Contents

MARIOLOGY

Copyright Information Page

Dedication

Prefatory Note

Origin and Nature of Marian Cult

I. ORIGIN OF MARIAN CULT

II. THE NATURE OF MARIAN CULT

III. THE USEFULNESS OF MARIAN CULT

IV. THE NECESSITY OF MARIAN CULT

Feasts in Honor of Our Lady

I. UNIVERSAL FEASTS

II. FEASTS CELEBRATED IN SOME DIOCESES OR RELIGIOUS ORDERS

Mary’s Day and Mary’s Months

I. SATURDAY, MARY’S DAY

II. THE FIRST SATURDAYS DEVOTION

III. THE MONTH OF MAY

IV. OCTOBER, MONTH OF THE ROSARY

Marian Prayers

The Dominican Rosary

I. NATURE OF THE DOMINICAN ROSARY

II. ORIGIN OF THE ROSARY

III. EXCELLENCE OF THE ROSARY

IV. INDULGENCES FOR RECITING THE ROSARY

The Scapular Devotion

The Holy Slavery of Love

I. THE HISTORY OF “HOLY SLAVERY” PRIOR TO ST. LOUIS

II. TOTAL CONSECRATION ACCORDING TO ST. LOUIS

III. APPROVALS OF ST. LOUIS’ DOCTRINE

Filial Piety

The Immaculate Heart

I. HISTORY OF THE DEVOTION

II. THE OBJECT OF THE DEVOTION

III. THE PURPOSE OF THE DEVOTION

The Pious Practice of Expiation to Mary

Marian Orders and Congregations

I. ORDERS AND CONGREGATIONS OF MEN WITH A MARIAN NAME

II. NOTABLE MARIAN ORDERS AND CONGREGATIONS OF MEN WITHOUT A
MARIAN NAME

III. MARIAN SISTERHOODS IN THE UNITED STATES

Marian Confraternities

Marian Associations

The Sodalities of Our Lady

The Legion of Mary

Mariological Societies

Marian Centers, Libraries, and Publications

Marian Congresses

Marian Shrines and Apparitions

I. THE HOLY LAND

II. EUROPEAN SHRINES

III. AFRICA

IV. NORTH AMERICAN SHRINES

V. CENTRAL AMERICAN SHRINES

VI. SOUTH AMERICAN SHRINES

VII. ASIATIC SHRINES

Devotion to Our Lady in the United States

I. MARY’S PRIVILEGES

II. MEDIATRIX OF ALL GRACES

III. MARIOLOGY IN AMERICA

IV. OFFICIAL DEVOTION

V. MARIAN CHURCHES AND INSTITUTIONS

VI. MARIAN SHRINES

VII. NOVEL FORMS OF DEVOTION

The Blessed Virgin in Literature

Our Lady in Music

I. OUR LADY IN EARLY LITURGY

II. DOGMATIC THEMES

III. FIRST COMPOSITIONS AND FEASTS

IV. GREGORIAN MUSIC

V. THE MAJOR ANTIPHONS

VI. POLYPHONIC ERA

VII. THE CHANGE IN MUSICAL ART

VIII. MODERN TIMES

IX. CONTEMPORARY COMPOSITIONS

Our Lady in Art

I. CATACOMBS

II. BYZANTINE

III. GOTHIC

IV. THE RENAISSANCE

V. BAROQUE

VI. MODERN PERIOD

Our Lady and the Protestants

I. OUR LADY AND THE REFORMATION

II. CONTEMPORARY PROTESTANTS AND OUR LADY

III. THE CONTEMPORARY PROTESTANT MARIAN REVIVAL

MARIOLOGY

VOLUME 3

Edited by

Juniper B. Carol, OFM

Mediatrix Press

MMXIX

Copyright Information Page

Nihil Obstat:

Bede Babo, O.S.B. Censor librorum

Imprimatur:

✠ James . McNulty Bishop of Paterson

December 30, 1960

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doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the nihil
obstat and imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed.

Mariology, volume 3.

©Mediatrix Press, 2018

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volume ©Mediatrix Press. No part of this work may be reproduced in print or electronically except
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Cover art:

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Dedication

To His Excellency

The Most Reverend John J. Wright, D.D.

Bishop of Worcester

Episcopal Chairman of

The Mariological Society of America

Outstanding Promoter of Marian Studies

This Mariology Set Is Dedicated

With Sentiments of Profound Gratitude

Prefatory Note

CHRISTIANITY without Mary has been trenchantly appraised by a contemporary Protestant
divine as a veritable monstrosity. Phrased somewhat differently: Christianity with Mary in her
rightful place is the only Christianity that makes sense. If this is true in the speculative domain
of doctrine, it must be true also, a fortiori, in the province of cult and devotion. The laws of
interrelationship between the sphere of the mind and that of the heart obtain here as inexorably
as in any other human discipline.

Thus the publication of the present volume brings to its logical completion the rather
ambitious project of our Marian trilogy launched nearly a decade ago. Having patiently culled and
judiciously assembled the Mariological data scattered in the sources of revelation (Vol. I), and
having further expounded the various prerogatives of Our Lady in the systematic manner proper
to theology (Vol. II), there remained only to focus our attention on that vast field generically
known as Marian cult. The prime object, then, of the present work is simply to explore, in their
origin and development, the multiple manifestations of devotion to Mary which enrich every facet
of Catholic life. Since an adequate appraisal of Our Lady’s position in the scheme of salvation
could not but prompt her children to express outwardly their inner sentiments of gratitude and
dependence, the chapters we are now introducing may be rightly regarded as a logical sequel to
the topics discussed in the previous volumes of this set.

Originally scheduled to follow shortly after the second volume, the publication of the present
symposium was somewhat delayed by factors beyond the control of the editor and the publishers.
It is felt, nevertheless, that its timeliness, far from having diminished, is considerably enhanced
by the happy circumstance of the forthcoming General Council. We are now at a juncture in the
history of the Church in which the preponderant concern of theologians seems to center on
ecumenism. Essential to this movement is the noble endeavor of our Catholic people to familiarize
themselves with the origin, gradual development, and raison d’être of the Church’s devotional
practices, particularly in what concerns Our Blessed Lady. For it is precisely in this area that we
encounter some of the stumbling blocks which allegedly retard the much-hoped-for return of our
separated brethren to the source and center of doctrinal unity. Paradoxically, it is also in this very
area that the hope of reunion lies. If Our Blessed Lady is properly styled the “Destroyer of All
Heresies” and the “Channel of All Graces,” then it stands to reason that the cult of which she is
the object cannot but exert a profoundly beneficial influence on the complex and delicate process
of reuniting all God’s children into the one fold of salvation.

As a matter of fact, the increasing interest in devotion to Mary noticeable within certain
Protestant groups already constitutes a very promising index of tangible progress toward reunion.
In this respect, the pages contributed to this symposium by the Rev. Dr. Kenneth F. Dougherty,
S.A., are both revealing and encouraging indeed. To be sure, we still have with us a Paul Tillich
in Harvard, a John Mackay in Princeton, and the ubiquitous tracts of the Swiss Karl Barth
monotonously lamenting our “heretical” aberrations in matters Mariological. But in our Christian
optimism we like to feel that their voices are becoming more isolated and less representative of
their own denominations. At any rate, the contents of the present symposium, particularly the
masterful chapter by the Rev. Dr. John F. Murphy, should do much toward dispelling the last
vestiges of misunderstanding in the minds of our sincere brethren outside the fold. It is with this
cherished hope in our hearts that we now submit these essays to the thoughtful consideration of
our readers in the English-speaking world.

On the completion of this volume — perhaps our last tribute to Mary in this form — it is our
pleasant duty to congratulate the publishers on the competence and skill evidenced in the
technical presentation of this work, and to express our sincere appreciation to the various
collaborators for their stimulating and well-documented contributions. We make a particularly
grateful and prayerful memento for that zealous apostle of Mary, the Very Rev. Peter A. Resch,
S.M., who has in the meantime answered the summons to his eternal reward.

Rev. Dr. J. B. Carol, O.F.M.

Editor

February 11, 1961

Origin and Nature of Marian Cult

by REV. JOHN F. MURPHY, S.T.D.

DEVOTION to Our Lady is a thing of grandeur. It has brought warmth and richness to man’s
service of God; it has added depth and beauty to man’s cultural achievements.

As in her mortal life or in the development of Sacred Theology, so too in the history of Marian
veneration the Mother of God is associated always with Christ. With Him she forms both
cornerstone and capstone in the structure and economy of salvation. Not only did she bring the
Incarnate Word into the world; she shared intimately also in the work He came to accomplish, the
redemption of men. Therefore, because of the full implications of her relationship with God and
man, she occupies a unique and exalted place in Christian life, and in the dogma, liturgy, and
general veneration of the Church.

It seems natural that down through the centuries the best minds of Christianity should have
sung the praises of Mary ... “all generations shall call her blessed, the Mother of God, the Mistress
of the world, the Queen of heaven ... who has given life and glory to all generations. For in her the
angels find joy, the just grace, and sinners forgiveness. Deservedly the eyes of all creatures are
turned toward her, because in her, by her, and from her the benign hand of the Almighty re-created that which He had already made.”
1

Without question, after the example of Christ, Mary is the greatest external grace the human
soul encounters during life. To us Mary is Our Mother and Our Queen. Christ has given her to us
as among His greatest gifts, and it is His wish that we honor her as He honors her and love her
even as He loves her.

As Mary among all creatures held and will hold forever the first place in the Heart of Christ,
so also Christ wishes that, next to our love for Him and our worship of the Triune God, His
Blessed Mother should be the principal object of our devotion. To honor Mary is not simply to do
Christ’s will, for because of the union of Mother and Son, to honor Mary is to honor Our Lord
Himself. To know, love, and serve Mary is to know, love, and serve Christ.

We are concerned here with the origin, necessity, and usefulness of Marian veneration, and
for the present, therefore, with the earliest beginnings of devotion to the Mother of God in the
history of the Church.
2

I. ORIGIN OF MARIAN CULT

A realization of the significance of the Mother of God was part of Christian consciousness
from the earliest times, for from its very inception Mary was always associated with the
redemptive work of her Divine Son. In fact, her Fiat gave it reality.

Certainly the Mother of God, like all great mysteries in the Christian dispensation, had been
anticipated in the literature of the Old Testament.
3 Quite plainly in the Protoevangelium, in the
prophecies of Isaias concerning the virgin birth, and in the prophecy of Micheas concerning
Bethlehem, as well as in the references to created Wisdom and to the types of the Virgin, there is
revealed a portion of dogmatic truth which in later centuries naturally helped form the basis of
orthodox Marian veneration.

Even today, the Liturgies of the East and the West, capturing much of their richness from Old
Testament types and prophecies, give testimony to the ancient sources of Marian cult.

It is, of course, in what we call Our Lady’s Gospel, the first two chapters of St. Luke, and in
other pertinent New Testament passages

that we find the concrete portraits of the Blessed Mother which were to influence the course
and development of devotion to Mary in subsequent centuries.
4

If the Apostles themselves and their contemporaries seem not to celebrate Mary’s glory in any
external and obvious way, it is adequately explained by the fact that the attention of the faithful
was at first directed entirely to Christ Himself, whose glory and preeminence had first to be firmly
established before it could reflect upon anyone associated with Him.

At the same time, in the historical narrative of the New Testament Mary habitually appears
in the Gospel scene in circumstances which reveal her unique association with Christ and His
work, and significantly indicate her position of singular importance. Especially St. Luke pondered
over the association of Christ and His Mother and the sublimity of her vocation. The simple and
seemingly incidental references to Mary in the New Testament in general are of such nature as
to indicate that the contemporary eyewitnesses of Gospel times would necessarily have felt a
personal love and veneration for Our Lady long before any liturgical cult could have been born.

Consequently, the point must be made that the historical and theological foundations upon
which the framework of Marian devotion rests were actually laid in the first century.
5 To deny this
is to discount the fact of Mary’s presence in the early Church. “All these with one mind continued
steadfastly in prayer with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren” (Acts
1:14).

Rather than positing a hypothesis, then, as to the specific where and when of the earliest
manifestations of Marian cult, it would seem better to describe it as a gradual realization and
growing practice from the earliest times.

Cultus, as we understand it in reference to creatures and implying direct invocation, appears
in its earliest unmistakable manifestations in the honor and respect shown the early martyrs. The
martyrs of the early Church were considered the most perfect imitators of Christ and able to
intercede for men left behind in the warfare of life.
6

Perhaps largely as an outgrowth of such devotion the early Christians saw clearly the logic
of seeking Mary’s intercession. On the other hand, it is most reasonable to expect that Marian
veneration developed also in the wake of Christological clarifications in a parallel and
complementary, if somewhat belated fashion, through the customary channels of the teaching
Church.

Certainly, when personal devotion to Our Lady first appeared in actual literary expression, it
broke forth in a richness and energy that indicated an earlier widespread appreciation.
7 The
literature which we consider the authoritative expression of Christian tradition is preceded by
testimony of Marian cult both in the catacombs and in apocryphal writings.
8

If we are to measure only direct concrete evidences of Marian cult which remain today and
bear up under historical scrutiny, however, we might say that devotion to Mary was born in the
catacombs.
9

In the catacombs Mary is depicted in both historical and symbolical representation. In the
latter, where she is more than simply part of a scriptural scene, she is portrayed both with and
without the Divine Child.
10

The oldest and one of the most beautiful frescoes of the Blessed Virgin is that found in a very
early part of the catacomb of St. Priscilla. This is the famous fresco of Mary, Infant, Isaias
presumably, and the star of Divinity. It dates from the first half of the second century.
11

Of the best known images from the second and third centuries, three more are found in this
same apostolic cemetery of Priscilla. One shows Mary and child as a model of virginity, a second
presents a scene of the adoration of the Wise Men, and a third is an Annunciation scene.
12

Most commonly in the catacombs Mary is represented with the Christ Child and the Magi. In
the catacomb of St. Domitilla she is portrayed with the Child and four approaching Eastern Kings,
and elsewhere in the same catacomb with three Magi.

In the cemetery of St. Callixtus on the Appian Way there is a scene of similar make-up. In the
catacomb of SS. Peter and Marcellinus she appears with but two Wise Men.

Finally, of the more famous Mother and Child frescoes, there is the striking monogramed
representation in the catacomb of St. Agnes on the Via Nomentana.
13 In this cemetery, too, is
found the sketch of Mary with arms outstretched between SS. Peter and Paul.
14

Without the Christ Child Mary appears in other paintings as an Orans. These are not always
easily identified, but the appearance of the name Maria on some gilded glass pieces of the third
and fourth centuries removes any possible doubt in many cases.

The number of representations of Mary and especially the locations where they are found
indicate that she was not considered a mere historical personage. Her image on the tombs was a
sign of protection and defense, indicating reverence. Here she is not merely an ornament or part
of an historical scene as she may be when her image appears over the large center vaults in the
catacombs. Consequently, the testimony of prayer is here added to that of simple ornamental
portrayal, for she is recognized as a mediator before her Divine Son.
15

The testimony of our literary heritage confirms what these artistic endeavors established. The
Patristic concept of Mary as the Second Eve goes back to our earliest writers, Justin,
16 Irenaeus,
17
Tertullian,
18 and Origen.
19 The Apocrypha, too, though of little historical value, indicate the
customs and beliefs of early Christian times.
20

In reference to Marian cult our chief concern is with the earliest testimony of direct invocation
of the Mother of Jesus. In Irenaeus Mary appears as the Advocate of Eve. In St. Gregory
Thaumaturgus Mary is depicted in heaven as helping those on earth. For cases of simple address
our earliest chief examples are perhaps the many in St. Ephraem’s sermons. The first recorded
example of direct supplication seems to be that found in a sermon of St. Gregory Nazianzen (330-389).
21 Further examples undeniably explicit in testifying to a devotion to Mary are prominent in
St. Ambrose and St. Epiphanius.
22

Liturgically, it is difficult to assign a specific date for the prevalence of Marian cult. There is
obvious proof of its widespread practice by the fourth century, but again its appearance is gradual.
The establishment of feasts in honor of Our Lady was retarded by the uncertainty of dates,
absence of relics, and the custom of not separating Our Lady’s feasts from Our Lord’s.
23

Again, our historical testimony carries us back at least to the fourth century when the Offering
in the Temple, called the Hypapante in the East, or in the West the Purification, was celebrated.
Even of earlier origin are perhaps the Feasts of the Conception of Christ, March 25, and the
Nativity. Earliest of all is perhaps the Feast of the Epiphany. Only after the Council of Ephesus
(431) did separate feasts of Our Lady find their way into the liturgical calendar beginning probably
with the Feast of her Nativity, or the Commemoration of Mary honoring her Divine Maternity and
the Virginal Conception of Christ.
24

Proof of liturgical prayer honoring Mary can be established in the East as early as c. 600 from
fragments bearing variations of the Hail Mary. However, the Sub tuum praesidium has been
discovered to date from the fourth or even perhaps the third century, and is therefore considered
the most ancient prayer in honor of the Mother of God.
25

Several other Marian prayers and antiphons are attributed by some authors to apostolic times;
however, extant manuscripts do not antedate the seventh century.
26

The earliest churches dedicated to Mary appear to be those founded by the Empress Pulcheria
in Constantinople in the fifth century. However, the Council of Ephesus (431) which proclaimed
Mary the Mother of God, and consequently with ecclesiastical sanction offered her to the faithful
for veneration, was held in a church dedicated to her name. Some kind of church under her
protection existed in Jerusalem before the death of Bishop Juvenal, c. 458. And in Rome, both the
Liberian Basilica and Sta. Maria in Trastevere gave public acclaim to the Mother of God before the
sixth century.
27

Once the Council of Ephesus offered ecclesiastical approbation, and the liturgy as such saw
enrichment through the enhancement of Marian cult, both throughout the East and the West the
veneration of the Mother of God increased with magnificent splendor. Soon her image and her
name were everywhere to be found. To write of Mary in subsequent centuries is to write the entire
history of the age.

It is established, then, as Catholic theology teaches, that the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary
finds its source in the Gospels and in Apostolic times. In Sacred Scripture are offered the objective
elements for cult which spontaneously evoked the subjective element of submission and
veneration in ensuing decades.

The glory due the Son necessarily overflows upon His Mother. Her dignity, sanctity, and
power are indicated in the Gospels (Lk. 1:28; 1:44; Jn. 2:1-11). “Blessed is the womb that bore thee
and the breasts that nursed thee” (Lk. 11:27). “Behold, all generations shall call me blessed” (Lk.
1:48).

The universal tradition of the cultus of Our Lady appears as no unique exception in doctrinal
or devotional development. It rather follows the traditional course of theological and religious
processes even as in the case of Christ, from whose person Mary is never separated.

There remains to be mentioned the two ordinary objections proffered against the traditional
Catholic position. First, that devotion to Mary had its source in early pagan rites, and again that
it arose in response to some vague mystic impulse.

In answer to the first objection it is quite obvious that true Marian cult always differed both
in nature and in its effects from any pagan rite. Pagan worship attributed divinity to its goddesses,
and strangely enough at the same time, often turpitude. In the Christian tradition any such
leanings or corruption were quickly condemned by the teaching Church.
28

In the conversion of the pagans, the veneration of Mary may have succeeded an earlier
idolatry, but as a vastly superior, appealing, and more dignified pattern of honor and respect, it
could have found nothing to draw from pagan rites.

To indicate that the cult of the Blessed Virgin grew out of some vague mystic urge is to forget
the sound historical and theological basis for Catholic traditions in Marian devotion. From the
beginning a concrete image of Mary and her association with Christ existed in the minds of the
faithful to be further delineated by the teaching Magisterium. Moreover, the fullness of the
Christian dispensation supplies completely for any human psychic need long before it arises as
some vague mystic impulse.
29

From the above it is clear, then, that devotion to Our Lady is scripturally and historically the
heritage of an ancient Christian faith. It remains for us to see that it is also theologically legitimate
and religiously fruitful.

