our redemption by freely giving His own life as the Word Incarnate; but it was His Mother, remember, who gave Him the Blood of Redemption. Together with one accord they gave their consent to one and the same sacrifice, offered by Jesus in His Passion, in His own Person; by Mary in her Maternal Heart. If God had asked it, Mary was prepared to immolate her Son herself; so great was her desire to secure God’s glory through expiation for sin and the redemption of souls. Together with Jesus she expiated all, merited all, ransomed all, saved all.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 11: OUR LADY OF MISSOURI
In St. Charles, Missouri, there is a roadside shrine, called Our Lady of the Way: it is believed to be the only one in the world dedicated to the Virgin Mary under this title.It was built by twenty-five volunteers, laymen, at the intersection of the two major highways, about eight miles west of St. Charles, Missouri. The original idea was to build the shrine in honor of Our Lady of Perpetual help, but the priest who was asked about it, suggested that it be called Our Lady of the Way instead. Now it is fondly referred to as “Our Lady of Missouri”.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 12: OUR LADY OF ROUEN
At the time of the Black Plague, Rouen was delivered by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, and placed itself under her protection by a special vow. The people prayed in the chapel of the Cathedral, before a beautiful edifice known as OUR LADY OF THE VOW, commemorating the event.The magistrates suspended over the white marble Madonna on the altar, a massive golden lamp, which burned without interruption till extinguished by the Protestants in the sixteenth century.Throughout Rouen, squares, fountains, public monuments, all bore Mary’s image as a token of gratitude.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 13: OUR LADY OF THE WAVES
A world of disintegration held together by the blue of Mary’s love—that is what Salvador Dali painted in his Port Lligat Madonna. Mother of the Eternal Fisherman, Our Lady of the Waves; she is at home among the symbols of the sea, the shells, the eggs, the barren rocks, the waves. With the exquisite dignity of the Renaissance Madonnas whom Dali so admires, she is enthroned, showing the Christ, a Child within the tabernacle roofed by her upraised hands.“Everything floats in space here to show spirituality,” says Dali, but it has an ever greater significance in that it represents the world dissolved by strife and hate. How shall the whole be bound together? The superb art of Dali does it in the picture by a balance and proportion and a subtle magic that is all his own. As in the spiritual world, the unity is one of love. The varied but blending blues in his Madonna of Port Lligat read only one way: the love of Mary holds all together to center the Christ she cradles in her own being. This is a beauty that is also a truth few will see and understand.The Madonna of Dali is the Lady who holds heaven in her heart and who will give it to men of desire. This is the Lady whose love looks down upon the swirling sea of modern life and, with her Christ, yearns to bring it His peace.In his Madonna, Dali sees salvation. She is the Lady of the Sea, of the Waves, the Lady of the yearning, Christ and she will save us in Christ’s salvation!<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 14: OUR LADY BENEATH THE CROSS
“They crucified HER” we can truly say as we stand at the feet of Jesus Crucified and try to enter into the Immaculate Heart of our Mother Most Sorrowful.She was as crucified in heart as her Divine Son was crucified in body. Besides, if many of the mystics in the past and even today, are given the experience of one or other of Christ’s sufferings on the cross—the crown of thorns, the Sacred Wounds or the pains of the scourging—we believe that Mary, the Queen of Mystics and of Martyrs, the Co-redemptrix and the divinely appointed Associate of Jesus in the very work of redemption, was given a like privilege surpassing that of any or of all the saints. Was she not given to experience, not only spiritually in her heart, but even physically in her body, the pains of her Beloved’s crucifixion?Her one-ness with Jesus Crucified: he is lifted up in body; she in heart; He suffers unspeakably in every member; she, more than any other, shared with Him those pains. He is filled with mortal shame and confusion; her heart was an abyss of bitter sorrows.Yet, just as Jesus from the Cross loved and forgave all sinners and prayed for those who crucified Him, so did Mary reflect most perfectly the love and forgiveness of His Heart in hers. She is the Mirror of Justice reflecting in her sorrowful heart all the sufferings by which Jesus satisfied the Justice of His Father for the sins of mankind. So, likewise, she is the Seat of mercy, for she will hold in her arms at the end, the price of our salvation, the lifeless body of her Jesus Crucified.“Son, behold thy Mother!” You cannot contemplate Jesus Crucified without hearing from Christ’s dying lips the mandate quoted above. Our Lady told the servants at the wedding feast at Cana, “Do whatever he tells you”. Jesus, with His dying breath told us all, “Behold thy Mother!” It is a command from the lips of the dying God that we honor, imitate and above all LOVE His mother, the Mother of God and our Mother.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 15: THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
