Preview: John Keble's "Ave Maria"

Since August is traditionally a month of special devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I thought it appropriate to highlight a Marian poem from John Keble's The Christian Year on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, August 17 (especially after celebrating the Solemnity of the Assumption). He included a poem on "The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary" in his survey of the feasts of the Anglican liturgical year. 

He takes, of course, a verse from Saint Luke's Gospel as his inspiration, "And the Angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women." (1:28), but Keble also goes on at the end of the poem to reference Luke chapter 11 ("And it happened that, when he was saying these things, a certain woman from the crowd, lifting up her voice, said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you.” Then he said, “Yes, but moreover: blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” 27-28):

Oh! Thou who deign’st to sympathise
With all our frail and fleshly ties,
   Maker yet Brother dear,
Forgive the too presumptuous thought,
If, calming wayward grief, I sought
   To gaze on Thee too near.

Yet sure ’twas not presumption, Lord,
’Twas Thine own comfortable word
   That made the lesson known:
Of all the dearest bonds we prove,
Thou countest sons and mothers’ love
   Most sacred, most Thine own.

When wandering here a little span,
Thou took’st on Thee to rescue man,
   Thou had’st no earthly sire:
That wedded love we prize so dear,
As if our heaven and home were here,
   It lit in Thee no fire.

On no sweet sister’s faithful breast
Wouldst Thou Thine aching forehead rest,
   On no kind brother lean:
But who, O perfect filial heart,
E’er did like Thee a true son’s part,
   Endearing, firm, serene?

Thou wept’st, meek maiden, mother mild,
Thou wept’st upon thy sinless Child,
   Thy very heart was riven:
And yet, what mourning matron here
Would deem thy sorrows bought too dear
   By all on this side Heaven?

A Son that never did amiss,
That never shamed His Mother’s kiss,
   Nor crossed her fondest prayer:
E’en from the tree He deigned to bow,
For her His agonised brow,
   Her, His sole earthly care.

Ave Maria! blessèd Maid!
Lily of Eden’s fragrant shade,
   Who can express the love
That nurtured thee so pure and sweet,
Making thy heart a shelter meet
   For Jesus’ holy dove?

Ave Maria!  Mother blest,
To whom, caressing and caressed,
   Clings the eternal Child;
Favoured beyond Archangels’ dream,
When first on Thee with tenderest gleam
   Thy new-born Saviour smiled:—

Ave Maria! thou whose name
All but adoring love may claim,
   Yet may we reach thy shrine;
For He, thy Son and Saviour, vows
To crown all lowly lofty brows
   With love and joy like thine.

Blessed is the womb that bare Him—blessed
The bosom where His lips were pressed,
   But rather blessed are they
Who hear His word and keep it well,
The living homes where Christ shall dwell,
   And never pass away.

He begins with meditation upon Our Lord, but turns soon to the relationship between Jesus and His Mother Mary. The use of "Ave Maria", a very Roman Catholic phrase, is balanced by Keble's reticence about devotion to the Mother of God ("All but adoring love may claim"), even though he hints at a coronation ("To crown all lowly lofty brows/With love and joy like thine.") I'd also call attention to the lovely reference to Mary at the foot of the Cross in the Gospel of John ("E’en from the tree He deigned to bow,/For her His agonised brow,/Her, His sole earthly care.") as a special aspect of Our Lord's love for His Mother, the Mother of God.

Nevertheless, his poem demonstrates the delicacy of the Oxford Movement leaders when they touched on matters that would seem "too Catholic" to some Anglicans. But when Newman prepared a sermon for the Annunciation in one of his Anglican Plain and Parochial Sermons, "The Reverence Due to the Virgin Mary" (Sermon 12 in Volume 2, with the verse from Luke 1:43 "From henceforth all generations shall call me blessed."), he seems to have to hinted at her sinlessness and virtue-- in contrast to our condition--although not according to our Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception:

Observe the lesson which we gain for ourselves from the history of the Blessed Virgin; that the highest graces of the soul may be matured in private, and without those fierce trials to which the many are exposed in order to their sanctification. So hard are our hearts, that affliction, pain, and anxiety are sent to humble us, and dispose us towards a true faith in the heavenly word, when preached to us. Yet it is only our extreme obstinacy of unbelief which renders this chastisement necessary. The aids which God gives under the Gospel Covenant, have power to renew and purify our hearts, without uncommon providences to discipline us into receiving them. God gives His Holy Spirit to us silently; and the silent duties of every day (it may be humbly hoped) are blest to the sufficient sanctification of thousands, whom the world knows not of. The Blessed Virgin is a memorial of this; and it is consoling as well as instructive to know it. When we quench the grace of Baptism, then it is that we need severe trials to restore us. This is the case of the multitude, whose best estate is that of chastisement, repentance, supplication, and absolution, again and again. But there are those who go on in a calm and unswerving course, learning day by day to love Him who has redeemed {137} them, and overcoming the sin of their nature by His heavenly grace, as the various temptations to evil successively present themselves. And, of these undefiled followers of the Lamb, the Blessed Mary is the chief. Strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, she "staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief;" she believed when Zacharias doubted,—with a faith like Abraham's she believed and was blessed for her belief, and had the performance of those things which were told her by the Lord. And when sorrow came upon her afterwards, it was but the blessed participation of her Son's sacred sorrows, not the sorrow of those who suffer for their sins.