II. THE NATURE OF MARIAN CULT

To honor Mary is to glorify God. The grace of divine Motherhood makes Our Lady pre-eminent among all creatures; her extraordinary privileges and her singular offices imply a unique
dignity. Moreover, her role as Mother of men implies on the part of all mankind a relationship of
dependence upon her. As her subjects and spiritual children we need her mediation and
intercession, and we owe her our gratitude and love. It is our privilege to render her cult, to be
devoted to her, and in honoring her to honor God.
30

In the framework of the virtues whereby we perform acts honoring God, there is annexed to
the cardinal virtue of justice as one of its potential parts, that noble moral virtue which inclines
man to show due cult to God as the first principle of all things — the virtue of religion.
31 The virtue
of religion has as its material object divine cult or worship, and as its chief interior act, that of
devotion.
32

In general, we define cult as the manifestation of submission and acknowledgment of
dependence shown toward the excellence of another;
33 or, according to St. John Damascene’s
classical definition, “the evidence of subjection ... that is to say, the sign of submission and
abasement, of deference and reverence.”
34

In the concept of cult we must distinguish two elements, the material and the formal.
Considered materially, cult means any deferential act, external or internal, which we perform in
recognition of another person’s excellence to excite in ourselves or others the esteem we ought
to have for this excellence; considered formally, it means the esteem itself due such excellence.

Ordinarily understood, cult implies three acts: intellectual recognition of another’s excellence,
voluntary submission, and an act expressing this recognition and submission. If this cult is offered
to a person whose excellence is uncreated, it is called latria; if to a person whose excellence is
created, it is called dulia.
35 If, however, this created excellence is altogether and entirely singular,
as in the case of the Blessed Mother, the cult offered is called hyperdulia.
36

Cult is absolute, if rendered to an object because of that object’s own excellence; relative, if
offered because of the excellence of another object morally connected with the former object. Cult
may be internal or external, private or public.

Devotion, in its specific meaning, is the first act of the virtue of religion,
37 and ought to be
considered in a wider sense than divine cult,
38 for it includes something beyond such cult, namely,
the will to recognize promptly, with alacrity and eagerness, the excellence of the Supreme Being.

Participating in the virtue of religion, moreover, is the virtue of supernatural dulia and
consequently that of hyperdulia. Accordingly, the devotion we manifest toward Our Lady, though
immediately elicited by hyperdulia, does not for that reason fail to participate in the nature of that
devotion which is the act of the virtue of religion. The devotion one has to God’s saints does not
terminate in them, but reaches even to God in the servants of God.
39

Moreover, since the formal object of every act of religious cult is the supernatural dignity,
excellence, or perfection of the persons venerated or worshiped, we distinguish different kinds and
degrees of cult according to the various species or degrees of perfection inherent in the persons
themselves.

Now the privileges of the Blessed Mother upon which hyperdulia is founded differ in degree
and nature from those of the saints which cause us to venerate them. Mary shares more than the
ordinary grace of adoptive filiation. To her is attributed the plenitude of grace, and over and above
this great gift is added the specifically distinct privilege of special affinity to God, the grace of
Divine Motherhood. Mary, as the Mother of God, enjoys an altogether unique excellence and a
dignity by far transcending that of any other creature. In bringing forth Jesus, she brought forth
God and enjoys therefore a special relationship not only with the Second Person of the Blessed
Trinity, but mediately, through Him, with the other Persons of the Godhead. All other creatures,
even St. Joseph, no matter how closely associated with Christ, pertain to the Hypostatic Union
only extrinsically; the Blessed Mother, however, intrinsically.
40 The inherent dignity of this calling
of Mary as the Mother of God required a corresponding worthiness on the part of the recipient
and gave her a position entirely unique among all creatures. Abstracting from the divine
Maternity, however, the cult due the Blessed Virgin would be simply that of dulia; but in that she
is really and truly the Mother of God, this foundation and root of all other graces and privileges
proper to her gives her the right to the specifically distinct and superior type of veneration called
hyperdulia.
41

Veneration is due the Blessed Virgin, then, because of her extraordinary sanctity, for the
higher the dignity and holiness of a person, the greater is his or her claim to veneration and
respect. Our Blessed Mother possessed holiness in a far more eminent degree than any of the
angels or saints. She possessed a singular excellence. Pope Pius XII says: “... her life is most closely
linked with the mysteries of Jesus Christ, and there is no one who has followed in the footsteps
of the Incarnate Word more closely and with more merit than she: and no one has more grace and
power over the Sacred Heart of the Son of God and through Him with the Heavenly Father.”
42
Further, her office of Coredemptrix, whereby she co-operated with Christ in our Redemption, her
role as Mediatrix of all graces, and her position as Spiritual Mother of all men and Queen of the
Universe give her a title to cult due in no way to any other saint. Especially, however, it is her
divine Maternity that constitutes the ultimate basis and measure of veneration due her, and
remains the privilege which entitles her to the special cult of hyperdulia.

Mary co-operated physically and morally in the Incarnation. She was the means and the
instrument of the Holy Spirit in bringing about the Hypostatic Union of the Divine Word and
human nature. The objective dignity of Mary’s Motherhood places her in a position entirely
unique among all created beings. It elevates her to a position next to her Incarnate Son in the
hierarchy of rational creatures and places her as an intermediary between God and the universe.
43

Moreover, this sublime dignity and excellence of divine Motherhood is not a quality, but a
relation, and as such may be considered to have a certain infinity. It is infinite not in an absolute
sense, yet in a very real sense in that the term of this relation is a Divine Person. It is a reflection
of the essentially infinite dignity of God. Apart from the Godhead, no higher dignity is
conceivable. Thus the entirely unique dignity of Mother of God cannot be equaled, and is, in fact,
beyond comparison with that of any other created person.
44

This ineffable dignity proper to the Blessed Virgin is seen as the root and reason for all her
extraordinary privileges and gifts. Mary’s maternal relationship with her Divine Son appears as
the distinguishing mark of her person, and might well be defined, not simply as a physiological
relation of mother to offspring, nor simply as an office given her by God endowed with special
graces, but further, as a supernatural spiritual union of the person of Mary with that of her divine
Son, a union which implies a most intimate affinity and relationship with the Blessed Trinity. The
dignity of the Blessed Mother, arising not simply from her physical maternity but also from her
affinity to God consequent upon it, is seen as belonging to the hypostatic order, for the Blessed
Virgin, in becoming the Mother of God, proximately and efficaciously co-operated with the Holy
Spirit in bringing about the Hypostatic Union. Without question, there does not exist a more
perfect association between a created personality and God.

The Divine Maternity is, then, the basic motive for the cult of hyperdulia, which special
veneration is due Mary not because of her fullness of grace alone, or her pre-eminence among
men, but because she is really and truly the Mother of God.

Consequently, the Divine Maternity remains the foundation for every type or aspect of Marian
veneration. When we honor Mary through any special cult, e.g., in recognizing a mystery of her
life, as the Immaculate Conception, or a special virtue, as her purity, or something pertaining to
her person, as her heart, we ultimately honor her entire person and implicitly recognize her as
God’s Mother. In every case the type of veneration offered possesses the rank of hyperdulia.
45

From the point of view of our recognizing the various privileges and the offices of the Blessed
Mother, Marian cult in general consists of a number of constitutive elements or acts. We speak of
the cult of honor and respect to Mary, recognizing her especially as God’s Mother, and the cult of
filial and reciprocated love, acknowledging her as our spiritual Mother. We offer also the cult of
gratitude, based on Mary’s title and function as Coredemptrix; the cult of invocation or
supplication, based on Mary’s role as Dispensatrix of all graces; and the cult of imitation,
recognizing Mary, after Christ, as the perfect model of all the virtues. Finally, we offer Mary the
cult of loyalty and obedience as Queen of heaven and earth.
46

These elements in Marian veneration are naturally interrelated just as are the offices and
privileges of Mary which evoke them. They formulate the pattern of a complete appreciation on
the part of the Church and her members of Mary’s position of grandeur in the Christian
dispensation.
47

The legitimacy of Marian cult is easily defended; her excellence is of incomparably greater
degree than that of any other creature, and it is both proper and beneficial to honor even these
lesser creatures.
48 Pope Pius XII has with brevity and precision given expression to the logic and
propriety of such cult. “The Christian people should honor the Saints in heaven to implore their
help that we be aided by the pleadings of those whose praise is our delight.”
49

In venerating the saints or the Blessed Mother, whenever we honor some virtue or some great
work in their lives, in reality our honor refers to their entire person, for all cult terminates in the
person, and any object or quality of an individual looks in its final analysis toward the whole
subsistent being.
50 All cult rendered to the Blessed Mother, then, all types of devotion shown here,
are directed ultimately to her person as such. Hence the legitimacy of offering cult to her Heart,
her relics, and her images.

The multiple objections against the legitimacy of Marian veneration down through the ages
of Christianity can be reduced more or less to the following difficulties: that it is derogatory to
divine cult, usurping or competing with the place of Christ in man’s redemption; that it is not in
keeping with the place and position accorded Mary in the New Testament; and that it contains an
element of overemphasis or even superstition, at least in the minds of a vast number of unlettered
Catholics.
51

In the teaching of the Church the cult of latria is offered to God alone, and the cult offered
Mary, that of hyperdulia, by its very nature does not detract from but rather redounds to the glory
of her Son. To know and appreciate the wonder of God’s creation is to know and appreciate better
God Himself. Further, history gives testimony to the fact that faith in the divinity of Christ and
orthodoxy of doctrine in reference to the nature of the Incarnation are best preserved in those
areas where devotion to Mary has flourished. New Testament references to Mary are not
abundant, but their significance and their implications far outweigh any evidence formulated
through arguments from the silence of the Gospels.

Finally, since acts of cult honoring Mary are normally appealing and highly perceptible to the
senses, it is possible for some to perform acts of veneration with exceptional intensity. But even
such honor is displayed with the realization that the cult of the Godhead is of superior nature.

To ignore the mediators whom God in His providence has given us for our salvation is a costly
imprudence. In practice, devotion to Mary will increase one’s devotion to Almighty God.
52

“Among the Saints in heaven the Virgin Mary Mother of God is venerated in a special way.
Holier than the Cherubim and Seraphim, she enjoys unquestionably greater glory than all the
other saints for she is ‘full of grace,’ she is the Mother of God, who happily gave birth to the
Redeemer for us... Let us all confidently place ourselves and all we have under her patronage... She
gives us her Son and with Him all the help we need, for God ‘wished us to have everything
through Mary.’ ”
53

III. THE USEFULNESS OF MARIAN CULT

“What graces may we not promise ourselves from Mary, sinners though we are, in life and in
the agonies of death!”
54 These words of Pope Leo XIII indicate the power and will of Our Blessed
Lady to help her spiritual children, a reality which the Sacred Liturgy never ceases to echo and re-echo throughout the Church year.

The benefits of Marian cult, both individual and social, are, of course, a matter of historical
record as well as theological fact. Everywhere, and in every age, devotion to the Mother of God
has been the source of countless blessings and the inspiration for the greatest human
achievements.
55

From the point of view of the individual, the honoring of Mary is salutary not only during life,
but in a special way at the end of life, and in the life to come.

During one’s lifetime devotion to Mary is beneficial in three ways: as the source of special
graces, as the basis for a strong motivation to virtue in the imitation of Mary, and as a sign of
predestination to eternal life.

In reference to the first benefit, Mary, constituted in the providence of God as Mediatrix of all
graces, is prompted to shower with abundant blessings those who seek her intercession and show
a recognition and appreciation for her sublime office.

As a source of motivation, even apart from the consideration of Mary’s special relationship
with her spiritual children, very humanly we benefit objectively from the example of Mary’s life
and character, and this to a much greater degree than we can benefit from the example of any
lesser saint. Mary exemplifies all the virtues and each of them in a more perfect way.
56

It is the final benefit, however, that attaches a special efficacy to Marian cult. Devotion to
Mary as an indication of our firm hope for salvation rests primarily on Our Lady’s great power of
intercession and her special love for all who invoke her. Although the teaching of the Church,
apart from a special revelation, precludes the possibility of certainty concerning salvation,
57
nonetheless there are obviously signs and indications pointing to a special providence on the part
of God for the souls of the elect.

St. Thomas indicates two special signs of predilection, the prayers of the saints and the
performance of other good works.
58 A fortiori, therefore, devotion to Mary, the greatest of the
saints, is a sign of predestination. Pope Pius XII lamented the neglect of Marian cult precisely
because, among other benefits, it is a “sign of predestination according to the opinion of holy
men.”
59

Since the Apostolic age such has been the teaching of the Fathers, Doctors, and Ecclesiastical
writers.

St. Ephraem, St. Germain of Constantinople, and St. John Damascene indicate how Mary is the
Mediatrix of graces;
60 that, in fact, we are not saved except through her intercession,
61 through
whom we receive the efficacious gift of grace.
62

After the eleventh century this conviction is voiced more and more explicitly. St. Anselm
indicates that anyone who turns to Mary cannot possibly perish for she is the mother of salvation
and the saved.
63

Since the seventeenth century writers have presumed the fact, and tend rather to elucidate the
conditions required to make the assertion in effect valid. Obviously, a lukewarm or nonbenevolent
love and devotion could never be an indication of a firm hope or promise of salvation.
64

In considering the benefits of Marian cult at the time of death, those devoted to Mary are
obviously the beneficiaries of her intercession to obtain the grace of contrition and the desire to
conform their wills to that of Almighty God. Further, she offers the dying her protection against
the final onslaughts of the enemy.
65 The Hail Mary itself calls special attention to Mary’s
importance at the hour of death, as do many of the Church’s liturgical prayers in reference to the
dying.

The benefits which Marian cult offers after death refer to the particular judgment, to heaven,
purgatory, and hell.

Those devoted to Mary have a powerful advocate with Christ at the time of their judgment.
66

In heaven the Blessed Virgin contributes to the joy and accidental glory of those devoted to
her in three ways — by her presence, by her special revelations, inasmuch as she possesses an
eminent share in the treasury of divine knowledge, and because of the realization on the part of
the beati of what she does for souls.
67 The full realization of the fact that the essential glory of the
blessed depends on the merits of Christ and of Mary, gives rise to a love and gratitude in the saved
which accidentally augments their beatitude.

In Purgatory, souls are benefited in that Mary applies to them the fruits of her merits and those
of Christ. Further, she prompts the faithful on earth to pray for souls detained in Purgatory while
she herself offers these prayers to God thereby augmenting their value.

Even in hell, according to a number of theologians, souls devoted to Mary during their lifetime
will find their punishments in some ways mitigated.
68

Beyond these individual benefits, the usefulness of Marian cult is apparent on the social level
as well, for devotion to Mary brings advantages to the family, civil society, and the Church.
69

In reference to domestic society, since the time of Cana, Mary’s presence in the family circle
assures both material and spiritual blessings, and especially the presence of Christ. Women have
done most for their families and the realization of their motherly vocation where, being devoted
to Mary, they have understood the dignity and gravity of their calling before God.
70 Conversely,
to women themselves have come innumerable and invaluable social benefits under Christianity,
colored and formed as they are by the realization of Mary’s singular dignity as the ideal of all
womankind.

Likewise, of obvious import are the benefits of Marian cult toward civil society and its
objectives, namely, the pursuit of learning, the conservation of morals, and the fostering of the
arts. As history testifies, the influence of Mary in all three of these categories has been exceptional.
To Mary, indeed, men have turned for their greatest inspiration. It is she who has given
womankind the example and inspiration to succeed as custodians of morals and preservers of
Christian culture.
71

Perhaps of even greater significance is the influence of Marian cult on religious society. In both
the realm of faith and of morals devotion to Mary has brought a richness and beauty that have
benefited mankind.

Pope Leo XIII reminds us that “from her, the Seat of Wisdom, as they themselves [the Fathers
and Doctors of the Church] gratefully tell us, a strong current of the most sublime wisdom has
coursed through their writings.”
72 Traditionally, Mary is hailed as “alone destroying all the
heresies of the world.” True devotion to Mary has been the touchstone of Christological
orthodoxy. She through whom Truth came leads men back to the source of truth.

In the realm of morals, Mary’s example of virginity, dedication to vocation, and loyalty to
Christ has been the inspiration of religious groups down through the centuries.
73

The entire Liturgy is itself a living testimony to the usefulness and value of Marian cult within
the life of the Church. Devotion to Mary is so vast in the ramifications of its benefits that a simple
outline precludes the possibility of a complete appreciation. Yet a mere sketch of the breadth of
its influence is sufficient to indicate that Marian cult is not only useful but in some way necessary.

IV. THE NECESSITY OF MARIAN CULT

Since God could have brought men to eternal salvation apart from the pattern in Divine
Providence which He has chosen, we do not, in speaking of the necessity of Marian cult, refer here
to an absolute and antecedent necessity, but to a necessity that is hypothetical and consequent.

It seems theologically certain that at least some devotion to God’s Mother is necessary in the
ordinary framework of salvation. In the present order, if anyone with sufficient knowledge
positively rejects or neglects to offer at least some cult to Mary, such an individual is thereby
rejecting and neglecting the ordinary means to salvation.
74 Hence the words of Pope Pius XII, who
says, “So powerful, indeed, is the Blessed Virgin with God and His only-begotten Son that, as
Dante observes, anyone who desires His help and fails to have recourse to Mary is like one
attempting to fly without wings.”
75 The necessity of Marian cult is implicit in the Doctors of the
Church, especially in their writings and sermons on Mary as the Almoner of God’s graces. Since
the seventeenth century theologians have been more outspoken in voicing what today appears
presumed in the liturgy of the Church and has been included in her law.
76

Beyond the theological arguments logically derived from Mary’s being the Mother of God and
the Mother of men, and obviously meriting through these offices our filial respect and love, the
necessity of Marian cult is implied also in Mary’s role as Mediatrix between God and man.
77 Mary
has co-operated in the acquisition of all graces as our Coredemptrix, and she co-operates in the
distribution of all graces as our Dispensatrix. As Coredemptrix she has a right to men’s gratitude.
As Dispensatrix she is the channel through whom grace comes to us. Therefore, she most properly
should be saluted through prayer, the ordinary means whereby grace is obtained, and the
universal practice of the faithful in recognizing her offices gives expression to their realization of
the necessity of Marian cult.

Hence, in the words of St. Pius X, “God could have given us the Redeemer of the human race,
and the Founder of the Faith, in another way than through the Virgin, but since Divine Providence
has been pleased that we should have the Man-God through Mary, who conceived Him by the
Holy Ghost and bore Him in her womb, it remains for us to receive Christ only from the hands of
Mary.”
78

Feasts in Honor of Our Lady
79

by REV. RENÉ H. CHABOT, M.S.

ST. THOMAS teaches that due honor is rendered to God when, in the light of His transcending
and awe-inspiring superiority, we bow our wills in humble submission, signifying thus our total
and unlimited dependence on Him, as Creator and First Principle.
80 The virtue of religion — the
first and principal act of which is devotion — has as its specifying object this honor or debt due
to God. The interior submission of the will, however, may be extended and exteriorized by means
of signs, words, or even bodily positions. In this way only is it possible for us, social beings by
nature and composed of matter and spirit, to render to God an integral honor, where both the
spirit and the body participate, the one as the manifestation of the other, in this humble
submission to God.

Though God alone may possess the supreme dignity of First Principle and, consequently, to
Him exclusively is restricted the honor of total submission and dependence, nevertheless there are
many other persons in whom we find superior dignity, and to whom we are deeply indebted for
our salvation. Among these the great Mother of God stands out. Hers is a dignity surpassed by
God alone, and her activity and role in the work of Redemption has had, next to God, unparalleled
importance and effect. She not only freely consented to give mankind its Redeemer; she not only
consented to her part in the glorious but painful Redemption at the foot of the Cross, but even at
this hour, as Heavenly Queen and Universal Dispensatrix, hers is the task of distributing the
innumerable supernatural favors that flood the universe. It behooves us, therefore, to pay a debt
of recognition and honor to Our Lady, not exclusively through interior acts of love and
thanksgiving, but publicly, so that everything in us, body and soul, may join in this loving task.