Our Lady assumed into Heaven! She entered body and soul into the presence of the Most Blessed and Eternal Trinity! Her sufferings, great beyond all measure, are nothing now as she finds her reward in the greatness of the Infinite God. What eternal joy in His possession; what peace in being eternally possessed by Him – surely the richest reward for the obedient Handmaid of the Lord.Our reward is likewise the possession of the same Triune God – our way to Him is likewise along the same royal way as tread so humbly and submissively the feet of our obedient Queen. Her last recorded words in Sacred Scripture, her counsel to the servants at the wedding feast, applies to us with equal and unfailing force: “do whatever He tells you!” Our obedience to Christ is our way to joy and peace.Mary’s death was caused by love that consumed her heart; her death was not meant for punishment or expiation, hence there was no violence nor was it painful, since she was preserved from the dominion given to death by sin. According to an opinion accepted since the Middle Ages, Mary’s death resembled Christ’s, because she accepted it voluntarily out of humble and loving obedience; so, she died of love in the strict sense of the word. Death came to her in the form of the weakening of the body caused by the supernatural might of Dying Love. Her natural vitality was exhausted by love-longing, by the strength of an ecstasy of love and her great love moved God to cease keeping her alive. Mary’s death was a holocaust of love where the sacrifice offered long before at the foot of the Cross in poignant and spiritual anguish was at last completed.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 16: OUR LADY OF TRAPANI
This Madonna is venerated in a chapel of the sanctuary or shrine of Our Lady of the Annunciation (Santuario dell’ Annunziata) in Trapani, Sicily, some 45 miles west of Palermo.There are several stories about the origin of this title. According to one, the origin of the image dates back to 733. Supposedly, it was the work of a sculpture on the island of Cyprus. He placed it in a church of Fagamusta, where it remained a center of devotion to the Virgin for 400 years.Then in 1113, during the reign of Baldwin, King of the Crusader Kingdom in Jerusalem, there was established in Jerusalem, the Order of Templars. Around 1130, a group of crusaders, knights and nobles on Cyprus, decided they would join the Order of Templars and forthwith took ship to Jerusalem, and with them they took the image of the Virgin and Child.The image seems to have remained in Jerusalem for almost 150 years. Then, after the failure of the 7th Crusade, one of the Knights Templar (said to have been Guerrogio of Pisaset), sailed for Italy taking the image with him – possibly to save it from profanation by the Turks. During the course of the voyage, the ship ran into a terrific storm and soon it appeared that the ship and all on board were doomed. But the knight did not despair – he prayed fervently to the Blessed Mother and solemnly promised her, if they weathered the storm, he would enshrine her image on the first land they would touch.The storm died down and eventually the ship landed at Trapani, Sicily. The story of the miraculous image quickly spread among the people of Trapani and they decided to erect a church in Mary’s honor. Work soon began and the church was completed around 1332. It was rebuilt in 1760.At one end of the church behind the main altar, there is a fine chapel and in it stands the venerated image of the Madonna of Trapani, a statue of marble, depicting the Virgin with the Infant on her left arm. A new statue was sculptured, and modern authorities think the present statue is a work of the 13th century art schools, possibly of the Fisan School. However, Our Blessed Mother needs neither time, artists, or sculptors to make her image famous.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 17: OUR LADY OF GRACES AND GIFTS