Of course, as a Catholic priest, Newman would not only accept but defend the definition of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, engaging in a written debate with another old Oxford Movement friend, E. B. Pusey!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us! 

Preview: St. J.H. Newman and the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Since August is the month traditionally dedicated to devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we thought it appropriate to continue our Monday morning Summer Newman series on the Son Rise Morning Show on August 1st with some comments about Saint John Henry Newman's devotion to Mary, the Mother of God. Either Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim and I will discuss this topic at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern.

Please listen live here on EWTN or on your local EWTN affiliate.

In chapter four of the Apologia pro Vita Sua, Newman remembers the tug at his heart he was feeling as the Vicar of St. Mary's the Virgin and Fellow at Oriel College, founded in 1326 as "the College of the Blessed Virgin Mary":

In spite of my ingrained fears of Rome, and the decision of my reason and conscience against her usages, in spite of my affection for Oxford and Oriel, yet I had a secret longing love of Rome the Mother of English Christianity, and I had a true devotion to the Blessed Virgin, in whose College I lived, whose Altar I served, and whose Immaculate Purity I had in one of my earliest printed Sermons made much of. (p. 165)

Newman was on his "death-bed" as an Anglican when he felt that secret longing and true devotion, and I think we can safely say that when he became a Catholic he was able to demonstrate that love and devotion. In 1849, he published his Discourses to Mixed Congregations and included two sermons on the Blessed Virgin Mary, "The Glories of Mary for the Sake of her Son" and "On the Fitness of the Glories of Mary" in that volume.

In the first sermon, we can see that Newman recognizes (having experienced them) the difficulties those outside the Church have with what Catholics believe about the Mother of God and how we practice devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. After speaking about how "great truths of Revelation are all connected together and form a whole", he states:

I am going to apply this remark to the subject of the prerogatives with which the Church invests the Blessed Mother of God. They are startling and difficult to those whose imagination is not accustomed to them, and whose reason has not reflected on them; but the more carefully and religiously they are dwelt on, the more, I am sure, will they be found essential to the Catholic faith, and integral to the worship of Christ. This simply is the point which I shall insist on—disputable indeed by aliens from the Church, but most clear to her children—that the glories of Mary are for the sake of Jesus; and that we praise and bless her as the first of creatures, that we may confess Him as our sole Creator.

So his first thoughts are on the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity:

When the Eternal Word decreed to come on earth, He did not purpose, He did not work, by halves; but He came to be a man like any of us, to take a human soul and body, and to make them His own. He did not come in a mere apparent or accidental form, as Angels appear to men; nor did He merely over-shadow {345} an existing man, as He overshadows His saints, and call Him by the name of God; but He "was made flesh". He attached to Himself a manhood, and became as really and truly man as He was God, so that henceforth He was both God and man, or, in other words, He was One Person in two natures, divine and human. This is a mystery so marvellous, so difficult, that faith alone firmly receives it; the natural man may receive it for a while, may think he receives it, but never really receives it; begins, as soon as he has professed it, secretly to rebel against it, evades it, or revolts from it. This he has done from the first; even in the lifetime of the beloved disciple [St. John] men arose who said that our Lord had no body at all, or a body framed in the heavens, or that He did not suffer, but another suffered in His stead, or that He was but for a time possessed of the human form which was born and which suffered, coming into it at its baptism, and leaving it before its crucifixion, or, again, that He was a mere man. That "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," was too hard a thing for the unregenerate reason.