Catholics have always endeavored to manifest adequately their recognition of Our Lady’s
unparalleled dignity, just as they have always been deeply conscious of the important role she
played in the process of their salvation. It is precisely in order to express these sentiments of
veneration and thanksgiving that so many Marian feasts have been instituted down through the
centuries.
81

The purpose of this chapter is not, of course, to evaluate the doctrinal contents of these feasts,
but rather to trace their origin and to indicate their historical development as briefly as possible.
For the sake of order and clarity, we shall divide this chapter into two sections: the first, dealing
with Marian feasts celebrated in the universal Church; the second, with those observed only in
certain dioceses and religious orders.

I. UNIVERSAL FEASTS

The calendar of the universal Church contains not less than eighteen feasts honoring Our
Blessed Lady. We shall discuss them in chronological order, as they appear in the ecclesiastical
cycle.

1. The Immaculate Conception

(December 8)

In the Orient:

St. Andrew of Crete (660-740), in his canon In conceptionem Sanctae ac Dei aviae Annae,
provides us with the first historical document bearing testimony to the existence of the present
feast. John of Euboea (fl. c. 750), on the other hand, is the first to hand down a homily especially
composed for this solemnity. He states that, chronologically speaking, the feast of the Conception
is first, but readily admits that it was not then a universal feast. It is highly probable that it did
receive universal recognition within the entire Byzantine Empire at the time of Photius of
Constantinople (897?). Its observance as a holyday of obligation may also date back to this period,
if we are to judge from the numerous homilies composed for this solemnity. George of Nicomedia
(✝ after 880) writes that the feast of the Conception ranks among the important feasts.
82 It is also
found, celebrated on December 9, in the Byzantine Calendar drawn up at the request of the
Emperor Basil II in 984.

One must clearly understand, however, the true object of this feast as found in the Orient.
Some authors, indeed, intent on finding proofs from Tradition for the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception, have given undue importance to the Oriental feast of the Conception. It must be
remembered always that the origin of this Oriental feast, contrary to what happened in the West,
was not dependent on dogmatic issues.

As found in the early Byzantine documents, this feast has a threefold object: (1) The
miraculous visitation of an angel announcing to Anna that she would conceive; (2) The miraculous
conception of Anna (active conception), who, until then, had been sterile; (3) The passive
conception of Mary. The Protoevangelium of James had furnished the necessary historical
background for this feast when its author wrote that Anna was sterile and that an angel appeared
to her announcing that she would conceive. Luke’s narration of similar events in the case of John
the Baptist undoubtedly inspired the author of the Protoevangelium. The primary object,
therefore, obviously was to commemorate the Annunciation of the angel to Anna of the future
conception, to which object was immediately linked that of Anna’s miraculous active conception
and Mary’s passive conception, with no necessary reference to the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception. This explains the variety of names attributed to this feast, e.g., Feast of the
Conception of Anna; Feast of the Conception of the Mother of God; Feast of the Annunciation of
the Conception of the Mother of God. But in daily preaching and throughout the many homilies
composed for this solemnity, it was but natural to put more emphasis, if not all, on the Conception
of Mary, the great Mother of God, rather than on the legendary narrative of the Protoevangelium.
Again, it was natural that the annual observance of this feast gave a propitious opportunity for
the faithful to express publicly their deeply rooted admiration and respect for Mary’s unique
purity and saintliness. The truth remains, nonetheless, that it was not originally instituted on a
dogmatic basis with the purpose of celebrating Mary’s Immaculate Conception.
83

In the West:

As in many other instances, credit must be given to the Oriental Church for having been the
first to institute the feast of Mary’s Conception. It was only many years later that the West
accepted it, and not without strong opposition. The very first testimony to the existence of the
feast in the West is had from a celebrated marble kalendarium found in Naples dating as far back
as the ninth century. Indications are that the feast was celebrated on December 9. But, because
Naples and Sardinia were then under the rule of the Byzantine Empire, one cannot truly say that,
as such, the feast had been introduced in the West. We must also reject as false testimony those
documents according to which Ireland might have observed the feast during that same century.
84

It is England, in fact, that first introduced this Marian feast into the Latin liturgy. In a precious
document, Leofric’s kalendarium (eleventh century), in which is found the present feast, the
collect states: “Deus qui beatae Mariae Virginis conceptionem angelico vaticinio parentibus
praedixisti.” We note from this that in England, as in the Orient, traces remained of the
Protoevangelium narrative establishing a parallel between Mary’s Conception and that of St. John
the Baptist. Judging also from other kalendaria of that same period wherein no mention is made
of this feast, it would seem that at the outset this feast was limited to Winchester, Worcester,
Exeter, Canterbury, and the surrounding localities.
85 The conquest of England by William I of
Normandy, however, resulted in the disappearance of this feast from the English liturgy. It was
re-established shortly thereafter by young Anselm (cousin of the Saint and Bishop of Canterbury)
about the year 1127. Through his efforts and influence the feast quickly spread throughout
England. As a result of the strong opposition which ensued, we have the first treatise written in
defense of Mary’s prerogative, the Tractatus de conceptione S. Mariae, by Eadmer of Canterbury
(✝ 1121). The opposition was probably broken by a council of London in 1129. In 1329 the Council
of Canterbury prescribed that the feast of Mary’s Conception be observed within the entire
Province.

Shortly thereafter it passed into Normandy and the northern part of France. But, “in general,
the introduction of this feast and the enthusiasm for its purport seem to have been lacking in
theological guidance. Childlike piety, incited by accounts of miracles and revelations, had the
upper hand. In favor of the doctrine and the feast these miracles were advanced together with the
appreciation of its eminent appropriateness, but positive theological reasons were not stressed.
Further, a clear exposition of the idea of the feast was also lacking. For that reason it was quite
proper for St. Bernard, in his famous letter about 1140, to urge the prebendaries of Lyons to a
careful research. He pointed out the danger of error and confusion which could and must ensue
from a demand, none too clearly defined, for the celebration of Mary’s conception as well as her
birth, since the latter supposes the former.”
86 The appeal of St. Bernard did not, however, result
in checking the propagation of the feast, because already in 1154, fourteen years later, Atto, prior
of a Benedictine monastery in the Gascogne, claimed that it was observed throughout the whole
of France.

In the closing years of the twelfth century it had penetrated into many regions of Germany
and Belgium, and also into Navarre, in Spain. In summing it up, Roschini states that,
notwithstanding strong opposition on the part of such great men as St. Bernard and St. Thomas,
it may be safely said that in the middle of the fourteenth century the feast of Mary’s Conception,
in the sense of a preservation from original sin, had found its way into every single diocese of the
world and in every monastery of some importance, with the exception of Cistercian and
Dominican monasteries.
87

The attitude adopted by the Roman Pontiffs during the many years of controversy about the
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, to which was intimately linked, in the West, the very
existence of the feast itself, may best be described as that of tolerance first, of assent next, and
finally of approbation, when, in 1477, Sixtus IV approved the Mass and Office drawn up by the
Franciscan Leonardo of Nogarole, in which the present collect appears. Four years later the same
Pontiff gave his approval to another office for Mary’s feast. Faced with such obvious Papal
approbation, the opposition party became more resolute in its attacks against Mary’s Immaculate
Conception; to such an extent that Sixtus IV deemed it necessary to intervene with the bull Grave
nimis wherein he forbade all censure of those who believed in the Immaculate Conception, while
at the same time he forbade calling the denial of it a heresy. He also denounced as false the
assertion that, on the feast of the Conception, the Roman Church celebrated only in a general way
the spiritual conception and sanctification of the Blessed Virgin.
88 Years later, Alexander VII
declared in his famous bull Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum (1661): “The devotion to the Blessed
Virgin Mary is of long standing among the faithful followers of Christ who feel that her soul, from
the very first instant of its creation and infusion into her body, was preserved immune from the
stain of original sin by a special grace and privilege of God, through the merits of her Son Jesus
Christ, the Redeemer of the human race, and who in this sense esteem and solemnly celebrate the
festivity of her conception.”
89

In 1693, Innocent XII proclaimed that the octave of the feast of Mary’s Conception be
universally celebrated, elevating it at the same time to the rank of double of second class. Pius IX
in 1863 (having defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854) promulgated a new
Mass and Office. It was Leo XIII, lastly, who in 1879 elevated its rank to that of double of first
class.
90

2. The Purification of the Blessed Virgin

(February 2)

The threefold object of this feast is found in St. Luke’s narrative of chapter II, verses 22-39: the
presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the purification of the Blessed Mother, and the consequent
encounter of Mary with Simeon and Anne. Down through its long and ancient history, this feast
has acquired — due especially to its multiple object — a variety of names: e.g. Hypapante (from the
Greek meaning “the encounter” with Simeon and Anne); Feast of Saint Simeon the Patriarch; The
Advent of the Son of God in the Temple; The Purification of the Blessed Virgin (especially used
throughout the Latin Church); The Feast of the Candles (suggested from the accompanying
ceremony of the Blessing of the Candles).

In the Orient:

The Oriental Church, once again, may lay claim to having originated this Marian feast. Signs
of its early existence in Jerusalem are found in the Peregrinatio ad loca sancta (between 383 and
384) of Sylvia (or Etheria), most probably a nun from the southern part of France. She refers to the
feast of the Purification as the Quadragesima Epiphaniae for the obvious reasons that, first, the
prescribed purification and presentation were to take place forty days after childbirth; and second,
the feast of the Nativity having not yet been set for December 25, the forty days were counted
from the Epiphany. And so it was that the feast of the Purification was originally celebrated, in
the Oriental Church, on February 14. The Peregrinatio describes the feast as one of great solemnity,
with solemn procession from the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher to the Basilica of the Resurrection,
at which point a homily commenting on the above-mentioned passage of St. Luke’s Gospel was
addressed to the faithful. A noteworthy fact, however, is that, as yet, this feast does not appear as
a Marian feast, but rather as one of Our Lord.

When Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem (425-458), decreed that the Feast of the Nativity be
celebrated on December 25, common sense required that the feast of the Purification be brought
back to February 2, thus keeping the prescribed forty days. There is no doubt that at least in the
middle of the sixth century this feast was being celebrated on February 2. We gather this from a
homily written by Abraham, Bishop of Ephesus (fl. c. 550).

The candlelight procession dates back to the fifth century, probably by reason of Simeon’s
prophetic words: “Lumen gentium.”

The solemnity of this Jerusalem feast was contagious and quickly spread to the monks of Syria
and Palestine; at the very outset of the sixth century, Constantinople had received it and made it
its own. But here at Constantinople we behold a Marian feast, celebrated in a Marian church and
opening with an exhortation to Mary begging her assistance and protection.

In the year 542 Emperor Justinian decreed that the feast be celebrated throughout the Greek
Empire.

In the West:

There can be no doubt that the feast of the Purification had found its way into the Western
Church by the end of the seventh century, during the reign of Pope Sergius.
91 St. Bede the
Venerable (675-735), in his De ratione temporum, is first to speak of the Candle Procession. Many
ancient calendars also refer to this feast as the Hypapante Domini, thus clearly indicating its
Oriental origin. From here on, this feast has taken on a definite Marian aspect.

Some authors, however, have suggested and endeavored to prove that the Purification owes
its origin to the Latin Church, as a Christian substitute for pagan vestiges. Innocent III, for
example, firmly believed that the Purification was a substitute, brought about by Pope Gelasius,
for the pagan feast Lupercalia. Benedict XIV, nevertheless, argued against this hypothesis, since
the pagan feast Lupercalia was not celebrated on February 2, but rather on February 15, and
because it was not customary in the pagan festivity to carry lighted candles. No one doubts the
fact that Pope Gelasius did put an end to the pagan Lupercalia, but it is not as evident that he
instituted the Purification as its substitute.

During the eighth century, the feast of the Purification spread to many parts of France, Spain,
and Germany and thus gradually became a universal feast.

3. Feast of the Blessed Immaculate Virgin

(February 11)

Every Catholic is undoubtedly familiar with the object of this feast. Who, in truth, has not
heard or read of Bernadette Soubirous or of the famed Grotto of Masabielle? The ever increasing
popularity of these apparitions at Lourdes have had the happy effect of producing numerous
literary works recounting in every detail the many historical developments that surround this
memorable event. Suffice it, therefore, to note that the feast itself was first approved by Leo XIII
and granted to the diocese of Tarbes in the year 1890. Less than twenty years later, on November
13, 1907, his successor, St. Pius X, proclaimed that it be observed the world over.

4. The Feast of the Annunciation

(March 25)

It is not to be marveled at that popular piety and devotion, ever conscious of the deep
signification of St. Luke’s passage of chap. I, 26-38, instituted at an early date a special feast whose
object was to commemorate both Mary’s initial consent to the work of Redemption and Christ’s
first moment of temporal existence among men.

In the Orient:

Benedict XIV, along with the Bollandists, convinced of the antiquity of this time-honored feast,
ventured the opinion that the Apostles themselves might have originated it. This opinion,
however, does not satisfy and appears rather improbable and utterly lacking of historical proof,
for the very obvious reason that up to the fourth century, with the exception of Easter and
Pentecost, there were no specifically Christian feasts. There did exist in this century a basilica of
the Annunciation erected by St. Helena, a fact which might indicate that perhaps a
commemoration of the Annunciation was initiated at the time. But nonetheless, no historical
document certifying without a shadow of a doubt to the existence of this feast can be found until
the middle of the sixth century. A certain Abraham, Bishop of Ephesus, in a homily on The
Annunciation of the Mother of God speaks of the “magnificent feast” of March. So it is that Jugie
asserts that the origin of the feast of the Annunciation dates back to the reign of Justinian between
the years 530 and 550.
92

The Chronicon Paschale (from the beginning of the seventh century to the year 624) places the
feast on March 25.

When the Annunciation is compared with the Nativity, the question as to which feast
determined the date of the other naturally arises. The following seems to be the more probable
explanation. According to an ancient tradition (whose historical proof is uncertain and rather
doubtful) Our Lord would have suffered and died on March 25.
93 For reason of symbolism (so dear
to the Fathers) it seemed incongruous that Christ’s life would have extended for a fraction of a
year. It was, therefore, concluded that He had first become man on March 25. The Annunciation
thus established, it was logical to place the feast of the Nativity on December 25.
94

It was customary, at the time, that no feast be celebrated during the Lenten Season. What
would become of the Annunciation? The Council of Trullanum, held at Constantinople in 692,
having cautiously examined the problem, moved that an exception be made for the feast of the
Annunciation, and thus it remained on March 25.

Already during the eighth century the Annunciation was a universally recognized feast, both
in the Orient and in the West. From that century also dates (in the Orient) the vigil attached to it.

In the West:

To judge from the testimony of the Liber Pontificalis,
95 there is no doubt whatsoever that the
Annunciation, along with the Nativity and the feast of the Dormition, was celebrated in Rome
during the reign of Pope Sergius I (687-701). Its diffusion within the Latin Church was rapid
indeed. The one obstacle that did retard somewhat its universal acceptance lay in its date (March
25 occurring during the Lenten Season). In Spain, at one time, the Annunciation was observed on
many different days. The Council of Toledo (656), however, remedied this awkward situation by
a decree prescribing that it be kept throughout the entire nation on December 18. In later years,
though, influenced, no doubt, by the Roman observance, Spain also chose to observe it on March
25, retaining the solemnity of December 18 under the title of The Expectation of the Blessed Virgin
Mary or also The Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Milanese, like the Spaniards, and for the same reason, chose to observe this feast in
December (Sunday preceding the Nativity). But they also, in later years, returned to the original
March 25.

5. Our Lady of the Seven Dolors
96

(Friday following Passion Sunday)

In recent years, due especially to a stimulus given by many Pontiffs, theological developments
in Marian studies have taken on gigantic proportions. More and more evident has become Mary’s
unique role as Coredemptrix in the acquisition of grace, or in the objective Redemption.
Mariologists the world over have fathomed the deep significance and full richness of Mary’s
intense interior sufferings throughout her life and principally at the foot of the Cross on Calvary
Hill. Of course, one cannot expect Catholic theologians of the past centuries to possess so explicit
an understanding and knowledge as modern theologians do of the unique efficacy of the Virgin
Mary’s sorrows in God’s redemptive plan; nevertheless, traces of this devotion may be found
already in the fourth century. St. Ambrose, for example, along with St. Augustine and St. Ephraem,
have left us memorable pages concerning Mary’s sorrows. The Greek liturgy, after the seventh
century, also shows evidence of some interest in Mary’s Transfixion. During the thirteenth
century, however, this growing devotion received a new impetus, as an immediate result of a
newly founded order, the Servites of Mary, whose aim was to propagate Marian devotion in
general but above all to foster and spread that one specific devotion to the Sorrowful Mother.

Small wonder, therefore, that during the fourteenth century, as a result of the ever growing
devotion to Mary’s sufferings, came to life a feast commemorating her Compassion. In the year
1423 we find the pious Archbishop of Cologne, Theodoric, prescribing that this feast be kept by
his people in public reparation for the scandalous and sacrilegious attacks of the Hussites against
the images of Christ and Mary. He assigned to this newly instituted feast the title of The
Commemoration of the Anguish and Sorrow of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Already at the end of the
sixteenth century it had found its way throughout the entire Latin Church, under various titles,
however, and celebrated on many different days of the year.

It was known, for example, as the Feast of Sorrows, Feast of the Seven Dolors, Feast of the
Compassion, Our Lady of Pity, and Feast of the Transfixion. The Cistercians observed its annual
solemnity on April 16; the Carthusians, on the Saturday following Passion Sunday; the Canons
Regular, on the Friday after Easter Sunday. Others preferred, as in Cologne, the Friday after the
fourth Sunday of Lent. The Friars Preachers had selected the Friday following Passion Sunday.
Benedict XIII, a Dominican himself, by a decree of the Congregation of Sacred Rites, April 22, 1727,
extended this feast to the universal Church and prescribed it to be kept on the Friday of Passion
Sunday under the title of Our Lady of the Seven Dolors, or Feast of the Transfixion, thus establishing
uniformity of date and title.

The specific title of Seven Dolors (most probably from the Seven Joys of Mary) dates back to
the thirteenth century, during which was founded the order of the Servites of Mary. But only in
the fifteenth century was uniformity established concerning which specific seven sorrows should
be represented by this feast.

6. The Queenship of Mary

(May 31)

As the title clearly indicates, the object of this feast is to honor Mary as the sovereign of
heaven and earth, who stands indissolubly united with her Divine Son, Christ the King. Together,
indeed, they have an indisputable claim to our submission and homage. Hers is a queenship by
affinity and by conquest. Pope Pius XII, a truly devoted and loving subject of Mary, in his
encyclical letter Ad coeli Reginam, explained in clear and concise terms the basic principles of
Mary’s royal dignity: “The basic principle ... is without doubt her divine Maternity ... It is easily
deduced that she, too, is Queen since she brought forth a Son who, at the very moment that He
was conceived, was, by reason of the Hypostatic Union of the human nature with the Word, even
as man, King and Lord of all things.” But Mary is also Queen by right of conquest. “The most
Blessed Mother,” continues the holy Pontiff, “is to be called Queen not only by reason of her divine
Maternity, but also because by the will of God she has had an outstanding part in the work of our
eternal salvation. ... Hence we may certainly conclude that just as Christ, the new Adam, must be
called King, not only because He is the Son of God, but also because He is our Redeemer; so, by
a certain kind of analogy, the most Blessed Virgin is Queen, not only because she is the Mother
of God, but also because, as the new Eve, she was associated with the new Adam. And so it is that
Jesus Christ alone, God and man, is King in the full, proper, and absolute sense of the term. Yet
Mary also, although in a restricted way and only by analogy, shares in the royal dignity as the
Mother of Christ who is God, as His associate in the labors of the Divine Redemption, and in His
struggle against His enemies and in the victory He won over them all.”
97

It came not as a surprise, therefore, that the Holy Father, in this same encyclical, dated October
11, 1954, in the closing days of the ever memorable Marian Year, instituted the feast of the
Queenship of Mary to be universally celebrated on May 31. “Since, after long and careful
consideration,” writes the Pontiff, “we have come to the conclusion that great benefits will accrue
to the Church if that solidly established truth were to shine forth even more clearly to all, like a
bright light placed on its pedestal, We by Our Apostolic power, decree and institute the feast of
Mary as Queen to be celebrated throughout the entire world every year on May 31. And likewise
We command that on that same day there be renewed the consecration of the human race to the
Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Upon this there is founded a great hope that there
may arise an era of happiness that will rejoice in the triumph of religion and in Christian Peace.”
98

7. The Visitation of the Blessed Mother

(July 2)

Shortly after Mary’s generous and loving reply “Behold the handmaid of the Lord,” reported
by St. Luke (1:38), it is written that she “rose and went with haste into the hill country ... and
saluted Elizabeth.” Momentous events occurred at this meeting: the pre-sanctification of John the
Baptist, the proclamation of Mary as Mother of God, and, not least in importance, Mary’s triumph
of humility in her “Magnificat anima mea.” It was not surprising, therefore, that, due no doubt to
ever increasing public devotion, a special feast was instituted, the object of which was to
commemorate the Visitation of the Blessed Mother to her cousin Elizabeth.