Jesus received His human life from Mary, hence, all who wish to become His brothers and sisters must have Mary as their Mother; they must receive the life of grace from her. Jesus is the author of grace; Mary communicates it to us. We received that life through her in Baptism. Should we lose it through mortal sin, Mary will restore it to us.Like any Mother, Mary cares for that life; it is she who nourishes it, develops it and protects it. We are taught that grace is a transitory help; it enables us to avoid evil and do good. Little do we appreciate actual graces; we can safely say that there is not one actual grace given here on earth that does not pass through Mary’s hands. In His supreme independence, God has ordained that no request will be accepted by Him unless it goes to Him by His Mother; and no grace will be granted unless it be given through her.Mary is not the source of grace, but the treasurer of God. In her hands He has placed all gifts and all graces; He has given her the liberty that she gives to whom she wills, as she wills, also as much as she wills. Mary is God’s great reservoir of graces. To her, then, we must all turn for the graces we need in order that we live a holy life. She is the ocean of graces; from her all humanity must draw its needed grace. As St. Louis de Montfort tells us, even as God gathered all the waters to form the sea, He has made an assemblage of all His graces; and called it Mary.We must not make the mistake of thinking of Mary as an intermediary who is unaware of this distribution of graces. Nor must we think that she does not have the time to concern herself with each person who prays to her. She is fully aware of every request made to her. Mary prays for all. For each one she intervenes in particular; she thinks of the rich and the poor – of the wise and the ignorant; of the sinner and the just or the saintly. Her prayers are all-powerful over the Heart of her Divine Son; for this reason she is known as the all-powerful suppliant.Whenever we receive a favor, we receive it from God through His Mother. In the order of nature as well as the order of grace, everything we possess we receive through the hands of Mary.All we have to do is look about us; everything we own comes to us through her; for the very fact that we are still alive we ought to thank Mary. Gifts or mind, talents – qualities worthy of admiration, for these too, we ought to thank Mary. Mary has heaped favors upon favors on us in order to make the work of our salvation easy. We might well say that Mary has covered us from head to foot with temporal and spiritual gifts. This is not exaggeration. Pope Pius XII, speaking to the Marian Congress of Chili, quoted an author of the Middle Ages, “If we are joyful and prosperous; if we practice virtue; if we have salvation, grace and virtue in our old age as well as in our youth – if we have great honors, a reputation – if we are worth something and if we have riches, however modest – it is certain that we have received them through the intercession of Mary”.Shouldn’t we, then, bless such a generous benefactor? She is our Mother, who is constantly watching over us in order that we might one day come face to face with her Divine Son!<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 18: OUR LADY’S CORONATION
The idea of a coronation of Mary in Heaven after her Assumption took its rise in an accommodation of the words in the Song of Songs (4:8), “Come, my bride, from Lebanon…thou shalt be crowned…,” and was chiefly developed and popularized by iconography.The earliest existing example is probably the mosaic in Santa Maria in Trastevere at Rome, where Our Lady is depicted already crowned, sitting at the right hand of her Son; this dates from about 1140. A century later there appeared what became the usual design, Christ putting a crown upon His Mother’s head.The theme was popular in English medieval carving, and it was everywhere highly embroidered and developed at the Renaissance. Among more recent artists the subject has aroused little interest, and Catholics today are familiar with it chiefly from the last glorious mystery of the rosary.Its meaning suggests the final “moment” of the Assumption and the reference in the Apocalypse to “a crown of twelve stars.” It seems to be a second feast of the Assumption, emphasizing the bodily aspect of the mystery.St. Mary the Crowned is recalled in the verse of a medieval carol:“After to Heaven He took His flight, And there He sits with His Father of might, With Him is crowned that Lady of LightRedemptoris Mater Filia Sion, thou art the Flower Full sweetly shalt thou sit by Me And bear a crown with Me in towers: And all mine Saints to thine honor Shall honor thee, Mother, in my bliss, That blessed body that bear me in bower – Veni, coronaberis”.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 19: OUR LADY OF THE DON
A famous icon painted in the latter part of the fourteenth century by a Greek, Theophanes of Novogorod, who had assimilated Russian iconographical traditions, is titled Our Lady of the Don. It is double-sided, having the Assumption on the back.Now we find it in the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow. A feast of Our Lady of the Don was observed on August 19, in thanksgiving for victory over the Tartars at Kulikovo Pole, in 1380, and the capture from them of Kazan in 1552.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 20: OUR LADY OF BERNARD’S “AVE”