Then, after reviewing some of the history of how the Catholic Church developed our understanding of this truth through the early Church Councils, wrestling with how to define the truth of the Incarnation against the various heresies (Arianism, Apollinarism, Nestorianism, etc) that conflicted with what the Church believed, Newman concludes:

You see, then, my brethren, in this particular, the harmonious consistency of the revealed system, and the bearing of one doctrine upon another; Mary is exalted for the sake of Jesus. It was fitting that she, as being a creature, though the first of creatures, should have an office of ministration. She, as others, {349} came into the world to do a work, she had a mission to fulfil; her grace and her glory are not for her own sake, but for her Maker's; and to her is committed the custody of the Incarnation; this is her appointed office,—"A Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and they shall call His Name Emmanuel". As she was once on earth, and was personally the guardian of her Divine Child, as she carried Him in her womb, folded Him in her embrace, and suckled Him at her breast, so now, and to the latest hour of the Church, do her glories and the devotion paid her proclaim and define the right faith concerning Him as God and man. Every church which is dedicated to her, every altar which is raised under her invocation, every image which represents her, every litany in her praise, every Hail Mary for her continual memory, does but remind us that there was One who, though He was all-blessed from all eternity, yet for the sake of sinners, "did not shrink from the Virgin's womb". Thus she is the Turris Davidica, as the Church calls her, "the Tower of David"; the high and strong defence of the King of the true Israel; and hence the Church also addresses her in the Antiphon, as having "alone destroyed all heresies in the whole world".

And in the second sermon in that collection, he continues with the same theme, and with even more tender images of the human relationship between the Mother and her Son:

Now, as you know, it has been held from the first, and defined from an early age, that Mary is the Mother of God. She is not merely the Mother of our Lord's manhood, or of our Lord's body, but she is to be considered {362} the Mother of the Word Himself, the Word incarnate. God, in the person of the Word, the Second Person of the All-glorious Trinity, humbled Himself to become her Son. Non horruisti Virginis uterum, as the Church sings, "Thou didst not disdain the Virgin's womb" [in the Te Deum]. He took the substance of His human flesh from her, and clothed in it He lay within her; and He bore it about with Him after birth, as a sort of badge and witness that He, though God, was hers. He was nursed and tended by her; He was suckled by her; He lay in her arms. As time went on, He ministered to her, and obeyed her. He lived with her for thirty years, in one house, with an uninterrupted intercourse, and with only the saintly Joseph to share it with Him. She was the witness of His growth, of His joys, of His sorrows, of His prayers; she was blest with His smile, with the touch of His hand, with the whisper of His affection, with the expression of His thoughts and His feelings, for that length of time. Now, my brethren, what ought she to be, what is it becoming that she should be, who was so favoured?

These two longer sermons/discourses are most appropriate spiritual reading for the month of August.

In 1864 he answered his old Oxford Movement friend, E.B. Pusey, to defend the recent proclamation of the doctrine of Mary's Immaculate Conception with a public letter, but that's beyond the limits of these brief segments to get into!

In his Meditations and Devotions, he included a series of meditations on the Litany of Loretto for the month of May. He divided these meditations into four parts after two introductions to the month of May: The Immaculate Conception, The Annunciation, Our Lady's Dolours (Sorrows), and The Assumption.

Newman also wrote a Litany to the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be used from August 1 to 15 (the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady) for private devotion:

Heart of Mary, Pray for us.
Heart, after God’s own Heart, Pray for us.
Heart, in union with the Heart of Jesus, 
Heart, the vessel of the Holy Ghost,
Heart of Mary, shrine of the Trinity,
Heart of Mary, home of the Word,
Heart of Mary, immaculate in thy creation,
Heart of Mary, flooded with grace, {242}
Heart of Mary, blessed of all hearts,
Heart of Mary, Throne of glory,
Heart of Mary, Abyss of humbleness,
Heart of Mary, Victim of love,
Heart of Mary, nailed to the Cross,
Heart of Mary, comfort of the sad,
Heart of Mary, refuge of the sinner,
Heart of Mary, hope of the dying,
Heart of Mary, seat of mercy,

************************

O most merciful God, who for the salvation of sinners and the refuge of the wretched, hast made the Immaculate Heart of Mary most like in tenderness {243} and pity to the Heart of Jesus, grant that we, who now commemorate her most sweet and loving heart, may by her merits and intercession, ever live in the fellowship of the Hearts of both Mother and Son, through the same Christ our Lord.—Amen.

And for the rest of the month of August, he composed a Litany to the Holy Name of Mary.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image credit (Public Domain): Maria mit flammendem Herz; Hinterglasbild, 29 x 23 cm; Augsburg oder Murnau, 2. Hälfte 18. Jahrhundert

At the End of a Month of Solemnities

Image Credit (CC BY-SA 4.0)

From the Peterskirche, Vienna, Austria

June 2014 was like this June: packed with Solemnities. Homiletic & Pastoral Review ran this article of mine a year later when it was almost true:

This June is a very solemn month. There are six solemnities on the liturgical calendar: Pentecost Sunday, Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, and Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles. The first four are movable feasts, scheduled according to the date of Easter each year: Pentecost Sunday, 50 days after Easter, Trinity Sunday, a week after Pentecost Sunday; Corpus Christi, the Thursday after Trinity Sunday (usually moved to the Sunday following, in the U.S.); and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Friday after Corpus Christi. The Birth of St. John the Baptist is a fixed feast: June 24th. In Quebec, his feast is celebrated with parades and festivities since he is the patron saint of that Canadian province. The Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul is on June 29 . . .

