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The Apostolate for the Faith
MAY: The Month of MARY
Once more we come to the MONTH OF MARY, the month of springtime when all nature comes to life and the countryside is a blaze of colour. It has always been, for most of us, the time when we looked forward to the May processions in honour of the Mother of Christ when we sang of bringing the rarest and fairest of flowers to crown our blessed Mother, Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May. Yes, it was Mary’s month when our hearts were filled with joy and everybody had its own shrine to our Lady at which we gathered for the family rosary; and we gathered flowers to bring to school where there was a shrine in each classroom. Sadly we have to say that such devotion now is rarely seen; and the children know little or nothing about their heavenly Mother.
Devotion is not a mere matter of sentiment. Devotion to Mary is a Reverential and loving imitation of our heavenly Queen and Mother. It contains three elements: Veneration, Affection and Service.
Since the Blessed Virgin is the most perfect and most exalted of all purely created beings including the Angels, we can easily see her special claims to our reverence. First, her sinlessness. While every one born into this world was infected with the baneful consequences of Adam's sin of pride and disobedience – original sin – Mary, in view of the merits of her future Son, the divine Redeemer, was preserved from contracting this hereditary stain. Being the Woman destined to crush the power of Satan, she was conceived Immaculate. She was, at the same time, totally exempt from concupiscence and never for a moment swerved in the least from the Will of her Creator.
Secondly, She was full of Grace. St Thomas says, “A creature receives so much the more Grace as it is more closely united to God.” Never was man or angel admitted to so close a union with God as Mary enjoyed from the first moment of her existence, for she was destined to become the Mother of the Incarnate Word. Now Grace is not measured by quantity but by intensity. And this fullness of Grace was accompanied by a proportionate infusion of the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity; Prudence, Justice, humility and fortitude as well as a most copious outpouring of the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Thirdly, she possesses a still more powerful title to our Reverence namely her inconceivable dignity of Mother of God. God alone knows the true greatness of Mary, His Mother, because He alone knows His own infinite Greatness. The fact that she is the Mother of God is the foundation of her marvellous holiness, of her absolute freedom from sin and her perfect fullness of Grace. Hail then, Virgin Immaculate, Mary, Full of Grace, Mother of our Creator and Redeemer!
Holy Queen we bend before thee
Queen of purity divine;
Make us love thee, we implore thee,
Make us truly to be thine.
Thou by faith the gates unfolding
Of the kingdom in the skies.
Hast to us, by faith beholding,
Shown the land of Paradise.
Teach, O teach us, holy Mother,
How to conquer every sin;
How to love and help each other;
How the prize of life to win.
Thou to whom a Child was given
Greater than the sons of men,
Coming down from highest heaven
To create the world again.
O by that almighty Maker,
Whom thyself a Virgin bore —
O by thy supreme Creator,
Linked with thee for evermore.
By the hope thy name inspires,
By our doom reversed through thee,
Help us, Queen of angel-choirs,
To a blessed eternity.
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The Sacred Priesthood
Mary, being mother of Christ, is by that title Mother of the Eternal High Priest. Those who are called to Christ’s Sacred Priesthood should consequently have a fervent devotion to the Blessed Virgin. It would be a great blessing for Ireland and our people if the clergy once again looked to Mary their heavenly mother and reintroduced the May devotions of the past. With this in mind let us remind ourselves of the teaching of the Church in regard to the Sacred Priesthood.
St Paul tells us that every priest “taken from among men is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God; that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins;” if we ponder that for a moment, we surely realise that the priest, like his divine Master, must commit himself selflessly and totally to the care of souls. Not many priests realise the greatness of their calling. St Albert the Great tells us: “Forasmuch as no act can be more excellent than the consecration of the Body of Christ, there can be no order higher than the priesthood.” St John Chrysostom founds the sanctity of the priesthood, which in Bishop and priest is all one, upon the twofold jurisdiction over the natural and mystical Body of Christ — that is, upon the power of consecration and upon the power of absolution. “The priesthood of the Incarnate Son of God is the office He assumed for the redemption of the world by the oblation of Himself in the vestment of our manhood. He is Altar, Victim, and Priest, by an eternal consecration of Himself” (Cardinal Manning).