St. Bernard, the first abbot of Clairvaux, was a great ornament and pillar of the Church in the 12th Century. Devotion to Mary was his characteristic virtue. Bernard put himself under her protection from childhood, and the Mother of Mercy showed him on many occasions how acceptable to her was his devotion. When young, he had a vision of the Queen of Heaven, by which he learned much on the Incarnation. This vision enkindled in his heart the strongest love for Jesus and Mary. Among other favors he received from Mary was the instantaneous restoration of his health when he lay dangerously ill and physicians had given up all hope of recovery. Bernard endeavored to inflame all hearts with devotion to Mary. To excite confidence in her intercession, he would say: “She does not want power to help us, for she is the Mother of God; nor yet good will, for she is the Mother of Mercy and our Mother also. She is not a Mother merely of the just but of sinners.” His writings would alone suffice to proclaim her praise to the end of the world, and to enkindle the love of her in all hearts.It was Bernard’s custom whenever he passed an image of Mary to bow his head and salute her with the words, “Ave Maria!? He did this without fail, and Our Lady, to show him how much this pleased her, one day bowed low from her image and smilingly and sweetly answered him with the words, “Ave Bernard!”“Mary”, says St. Bernard, “is the bright Star of Jacob, whose rays enlighten the whole world, whose splendor shines conspicuous in Heaven, and penetrates hell. Her splendor pervades the earth and warms – not the body, but the soul, banishing vice, and maturing virtue. For she is that bright and splendid star, elevated above this vast and spacious sea, who glitters by her merits, and enlightens by her example. If you find yourself tossed about by the storms and tempests in the current of this world, turn not your eyes away from the brightness of this star, unless you wish to be overwhelmed by its waves. If the winds of temptation arise – if you strike on the rock of tribulation – look up to this star; call on Mary! If you are tossed about by the swellings of pride or ambition, of envy or detraction – look up to the star, call on Mary! If anger or avarice, or concupiscence, agitate the bark of your mind – turn to Mary! When affrighted at the enormity of your crimes and sins, or affrighted at the defilement of your conscience, or terrified with the dread of the future judgment, you feel yourself about to be involved in the whirlpool of despondency, or engulfed in the abyss of despair – think of Mary! In dangers, in difficulties and doubts; think on Mary and invoke her!<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 21: OUR LADY OF KNOCK
The apparition in Ireland of Our Lady of Knock is reported to have occurred on the evening of August 21, 1879, the vigil of the octave of the feast of the Assumption. It is described as follows: “Our Lady was wearing a large, brilliant crown and clothed in white garments. One her right was St. Joseph, his head inclined toward her and on her left St. John Evangelist. To the left of St. John was an altar on which stood a cross and a lamb.” Fifteen parishioners claimed they had seen Our Lady in the apparition for two hours. She did not speak, but the gable of the church where the manifestation was made was covered with a cloud of light. This took place in County Mayo, Ireland.Since then thousands of people have gone to Knock to pray to Our Lady. Their prayerful, penitential and reverential spirit has been commended again and again by visitors from other lands. No sign of commercialism detracts from the purely religious atmosphere of that hallowed spot. People from all walks of life kneel in humble supplication before the shrine of Our Lady, fully confident that she has sanctified that spot by her apparition.Organized pilgrimages from various dioceses are conducted frequently to the shrine. The rosary comprises the main portion of the devotion; the shrine is therefore appropriately called the Rosary Shrine. The “Knock Shrine Annual” relates many interesting stories of cures and conversions effected at the shrine.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 22: IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY
Since Our Lady’s whole life was a life of her Heart, the Immaculate Heart represents her life, her love, herself. From the moment of Conception, Mary offered acts of faith, hope, love, praise, adoration, thanksgiving to the God who created her. Her one ambition was union with God, her desire to do His will; the light of grace found no obstacle in her pure soul. Her immaculate Heart was the throne of all virtue. Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is the complement of devotion to the Sacred Heart; in the one we honor Christ, the Redeemer; in the other, Mary, co-redemptrix.God was so pleased with His Masterpiece of creation, Mary, He willed to be born of her pure flesh and blood. By giving her consent, Mary became the channel through which Christ came to men; and this channel is the surest way to lead us back to God. It was Mary’s love for man, joined with and flowing from her love of God, that made her utter her Fiat – in that Fiat she gave consent to the Incarnation and to the Redemption. So also the Salvation of the world depends on Mary.Among Our Lady’s urgent requests at Fatima was the plea for devotion and consecration to her Immaculate Heart—our devotion to Mary is neither complete nor true, unless we are willing to give ourselves over to the object of our love; true devotion culminates in dedication or consecration. Consecration consists in an act, by which we promise Our Lady not only everything we possess, but our very selves as well; and this, not for a time, but forever; secondly, it is a STATE whereby we recognize God’s sovereign dominion by acknowledging Christ as our King, and Our Lady as our Queen, pledging them complete service and devotion.Our consecration, then, must be more than a well-written prayer, recited and then forgotten; it must be a vital, living state in which we recognize the importance of habitually belonging to Our Lady; to be fruitful it must inspire imitation. We must try to reshape our lives according to Our Lady’s, setting up a whole new pattern, studied at her feet, learned from the Rosary mysteries and modelled after her own Immaculate Heart.To consecrate means to remove from the profane and set apart as sacred; renouncing self-love; doing all in union with and for our Heavenly Queen; removing sin and all obstacles to perfect union of heart with hers. If we do this, Mary will teach us all virtue and the way that will lead us to God. If men become slaves to an art which ends with death, should we not become slaves of Mary, the music of whose Heart will sing out for all Eternity?Love will prompt this total submission, solid love of the will, ending in imitation and surrender. Our love for Mary must be so intense that we chain our hearts to hers by golden links of love, stronger than any base metal of earth; Mary will then govern our thoughts, words, deeds. Our life will have but one purpose – God’s glory. Our hearts will yearn only for her interests and her honor – which is God’s honor, too; all her intentions and dispositions will become ours. Her humility will replace our pride; her purity efface our impurity; her selflessness, wipe out our self-love; and all her virtues replace our sins. From her we will learn the meaning of prayer, mortification penance. Resting close to her Immaculate Heart, our own cold hearts will become enkindled with the Divine fire and grow ablaze with her burning love.Our lives thus surrendered to her can become like that of the angels, one continual song of praise; our hearts annihilated and lost within the sanctuary of her Immaculate Heart, will be able to sing truly, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 23: OUR LADY OF VICTORY OF VALOIS
On August 23 in the year 1328, Philip of Valois, being surrounded by Flemings near Mount Cassel, had recourse to the Blessed Virgin, who immediately delivered him from that danger. Out of gratitude for this favor, when he made his entry into Paris, he went straight to Notre Dame and going into the church on horseback he proceeded the whole length of the nave to the crucifix, and there laid down his arms. The picture of this monarch on horseback was for a long time to be seen in that church, to which he gave a revenue of 100 livres, to be levied on his domain of Gatinais.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 24: OUR LADY OF BENOITE-VAUX
The original statue of the Blessed Virgin at Benoite-Vaux (holy valley) in the diocese of Verdun, is said to have been found by foresters working in a wood.The statue was destroyed in the French Revolution; its successor, also very old, is said to resemble it, and was crowned in 1875. It is the center of a pilgrimage, especially in summer. There is another shrine of the same name in the diocese of Lyons.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 25: OUR LADY OF MARTYRS
The most famous church dedicated under what became this name is the Pantheon at Rome. It was originally built by Marcus Agrippa in 25 B.C., as a temple of Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and all the [false] gods. In 609 or 610 A.D. it was consecrated to God by Pope St. Boniface IV in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and All the Martyrs.From its round shape the church is commonly called Santa Maria Rotunda. Other churches likewise named St. Mary of the Martyrs are found in the shrine at Ossernenon, near Auriesville, New York, referring particularly to St. Isaac Jogues, St. John Lalande, St. Rene Goupil and the North American martyrs in general; in 1897 a church was built under the same invocation at Nagasaki, in honor of the Japanese martyrs put to death three centuries before. In 1147 King Alonso I of Portugal built a church at Lisbon in honor of Our Lady of the Martyrs and in memory of those who had fallen fighting against the Moors; it is a well-known shrine among the Portuguese. It has a special Mass and Office on the day of dedication, in honor of Our Lady of the Martyrs.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 26: OUR LADY OF CZESTOCHOWA