First records of this feast are to be found, according to Roschini, in the decrees of the
Provincial Council of Le Mans (1247).
99 We find it also in the Mozarabic Missal, whereby we
conclude that Spain observed this solemnity. Einstein, Archbishop of Prague (1388-1396), had
already prescribed that the feast be kept on April 18. Many religious orders, in turn, had accepted
it at a very early date: e.g. the Cistercians, Franciscans, Carmelites, Dominicans, and the Servites
of Mary. By a decree dated April 6, 1389, Pope Urban VI extended this feast to the universal
Church, adding to it a vigil and an octave. But it was only in November of the same year that
Boniface IX, his successor, promulgated this document. Practically speaking, however, it was not
until the Council of Basel (1441) that the Visitation did become a universal feast.

One might ask why the present feast was set for July 2. Due to the fact that Mary most
probably undertook the journey shortly after the Annunciation (March 25), and that she remained
with Elizabeth for a period of three months (Lk. 1:56), it seemed quite natural to select the latter
part of her stay, eliminating in this way all possible concurrence with Lenten and Holy Week
ceremonies.

Pius V, with a view to uniformity no doubt, abolished all the then existing Offices for the
Visitation and decreed that the Office of the Nativity be used also, mutatis mutandis, for the
present feast. Clement VIII, in turn, entrusted to a Father Ruiz of the Order of Minims the task of
rewriting a new Office, the text of which may be found in the present Roman Breviary.

8. Our Lady of Mount Carmel

(July 16)

When, in the closing years of the thirteenth century, the recently approved Order of
Carmelites began to spread beyond the sea to establish itself in Europe, a remarkable and
outstanding love and devotion to Mary permeated the entire religious atmosphere of the
community. Proof of this is had in the many devotions found within their convents, and in the rich
solemnity given to the then five universal Marian feasts: Purification, Annunciation, Assumption,
Nativity, and the Immaculate Conception.
100 It seems that out of this deep love and reverence for
Mary, and in thanksgiving for numerous favors obtained through her intercession, the Solemn
Commemoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel originated. Its date was set on July
16. Zimmerman
101 maintains that its origin goes back no later than 1387 or thereabouts, but
Forcadell refutes his arguments as false and inconclusive.
102 He believes, on the contrary, that it
originated at a much earlier date (under the title of a Solemn Commemoration), possibly even
during the first half of the thirteenth century. Sixtus V gave it official approbation in 1587, and
shortly thereafter (1600) it was declared the patronal feast of the entire Carmelite Order. Its
solemnity spread rapidly through Europe. Already in 1628 it was observed in the Kingdom of
Naples, in parts of Sicily and Spain. In the year 1674 it was granted to the whole of Spain and its
territories, and one year later, to Austria and Portugal. The Pontifical States made it their own in
1726, in which year, by decree dated September 24, Benedict XIII proclaimed it a universal feast.

9. Our Lady of the Snow

(August 5)

The object of the present feast is the annual solemnity of the dedication of Mary’s greatest
monumental tribute, that of the Roman Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore, erected on the Esquiline
in the early centuries of Christianity. According to the Liber Pontificalis,
103 it was Sixtus III (432-440) who ordered its construction as a lasting memory of Mary’s ever glorious victory at the
Council of Ephesus (431). Its name has varied rather often during its many years of existence: e.g.
The Liberian Basilica (named after the Pope Liberius who might have first erected it, to be later
reconstructed by Sixtus III), St. Mary of the Crib, St. Mary Mother, St. Mary Major, which last title
is amply justified by the pre-eminence always given to it by the Sovereign Pontiffs. At the close
of the ninth century, however, it received, along with the feast of its dedication, a new title: Our
Lady of the Snow, as the result of a fast-spreading story (void of any solid documentary evidence
and, therefore, the authenticity of which may be rightfully doubted) concerning the alleged
miraculous origin of this Basilica. An account of this story may be found in the Roman Breviary
for August 5, of which the following is the general tenor: Under the pontificate of Liberius, John,
a Roman patrician, and his wife, having no children to whom they might leave their riches, vowed
their whole fortune to the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, asking her most earnestly to indicate to
them in what way she desired them to spend the money. The Blessed Virgin answered their prayer
by a miracle. On the Nones of August, generally the hottest month in Rome, a portion of the
Esquiline hill was covered with snow. That same night Mary appeared to both of them, and told
them to build a church on the exact spot covered with snow, and to dedicate this church to the
Virgin Mary. John, in turn, told this to the Pope Liberius, who said he had dreamt the same thing.
On account, therefore, of the miraculous fall of snow the anniversary of the dedication is
celebrated by the feast of Our Lady of the Snow.

It is certain that the annual feast of the dedication was celebrated at a very early date; even
as early as 435, according to Nilles.
104 But it was not yet a universal feast during the thirteenth
century, since Gregory IX, in the bull of canonization of St. Dominic, whose death occurred on the
6th of August (1221), anticipated his feast on the 5th of the month, as being at that time vacant,
whereas the 6th was already taken. During the fourteenth century, the solemnity of the dedication
was extended to all of Rome and to some other dioceses. In the middle of the sixteenth century it
became a universal feast, the Office of which Pius V promulgated to the entire world. Clement VIII
raised it to the rank of double major.
105

10. The Assumption of Mary

(August 15)

Much has been written on the subject of the feast of Mary’s Assumption. There are still some
aspects of the problem not totally solved. The following pages aim to present the actual status of
the problem along with the result of the latest studies on the subject.
106

In the Orient:

A. Palestine — especially Jerusalem:

Up to the closing years of the fourth century, no testimony is available concerning Mary’s last
days, much less her Assumption. Positive proof is had, on the contrary, in a letter written by St.
Epiphanius (377), that no one was aware at the time of what had happened to Mary. In his earlier
years, Epiphanius had traveled far and wide throughout the whole of Palestine in search of local
traditions concerning the first Christians. His love for Mary was deep and sincere, and he had put
himself seriously to work on the study of her death. Yet after his many journeys and studies, he
clearly testifies, in the above-mentioned letter, that no one knew exactly how Mary ended her life
here below. Did she die? Was she buried? he asks himself; it is impossible to say. A few apocryphal
writings, it is true, have been said to date as far back as the second century, but Father Jugie is
convinced that none have been found to extend beyond the end of the fifth century or the
beginning of the sixth, the oldest of which are not of Palestinian but of Syrian origin.
107 It was
alleged also that a certain priest of Jerusalem called Timothy, in a homily composed between 400-450 for the feast of the Hypapante (Epiphany), had alluded, en passant and as to an audience well
aware of what he was saying, to Mary’s Assumption. This might have been a priceless document,
had it not been established in later years that Timothy was, in truth, a Byzantine of the seventh
century. One may even doubt, judging from his four other homilies, whether the passage in
question has been correctly interpreted.
108 As Capelle remarks, this total mystery concerning the
miraculous happenings at the end of Mary’s life continued till the beginning of the sixth century.
109
It is true that, in the early years of the fifth century, there did exist a feast in honor of the Blessed
Mother, celebrated on August 15 in the church named Kathisma (meaning “rest”) in Jerusalem. But
it seems rather evident that this is not the feast of the Assumption or the Dormition. First of all,
no references to Mary’s death or Assumption are found in the liturgical texts of the feast. And
more important yet, a sermon delivered on this occasion by a priest named Chrysippus, wherein
he presents an exegetical account of these same texts, contains no allusion whatsoever to Mary’s
death or to her glorious Assumption. Every text, on the contrary, even that of “Surge Domine, in
requiem tuam,” is interpreted in favor of Mary’s divine Maternity.
110 The general pattern takes on
a new light if one recalls that it was but a few years earlier (431) that Mary had solemnly been
declared, at the Council of Ephesus, the Theotokos, or Mother of God. Undoubtedly this feast of
August 15 had been instituted, just as the church of Kathisma had been constructed, to
commemorate this memorable event and to honor Mary as the Mother of God. It may, therefore,
be stated safely, with Dom Capelle, that nowhere in Palestine did there exist, prior to the opening
years of the sixth century, any indications of a belief in Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven,
much less of a feast whose object would have been to commemorate this Assumption.

From then on (500), however, due undoubtedly to the influence of the apocryphal writings,
there is an awakened interest in the problem of the end of Mary’s life. We are told of a basilica at
Gethsemane in Jerusalem dedicated to Mary and wherein, according to the Breviarium de
Ierosolyma, her tomb is found: “Ibi est basilica sanctae Mariae, et ibi est sepulchrum ejus.” Not too
many years later (570), another source states that Mary’s body had been taken away, although
there is no reference made concerning the Assumption: “In ipsa valle est basilica sanctae Mariae,
quam dicunt domum ejus fuisse, in qua et de corpore sublatam fuisse.”
111 It must be noted that,
notwithstanding the fact that much was now being said about Mary’s death and the consequent
disappearance of her body, not until the first years of the eighth century do we find it explicitly
and forcefully stated that she had been assumed into heaven, body and soul. St. Andrew of Crete
(660-740), well versed in Jerusalem lore, is credited with this testimony.

But how can we explain that the feast of Mary’s Dormition is now celebrated on August 15?
Capelle, along with Roschini, argues in this fashion: As previously stated, there already existed,
in the first half of the fifth century, a feast in honor of Our Lady which was kept on the 15th of
August. The object of this solemnity was of a rather general aspect, that of the great Mother of
God. In later years, when Mary’s tomb supposedly had been found and located in Gethsemane, it
was but natural that on this day (August 15) the liturgy in this given church put more, if not all,
emphasis on Mary’s Dormition or Assumption, and thereby give a more specific object to the
already existing feast of Mary the Mother of God.
112

Emperor Maurice (582-602), who had restored the church of Gethsemane, prescribed that the
above feast of the Dormition of Mary be celebrated throughout the entire Byzantine Empire on
August 15.

B. In Syria:

Of the many apocryphal works on the Transitus Mariae or Mary’s Dormition, it has been
established and recognized, as previously stated, that the oldest of them all (end of the fifth or
beginning of the sixth century) originated in Syria. For a complete study of these works, we
recommend Father Jugie’s excellent treatment as given in his La mort et l’Assomption de la Sainte
Vierge.
113 Suffice it to note here that, historically speaking, these works have little or no value at
all, the greater part of them bearing the marks of a fertile imagination. Nevertheless, to the
historian of any given dogma they take on considerable importance, because through them he may
acquire some knowledge of the actual belief of the faithful, and of the festivities then observed.
It must be remembered, second, that although all apocryphal writers are in unison in asserting that
Mary died, opinions differ greatly as to what might have happened to her body. It is false to claim
that all took sides for Mary’s Assumption as we understand it now.

We find in one of these Syrian apocryphal writings, dating back possibly to the later part of
the fifth century, the following: Immediately after Mary’s death, the Apostles prescribed that Mary
be honored and remembered by three special commemorations to be kept on the following days:
(a) January 5, under the title of Our Lady of the Seed; (b) May 15, as Our Lady of the Sowing; (c)
August 13, as Our Lady of the Ripening. One may easily conclude from this testimony that, in the
closing years of the fifth century, Syria observed a first commemoration or feast of Mary on
January 6. It is important to note here, that prior to the setting of Christ’s Nativity on December
25, this solemnity was celebrated in Syria on January 6 along with the Epiphany. When, therefore,
in later years, the feast of Christ’s Nativity was transferred to December 25, along with it came
the commemoration of the Mother of Christ. It must be stated further that this first Marian
solemnity included a commemoration of her Dormition. The Transitus Mariae, indeed, explicitly
states that Mary died on the very same day on which she had given birth to Christ, but in view
of the fact that it was highly incongruous that the faithful celebrate Mary’s Dormition on the same
day as that of Christ’s Nativity, the Apostles had deemed it wise that the solemnity of Mary’s
death be put off until the following day, namely, December 26. Thus, in Syria, a commemoration
or feast of Mary’s Dormition did exist at an early date (end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth
century). It was celebrated, however, not on August 15, but on December 26. Authors do not quite
agree on the specific object of this feast. Was it Mary’s Assumption in body and soul as we now
understand it, or was it the more general object of her Dormition with no explicit reference to the
subsequent lot of her body? Basing themselves on a poem written by James of Sarug (451-521),
Roschini and Faller are of the first opinion, while Jugie and Raes have serious doubts on the
matter.
114 The latter fail to see any allusion to Mary’s Assumption.

In the West:

The feast of Mary’s Dormition was not destined to remain exclusively an Oriental solemnity.
As in a number of similar cases, the West integrated this feast into its own liturgies. Rome was
first to accept it along with the date of August 15. It appears certain that at the time of Saint
Gregory’s death (609), Rome was without a single feast in honor of the Blessed Mother. A few
years later, however, as stated in the Liber Pontificalis,
115 Pope Sergius I (687-701) instituted a
solemn procession or Litany, leaving from St. Andrew’s and arriving at St. Mary Major’s, for the
following four feasts of Mary: the Annunciation, the Dormition, the Nativity, and the Purification.
And since the Liber Pontificalis indicates that these four festivities were celebrated in Rome before
the election of Sergius I, the present feast was, therefore, introduced in the Holy City between the
years 609 and 687. Dom Capelle
116 strikingly brings out that a close and attentive examination of
the Oremus or Collect of the above mentioned procession, especially if one bears in mind that
Sergius I was of a Greek-Syrian origin, will reveal an important fact, namely, that the Pontiff very
definitely intended to commemorate Mary’s Assumption as we now understand it. Toward the end
of the eighth century, the title of the Dormition was changed to the more familiar one of the
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. Leo IV (847-855) decreed that a vigil and an octave enhance the
already widely spreading solemnity.

It was not too many years later that Our Lady’s Assumption found its way into England and
France under a variety of names, as the Dormition, the Nativity, the Depositio, and also the Requies.
Until that time, indeed, England had been totally without any strictly Marian feast. But in 747, at
a synod of Cloveshoe, it was decreed that the entire Anglo-Saxon Church should adopt and follow
the Roman liturgy, and thus was introduced the feast of Mary’s Assumption. In France, the newly
adopted feast of the Dormition replaced the already existing feast of the Blessed Mother, celebrated
on January 18. When, shortly after, its name was changed to that of Mary’s Assumption, strong
opposition was felt. Without explicitly denying the bodily Assumption of Mary, the opponents of
this change were emphatic in maintaining that no scriptural text could be found, nor any traces
be had in Tradition, substantiating the belief of Our Lady’s Assumption in body and soul. The new
name remained, however, and in time completely replaced the older but not so specific one of
Dormition.

11. The Immaculate Heart of Mary

(August 22)

The object of the present feast, as clearly indicated in the title, is to honor Mary’s most
admirable Heart.

This wholesome devotion, though widely spread at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
had not as yet taken on the definite aspect of a public veneration. St. John Eudes (1601-1680)
effected the transition by his ever memorable book The Admirable Heart of Mary. Pius X confirmed
this when, in 1909, he referred to St. Eudes as the first Apostle of the liturgical devotion to the
Hearts of Jesus and Mary: “Primum apostolum cultus liturgici Cordium Jesu et Mariae.”

The liturgical feast of Mary’s Immaculate Heart, the Office and Mass of which had been
composed by St. John Eudes himself, was celebrated for the first time in 1648. Fourteen years later,
twelve bishops had already approved this newly instituted feast. Shortly thereafter, due especially
to the approval of the above mentioned Office and Mass by the Cardinal Legate of Clement IX
(1668), virtually the whole of France had accepted this solemnity. In 1765, after some years of
hesitation concerning the usefulness of the devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, the
Congregation of Sacred Rites granted permission to the Polish hierarchy to celebrate the feast of
the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. This cleared the path for an eventual final approbation of the
corresponding feast of the Heart of Mary. Pius VI, on the other hand, refused permission to the
Carmelite Sisters of France to observe the feast of the Heart of Mary on the basis that, as yet, it
had never received any formal and direct approbation from the Holy See.
117 However, on July 21,
1855, Pius IX gave formal approbation to the feast of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, along with its
special Office and Mass. The Pontiff added that permission to celebrate this feast would be granted
to all who petitioned it. In 1914, innumerable requests were submitted to the Holy See entreating
the Sovereign Pontiff to extend the feast to the universal Church. It was Pius XII, however, who
gave it its crowning perfection, when, on May 4, 1944, as a lasting memory of his previous
consecration of the Church and the entire world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary (October 31,
1942), he proclaimed that it be universally observed on August 22, that is, the Octave of Mary’s
Assumption. Its rank is that of double of second class.
118

12. The Nativity of Mary

(September 8)

One need not scrutinize the liturgical calendar very closely to note that the determining factor
in setting the date of a feast of any given saint is his birth into everlasting life. It is not customary
to institute a feast to commemorate the temporal birth of a saint. Three exceptions only are found,
and the obvious reason for these exceptions is that all three were born presanctified: Jesus, by
reason of the Hypostatic Union; Mary, who by special privilege was preserved from all stain of sin
at the very instant of her conception; and St. John the Baptist who was presanctified in the womb
of his mother.

The Sacred Scriptures are silent concerning the birth of Mary. In many apocryphal writings,
however, dating as far back as the second century (Protoevangelium of James) we do find explicit
reference to it.

In the Orient:

It seems probable that the feast of the Nativity of Mary stemmed from the long existing feast
of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, of which St. Augustine writes.
119 However, there is no
explicit document testifying to the existence of this feast until the time of Andrew of Crete (660-740). Among his many homilies we find four which undoubtedly were written for the feast of
Mary’s Nativity. St. John Damascene (who died no later than 754) also composed a homily for this
feast. We may, therefore, safely infer that the Nativity of Mary originated no later than the first
half of the seventh century. Jugie traces its origin to an even earlier date, i.e., the middle of the
sixth century.
120

In the West:

Few years had elapsed before Rome already had made this feast its own. The Liber
Pontificalis
121 clearly states that Pope Sergius I (687-701) prescribed a solemn procession, leading
to the Basilica of St. Mary Major, to be held on the following feasts of Mary: the Nativity,
Annunciation, Dormition, and Purification.

From Rome it gradually found its way into England, France, Germany, and Spain. In his De
partu Virginis, Paschasius Radbertus (✝ 860) writes that the Nativity of Mary was being preached
throughout the universal Church. It became a holyday of obligation for the West at the time of St.
Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres (1007-1020), and no doubt through his strong influence.

In 1241, Innocent IV, in fulfillment of a promise made by him and the other cardinals united
in conclave with the purpose of finding a successor to Gregory IX, established that the feast
(which at that time was already universally accepted) should have an octave in the whole Church.
Gregory XI (✝ 1378) added to it a vigil with fast.

Actually, the feast of the Nativity of Mary is observed, both in the East and in the West, on
September 8. But it was not always thus. Its date varied with different countries and dioceses.

