The Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary is an optional memorial celebrated in the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church on September 12. It has been a universal Roman Rite feast since 1684, when Pope Innocent XI included it in the General Roman Calendar to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

It was initially removed from the current Church calendar in the liturgical reform following Vatican II. But it was restored by Pope John Paul II in 2002 along with the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus in January.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the feast is celebrated on September 7 in the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate.

Promoters of veneration of the Holy Name of Mary include St. Anthony of Padua, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, & St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori. A number of religious orders such as the Cistercian & the Servites, customarily give each member “Mary” as part of their religious name as a sign of honor & of entrustment to the Virgin.

The feast is a counterpart to the Feast for the Holy Name of Jesus on January 3. Its object is to commemorate all the privileges granted upon Mary by God & all the graces received through her intercession & mediation.

The feast day began in 1513 as a local celebration in Cuenca, Spain, celebrated on September 15. In 1587, Pope Sixtus V moved the celebration to September 17. Pope Gregory XV extended the celebration to the Archdiocese of Toledo (Spain) in 1622.

In 1666, the Discalced Carmelites received permission to recite the Divine Office of the Name of Mary 4x a year. In 1671, the feast was extended to the whole Kingdom of Spain. From there, the feast spread. It soon extended to the Kingdom of Naples.

In 1683, the Polish King John Sobieski arrived in Vienna with his army. Before the Battle of Vienna, Sobieski placed his troops under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In 1684, to celebrate the victory, Pope Innocent XI added to the Roman calendar, assigning to it the Sunday within the Octave of the Nativity of Mary. An octave, in this case, is the 8th day after a feast, counted inclusively. So this always falls on the same day of the week as the feast itself. The Nativity of Mary refers to a Christian feast day celebrating the birth of the Virgin Mary.

The reform of Pope Pius X in 1911 restored to prominence the celebration of Sundays in their own right, avoiding their being replaced by celebrations from the sanctorale. The sanctorale is 1 of the 2 main cycles that, running concurrently, comprise the Liturgical year in Roman Catholicism, defined by the General Roman Calendar, & used by a variety of Christian denomination.

The celebration of the Holy Name of Mary was moved to September 12. Later in the same century, the feast was removed from the General Roman Calendar in 1969 as part of its reform by Pope Paul VI. As something of a duplication of the September 8 feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

But it didn’t cease to be a recognized celebration of the Roman Rite, being mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on September 12. In 2002, Pope John Paul II restored the celebration to the General Roman Calendar.

William Joseph Chaminade chose the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary as the patronal feast of the Society of Mary (Marianists). Rather than a day commemorating a particular dogma or devotion in order to focus on the person of Mary.

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Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church

I’m not sure if it’s that I’m getting older or that I have too many things to keep track of, but I find myself losing things, or losing my train of thought more often than I used to. I’m often grateful to Saint Anthony on those occasions! Saint Anthony is probably one of the best-known Catholic saints. As the patron for finding lost objects, I’m sure so many of us have prayed, “Tony, Tony, look around, something’s lost and can’t be found.”

But the real story of Saint Anthony centers around finding the way to Christ. His journey as the servant of God began as a very young man when he decided to join the Augustinians, giving up a future of wealth and power to follow God’s plan for his life. But later, when the bodies of the first Franciscan martyrs went through the Portuguese city where he was stationed, he was again filled with an intense longing to be one of those closest to Jesus himself: those who die for the Good News.

So Anthony entered the Franciscan Order and set out to preach to the Moors – a pretty dangerous thing to do. But an illness prevented him from achieving that goal. He went to Italy and was stationed in a small hermitage where he spent most of his time praying, reading the Scriptures and doing menial tasks. But that was not the end for Anthony’s dream of following God’s call. Recognized as a great man of prayer and a great Scripture scholar and theologian, Anthony became the first friar to teach theology to the other friars. Soon he was called from that post to preach to heretics, to use his profound knowledge of Scripture and theology to convert and reassure those who had been misled.

So yes, Saint Anthony is the patron of finding lost objects, but what I really think he wants to help us find, is our way to Christ. As a teacher, a scholar and a man of faith, he was devoted to his relationship with God. And so his intercession for us might go a little deeper than where we left our keys. Maybe we find ourselves today having lost track of our relationship with God in some way. Maybe our prayer isn’t as fervent as it once was. Or maybe we have found ourselves wrapped up in our own problems and unable to see God at work in us. Maybe our life is in disarray and we’re not sure how God is leading us. If we find ourselves in those kinds of situations today, we might do well to call on the intercession of Saint Anthony.

Saint Anthony, pray for us.

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#StAnthonyOfPadua

Thus your Reverence and lordship [García de Toledo, O.P.] should desire no other path even if you are at the summit of contemplation; on this road you walk safely. This Lord of ours is the one through whom all blessings come to us. He will teach us these things. In beholding His life we find that He is the best example.

What more do we desire than to have such a good friend at our side, who will not abandon us in our labors and tribulations, as friends in the world do? Blessed are they who truly love Him and always keep Him at their side!

Let us consider the glorious St. Paul: it doesn’t seem that any other name fell from his lips than that of Jesus, as coming from one who kept the Lord close to his heart. Once I had come to understand this truth, I carefully considered the lives of some of the saints, the great contemplatives, and found that they hadn’t taken any other path: St. Francis demonstrates this through the stigmata; St. Anthony of Padua, with the Infant; St. Bernard found his delight in the humanity; St. Catherine of Siena—and many others about whom your Reverence knows more than I.

Saint Teresa of Avila

The Book of Her Life, chap. 22, no. 7

Note: Translator and editor Father Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. notes that Father García de Toledo, O.P. was a nephew of the Count of Oropesa and a typical aristocrat in soul and blood. He went to America with the viceroy of Mexico and made his profession as a Dominican there in 1535. Returning to Spain, he became subprior in 1555 at Santo Tomás, the Dominican house in Avila, and served as one of Teresa’s trusted confessors. Suddenly and unexpectedly, he entered the pages of Teresa’s Book of Her Life when she met him in a church in Toledo in 1562. To him we owe the expanded version of her Life, with its extra little treatise on prayer (chs. 11–22) and its final chapters on the foundation of St. Joseph’s (chs. 32–40). Once Teresa received a message from God for him. The message was brief but all from God. And Teresa said, “he began to weep, for it penetrated to the depths of his being. And he is a tough man who could rule the world.”

Teresa of Avila, St. 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K; Rodriguez, O, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: This oil on canvas painting by Peter Paul Rubens executed between 1612 and 1614 shows a vision described by St. Teresa of Avila in her autobiography, chapter 38. On the eve of Pentecost 1569, the Holy Spirit appeared to her in the form of a brilliant dove with wings like mother-of-pearl. Teresa, wearing the habit of the Carmelite order, kneels with her hands held out in ecstasy, transfixed by the dove. Image credit: Museum Boijmans van Beuningen (Public domain)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/06/12/teresa-life22n7/

#contemplation #humanityOfChrist #inspiration #prayer #presenceOfGod #StAnthonyOfPadua #StBernard #StCatherineOfSiena #StFrancisOfAssisi #StPaul #StTeresaOfAvila