This most famous Polish sanctuary has grown up around an icon of the Mother of God attributed to St. Luke. It is a popular belief that it was brought from Constantinople by Princess Anna when she married St. Vladimir, grand-prince of Kiev, about the year 988; or that it was sent by one of the Comnenian emperors to a royal abbess at Polotsk. Certainly in the fourteenth century it was at Belz in western Ukriane, whence in 1382 it was taken and entrusted to the monks of St. Paul the hermit, newly arrived from Hungary, at Czestochowa, some 140 miles southwest of Warsaw.The image has ever since been the occasion of very great devotion and of numerous miracles. The great sanctuary is the heart of an amazing complex of churches, hostels, ancient fortifications, arcades and shops; it dominates the rocky hill below which modern industrial Czestochowa sprawls. The icon itself, which inspired a well-known ballad by Hilaire Belloc, is of uncertain age; it has been attributed to the ninth and the thirteenth centuries. It seems to be Greek, possibly Italo-Greek, in origin. It is of the Hodegetria type, Our Lady’s face, scarred by blows of a weapon; but it cannot ordinarily be seen properly because of its ornaments. It was crowned in 1726 and again in 1910.At the restoration of Poland, after World War I, Czestochowa was made a bishopric; the pilgrimage became more popular than ever, and the place, which as a fortress has played a most notable part in Polish military history, was confirmed as the National Shrine. In 1948, it was visited by 2,000,000 pilgrims. Several churches in the U.S. are dedicated in Mary’s honor under this title, which is often written Czenstochowa.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 27: OUR LADY OF MOUSTIER
Eight or ten leagues from Sisteron, in the direction of Marseilles, France, is the shrine of Our Lady of Moustier. An ancient tradition records that a lord of the country, captured by the Turks, made a vow to build a chapel in honor of the Blessed Virgin, if she were pleased to deliver him.The Blessed Virgin heard his prayer; an angel took him on his wings, and carried him back to his country. The nobleman erected a magnificent chapel to the Blessed Virgin where numerous miracles have been wrought.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 28: OUR LADY OF KIOVA OR KIEV
Around 862, a band of Norsemen settled in Novgorod and organized the Slavs of that region into an independent state – the nucleus of the future Russia. Kiev, about 20 years later, became the capital. By the end of the ninth century, missionaries from Constantinople had converted many of the inhabitants to Christianity.During the three succeeding centuries, Kiev became the intellectual and religious center of the country, and numerous convents and monasteries arose in Kiev and the surrounding territory. One of these was staffed by the Dominicans. To it there came in the early years of the thirteenth century a Dominican Father by the name of Hyacinth – St. Hyacinth, the Apostle of the North; also Apostle of Poland and Russia. Hyacinth had a burning ambition to convert the pagans and infidels of China, Mongolia and outer Russia (the tartans), to the Christian faith. In this dedicated task he made numerous journeys, mostly by foot, into the far countries lying beyond Kiev. During one of these rest periods (1240) word came to the monastery that the Mongols had invaded the country. They had marched across the Caucasus, swept over central and southern Russia and now Kiev itself was in imminent danger of attack by the pagan hordes. Hyacinth, on hearing the tragic news, rushed to the nearby church to save the Blessed Sacrament from capture and desecration. He had removed the Sacred Host from the Tabernacle and was hurrying down the aisle when, according to the story, he heard a voice call out, “Hyacinth, are you going to leave me here at the mercy of the Tartans?” The voice seemed to be coming from the statue of the blessed Virgin on one of the side altars. Hyacinth stopped and turned his gaze toward the statue which was of alabaster, fairly large in size, and obviously much too weighty for one man to carry. What should he do? Then the voice spoke again: “Take me with you, Hyacinth, I will make the burden light”. So, holding the Blessed Sacrament in one hand he picked up the statue with the other, and, to his surprise, found he could easily carry it. Leaving the church, he fled from the city, and saved the Blessed Sacrament and the statue of Our Lady from harm.Eighty years later after the Mongols had been driven away, the statue was returned to Kiev. That city became the center of great devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and it was natural that people soon gave the statue the name of Our Lady of Kiev.The statue was later taken to a Dominican convent in Lwow in Poland. What has happened to it, since the Communists took over Poland, is unknown. But surely, Our Lady still pleads to each one of us, “Take me with you; I will make the burden light.” She will always make all our burdens light and bearable, as long as we keep her with us always and everywhere.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 29: MADONNA DELLA GUARDIA