To the query as to why and how it was finally set for September 8, Roschini answers thus: The
feast of the Nativity preceded that of the Immaculate Conception, but at the time, its date varied
greatly. When, however, the feast of the Immaculate Conception became universally accepted, it
was but natural to set the Nativity on September 8, that is, nine months later.
122

13. The Most Holy Name of Mary

(September 12)

“The Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin ... and
the Virgin’s name was Mary” (Lk. 1:27). Next to “Jesus,” no other name has won, down through
the centuries, such universal recognition and respect. Small wonder, then, that a feast was
instituted whose object would be to render public honor to so great a name. Just as the feast of the
Holy Name of Jesus immediately follows His Circumcision, so too the feast of the Holy Name of
Mary closely follows her Nativity.

Spain was the first country to which permission was granted to celebrate this feast. It was
given by Julius II, in 1513, to one particular diocese of that country and celebrated on the octave
of the Nativity. Pius V, however, in his reformation of the Divine Office, abolished it. But it was
re-established by his immediate successor Sixtus V. In the year 1671 it was extended to the whole
of Spain and to the Neapolitan Kingdom. In memory of the world’s gratitude to Mary for Sobieski’s
defeat of the Turkish army at Vienna (September 12, 1683) Innocent XI decreed that the feast of
the Most Holy Name of Mary be extended to the universal Church. Innocent XII prescribed that
it be observed on the Sunday within the octave of the Nativity, but Pius X, in his reformation, and
in memory of the above mentioned victory, ordered that it be celebrated on September 12.
123

14. Feast of the Seven Dolors

(September 15)

Throughout the entire liturgical year only two exceptions are found wherein two distinct
feasts commemorate the same object: the Compassion, or Seven Dolors (Friday of Passion Week
and September 15), and the Chair of St. Peter (January 18 and February 22); although a distinction
could be made between the Chair of Peter at Rome and that at Antioch.

It is solely to the Order of the Servites of Mary that we are indebted for this second feast of
Mary’s Compassion. Its origin can be traced to the fifteenth century. It was customary at the time
(within the Order of the Servites itself) for the enrolled members of the Association of the Seven
Dolors of Mary to assemble on a Sunday of each month. In later years, greater solemnity was given
to one particular gathering held on the third Sunday of September, from which has come the
actual feast of the Seven Dolors, whose original date was not, therefore, the 15th, but the third
Sunday of the month.

On January 9, 1668, the Holy See authorized the Servites to observe this second
commemoration of Mary’s Transfixion. In 1734 this privilege was extended to Austria and, the
following year, to Spain and her territories. Pius VII, by a decree of September 18, 1814, proclaimed
it a universal feast. Its observance was kept on the third Sunday of September until Pius X, in his
liturgical reformation, determined that it be celebrated on September 15. By a special indult,
however, the Servites have maintained their traditional third Sunday of the month.
124

15. Our Lady of Mercy

(September 24)

The Saracens, in the fifth century, became indiscriminate pirates scouring the seas to obtain
slaves for the African markets. To offset this threat, a new order came into existence under the
title of The Religious Order of Our Lady of Mercy, whose primary goal was to guard the coasts and
ransom the captives. In order that due thanks be rendered to God and to His Virgin Mother for the
many favors and benefits showered upon this newly formed order, its members instituted the
present feast of Our Lady of Mercy. In the year 1680 Innocent XI extended it to the whole of Spain,
and a few years later, Pope Alexander VIII to all of France. It became a universal feast by a decree
of Innocent XII, dated February 22, 1696. It must be noted, however, that not until the seventeenth
century was its date set as September 24. Prior to this time its solemnity was observed on the 8th
of that month.
125

16. Our Lady of the Rosary

(October 7)

In its present form the Rosary was made known to the world by the sons of St. Dominic at the
outset of the thirteenth century, during the period of struggle with the Albigensians. But even
prior to this date, popular devotion was familiar with what was called the Psalter of the Faithful,
that is, the Angelical salutation repeated one hundred and fifty times. Also of ancient tradition are
the Confraternities of the Holy Rosary, dating as far back as the latter part of the fifteenth century,
the members of which had set aside the first Sunday of October as their principal feast. The Mass
Salve, radix sancta and solemn processions, enriched with special indulgences, lent great solemnity
to this day.

The historic and memorable happenings of October 7, 1571, the first Sunday of the month,
gave rise to the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. The Western world faced total disaster and ruin
from the Turks whose powerful fleet had already mastered the greater part of the Mediterranean
and was actually threatening Italy. St. Pius V and other Christian leaders, convinced that only
supernatural help could now ward off the oncoming invasion, turned their eyes heavenwards and
begged their heavenly Mother to intercede on their behalf. The saintly Pontiff also asked that the
Confraternities of the Holy Rosary intensify their devotion on this October 7 and celebrate it with
an even greater solemnity. It was on this day, indeed, that the allied Christian naval power
encountered the confident Turkish fleet in the Gulf of Lepanto. It is said that while the all-important battle raged, Pius V, favored with a heavenly vision, exclaimed: “Victoria, Victoria!” The
enemy fleet, in truth, suffered a deadly blow which broke the backbone of the Turkish power. It
was not the Pope’s privilege to celebrate the anniversary of this momentous grace of God. His
days had come to an end, but not before his proclamation of March 17, 1572, to the effect that in
public thanksgiving to Mary and in deep appreciation for her protection, a special commemoration
be given to her on October 7 under the title of Our Lady of Victory.

Gregory XIII, his successor, altered this title to Our Lady of the Rosary, and on April 1, 1573,
decreed that the new feast be kept on the first Sunday of October, authorizing its celebration in
those churches which possessed an altar under that invocation. One hundred years later, at the
request of Mary Anne, Queen of Spain, this feast was extended to all of Spain, and shortly after,
to numerous dioceses of Italy and other countries. On October 3, 1716, as a public acknowledgment
for the victory gained by Prince Eugene of Savoy over the Turks in Hungary on August 5 under
the protection of Our Lady of the Snow, Clement XI promulgated a document, prepared by his
predecessor Innocent XI, extending the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary to the universal Church.
Leo XIII elevated the feast to the rank of double of the second class. Finally, Pius X, in his Motu
proprio of October 23, 1913, assigned the feast to October 7.
126

17. Mary’s Divine Maternity

(October 11)

Convened at Ephesus for the third Ecumenical Council (431), the Fathers solemnly defined
Mary to be the Theotokos, that is, Mother of God. Even today, this is still her greatest title and one
which proclaims that she, more than all other creatures put together, was the recipient of a unique
dignity and the object of a very special predilection of God. The object of this feast, therefore,
ranks first in importance among the many other Marian prerogatives. Moreover, the liturgical
feast itself comes first in the order of time.
127 Its solemnity dates back to the end of the fourth
century, or the beginning of the fifth. Later on (end of the fifth century) its object evolved
considerably and it finally became the commemoration of Mary’s Dormition. Thus, for many
centuries to come, the Church was left without a feast whose explicit object was Mary’s Divine
Maternity. We say “explicit” because it can be safely stated that all feasts of Mary at least
implicitly refer to her as the great Mother of God.

In 1751, Benedict XIV, in answer to the prayers of King Joseph Emmanuel of Portugal and of
his people, granted permission to commemorate Mary’s Divine Maternity by a special feast
(composed by the Pontiff himself), to be kept on the first Sunday of May. From that time on, it
gradually penetrated into other countries until in 1931, Pius XI, wishing to perpetuate the memory
of the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus, decreed that the feast be celebrated the world
over. Its rank was elevated to that of double of the second class.
128

18. The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin

(November 21)

The object of this feast is not to be found in any of the Biblical writings. On the other hand,
the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James (second century) is the first to mention Mary’s
presentation in the Temple. Though at that early date there is yet no indication of a liturgical feast,
it is evident from the Protoevangelium that already in the early years of Christianity the faithful
were conscious of the deep mystery that surrounded Mary’s self-offering and dedication to the
service of her God.

In the East:

According to Dom Capelle,
129 the present feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin was
celebrated in Jerusalem in the sixth century. Its origin most probably coincides with the Dedication
of the Church of the Blessed Mary (543), built, by order of Emperor Justinian, upon the ruins of
the Temple. Frequently, indeed, did the dedication of a church give rise to a new feast
commemorating a given mystery. In 1143, Emperor Emmanuel determined that this feast should
rank among the holydays of obligation. It should be added also that in the East the feast of the
Presentation of Mary has constantly been celebrated with much greater solemnity than in the
West. As just stated, it became a holyday at an early date, and even now it is considered one of the
twelve major feasts of the year.
130

In the West:

It was only centuries later that the feast of the Presentation at long last found its way into the
Western liturgy. Roschini claims that already in the ninth century it was observed in a certain
Greek monastery of Southern Italy, whence it passed into England.
131 In 1372 Gregory XI, through
the intercession of Philip of Mazières just returned from the East, permitted that it be celebrated
for the first time by the Roman court at Avignon. Shortly thereafter (1373), Charles V of France
introduced it into the chapel of his palace, and in the following year, in a letter to the masters and
students of the college of Navarre, dated November 10, he expressed the desire that it be kept
throughout his kingdom. The new feast gradually became general. But Pius V, in the hope of
reducing the number of universal feasts, later abolished it. In 1585, however, Sixtus V re-established it in the Roman Breviary. Clement VIII elevated its rank to that of double major.
132

II. FEASTS CELEBRATED IN SOME DIOCESES OR
RELIGIOUS ORDERS

1. Our Lady of Loreto

The object of this feast is to commemorate the miraculous transfer of the Holy House at
Loreto. It was first celebrated, by special indult of the Sacred Congregation of Rites dated
November 29, 1632, in the Province of Piceno. Already in 1729, the entire Venetian Republic and
all its territories observed this solemnity. It is kept on December 10.

2. The Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mother

Concerning the origin of the present feast, we refer the reader to what has been written on
the feast of the Annunciation, in its development in Spain. Though not a universal feast, its
observance had already spread far and wide by the end of the eighteenth century. It is celebrated
on December 18.

3. The Espousals of Our Lady

The historical development of this feast has been a rather turbulent one. It was originally
instituted in France in the early fourteenth century, but, surprisingly, as a feast of St. Joseph.
Shortly after, however, through strong influence exerted by the Friars Minor, it evolved into a
specific Marian feast. Paul III, in 1537, granted permission to the entire Order to observe this feast
on March 7. In the following years, a middle note was struck, wherein both Mary and Joseph were
honored. After the death of Paul IV, who had had the thought of suppressing it entirely, it quickly
spread throughout France, Holland, and Moravia. It was extended to the whole of Austria in 1678,
and two years later, to Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Even far off Palestine received it in
1689. This solemnity is kept on January 23.

4. Our Lady of Good Counsel

Benedict XIII first instituted this feast in 1727. A few years later (1789), Pius VI authorized the
Augustinian Fathers to celebrate it on April 26. As of now, practically speaking, it is a universal
feast within the Latin Church.

5. Mary, Help of Christians

It was Pius VII who instituted the present feast in 1815, in thanksgiving to God for his
liberation from captivity under Napoleon. It is kept on May 24, and was first observed within the
Pontifical States.
133

6. Mary, Queen of Apostles

This solemnity, a special Office of which was granted to the Fathers of the Society of the
Catholic Apostolate and to the Pious Society of St. Paul, is observed on the Saturday within the
octave of the Ascension. Pius XI enriched the invocation Regina Apostolorum, ora pro nobis with
an indulgence of 300 days.

7. The Humility of the Blessed Virgin Mary

This feast was first celebrated in the diocese of Salford, England. It is kept on July 17.

8. Mary Mediatrix of All Graces
134

Benedict XV, due mostly to the influence of Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines,
instituted this solemnity on January 12, 1921. It was granted at the same time to all the dioceses
of Belgium and was to be celebrated on May 31. It is now observed by several religious orders and
by numerous dioceses throughout the world.
135

9. Mary, Mother of Grace

The present solemnity was first celebrated in Faenza, Italy, in the hope of checking an
oncoming epidemic. It is kept on June 9.

10. Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Pius IX instituted this feast in 1876. It is generally kept on June 27, with the exception of Rome
where it is observed on April 26.

11. Mary, Mother of Mercy

The present feast (kept on the Saturday prior to the second Sunday of July) is observed with
much solemnity at the Shrine of Mother of Mercy in Savona. It was first celebrated in the diocese
of Cremona in 1516.

12. Mary, the Refuge of Sinners

This feast has been celebrated in Speyer ever since the year 1884. It is kept on August 13.

13. Our Lady of Consolation

Gregory XVI instituted this solemnity in 1838. It was granted, along with a new Mass and
Office, to the Augustinian Fathers.

14. Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal

Pope Leo XIII instituted this feast in 1894. It is celebrated on the anniversary of the second
apparition of the Blessed Virgin to St. Catherine Labouré, that is, on November 27.

15. Our Lady of Purity

Instituted in the year 1751, this feast is celebrated on October 16 by the Theatine Fathers, and
also in Brazil, Portugal, and Algeria.

Mary’s Day and Mary’s Months

By FRANCIS D. COSTA, S.S.S.

WHILE Catholics everywhere faithfully follow the traditional custom of dedicating certain days
and months of the year to Our Blessed Lady, relatively few are familiar with the centuries-old
process of development which culminated in the well-established forms of devotion which we
practice today in this connection. The purpose of this chapter is to supply this information in a
condensed fashion by briefly tracing the origin and gradual evolution of these devout practices
according to available data. We shall treat separately the following subjects: (I) Saturday, Mary’s
day; (II) the devotion of the First Saturdays; (III) the month of May; and (IV) the month of October.

I. SATURDAY, MARY’S DAY
136

The practice of setting aside the last day of the week for special liturgical observance is almost
as ancient as the human race. We gather from the pages of the Old Testament that the Jews and
the Babylonians were wont to keep Saturday as the happy anniversary of the day on which God
completed the creation of the world. During the early centuries of the Christian era, the followers
of the Gnostic Marcion observed a strict fast on Saturday in order to manifest their sadness over
the creation of matter, which they held intrinsically evil. The vigorous reaction of Eastern
Christians to this blasphemous practice went so far as to consider it a sin to fast on Saturday.
137 In
the West, however, where the Gnostic heresy exerted but little influence, the early Christians did
not react in the same way; they continued to observe Saturday (along with Friday) as a day of
weekly abstinence and prayer in commemoration of Our Lord’s stay in the sepulcher, and to
imitate the fast of the Apostles sorrowing after the death of their Master. That this was the
principal reason for the practice, especially in Rome, is evident from a letter of Pope Innocent I
(409-417) to Decentius, Bishop of Gubbio,
138 notwithstanding the contrary testimony of St.
Augustine and St. Cassian.
139 At any rate, this practice, which did not become universal until several
centuries after Innocent I, retained its original purpose up to the tenth century, when it was
transformed into a Marian observance.

Many reasons have been advanced to explain this transition, such as, for example,
extraordinary favors received through Mary’s intercession on Saturday.
140 But they are mere
conjectures. It seems more likely that the choice of Saturday as a day of special veneration to Our
Lady was made at this time (tenth century) in order to commemorate her extreme desolation on
the day following her Son’s burial. If, as Innocent I claimed, the Saturday observance in his time
was meant to commemorate the sorrow of the Apostles on that day, is it not natural to suppose
that Christian piety would gradually lay more and more stress on the incomparable sorrows of the
Queen of Martyrs until finally this latter aspect replaced the former?

Be that as it may, the fact is that as early as the beginning of the eleventh century St. Peter
Damian (✝ 1072) mentions the custom of celebrating a Mass in honor of the Blessed Virgin every
Saturday, except on feast days and during Lent.
141 His contemporary, Bernold of Constance, testifies
to the same thing, noting that the practice was introduced, not at the command of ecclesiastical
authority, but rather to satisfy the devotion of the faithful.
142 Similarly, in a Sacramentary of the
same period, preserved in the library of the metropolitan church of Cologne, we find two Masses
in honor of Our Lady to be celebrated on Saturday.

At about this time, too, the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin came to be recited on Saturday.
It seems that the Benedictine monks of Monte Cassino and Cluny were among the first to adopt
this method of sanctifying Our Lady’s day.
143 In 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II
(1088-1099) ordered, or at least recommended, this Marian devotion to insure the success of the
First Crusade.
144

From the Benedictines the practice soon spread to other religious orders whose members were
also eager to signify their tender devotion to Mary by means of a special observance on the day
dedicated to her. And so we find, for example, that as early as 1269, at the fourth general chapter
of the Franciscans held in Assisi, St. Bonaventure himself, the general of the Order, directed that
a special Mass in honor of the Blessed Virgin be sung in each convent every Saturday.
145

It is interesting to note in this connection that the old English custom of stopping all servile
work at noon on Saturdays was introduced by order of King William I of Scotland in order to show
his love for the Church and for the Blessed Virgin.
146 Belief in the “sabbatine privilege” of the
brown scapular preached by the Carmelites from the fifteenth century also helped to make more
general the custom of consecrating Saturday to the praise and veneration of Our Lady.

By the middle of the sixteenth century the Saturday Mass and Office in Mary’s honor were so
widely accepted and fervently kept that St. Pius V (1566-1572), while radically reforming the
Roman liturgy, left this usage intact. Something similar was done on behalf of the Ambrosian rite
by St. Charles Borromeo as Cardinal Archbishop of Milan.
147

At this juncture mention should also be made of the Fifteen Saturdays, a devout practice
introduced by the Dominicans in the course of the seventeenth century which became quite
popular especially in France, Italy, and Belgium. It consisted primarily in offering various acts of
devotion and mortification to Our Lady on the fifteen consecutive Saturdays preceding the feast
of the Holy Rosary. The practice was enriched with many indulgences by Pope Alexander VIII
(1689-1691), Pius IX (1846-1878), and particularly by Leo XIII (1878-1903) in his decree of
September 21, 1889.
148 The required conditions for gaining the indulgences are as follows:
confession within the week; Holy Communion on each Saturday (or, if impossible, on the
following Sunday); the recitation of five decades of the rosary.

II. THE FIRST SATURDAYS DEVOTION

Another devout practice which deserves mention in this context is the one relative to the First
Saturday of each month. Its first seeds were sown, it would seem, by St. John Eudes (✝ 1680),
apostle of the devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and by Ven. John J. Olier (✝ 1657),
founder of the Sulpician Fathers. The specific purpose of this devotion, at least from the eighteenth
century on, was to set aside the first Saturday of each month as a day of reparation to Our Blessed
Lady for all the blasphemies of which she is the object. The act of reparation so widely used in this
connection was composed by the great Marian apostle, Joseph de Galiffet, S.J. (✝ 1749).

In more recent times the chief organizer and promoter of this devotion was undoubtedly the
Servant of God, Sister Dolores Inglese (✝ 1928), of the Congregation of Servants of Mary
Reparatrix, founded in Adria, Italy. It was she who, in February of 1889, having obtained
ecclesiastical approval, inaugurated the beautiful practice known as the Saturday “Communion
of Reparation.” This devotion, which was soon taken up by over seven hundred groups of Children
of Mary, thus spreading through Italy and other countries, has been lavishly indulgenced by the
popes. On June 13, 1912, St. Pius X (1903-1914) decreed that all the faithful could gain a plenary
indulgence, applicable to the souls in Purgatory, on the first Saturday of each month, provided
they went to confession, received Holy Communion, and performed some act of reparation in
honor of Our Blessed Lady. Again, on November 9, 1920, Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922) granted
a plenary indulgence, obtainable at the moment of death, to those making these acts of reparation
on eight successive first Saturdays.
149

Among the events which may be credited for giving the greatest impetus to the growth and
popularity of the practice, the apparitions of Fatima in 1917 are second to none. In answer to Our
Lady’s explicit plea, addressed to the world through the three Portuguese children, countless
Catholics are observing the first Saturday of every month as a day of reparation for the many
insults hurled at the Mother of God. Moreover, Our Lady has promised to show herself a true
mother at the hour of death, and to obtain all the graces needed for salvation, on behalf of those
who keep the five consecutive first Saturdays in reparation to her Immaculate Heart. This devotion
consists of the following: reception of Holy Communion (with confession made sometime during
the eight days before or after the first Saturday); recitation of five decades of the rosary; and a
fifteen minute meditation on one or more of the mysteries of the rosary.

