October 11: Feast of the Theotokos--The Divine Maternity of the Mother of God

In the liturgical calendar for the 1970 Roman Missal, there's an optional memorial today, that of Pope Saint John XXIII. October 11 was chosen as his feast day because that's the date on which he convoked the Second Vatican Council in 1962. But in the liturgical calendar of the 1962 Roman Missal, today is the feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, commemorating the decision of the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. that she is indeed the Mother of God, because Jesus is God from God, True God from God, True God and True Man. She is not just the mother of His "human nature"; she is the mother of His Divine Person.

As Saint John Henry Newman remonstrated with his old friend, E.B. Pusey, the Catholic Church believes what she believes about Mary because she believes what she believes about Jesus, rejecting the claims of Arius, Nestorius, and other heretics.

When Pope St. John XXIII convoked the Second Vatican Council on October 11, 1962, he mentioned this feast as an auspicious date on which to begin an ecumenical council:

Gaudet Mater Ecclesia quod, singulari Divinae Providentiae munere, optatissimus iam dies illuxit, quo, auspice Deipara Virgine, cuius materna dignitas hodie festo ritu recolitur, hic ad Beati Petri sepulcrum Concilium Oecumenicum Vaticanum Secundum sollemniter initium capit.

Here's some background about the Feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from a blog post I submitted to the National Catholic Register a few years ago:

On the Roman Calendar of the 1962 Missal promulgated by Pope St. John XXIII, Oct. 11 is the Feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This feast was proclaimed in an encyclical letter issued by Pope Pius XI on Dec. 25, 1931 in celebration of the anniversary of the great Council of Ephesus in 431, 1500 (one thousand, five hundred) years before.

[N.B.: Now, that's 1591 (one thousand, five hundred and ninety-one) years ago.]

Pope Pius XI reigned from 1922, succeeding Pope Benedict XV, and died in 1938, succeeded by Pope Pius XII. In his encyclical, Lux Veritatis, Pope Pius XI celebrated the history of the Council of Ephesus and explained how the doctrine of the Person of Jesus, Divinity Incarnate, was essential to Catholic teaching and devotion about the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Incipit—the first words—of this encyclical Lux Veritatis, refers to the light of truth found in the true understanding of history. One shining truth revealed by history, Pius XI declares, is that God is always with His Church, defending her in the midst of troubles, whether the troubles are from within or from without. He will protect “the integrity of the sacred deposit of Gospel truth.” (paragraph 2) . . .

The heresy of the priest Nestorius was that he “denied that wondrous and substantial union of the two natures which we call hypostatic; and for this reason he asserted that the Only begotten Word of God was not made man but was in human flesh, by indwelling, by good pleasure and by the power of operation.” Nestorius said that Jesus should be called Theophoros, or God-Bearer, like a prophet who had received God’s inspiration. If Jesus was not the Second Person of the Holy Trinity incarnate, with a human nature and human will (and a Divine nature and will), then Mary was not the Mother of God: she was not the Theotokos, but merely the Christotokos, the Mother of the human person Jesus. (pp. 9 and 10)

Please read the rest there.

Lord Jesus Christ, Only Begotten Son,
Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father,
You take away the sin of the world,
have mercy on us;
You take away the sin of the world,
receive our prayer;
You are seated at the right hand of the Father,
have mercy on us. (from the Gloria, the Angelic Hymn)

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Pope St. John XXIII, pray for us. Amen.

Image Credit (Public Domain): The image adorned with its Canonical crowns and jewel regalia, no longer attached today. The crowns are stored within the treasury department of Saint Peter’s Basilica.

Saint Francis Borgia, SJ

Phyllis McGinley wrote a book titled Saint-Watching in 1969; one of my History professors gave me a copy after I'd taken a class on Eighteenth Century English History--an independent study class--and I remember her comments about how unlikely "we" think a Borgia saint would be. The Borgias, so notorious for intrigue, poisoning, nepotism, a bad pope (Alexander VI), Cesare and Lucretia--and yet Francis Borgia, the former 4th Duke of Gandia, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, was canonized a saint in 1620.