Near the top of Mount Figogna in the Italian Alps there is located a very beautiful shrine called Madonna Della Guardia.A few years before Columbus discovered America an Italian shepherd, after a morning of hard work, sat in the shade of a tree to await his wife who was bringing his lunch. A shaft of light pierced the heavens above him. Our Blessed lady appeared to him, holding her Divine Son in her arms. To his amazement she spoke to him. Her message was that he was to see to it that a church and shrine be built in her honor on this spot. How he, a poor shepherd, could accomplish this, he did not know. But at that moment he trusted the Mother of God.When his wife came with his lunch, he told her of his vision. She laughed at him, exclaiming that the sun was so hot that it must have affected him; like many a man before him, he took refuge in the safest of all weapons, silence. He decided he would do nothing about the shrine. Peace in the family came first.The next day while climbing a tree to pick some fruit, he fell and was severely injured. While in agony he promised that he would work for the building of a chapel. All of a sudden, Our Lady appeared to him, again telling him that his fall was a punishment, and requested her shrine. Immediately he was cured. The chapel and shrine were built according to the instructions of Our Lady. But because of the number of pilgrims who flocked to it, it was soon too small. Several others, larger and more ornate, have been built on the spot since. And devotion to the Madonna della Guardia has grown steadily—not only among the Italian people, but throughout the world, for many pilgrims have come to pay their homage to Our Blessed Lady.As she does at most of her favorite shrines, Our Lady has rewarded the love and devotion of her children. The shrine of the Madonna della Guardia has been witness to many extraordinary favors and miracles obtained through the intercession of Our Lady.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 30: OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
On a stormy night a man was driving with great difficulty a truck containing a heavy load of wine, close to the church of Eland in Germany. It was dark and a strong wind was blowing, the storm raged, and every moment it seemed harder to guide the heavy load along the almost impossible road.Now and then the man stopped, gazing into the darkness to see if he could find any hope of shelter. No sound but the echo of his own voice answered his cries for help. All remained desolate, dark, terrifying. No friendly light, no barking dog, no sign of a homestead was to be found. The storm kept lashing harder and harder. The lonely traveler grew more terrified when the truck suddenly sank in a deep place, and all his efforts could not move it from the spot! Loud were his cries for help, but they remained unanswered.In his anguish he at last cried out to the Mother of God, the hope of the despairing, to help him and deliver him from this danger.Suddenly he heard a rustling in the thicket and the form of a woman glided out of the darkness, a brilliant light floated round her; then the radiant figure approached the sunken truck, and with one touch of her hand it was drawn out of the deep mire.Thrilled by the vision, the man fell on his knees and poured out his heart to his Heavenly Deliverer, expressing his regret that he had no means to make an offering to her chapel close by.At this, she touched a thorny shrub, and instantly leaves and buds burst forth; the whole shrub was loaded with lovely lilies, breathing forth a wondrous and unknown perfume.The Queen of Heaven, for it was she, broke off one of the lilies and formed a chalice; as the man wondered if he might fill it with wine from his casks, the vision vanished.The man drove on to the chapel at Eland and entered to thank God for his deliverance, when lo! He recognized in the painting of Our Lady over the altar his gracious Deliverer, and placed the lily-chalice as an offering on her shrine. The fame of the miracle spread throughout Germany, and the Chapel of Our Lady became one of the most frequented shrines. Thus was one more example given to men of the sweet lovableness, and readiness to help all in need, of Our Mother, Lady of Deliverance.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
August 31: OUR LADY OF TABLES
This French sanctuary appears to have gotten its name from the ex voto tablets hung around it.It was resorted to from early times; its black wooden statue, enclosed within a large silver one, being so famed for miracles, that a special feast was already established in 1189.After suffering at the hands of the Huguenots, when the statue disappeared, the church was utterly destroyed at the revolution; but the “cultus” of Notre Dame des Tables was kept alive and carried on in the church of the Jesuits at Montpellier.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