III. THE MONTH OF MAY

Not content with consecrating one day of the week to Our Lady, Catholics dedicate a whole
month to her honor.
150 The thirty-one days of May are looked upon popularly as one long Marian
feast. In the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere May is a month especially fit to be set
aside in Our Lady’s praise. The flowers of Maytime are reminders of the spiritual beauty of the
Mother of God.

As in other manifestations of devotion, the East preceded the Western Church in the choice
of a month of Mary. The Copts, for example, set aside December, a mild month in the Nile climate,
as the month of Our Lady. And they observe this month liturgically. Each evening the faithful
gather to chant the office, and on Saturday the celebration is still more solemn. Some authorities
claim the custom goes back to the time of St. Cyril of Alexandria, defender of the divine maternity
against Nestorius. The Byzantine Greeks also keep a Marian month, in August, with a fifteen-day
preparation for the feast of the Assumption and a fifteen-day celebration after it.
151

In the West the choice of May as Mary’s month seems to have been a counter measure to the
vices that flared up particularly at this time of year. Certain pagan festivals for May encouraged
immorality. Lactantius reports that public acts of indecency were the order of the day during the
Roman rites, the ludi florales, in honor of the goddess Flora at the end of April and the beginning
of May. This annual observance was hundreds of years old when Christianity appeared, and
although it was officially abolished, the habits of human beings changed more slowly. During the
Middle Ages the problem became so acute that religious authorities felt obliged to take action. St.
Charles Borromeo as late as 1579 ordered devotions to Mary during May in his cathedral city of
Milan as an antidote to the orgies of May 1. Thus the natural exuberance of man was wisely
directed toward the Blessed Virgin, to the singing of her praises and the contemplation of her
spiritual beauty.

The first to associate Mary and May appears to have been King Alphonsus X of Spain (✝ 1284).
In one of his poems he sings of May, the month of Mary, describing how the people gather round
her altar to sing her glories and pray for protection from all harm. This would point to some public
celebration of May as Mary’s month.

In the fourteenth century, Blessed Henry Suso, O.P., of Germany adopted the practice of
honoring Mary in a special way during springtime. He would gather flowers, weave them into a
crown, and then place it on the statue at Our Lady’s altar. On one occasion he was privileged to
hear angel choirs joining him in singing Mary’s praises, and another time he heard them singing
the Magnificat.

In 1549 Wolfgang Seidl, O.S.B., published at Munich a small book, The Spiritual May, in order
to counteract the profanations so common in that month. St. Philip Neri (✝ 1595), sometimes
credited with founding May devotions in Italy, used to urge the youth of Rome to pay special
homage to Mary in this month. Another instance was the devotion of a monastery of Dominican
novices at Fiesole. In 1676, under the guidance of Father Angelo Giunigi, they formed an
association to honor Mary during May. In 1692 the German Capuchin Lawrence von Schnueffis
published a book of Marian hymns that may owe their origin to May devotions.

The stage of “codification” was reached when the first handbooks were published. In 1725, A.
Dionisi, S.J., published at Verona a small book, The Month of Mary, or the Month of May. It was an
immediate success, reaching eighteen editions in a hundred years. The tone of the book was moral;
there were chapters on decorating Mary’s altar or statue, the practice of the daily rosary or the
singing of her litany, the suggestion of a special virtue to be practiced daily, and subjects of
meditation on Our Blessed Mother for each day.

In 1758, F. Lalomia, S.J., published The Month of Mary, in which he narrated the life of Our
Lady and explained her virtues and privileges. It was translated into French and German and
quickly went through sixty printings, setting the standard for many other such manuals.

In the early eighteenth century the month of May began to pass from private celebrations in
the family or religious houses to public churches. In 1739 it was celebrated in the parish church
at Grezzana near Verona, in 1774 at St. Andrew’s in Verona, and soon spread to almost every
parish church in the area so that the Jansenists forced the bishop to interpose and put a stop to
the movement. But it had caught on at nearby Ferrara and thence spread through all Italy. The
great apostle of the period was Alphonsus Muzzarelli, S.J., a native of Ferrara, who published an
extremely popular The Month of May in 1785. The 1787 reprinting was prefaced by an open letter
to all the bishops of Italy, urging the adoption of May devotions. In the nineteenth century the
book was reprinted over a hundred times in Italy, and there were editions in other languages as
well. Muzzarelli was called to Rome by Pope Pius VI, and under Pius VII established the devotion
at the Gesù and in many other Roman churches.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the month of May was celebrated all through Europe,
the United States, and even the missions of China. Great leaders in the Church were strong
advocates of it — Cardinal V. Deschamps, C.Ss.R., of Belgium, Bishop Gasser of Austria, and
Cardinal Reisach of Germany. St. Anthony Claret preached it in Spain and Cuba. The Irish-born
American bishops, the brothers Kenrick, and many others spread it. Popes Pius VII and Pius IX
indulgenced the May devotion. It spread through Ireland from Waterford where it was introduced
about 1818. Father Aloysius Gentili, I.C., brought the custom to England about 1840. Cardinal
Newman and G. M. Hopkins are among English Catholic literary figures who take up the May
devotions in their writings.
152

Recent popes have favored May devotions and spoken of this form of Marian piety with praise.
During each year of World War II, 1939 through 1945, the late Pope Pius XII addressed a whole
series of documents urging prayers for peace during Our Lady’s month of May.
153 Full of doctrinal
content as well as of deep devotion to Mary, these appeals are directed particularly to children and
Christian families. The encyclical, Auspicia quaedam, of May 1, 1948, urged consecration to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary. And in one of the last Marian acts of his pontificate Pius XII instituted
the new feast of the Queenship of Our Lady for May 31.

A discourse of Pope Pius XII to the international convention of rose growers delicately plays
on the theme of dedicating the natural beauty of May to Mary’s honor: “Gentlemen, We like to
think that you find encouragement in your work from the mere thought that the month of roses
is and will always be the month of Mary. Thus, while cultivating the flowers that are the
adornment of the soil, so often unprofitable and difficult for men, you are naturally led to honor
the Creator, to lift your hearts toward her who bears the beautiful title of Mystical Rose, the honor
and the joy of the human family.”
154 The strongest of all papal references to the month of May is
in Pius XII’s encyclical on the Christian liturgy, Mediator Dei: “There are certain other pious
practices which, though not belonging strictly to the liturgy, nevertheless enjoy a special
importance and dignity, such that they are regarded as raised to liturgical rank, and have received
repeated approval from this Apostolic See and the Episcopate. Among these are special devotions
to the Virgin Mother of God during the month of May, and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus during the
month of June. ...”
155

IV. OCTOBER, MONTH OF THE ROSARY

Leo XIII, pope of the rosary, regarded himself as particularly responsible for dedicating
October to Our Lady. In one of many mentions of this fact, he wrote: “To this heavenly mother
we have offered the flowers of the month of May; to her we would also have fruit-bearing October
dedicated with a particularly tender devotion. It is fitting that both parts of the year should be
consecrated to her who said of herself: ‘My flowers are the fruit of honor and riches.’ ”
156

The remote antecedents of the dedication of October to Our Lady were the Dominican October
rosary devotions in commemoration of the victory of Lepanto, October, 1572, and the institution
of the feast of the holy rosary by Gregory XIII in 1573. This was a centuries-old usage when Joseph
Morán, a Spanish Dominican, obtained from Pope Pius IX in 1868 indulgences for all who would
attend such October observances.
157

In 1883 by his encyclical Supremi apostolatus Pope Leo XIII extended the month of October to
all parish churches, confirming this obligation the following year in Superiore anno.
158 Decrees of
the Sacred Congregations, of Indulgences and of Rites, in 1885 fixed precise norms for gaining
indulgences by attending October devotions.
159 With the signing of the Lateran Pact in 1929 the
strict obligation of such parochial observance of October ceased, notes Adazzi, because peace
between the Vatican and the Italian State was the particular reason why Pope Leo had commanded
the October devotions. Nonetheless, the custom of the October prayers remains, warmly
recommended of course by Rome, and the indulgences are fully valid.
160

Evidence of Pope Leo XIII’s pastoral anxiety that all say the rosary is provided by his
permission to farm workers, so often busy through the harvest month of October, to have these
indulgenced devotions in November or December at the discretion of the local bishop.
161 Iucunda
semper, September 8, 1894, one of the more important of Pope Leo’s many rosary messages, refers
in its opening words to the pope’s joy at seeing the month of the rosary approaching once again:
“It is always with joyful expectation and renewed hope that we look forward to the return of the
month of October. At Our exhortation and by Our express order, this month has been consecrated
to the Blessed Virgin. ...”
162 Pope Pius XII spoke of October in almost identical language in his
Ingruentium malorum, September 15, 1951.
163 Pius XI’s rosary encyclical, Ingravescentibus malis
(The ever worsening evils), September 29, 1937, whose title so well describes the gathering storm
of World War II, was also issued in preparation for October.
164

Pope John XXIII’s first Marian encyclical in its opening words, Grata recordatio (Grateful
memory), refers explicitly to the series of rosary letters of Leo XIII. Pope John also recalls Pius
XII’s encyclical urging the keeping of the month of the holy rosary.
165 And again like his
predecessors, Pope John sees in the rosary not merely a great help to individuals and to families,
but a social remedy. Among the intentions of the October prayers the pope includes: “that the men
responsible for the destinies of communities great and small, whose rights and whose immense
spiritual wealth must be preserved intact, may be aware of the grave task that awaits them in this
hour.”

With the emphasis on the rosary since Lourdes and Pope Leo XIII the month of October has
had a greater development than the month of May. Yet in May as well as in October recent
pontiffs have turned to the contemporary needs of the Church and of society in suggesting
intentions for the prayers to Our Lady in these months. Pope Pius XII used the occasion of May
devotions to Mary to urge prayers to the Queen of peace, particularly through the war years. Pope
Leo XIII’s rosary documents are an extended commentary on the spiritual needs of those years,
and Popes Pius XI, Pius XII, and John XXIII have advocated the October rosary in the same sense.

Marian Prayers

By REV. GERARD S. SLOYAN, Ph.D.

EGYPTIAN ostraka of uncertain date (later than a.d. 325 and probably sixth century) contain
liturgical prayers which refer to the mystery of Christ’s birth from the Virgin Mother Mary. Thus
a Christmas hymn speaks of Christ, begotten by an “unfathomable” Father before the ages, as one
whom we now adore, “become incarnate in a Virgin’s womb ... O holy God, you have deigned to
be born a tiny child of a virgin. O holy, strong God, you have willed to rest in Mary’s arms.”
166 The
third member of the invocation refers to Christ as “holy and deathless” (hagios athanatos), a phrase
familiar to the Western ear because of its usage in the Roman liturgy of Good Friday. The prayer
continues to address Mary as “immaculate Virgin, Mother of God and filled with every grace ...
whose maternal breast has nourished all men. She is the joy of angels; she has outrun the
predictions of all the prophets in her fullness of grace. The Lord is with her and she has given birth
[this] day to the Savior of the world.”

An Egyptian eucharistic liturgy similarly addresses the God who spoke to Moses on Sinai as
the recipient now of a sinless nature from an immaculate virgin; he who nourished Israel is
nourished by the milk of a mother who knew not man; the chastiser of kings has himself fled to
Egypt to escape a king; he who is enthroned in majesty on high is laid in a crib.
167 For all these
marvels, “in a spirit of faith we praise the Mother and sing to the child.”

A prayer which had had a long history of popular usage before the discovery in Egypt in 1917
of a Greek papyrus containing it, was the Sub tuum praesidium, which is none other than the trope
Hypò tēn sēn eusplagchnían of Byzantine Lenten vespers. In the Roman Little Office of the Blessed
Virgin it is the antiphon for the canticle Nunc dimittis at Compline. It is translated: “We fly to your
patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us
always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.” The publication of the text in 1938 by C.
H. Roberts laid the groundwork for the claim that it was the oldest known prayer to Mary. An
article by Dom Mercenier of Chevetogne (Belgium) a year later first made this identification, since
the editor had not given any indication of familiarity with it. The Papyrus is about 7 by 3⅔ inches
in size; the sheet was not bound to any other. A Latin translation of the text as reconstructed by
Mercenier follows.
168 It is of ten lines in good uncials, so ornamented that some have thought this
papyrus a model for scribes.

(1) Sub praesidium (2) misericordiae tuae (3) confugimus o (4) Deigenetrix: nostras (5)
deprecationes ne despicias (6) in necessitate (or in necessitatibus) (7) sed a periculo (8) erue nos,
Tu quae (9) sola es pura (or gloriosa) et (10) benedicta.
169

Roberts was inclined to date the papyrus as of the latter fourth century, even going so far as
to say, “it is almost incredible that a prayer addressed directly to the Virgin in these terms could
be written in the third century,” but his colleague Lobel thinks there are no good reasons for
putting it later than the third.
170

Mercenier based his reconstruction on those Coptic and Byzantine liturgies still in use which
employ the prayer. The version on papyrus uses numerous phrases from the Septuagint, e.g. sképē
(praesidium, protection, shelter), found in Isa. 49:2; 51:16, also Ps. 16(17):8. Interestingly, the Coptic
version leaves the sacred term sképē untranslated, while the Syriac, Syro-Chaldean, and Armenian
versions fill out the biblical phrase “under the shadow of your wings.” Taken altogether, this
invocation to Mary has something of the flavor of those Psalms which beg protection from the
Lord who is the psalmist’s refuge (kataphygē) and deliverer (hrýstēs). The plea for deliverance from
dangers in the Sub tuum praesidium is an echo of near-identical phrases in the Septuagint versions
of Pss. 17:3; 60:5; 70:4; 90:1 ff.; 114:2-5; 142:9 (all Vulgate enumeration), while the phrase “but
deliver us from danger” (all’ ek kindýnou hrŷsai hēmâs) is found substantially in a prayer of a
papyrus of Dêr-Balyzeh.
171 Mary’s intercession was evidently thought to be such that she could be
counted on, as Mother of God, to insure the protective care of God Himself.

Cechetti makes the point that the normal verb of the Greek liturgies to implore deliverance,
theologically understood, is lýtrōsai. The use of hrŷsai in this prayer (in Latin, erue) is taken by him
as probably describing the cry for deliverance uttered by Christians in the persecutions of Valerian
and Decius. Similarly, the perístasis of line six, generally translated “necessity” or “extreme,” is a
calamitous situation that could easily be persecution for the faith. Whatever the cause, Mary is
called on to show eusphlagchnía, “mercy,” under the shadow of which virtue of hers (not the éleos
which is most commonly the divine mercy of the Septuagint) the petitioners seek refuge. Yet her
“merciful heart” is not entirely unlike the splágchna eléous or “bowels of mercy” familiar to the
English Bible reader (Lk. 1:78).

The prayer addresses her as theotókos, “God-bearer,” an indication that thus early in Egypt the
term had liturgical significance and was not confined to the debates of theologians. The fifth
century historian Socrates refers to Origen’s explanation of the term in his no longer extant first
volume of commentary on Romans.
172 Support is likewise found in the use of theotókos for the
contention that Cyril sought a term consecrated by Alexandrian liturgical usage, in the pre-Ephesine struggle over the divine maternity. There had been, in fact, before the discovery of
Papyrus Rylands 470 no documentary evidence of devotion to Mary before Nicea. The
development of a feast jointly honoring Christ and Mary, which culminated in the Eastern
observance of her divine motherhood, is assumed for the period of the early fourth century.
173 If
paleography’s earlier date for the Sub tuum praesidium is accepted, the uncertainty of any formal
euchology to Our Lady by the third century is removed.

Mary alone is “pure” (hagnē) in the Byzantine liturgical reading of the prayer;
174 the adjective
is lacking from the mutilated papyrus. She becomes “gloriosa” in the Roman version, which
Mercenier admits might have existed originally as semnē, in the Ambrosian version.
175 She is also
“blessed” (eulogemenē, benedicta). The Roman version asks Mary: “libera nos semper, Virgo
gloriosa et benedicta,” in a phrase which joins the newcomer “semper” to the preceding phrase
both musically and in punctuation, but which undoubtedly started its career as “ever virgin”
(aeipárthenos, semper virgo).
176

The Coptic version remains closest to the Rylands papyrus. In English it would read, “We fly
to the protection of your mercies, O Mother of God, despise not our petitions in [our] necessities,
but deliver us from perdition, oh [you] who alone [are] blessed.”
177

The Sub tuum praesidium serves also as an Antiphona post Evangelium in Masses of the Virgin
in the Ambrosian rite.
178 The version there and in the Roman Office is as follows:

Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, sancta Dei Genitrix; nostras deprecationes ne despicias in
necessitatibus [nostris]
179 sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.

The words sancta, cunctis and semper (explained above) were either introduced for rhythmic
reasons, or else originated in some entirely different fashion as in the case of the adverbial prefix
“aei-.” The similarities of the Roman version with the Egyptian (of the papyrus) are marked,
according to Mercenier, a fact as well known as the relation of Byzantine and Gallican liturgies.
180

Although the prayer seems to have been used as the Nunc dimittis antiphon starting only in
the twelfth century, it is found as a responsory at the gospel in a manuscript of Compiègne (from
which the word gloriosa is missing), dating to the late ninth century.
181 The whole Liber Responsalis
is attributed to Gregory the Great.