For those who celebrated Ascension Thursday on Ascension Sunday, there were actually seven! 

Because this year the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, being fixed on June 29 and the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus--being a movable feast, based on the movable Solemnity of Corpus Christi, which is scheduled based on the date of Easter Sunday every year--is on June 28, we do not celebrate the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary this year. It would usually be on the Saturday after the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.

This is one of those orderly and hierarchical elements of Catholicism: there are distinctions between how we celebrate certain days. If you attend daily Mass with any regularity on these days you see the difference. 

Solemnities are the highest level of celebration: at Mass, we'll sing or recite the Gloria and the Nicene Creed, and there are three readings--just like a Sunday Mass. We begin the celebration of Solemnities the evening before with Vespers in the Divine Office. The readings are specific to the Solemnity and the other Propers highlight the celebration. Solemnities are often Holy days of Obligation.

Feasts are the next highest level: at Mass we'll sing or recite the Gloria but not the Creed and there is no vigil. (Except for the Feast of the Presentation!) Some readings will be required during Mass; for example, when the Feast celebrates an Apostle, a reading from the New Testament that mentions the saint will be obligatory; there are just two readings (Epistle and Gospel): Except for the Feast of the Presentation! It's an exceptional feast! When February 2 occurs on a Sunday the Feast of the Presentations takes precedence. (Perhaps it should be called a Solemnity?)

Memorials and optional memorials of saints are the next level: usually the Collect and other prayers mention the saint, but the readings are part of the cycle in the Lectionary. An optional memorial is just that: it is optional whether or not it is celebrated. 

On some days, there is more than one memorial to choose from, like January 23: Saint Vincent, Deacon and Martyr or Saint Marianne Cope, Virgin; February 8: Saint Jerome Emiliani or Saint Josephine Bakhita, Virgin; May 25: Saint Bede the Venerable, Priest and Doctor of the Church or Saint Gregory VII, Pope or Saint Mary Magdalene de’Pazzi, Virgin, etc. The priest may decide whom to commemorate according to the devotion of the parish. 

As this website summarizes it:

For complete details on the order of precedence, please consult the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the New General Roman Calendar issued by Pope Paul VI in 1969. Nevertheless, the basic rule of thumb is this: Sundays, other Solemnities, Holy Week, and the Octave of Easter always take precedence. These are followed by Feasts, weekdays of Advent (December 17-24), days within the Octave of Christmas, weekdays of Lent, obligatory memorials, optional memorials, weekdays of Advent (through December 16), other weekdays of the Christmas Season, other weekdays of the Easter Season, and weekdays in Ordinary Time.

Notice also from that website that religious communities, dioceses and even countries can celebrate a saint's memorial as a feast:

Particular churches, countries, or religious communities may also celebrate the memorials of other saints of “special significance” in accord with their special devotions. For example, the memorial in honor of the patron saint of a diocese is raised to a “feast.”

In the USA, for example, June 22 is the Memorial of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More. In England, it's a Feast! 

Note on the Calendar for England and Wales, the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul was moved to Sunday, June 30 so that the memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is celebrated today on Saturday, June 29.

Those "weekdays" when there is no memorial or feast to celebrate are also called ferial days, as this website explains:

In the revised liturgical calendar, a weekday on which no special feast or vigil is celebrated in the Mass or the Liturgy of the Hours. On ferial days the Mass may be that of the preceding Sunday, or an optional memorial, or a votive Mass, or a Mass for the deceased. During Advent and Lent ferial days are in a privileged category, and the same freedom in the choice of Masses is not allowed. In general, the Mondays through Fridays of each week are called ferial days (feriae) and are counted, in sequence, from two to six. Sunday, or the Lord's Day (Dominica), is always the first day, and Saturday (Sabbatum) is the seventh day of the week.

Feria means "free day"! On a ferial day, a priest may choose to celebrate a Votive Mass, like celebrating the Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on a ferial Friday.

For each liturgical year, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops publishes a calendar that contains notes about which feasts or memorials are celebrated and which aren't. For example:

7. Since the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is celebrated on June 28, 2019, the Memorial of Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr, is omitted this year. 

8. Since the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles, is celebrated on June 29, 2019, the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary is omitted this year. 

9. Since December 8, 2019, is the Second Sunday of Advent, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is transferred to Monday, December 9, 2019. The obligation to attend Mass, however, does not transfer. The Optional Memorial of Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, December 9, is omitted this year.

In spite of these variations, however, in her private devotions, any Catholic may observe a saint on his or her feast day. 

So: Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!