“The priesthood of Jesus Christ being the one, only, perpetual and universal priesthood, all priests consecrated under the New Law are made one with Him, and share in His own priesthood. One sacrifice has forever redeemed the world, and is offered continually in heaven and on earth; in heaven by the only Priest, before the eternal Altar; on earth by the multitude and succession of priests who are one with Him as partakers of His sacred priesthood ... the sacrifice they offer is not a representation only, but His true, real, and substantial Body and Blood offered at their hands.”
Blessed Columba Marmion tells us, “According to the divine plan, the glory which man must render to the Lord is outside the scope of natural religion; it ascends to the Holy Trinity through the Priesthood of Christ, the official mediator between heaven and earth . This is the splendid prerogative of the Priesthood of Christ and His priests: to offer to the Holy Trinity in the name of man and of the universe a homage of praise agreeable to God.”
Pondering these words on the nature of the priesthood should cause the words of St. Paul to be imprinted on every priest's heart: “Ordained for men in the things that appertain to God.” The priest must be in the world but not of it. Once a priest begins to spend time in worldly activities, then he is treading dangerous ground. Never should the priest flaunt himself in the “World of entertainment” seeking applause of men — that surely would be directly contradictory to his priesthood. The priest must be at all times the Alter Christus, another Christ who in persona Christi day by day offers to the Father the eternal oblation of Jesus Christ — and in that action ought to offer himself to his divine Master in body, soul, and spirit with all his faculties, powers and affections, in life and unto death.
“Thou art a priest forever.” With the imposition of the hands of the Bishop the character of Christ’s Sacred Priesthood is impressed indelibly on the powers of the soul, that is, on the intellect by way of light, and on the affections by way of love. The priesthood is ETERNAL — and every priest, when finally called out of this world, must, face to face with the Risen Christ, give an account of his stewardship as a priest.
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Reverence for the Most Blessed Sacrament.
I was in a large church where the reliquary of the Little Flower had been received. When I entered the church it was full to capacity. With the overflow crowd I was shepherded down the centre aisle to the Reliquary. It was then I noticed that the Blessed Sacrament had been exposed in a beautiful monstrance on the Altar table; there were two branch candleholders at some distance in the background. The people crowded round the Reliquary but paid no attention at all to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. It was then I noticed that all the assembly were seated; not one person was kneeling! It now seems to be the common practice not to kneel. This is what Cardinal Ratzinger has to say on the matter in his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy: “Kneeling does not come from any culture — it comes from the Bible and its knowledge of God. The word alone occurs fifty-nine times in the New Testament, twenty four of which are in the Apocalypse, the book of the heavenly liturgy, which is presented to the Church as the standard for her own liturgy. (Kneeling is) a specifically Christian word. It may well be that kneeling is alien to modern culture – in so far as it is a culture – for this culture has turned away from the Faith and no longer knows the One before Whom kneeling is the right, indeed the intrinsically necessary gesture. The man who learns to believe learns also to kneel, and a faith or a liturgy no longer familiar with kneeling would be sick at the core. Where it has been lost, kneeling must be rediscovered, so that, in our prayer, we remain in fellowship with the Apostles and Martyrs … indeed in union with Jesus Christ Himself.”
O Bread of heaven, beneath this veil
Thou dost my very God conceal;
My Jesus, dearest treasure, hail!
I love Thee and adoring kneel;
Each loving soul by Thee is fed
With Thy own Self in form of bread.
O Food of life, Thou Who dost give
The pledge of Immortality;
I live, no, ’tis not I that live;
God gives me life, God lives in me;
He feeds my soul, He guides my ways
And every grief with joy repays.
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