* * *

The Latin text of the Hail Mary as we know it was fixed by its insertion into the Roman
breviary of Pius V in 1568. The first half had appeared in Greek on an Egyptian potsherd, dated
around a.d. 600. It reads:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, because thou didst conceive Christ, the Son of God, the Redeemer of our souls.
182

The naturalness with which Gabriel’s greeting to Mary (Lk. 1:28) was joined to Elizabeth’s
(1:42), and her name “Mary” inserted into the account, is evident.
183 He greets her with the word
Chaîre (“Rejoice!”), a term not without Messianic significance in the Septuagint passages Joel 2:23,
Zach. 9:9, and Soph. 3:14. As early as the Greek liturgy of St. James the “join” is to be found at the
prayer of intercession or “diptychs.” It passes into the Egyptian liturgy known as that of St. Mark,
184
and presumably from there into the Latin liturgy, where it appears as the offertory of the Mass of
the fourth Sunday of Advent in the antiphonary ascribed to St. Gregory the Great. It occurs there
by way of transfer from Ember Wednesday, and goes back farther still to the feast of the
Annunciation, introduced into Rome toward the end of the seventh century.
185

Mabillon’s theory was that the popular usage of the first half of the Hail Mary resulted not
from its once or twice-yearly liturgical employment, but from its incorporation into the hours of
the Little Office of Our Lady in the eleventh century. In this prayer, which was added for piety’s
sake to the Divine Office by numerous religious orders and then adopted by the secular clergy and
laity, phrases from the Hail Mary are used throughout (invitatory, responsories, antiphon at
tierce). Often a genuflection accompanied the utterance, “Ave Maria.”
186 Miracle stories proliferated
in the twelfth century in which clients who called on Mary in terms of the Ave knew no
limitations of nature. St. Peter Damian, who died in Italy in 1072, was a strong propagator of Our
Lady’s Office. He has left us a Mary-story of a tepid cleric who was saved through calling on her
in the familiar formula of the first half of the prayer.
187

Documentation from the twelfth century leaves us to conclude that the fairly common
recitation of the Day-Hours to Mary resulted in making the phrases of the Angel’s greeting an
integral part of popular piety.
188 Statues to her were commonly greeted in Gabriel’s words. There
was no uniform practice concerning the length of the prayer. Sometimes the speaker stopped at
tecum, sometimes at the in mulieribus of the Vulgate (which critical texts of the Greek do not
contain), and sometimes at the fructus ventris tui of Elizabeth’s greeting. The name of Jesus in
apposition with “fruit of thy womb,” had not yet been supplied. Mary was everywhere hailed as
gratia plena. The evangelist’s kecharitōménē (“Most highly favored”) with its distinctive Old
Testament significance, strengthened by “the Lord is with thee” and the assurance “thou hast
found grace with God” (v. 30), had come to be taken by the Church to mean the fullness of holiness
in terms of the new dispensation.
189

It is Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, who recorded while still a monk, before 1180, that
it was the custom in England to add “and blessed is the fruit of thy womb” to the angel’s
salutation.
190 A twelfth-century manuscript (Additional 21, 927) has, as the responsory of Compline,
Gabriel’s greeting and the versicle, Elizabeth’s. There is all sorts of evidence that the recitation of
one hundred and fifty Aves, in the form known to the twelfth century, was a common devotion
in imitation of the Psalter.
191

As to the second half of the Hail Mary, it became evident in time that mere greeting and praise
to Mary required some sort of completion in the form of impetratory prayer. A hymn to Mary from
the late eleventh century, attributed universally to Gottschalk of Aachen, has as its first stanza
Gabriel’s words only (the same form as that known to Gottschalk’s Italian contemporary Peter
Damian). There are six remaining stanzas, the last of which reads:

Hic nobis et mortis in

hora succurre

ac in orbis examine

nos tuos recognosce.
192

This plea for succor at the present moment (hic) and at the hour of death, and recognition at
the world’s judgment, clearly foreshadows the petition in the form in which we know it. No other
completion of the prayer precedes the fourteenth century, when the following verse occurs,
erroneously attributed to Dante:

O Vergin benedetta, sempre tu

Ora pro noi a Dio, che ci perdoni

E diaci grazia a viver sì guaggiù

Che’l paradiso al nostro fin ci doni.
193

By “no other completion” a full petition is meant. Numerous instances are recorded of
concluding the twofold greeting of Scripture with “Jesus” or “Jesus Christ. Amen.” The latter
addition is attributed to Pope Urban IV (1261-64), who, according to Michael ab Insulis in 1497 in
a treatise on the rosary from Cologne, gave an indulgence of thirty days to all who prayed it.
194
Pope John XXII (1316-34) reportedly increased this to sixty days. Georg Witzel is found defending
this gloss on Scripture in his Catechismus Ecclesiae (1559) on the basis of the power of the Holy
Name. The Council of Narbonne (1551) sanctioned the shorter ending “Jesus,” and Ulrich Zwingli
is discovered attributing it to the Holy Spirit.
195

As to “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus,” it appears in sermons of St.
Bernardine of Siena (d. 1444)
196; in a variety of Carthusian breviaries (Paris 1521, 1551); and in the
synodal decrees of Augsburg and Constance from 1567. Inscriptions on late fifteenth-century bells
contain the substance of the full petition,
197 and a decree from the Archbishop of Mainz sent on to
Pope Alexander VI in 1493 contains all but the word sinners, adding the title “Virgin” to “Holy
Mary.” “O Du Helge Jungfraw Marie, Mutter Gottes, bidt Gott vor uns itzunde und in der Stundt
des Dodes. Amen.”
198 Savonarola died in 1498, and he gave us the entire Ave Maria as we have it
now, the final word nostrae alone excepted.
199

A Mercedarian breviary produced in Paris in 1514 had the final petition; so did one of the
Camaldolese (Venice, 1525) and of the Franciscans (Paris, 1525). The Breviary of the Cross of the
Franciscan Cardinal Quiñones (1536) contained the formula, “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro
nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis.”
200 The great folio of the Sarum Breviary (1531) has the
same, having added “Christus” to “Jesus.” Strangely, the Catechismus Romanus (1566) proceeds
only as far as “amongst women,” although it mentions in the immediate context the Church’s
practice of adding “prayers ... and supplications to the most holy Mother of God” to the thanks
expressed for her singular privileges.
201

It was the Roman Breviary of Pope Pius V (1568) that made the modern text of the “Hail Mary”
secure, though truncated versions continued to be used widely. A Belgian calendar of Our Lady,
for example (Douai, 1638), gives only the first half of the prayer. The latter portion is also missing
from the day hours of the Dominican breviary from 1629 until now. France still knew the ending
“peccatoribus. Amen,” in 1613;
202 sixteenth and seventeenth century German songbooks end the
prayer with: “Jesus Christus. Amen.” Peter Canisius, on the other hand, in his Dillingen
Catechismus Minor of 1560, gives the ending: “Jesus Christus. Heylige Maria, muter Gottes, bitt für
uns arme (poor) sünder. Amen.”
203 Certain manuscripts of his Ingolstadt catechism of 1584 have all
this, plus “jetzt und in der Stund unsers Absterbens. Amen.”
204

To complete the catalogue of endings employed at various times we may mention the Swedish
religious of Wadstena, who in 1447 concluded the prayer, “Jesus Christus in aeternum”; while the
German Chronicle of Windesheim gives “Jesus Christus Amen, qui est gloriosus Deus benedictus
in saecula.”
205

Numerous religious congregations and canons had recited the Ave Maria before each canonical
hour, from the thirteenth century onward (e.g., Dominicans, Benedictines, Canons Regular of
Nicosia). It was the action of Pope Pius V with regard to the breviary, however, which
standardized the formula with its prescription that each canonical hour of the Roman Office
should be preceded by the Pater and Ave. By the time Pope Pius XII came to suppress the practice
in his modified breviary reform of March 23, 1955,
206 the prayer had become the treasured
possession of the entire Christian West.

* * *

The antiphon Salve Regina misericordiae, to give it its original title, is attributed to a variety
of persons by medieval chroniclers: Peter, Bishop of Compostella (who reportedly translated it
from the Greek), St. Athanasius, St. John Damascene, and Pope Gregory IX among them.
207 A
manuscript of the monastery at Reichenau takes the prayer back to the early eleventh century at
the latest, with its quotation of the phrases, “Salve Regina misericordiae ... In hac lacrymarum valle
... Eia ergo.”
208 The Cistercian monk Amedeus of Lausanne is found employing certain phrases of
the prayer in the mid-twelfth century: illos misericordissimos oculos ... ad nos convertens, and o
clemens, o pia, o dulcis Maria!
209; but they are so casually interwoven into his two homilies, which
are filled with snippets of Marian invocation, that it is hard to attribute them unequivocally to a
metrical prayer in common use. Certain manuscripts from the twelfth century contain the
antiphon without musical notation.
210 A few words were added over the centuries, e.g. Mother of
mercy, in apposition to the opening term of address “Queen” — (just as “holy” is added to “Queen”
in English for euphonic reasons); “virgin (Mary)” after the triple invocation “o clement, o loving,
o sweet”; and “(show unto us the blessed fruit ...) benign.” While “Queen of mercy” is the primitive
form, the medieval title “Mother of mercy” was so widely used that it is no problem why it should
have dislodged it. Despite the incomplete state of the prayer in certain thirteenth century readings
— where it ends in “in hac lacrymarum valle,” for example — there is no reason to think that it was
not in use in the form familiar to us by the twelfth century.

The antiphon has no history of usage apart from its familiar musical setting, a fact which
doubtless prompted its attribution to the monastic writer on music Herman the Cripple, monk of
Reichenau (d. 1054).
211 This authorship is first claimed in the late fifteenth century, however, in the
Chronicle of James of Bergamo, where it is entered under the year 1049.
212 A catalogue of Herman’s
works made by John of Tritenheim in the early sixteenth century included the Salve and the Alma
Redemptoris Mater; the double authorship was copied many times over thereafter.

Hermann’s disciple, Berthold of Constance, seemed to know nothing of these works of genius.
If he did, it is doubtful he would have named the musical sagas (“cantus historiales”) on SS. George,
Afra, and Magnus, and hidden the great Mary-prayers under the anonymity of the phrase, “and
very many other such works besides.”
213

St. Bernard seems to have no better title to authorship of the Salve, despite the late twelfth-century report of Jean l’Hermite of a dream in which the saint of Clairvaux hears the hymn sung
by the heavenly court from first word to last, and relays the words to Pope Eugene III.
214 Another
legend, less fanciful, has the saint adding the triple invocation at the end while on a visit to the
cathedral of Speyer in 1146. He genuflected three times before Our Lady’s statue, chanting with
each reverence: “O thou deboner, o thou meke, o thou swete maide Marie” (to quote the
translation of a fifteenth century Cambridge primer). The only trouble with the attribution to
Bernard, as Thurston remarks, is that the Swabian manuscript from the early twelfth century,
referred to above (note 45), contained the hymn complete. Thurston incidentally remarks, in
support of Dom de Valois, that he knows of no manuscript which terminates with nobis post hoc
exsilium ostende, except where it is a case of erasure.
215

There is certain good ground to connect the origins of the Salve with France, and specifically
the city of Le Puy. In the text of a Chronicle by Albert of Three Fountains which recounts a visit
of St. Bernard to Dijon in 1130, the Salve is called antiphonam de Podio because authorship of it is
attributed to Naymerus (Adhémar, d. 1098), Bishop of that city.
216 It is almost needless to add that
Bernard heard the antiphon miraculously sung by angel choirs there too, and specified its adoption
by his whole Cistercian order. The hymn is connected with Le Puy in other medieval writings. In
any case, it gained considerable vogue on French soil as a liturgical piece, even though twelfth-century German manuscripts contain it.
217 Peter, Abbot of Cluny, decreed its use as a processional
hymn on the feast of the Assumption and other feasts which had no canticle proper to a saint, as
the community made its way to Mary’s chapel.
218

Persistent reference to the piece as an “antiphon” indicated its origins as a musical setting for
the Benedictus or Magnificat, as for example in its use at first vespers on the feast of Mary’s
Nativity in a thirteenth century Cistercian antiphonal.
219 In no legend, however, is it described in
any setting but a processional one. The Cistercians began to recite it daily in 1218 and were largely
instrumental in popularizing it, despite the fact that its first statutory appearance was in a Cluniac
source. Blessed Jordan of Saxony specified it daily after compline for the Dominicans, whose
second general he was (1230). A Council of Peñafiel in Spain (1302) specified that it be sung in a
loud voice daily after compline, to be followed by the versicle and response, “Pray for us, O holy
Mother of God,” and the prayer, “Grant unto thy servants, we beseech thee, O Lord, perpetual
wellbeing in mind and body. ...”
220

Mercati’s edition of the Rubricae novae of the fourteenth century indicated that Pope Clement
VI in 1350 was the first to adopt the four seasonal anthems to Mary for recitation after Lauds and
Compline (Salve, Alma, Ave Regina, and Regina Caeli).
221 The Franciscans, however, had specified
them in 1249, according to the Chronica XXIV generalium O.M.
222 This followed the act of Pope
Gregory IV in 1239, which enjoined the Salve every Friday after compline. With the Breviary of
1568 came the obligation to pray it after compline in the form “Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae.”
The anthem in question is the fourth in seasonal succession, being prescribed for the period from
first vespers of Trinity Sunday until the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent. Its occurrence
after compline is probably traceable to the monastic practice of intoning it in the chapel and
chanting it on the way to sleeping quarters. There is considerable evidence that the hymn was
popular as a song of exultant joy, a tribute more to its lilting melody than to its references to
“mourning,” “weeping,” and “exile.” Seafaring men doubtless came to favor it because it was so
eminently “singable.” It came to be used as part of the ritual for the blessing of a ship, and the core
of evening service on shipboard. The mention of it in Columbus’ journal is well-known.
223 It is
there also described, along with the Ave and the Sign of the Cross, as the earliest prayer formula
taught to the docile Indians of the Caribbean isles.

Thurston reports at length on the prayer’s great popularity in late medieval and Renaissance
times, when “chantries” were erected with funded moneys to assure its solemnization with music
and candles each evening, but on Saturday especially.
224 It was the popular evening hymn of
medieval university colleges;
225 it served as the setting for Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament
(still called “the Salve” in parts of Europe and often salut in France). Erasmus and Luther attacked
it at various times because in it prayer to Christ was replaced by Mary-worship. John Hollybush
of London printed a little book in 1538 which was a “Confutation” of the song. In it he revamped
the ancient text to read, “Hayle Jesu Christ, Kynge of mercy,” ending “O gracious, o swete Christe
and sonne of the virgine Mary.” While this altered version never dislodged the popular hymn,
Thurston observes that the evening reverence to Christ’s eucharistic body, which the Salve led to,
accomplished the positive part of the unhappy man’s wish in roundabout fashion.

Our final attention to the Hail, Holy Queen will look into the terms of its designation by Pope
Leo XIII as a prayer to be said after low Mass. In accord with the teaching of liturgiologists at that
time (when it was forbidden even to translate the ordinary of the Mass; a revision of the Index of
Forbidden Books in 1897, by omitting the prohibition, terminated it), any intercessory prayer
spoken by the people had to come before or after the Mass. Pope Pius IX had asked prayers in 1859
for the cause of retaining the Papal States. Even after they fell the prayers continued and on
January 6, 1884, Leo extended these prayers to the whole Church as part of his final effort to win
back the Church’s liberty against the laws of the Kulturkampf.
226

The Pater had been said kneeling at the end of Mass by the Carthusians before 1259; the Ave
among the prayers at the foot of the altar toward the close of the medieval period.
227 Jungmann lists
all those liturgical books where the Salve came either after St. John’s gospel or between the last
blessing and the gospel, among them a French monastic missal (1524), the Cologne rite (sixteenth
century), and the Carmelite missal (1935). It had also been the practice in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries in Germany to pray the Salve at the altar before beginning Mass.
228 In any case,
it is noteworthy that the “breakthrough” of the people’s participation in the prayers of the Mass
in the West, and in their own tongue at that, should have been accomplished through these two
most beloved of prayers to the Mother of God. A decree of June 20, 1913, permitted omission of
these prayers when the Mass is celebrated “with some solemnity.” This was interpreted to mean
all dialogue Masses on Sundays and feast days, and Masses at which a homily is preached, in a
response dated March 9, 1960 (Cf. Decreta authentica S.R.C., Appendix II (Romae, 1927), pp. 8-9;
A.A.S., Vol. 52, 1960, p. 360.).* * *

The foregoing treatment of the Salve requires at least brief mention of the other Marian
anthems. Of the three, the Regina caeli of Paschaltide is the most recent in authorship. This hymn
is specified in the breviary after compline from Holy Saturday until the Saturday after Pentecost.
It first appears in an antiphonary found in the Vatican Library which may have been composed
as early as 1171 but is more likely a thirteenth-century product.
229 The text is almost as we know
it today; a Franciscan codex of 1235 differs very little in wording. Blume’s conviction is that it is
an adaptation of a Christmas hymn which first appears in French and German manuscripts from
the twelfth century: “Ever rejoice, o Virgin Mary, /Who hast been found worthy to bear Christ,
the Creator of heaven and earth, /For thou hast brought forth from thy womb the Savior of the
world.”

There can be no doubt whatever that Franciscan influence was strongest in spreading this
prayer. The Latin text reads:

Regina caeli laetare, Alleluia,

Quia quem meruisti portare, Alleluia,

Resurrexit sicut dixit, Alleluia,

Ora pro nobis Deum, Alleluia.

The versicle and response are as follows: “Gaude et laetare, Virgo Maria, Alleluia. /Quia
surrexit Dominus vere, Alleluia.”
230

While there is as yet no mention of the Regina caeli in the Ancren Riwle (about 1200), the Alma
Redemptoris and Ave Regina caelorum are both referred to there. The Alma, almost a paraphrase
of the ninth-century Ave Maris Stella, is composed of six hexameters; it is, according to the
historical note which prefixes the works of Hermannus Contractus in Migne, the composition of
the monk of Reichenau.
231 Its text is as follows: “Alma Redemptoris Mater, quae pervia caeli/ Porta
manes, et stella maris, succurre cadenti,/ Surgere qui curat, populo: tu quae genuisti,/ Natura
mirante, tuum sanctum Genitorem,/ Virgo prius ac posterius, Gabrielis ab ore. Sumens illud Ave,
peccatorum miserere.” The following is an English version circulated by the Liturgical Press,
Collegeville, Minnesota, the quantities of which are identical with the Latin for purposes of song
(the same is true for the Regina caeli in footnote 65):

O loving Mother of our Savior, forever abiding heaven’s

gateway and star of the sea,

Oh hasten to aid us, who oft falling strive to rise again.

Maiden, thou who borest, while nature stood in awe, thine

own Maker, thine all-holy Lord:

Virgin ever, after, as before through the mouth of Gabriel

Heaven spoke its Ave, have compassion on us sinners.

The anthem figures in that unfortunate piece of medieval anti-Jewish writing, Chaucer’s
Prioress’s Tale, in which the little lad in an “Asian town, murdered at Satan’s behest by those
Jewish hearts which are his waspish nest,” continues to sing Mary’s praises from the grave:

... But Christ, whose glory you may find In books, wills it also be kept in mind.

So for the honor of his mother dear

I still may sing O Alma loud and clear.
232

The tale does honor to Mary, if little to the mentality of that period on her people Israel.
“Merciful God, reach mercy down to us,” prayed the abbot who finally stilled the boy’s tongue,
“Though we be so unstable, though we vary,/ In love and reverence of His mother Mary.” The
antiphon had a history of being prayed at sext on the feast of the Assumption before it became the
hymn at compline from the first Sunday of Advent until Candlemas Day, a stipulation connected
with the pontificate of Clement VI (1350).
233

* * *

The Memorare is frequently attributed to St. Bernard, but the closest any writing of his comes
to the prayer as we have it (a fifteenth-century product, in its present form) is the following phrase
from a sermon of his, De quatriduo Lazari, et praeconio Virginis: “O blessed Virgin, let there be
silence concerning your mercy if there is anyone who recalls that you failed him when called on
in the hour of need.”
234 The English translation of the form given in the Preces et Pia Opera is as
follows:

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy
protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession, was left unaided. Inspired with this
confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins and Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful
and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and
answer me. Amen.
235

Actually, the Memorare seems to be part of a longer prayer which is first recorded in the
Anthidotarius animae of Nicholas Salicetus (1489), a Cistercian of Strasbourg. J. Wellinger included
it in a collection entitled Little Garden of the Soul published in that same city in 1503.
236 This
Hortulus animae prayer begins, “Unto the feet of thy holiness, O dearest virgin Mary,” and contains
the phrase, “remember that never was it known.” Its sole omission is, “implored thy help.” We read
“run,” for “come”; “sinful and sorrowful” is “gemens et tremens.”

Claude Bernard, known as the “Poor Priest” (1588-1641), was so active in spreading devotion
to the Memorare that some assume that his surname accounts for the attribution of the prayer to
the Saint of Clairvaux. His work was with prisoners and criminals, and he appears to have
employed the prayer to Mary as an instrument of conversion.
237 During his lifetime he had some
200,000 copies of it circulated.

An edition of the Precationum piarum Enchiridion of 1572 (Dillingen) adds the phrase, “Despise
not my petition, O Mother of God, but in thy mercy hear and answer the words of my mouth.”
238 At
various times the prayer has been ascribed to SS. John Chrysostom and Augustine, but history
cannot trace it back farther than the late fifteenth century.

* * *

The Angelus is a prayer comprised of four versicles and responses interspersed with Hail
Marys, concluding with a petition for God’s grace through the Incarnation of which the angel’s
message gave us first knowledge.
239 The concluding couplet and oratio were added to the medieval
prayer sometime around the year 1600. By a decree of Pope Benedict XIV of April 20, 1742,
recitation of the Angelus is replaced by that of the Regina Coeli throughout Eastertide.