He lived two vocations in one lifetime: first as a husband and father of eight and then, after the death of his wife Eleanor, as a Jesuit priest and the third Superior General of the Society of Jesus as this Loyola Press Ignatian Spirituality post explains (quoting Bert Ghezzi's Voices of the Saints):

St. Francis Borgia, a relative of Pope Alexander VI, King Ferdinand of Aragon, and Emperor Charles V, joined Spain’s imperial court at age eighteen. The next year he married Eleanor de Castro, who bore him eight children. In 1539, shortly after experiencing a religious conversion, Francis left the court but continued in public life as viceroy of Catalonia. At this time under the influence of Peter of Alcántara and Peter Favre, he progressed in prayer and the spiritual life.

In 1543, Francis succeeded his father as duke of Gandia, but when his wife died three years later he decided to become a Jesuit. He provided for his children and joined the society in 1550. While he preferred a quiet life of solitude, the Jesuits felt differently and promoted him so that he could use his great administrative talents for the church. In 1554, St. Ignatius appointed Francis commissary for Spain, where he founded twelve colleges and a novitiate. The Jesuits chose Francis as their general in 1565. His consolidation of the society and expansion of its ministry has caused him to be recognized as the second founder of the order. He established disciplined novitiates in every Jesuit province, writing regulations and books of spiritual instruction for them.

So he was Superior General during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, before the great Jesuit missions were founded for England. In reading his entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia, England is never even mentioned. Saint Francis Borgia was focused on Missions to the East and West Indies and establishing colleges and foundations in Europe. As the Jesuit historian Thomas McCoog explains, that situation had an impact in England:

Even within Jesuit Britain, Borgia is overlooked. With the exception of the Jesuit residential district in East Anglia, named in honour of Blessed Francis Borgia in 1625 after his beatification in 1624 – a name abandoned when the residence was re-branded as the College of the Holy Apostles after William, Lord Petre’s endowment in 1632 – the English and later British Province has dedicated nothing to him.

There is one intriguing comment in the Catholic Encyclopedia article, however, and that was Borgia's interest in liturgical music while serving Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor:

The newly-created Marquess of Lombay enjoyed a privileged station. Whenever the emperor was travelling or conducting a campaign, he confided to the young equerry the care of the empress, and on his return to Spain treated him as a confidant and friend. In 1535, Charles V led the expedition against Tunis unaccompanied by Borgia, but in the following year the favourite followed his sovereign on the unfortunate campaign in Provence. Besides the virtues which made him the model of the court and the personal attractions which made him its ornament, the Marquess of Lombay possessed a cultivated musical taste. He delighted above all in ecclesiastical compositions, and these display a remarkable contrapuntal style and bear witness to the skill of the composer, justifying indeed the assertion that, in the sixteenth century and prior to Palestrina, Borgia was one of the chief restorers of sacred music.

Also, as the University of Dayton website notes, Borgia, like Pope Francis today, was most devoted to the image of the Mother of God as the Salus Populi Romani. And this website, from Macau, highlights Saint Francis Borgia's influence on the diffusion of the image throughout the world:

It was only in the middle of the 16th century when Francis Borgia proposed the image to be installed permanently at the Pauline Chapel [of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome] in 1569. Until this time, copies of this image were never made. In this regard, [St.] Francis Borgia (1510-1572), then the third Superior General of the Society of Jesus, was the central figure. Likewise, the founder St Ignatius of Loyola as well as St Stanislaus Kostka were devoted to this image.

In June 1569, Pius V (1504-1572) granted the permission to reproduce the image. The order’s particular devotion to this image played a significant role in obtaining a mobility to elsewhere in the world. It was a revolutionary event, breaking with custom. The significance of this event is evidenced by the 17th century engraving of St Francis Borgia with the Salus Populi Romani Madonna in his hand, at the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu.

Saint Francis Borgia died on September 30, 1572. His feast was celebrated on the the Roman Calendar on October 10 until the revision in 1970. The Society of Jesus celebrate his feast on October 3.

Saint Francis Borgia, pray for us!