So closely is the Angelus associated with the Ave Maria that in some places such as Italy it is
known simply by that name. Its connection with the ringing of bells is a matter of some
importance. Thurston collected a good amount of information on the curfew bell (from couvre-feu,
in Latin commonly ignitegium) sixty years ago, including the idea of the importance of bells hung
in watchtowers in the highly organized town-life of the mid-thirteenth century.
240 The medieval
study of Luchaire, Les Communes Françaises, cited by Thurston, provides a complete explanation
of the mentality of the townsfolk of John Hersey’s Adano. The town-bell is rooted not in
superstitious folk-identity but in the concept of human and municipal rights. Civil in its origins
and early dissociated from the covering of fires (a morning “curfew” becomes a commonplace;
often it is a “peace bell” or “police bell” — in southern France, “salva terra”), this signal is identified
in the tractate De laudibus Papiae (1330) with the closing of taverns in Pavia. It is distinguished
carefully from a bell rung just previously known as “the signal for the Virgin Mary’s salutation.”
The town of St. Omer had a similar tavern curfew. Important is the fact that whereas in England
the bells were hung in church towers, on the continent they were indiscriminately found either
there or in public buildings. Since their function was practical, the time for ringing at evening
varied — six, nine, and even ten o’clock, depending on the possibilities of artificial light.

Though it would seem that the Angelus took its rise from the curfew-bell, there is nonetheless
manuscript testimony from Germany around the year 1000 that in certain monasteries it was
customary after compline to have three prayers said, led by the abbot and accompanied by a bell.
241
A Franciscan ordinance dated 1269 (1263?), probably in conjunction with a General Chapter at
Pisa, requires three Aves to the sound of a bell “after compline.”
242 The Carthusians are reported
doing the same in 1342 for the sake of an indulgence, seemingly the one granted by Pope John
XXII.
243 In England the monastic practice of well before 1000 was to have a trina oratio, with bell
but not devoted to Mary; rather, “Sanctae Trinitatis et individuae Unitatis reverentia legitime a
servulis exhibeatur Catholicis ...”
244 Every indication is that this trinitarian invocation served as
both morning and night prayer — an addendum to the divine office. The Canons Regular of
Windesheim in their constitutions (fifteenth century) specify the triple bell and triple Ave,
morning and evening.

Whatever the definitive answer concerning its relation to both curfew and orationes tres, the
threefold Ave with bell — recited on one’s knees at evening — had attached to it by John XXII an
indulgence of ten days (1318; reiterated from Avignon in 1327).
245 The practice is recorded in
documents of the period from Winchester and Wells; a canonist of that time, Calderini, judges that
the bells “pro Ave Maria” should not be silenced in time of interdict because they were introduced
“primarily for layfolk” and are not a function of any hierarchical rank.
246

The Council of Sens (1346) follows the papal teaching on the Ave, “tempore seu hora ignitegii,”
and at Nantes (ca. 1370) we find the same. The absolutely earliest synodal decree comes from
Esztergom (Strigoniensis) in Hungary, 1307; in it the practice is described as already well
established.
247 A Spanish document from the hand of the Bishop of Lérida says substantially the
same. Thurston’s final view on all this is that the curfew grew out of the monastic bell at evening;
witness the synod of Caen in 1061 with its legislation summoning people to prayer at the evening
bell in emulation of the monastic practice.

With a boldness that not all students of the question presume to show, Schnitzler dates the
first testimony to the morning Angelus 1317/18 at Parma, the noonday 1386 at Prague, and the
evening 1307 at Esztergom and 1327 at Rome.
248

The Franciscan Benedetto Sinigardi d’Arezzo (d. 1281) records that an antiphon was sung after
compline: “Angelus locutus est Mariae: Ave Maria, etc.” Other evidence from Franciscan convents
of this period, including a note of St. Bonaventure, describes one Hail Mary prayed while a bell
was being rung three times. Some persons added three Hail Marys to a noonday prayer in honor
of Christ’s passion: “Tenebrae factae sunt ...” “Christus factus est ...” The three versicles of the
modern Angelus are of sixteenth-century origin. A synod of Strasbourg (1546) does not yet seem
aware of the wording, while that of Prague (1605) presumes it as already known together with the
prayer, “Pour forth, we beseech thee, O Lord ...” but without the versicle, “Pray for us, O holy
mother of God ...” Fifteenth-century England knew the custom of a single versicle of different
wording from today’s, and three Hail Marys. A catechism printed in Venice in 1560 proposes the
present wording by way of a prayer at an evening bell; Pope Pius V’s edition of the little office of
the Blessed Virgin also contains it, as does a catechism of Canisius dated 1577.

The extension of the prayer to morning and mid-day recitation seems to be a seventeenth-century development. The morning prayer was interpreted (e.g., at the Prague synod of 1605) as
commemorating Christ’s resurrection and that at noon His passion, while the evening bell recalled
the Incarnation — according to Bonaventure because the angel’s visit was at evening. Other
interpretations transpose the significance of the morning and evening recitations. In any case, the
prayer following, “Gratiam tuam quaesumus, Domine,” commemorates all three mysteries; it is
found incorporated into a Cracow prayer book as early as 1609. The specification of the prayer by
Pope Benedict XIII as one bearing an indulgence (Sept. 14, 1724) crystallized it in its modern form.
Various relaxations concerning standing and kneeling in order to gain the indulgences attached
have been made over the years. On February 20, 1933, the Sacred Penitentiary removed all such
conditions for gaining the indulgence.
249

* * *

For the sake of completeness, we must include the fourth and final anthem to Mary prescribed
for recitation after Compline in the Breviary. It is entitled Ave Regina Caelorum, and an English
translation reads:

Queen of the heavens, we hail thee,

Queen of angel hosts, we salute thee,

Thou the root and thou the portal,

Thou the font of light immortal.

Hail thou Virgin robed in glory,

Crown of all creation’s story!

Beauty excelling, we greet thee,

Oh, beseech thy Son for us, we pray thee.

This hymn is prescribed from the Feast of the Purification (Feb. 2) to Wednesday of Holy
Week.
250

A twelfth century manuscript from Paris contains it as the antiphon for none on the feast of
the Assumption.
251 The various addresses to our Lady as queen, mistress, rood, and gateway are
reminiscent of the titles in the Eastern Akathistos hymn. Authorship of this hymn is unknown.
252

* * *

The Litany of Loreto which is in modern use contains forty-nine invocations to Our Lady taken
from Scripture and the Fathers of the Church. This ancient prayer in dialogue form (Gr., litaneúō
= rogo, I beseech, supplicate) was recited either during the Mass liturgy or in procession on the
way to it. At first the invocations were in praise of God only but later of the saints (eighth-ninth
centuries) and then of Mary in particular. Her title in the early litany of the saints had been
threefold: “Holy Mary; Holy Mother of God (Genitrix); Holiest of Virgins.” It was the titles devised
for Our Lady by the Eastern Fathers that led to the expansion of these three into an entire series.
The occasion in the West was probably the singing of the Little Office of Our Lady. Early forms
before the standardization imposed by Pope St. Pius V contain litanies like that of Loreto.
253 The
earliest manuscript containing a litany to Mary is a twelfth century one from Magonza. It bears
the title “Letania de Domina nostra Dei genitrice virgine Maria. Oratio valde bona cotidie pro
quacumque tribulatione dicenda est.” The invocations are lengthy and each begins with Sancta
Maria as in the latter half of the Hail Mary. There is a fourteenth century litany of seventy-five
titles which gained much in popular favor, especially in the Venice area where it was used until
1820 in processions honoring Mary through the miraculous image of Nicopeia.
254

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries saw a proliferation of litanies to Mary. From the early
1500’s one in particular, of unknown authorship, became customary at the shrine of Loreto. Pope
Sixtus V in 1587 gave approbation to a certain set of responses sung at Loreto, but this did not
curtail the composition of as many as one for every day of the year in some places; in Loreto itself
a different one for each day of the week. Finally Pope Clement VIII stabilized matters with the
decree Quoniam multi (6 Sept., 1601) which suppressed all present and future litanies “except that
one customarily sung at the holy House of Loreto.” A decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites
(1631) required special permission for the addition of any invocation to it. The title “Queen
conceived without original sin” was allowed to the bishops of Forlì, Ghent, Algiers, Saint-Fleur,
and any others who petitioned it, by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839. Leo XIII added “Queen of the most
holy rosary” in 1883, and in 1903, “Mother of good counsel.” The contribution of Benedict XV (16
November, 1915) was “Queen of peace,” while Pius XII added “Queen assumed into heaven”
shortly after that dogma was defined in 1950.

The ideas around which the titles are grouped are chiefly Mary’s motherhood of God, her
perpetual virginity, intercessory office, and universal queenship. Roschini has indicated which of
these four privileges of Mary are celebrated by which titles.
255 Gerald Vann requested not so long
ago that some thought be given to a more suitable English rendition of some of the titles of the
Latin prayer. He claimed that certain of the invocations were either poor translations or downright
mistranslations, “or at any rate show a lamentable lack of any sense of language, any feeling for
the beauty of words.”
256 Among his tentative suggestions were the following: Mater purissima:
Mother of perfect love (or, of undivided heart); Mater castissima: Mother of flawless chastity; Mater
inviolata: Mother ever a maiden; Mater intemerata: Mother unsullied by evil; Virgo prudentissima:
Virgin most wise; Virgo veneranda: Virgin whom we revere; Virgo praedicanda: Virgin whose
praises we sing; Virgo potens: Virgin so powerful; Virgo clemens: Virgin so gentle; Virgo fidelis:
Virgin so true; Speculum justitiae: Mirror of holiness; then “Fountain” for “Seat of wisdom”;
“Source” for “Cause of our joy.” Lastly, Vas spirituale: Chalice of spiritual life; Vas honorabile:
Chalice of honor; Vas insigne devotionis: Splendid chalice of dedication.

The Dominican Rosary

by VERY REV. MSGR. GEORGE W. SHEA, S.T.D.

IN CURRENT popular usage, the word rosary has come to be applied to any series of prayers,
especially those recited with the aid of a string of beads or other device for keeping count, and also
to the beads themselves. According to this very generic use of the term, there are non-Christian
257
as well as Christian rosaries, and among the latter there are non-Marian
258 as well as several Marian
rosaries.
259

But such is not the language of the Church. The Church has long known only one ‘rosary.”
Over the centuries her official vocabulary came, after some initial vacillation,
260 to reserve that name
exclusively for one particular method and form of prayer in honor of Mary, that which our title
calls “The Dominican Rosary.”
261 As to other Catholic devotions using prayer-beads, the Church
refers to them, and to their beads, as “coronae,” that is, crowns, chaplets.
262 The so-called Apostolic
Rosary, and the so-called Crosier Rosary, are none other than the usual rosary beads which have
received special indulgences. One should speak of the Apostolic indulgences rather than of the
Apostolic Rosary. Apostolic indulgences are those gained by one who carries on his person or
keeps in a suitable place at home an object of devotion (rosary-beads or other prayer-beads, cross,
crucifix, small religious statue, religious medal) which has been specially blessed by the Holy
Father or by a priest having the necessary faculty, and who performs any of the works enjoined
for these indulgences by the Pope at the beginning of his reign.
263 Similarly, one should speak, not
of the Crosier Rosary, but of the Crosier indulgence (a partial indulgence of 500 days which may
be gained for each Our Father and each Hail Mary recited on rosary-beads blessed by a Crosier
Father or other priest having the necessary faculty).
264

It turns out, then, that this chapter could have been entitled simply “The Rosary.” However,
in view of the broad usage of “rosary” mentioned above, a more specific designation seemed
preferable. Besides, the inclusion of “Dominican” in our title makes possible a prompt and express
acknowledgment of the magnificent part played by the sons of St. Dominic, the great Order of
Preachers, in enriching the Church with so beautiful and so efficacious a form of prayer as the
Rosary of Our Lady.
265 To say “Dominican Rosary” is to recognize the provenance of a devotion
which, far from being confined to the Dominican Order, has become — largely through that
Order’s initiative and efforts — the treasured possession of the entire Church, a devotion dear to
every Catholic, a devotion so esteemed by Mother Church that she wishes her clerics and religious
to practice it daily,
266 a devotion which Pope Julius III could hail as “the glory of the Roman
Church” and of which Pope Leo XIII was able to say: “Among the various methods and forms of
prayer which are devoutly and profitably used in the Catholic Church, that which is called the
Rosary of Mary is for many reasons to be especially recommended.”
267 Briefly, the rosary is a
devotion Dominican in its provenance, Catholic in its practice, “a choice jewel in the common
treasure of the Church.”
268

So far as the allotted space allows, this chapter will set forth the nature (composition and
manner of recitation), origins, and excellence of the Dominican rosary, and a résumé of the main
indulgences granted to all the faithful for its recitation. In the pages on the manner of reciting the
rosary it will be necessary to distinguish the various requirements, on the score of recitation, for
gaining the Apostolic indulgences, the Crosier indulgence, the Bridgettine indulgences,
269 and the
diverse Rosary indulgences properly so-called. The latter, one gathers from the list published, with
the approval of Pope Leo XIII, by the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences on Aug. 29, 1899, are all
those granted by the Popes: (1) to the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary (the majority of these
are indulgences for Confraternity members only, but some can be gained by nonmembers as well,
upon participation in certain devout exercises closely associated with the Confraternity); (2) to all
the faithful “for the devotion of the Most Holy Rosary,” notably for the recitation of the rosary,
but also for certain other forms of devotion in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary.
270 For all practical
purposes, one may refer to the first group as the “special Rosary indulgences,” and to the second
as the “general Rosary indulgences.”

I. NATURE OF THE DOMINICAN ROSARY

According to the Roman Breviary, the complete rosary consists in the recitation of fifteen
decades or tens of Hail Marys with an Our Father preceding each decade, while at each of these
decades we recall in pious meditation one of the principal mysteries of our Redemption.
271 Similar
is the much earlier description in the Apostolic Constitution of Pope St. Pius V, Consueverunt
Romani Pontifices, Sept. 17, 1569.
272 The latter is the first papal document to speak expressly of
meditation as part of the rosary devotion. However, many earlier ecclesiastical documents refer
implicitly to the practice of meditating on mysteries (to be sure, not yet our fifteen, but as many
as fifty and even 150). Thus Bishop Alexander Nanni Malatesta, papal legate to Germany, in
granting an indulgence to the Rosary Confraternity at Cologne, Mar. 10, 1476, spoke of “reading”
the rosary — an indication that then there were rosary mysteries too numerous to be memorized,
which therefore had to be read from a book.
273

Because its 150 Hail Marys correspond to the 150 Psalms of the Psalter, the complete rosary
is sometimes called Our Lady’s Psalter. In fact, the latter was its common designation down to the
end of the fifteenth century, while “rosary” was reserved for a part, e.g., a third, of Our Lady’s
Psalter.
274 English-speaking Catholics now employ the term “rosary” both for the complete rosary
and for a third thereof (whereas the French tend to use “rosaire” for the complete rosary,
“chapelet” for a third of the “rosaire”). To be sure, where clarity is needed, one uses, e.g., “the small
rosary,” “the lesser rosary,” “a third of the rosary” for five decades, and “the full rosary,” “the
complete rosary” for fifteen decades, and even “the double rosary” for ten decades. Similarly, when
clarity calls for it, the official vocabulary of the Church speaks of “a third of the rosary,” that is,
five decades.

The authentic rosary is a happy combination of vocal and mental prayer, each of which is
essential to the devotion. It is incorrect to say, with H. Thurston, that meditation is “the very
essence of the Rosary devotion,” for vocal recitation of the prayers is also of the essence.
Meditation is, of course, the nobler element, the “soul,” while vocal prayer is the “body” of the
devotion; in the felicitous formula of Maisie Ward, “the beads are there for the sake of the prayers,
and the prayers are there for the sake of the Mysteries.”
275 The rosary, Pope Leo XIII declared, “is
composed of two parts, distinct but inseparable — the meditation on the mysteries and the
recitation of the prayers. It is thus a kind of prayer that requires not only some raising of the soul
to God, but also a particular and explicit attention, so that by reflection upon the things to be
contemplated, impulses and resolutions may follow for the reformation and sanctification of life.”
276

Hence, as Pope Pius XI stated, they err “who consider this devotion merely a boresome
formula repeated with monotonous and singsong intonation.”
277 This is certainly true when the
rosary is prayed in the ideal way, with meditation during, rather than only before or after, each
decade. But since the latter ways of meditating are also permissible, in which case one would have
the repetition of Our Fathers and Hail Marys unaccompanied by meditation, it seems appropriate
to note that such repetition of vocal prayers cannot fairly be viewed as sterile, as superstitious
mechanism. For one thing, vocal prayer always implies, under penalty of losing its religious value,
some attention and consideration. Moreover, as Pius XI put it, “both piety and love, although
always breathing forth the same words, do not, however, repeat the same thing, but they fervently
express something ever new which the loving heart always sends forth.” And finally, in the words
of Pius XII, “the recitation of identical formulas, repeated so many times, rather than rendering
the prayer sterile and boring, has on the contrary the admirable quality of infusing confidence in
him who prays, and brings to bear a gentle compulsion on the motherly heart of Mary.”
278

Through the meditations of the complete rosary one recalls and has impressed on his mind,
the Popes tell us, “the chief mysteries of the Christian religion,” “the mysteries of our
Redemption,” “the great mysteries of Jesus and His Mother united in joys, sorrows, and
triumphs.”
279 The fifteen mysteries are divided into three equal groups, known as “The Joyful,” “The
Sorrowful,” and “The Glorious Mysteries.”

The five Joyful Mysteries are: the Annunciation (to Our Lady by the Angel Gabriel), the
Visitation (of Our Lady to St. Elizabeth), the Nativity of Christ, the Presentation of the Christ Child
in the Temple, the Finding of the Christ Child in the Temple. The five Sorrowful Mysteries are:
the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning with Thorns, the Carrying of
the Cross, the Crucifixion. The five Glorious Mysteries are: the Resurrection, the Ascension, the
Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, the Assumption, the Coronation of Mary as Queen
of Heaven.
280

These fifteen themes have been definitively fixed as “the Mysteries of the Rosary.” Others are
not to be substituted in their stead. Meditation on them, according to one’s ability, is requisite both
for practicing the authentic Rosary devotion (the Popes, we have heard, declare such meditation
to be of the devotion’s essence), and for gaining those of the Rosary indulgences which have been
granted for the recitation of the rosary.
281

In support of the foregoing assertions we may note the following. Although the Apostolic
Constitution of Pope St. Pius V, Consueverunt Romani Pontifices, in declaring meditation to be of
the essence of the Rosary devotion, did not expressly state it to be a condition for gaining
indulgences,
282 such a requirement seems to have been already in force at an earlier date. A
pamphlet published in Rome around 1560 records the then existing Rosary indulgences, describes
the manner in which the rosary is to be recited, and lists our 15 mysteries in such a way as to
suggest that the indulgences could be gained only if one retained this series of mysteries, and —
by the same token — meditated upon them.
283 In any case, with the approval of Pope Benedict XIII,
the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences decreed, Aug. 13, 1726, that the indulgences granted by
the Popes for the recitation of the rosary are not gained by those who omit the customary
meditation on the mysteries of our Redemption and substitute other topics of meditation.
284 In
setting forth the general rosary indulgences for recitation of the rosary, the Enchiridion
Indulgentiarum does not expressly mention meditation as a requisite. However, this requirement
is clear not only from the foregoing legislation but also from what the Enchiridion itself says
elsewhere: “if they devoutly recite at least a third part of the rosary or meditate on its mysteries
in some other manner.”
285 Pope Benedict XIII granted that for persons lacking the capacity to
meditate on the usual mysteries, it is enough that they recite the rosary devoutly.
286

Recitation of the complete rosary all in a day is not necessary either for practicing the
authentic Rosary devotion or, with one exception, for gaining indulgences.
287 Among those who
daily recite a third of the rosary, there has long been the custom of rotating each series of
mysteries throughout the week, namely, the joyful mysteries on Mondays and Thursdays, the
sorrowful on Tuesdays and Fridays, the glorious on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.
Although, as far as indulgences are concerned, one is not held to this rotation by any hard and fast
rule,
288 nevertheless the Church has approved the custom for the faithful generally, and Pope Leo
XIII wished it retained by members of the Rosary Confraternity, at least when reciting the rosary
publicly at the Rosary Altar.
289 Insistence on holding to the glorious mysteries for all Sundays of
the year,
290 if warranted at all, should in our opinion be limited to the above-mentioned public
recitation. In other public recitation, and certainly in private recitation,
291 the glorious mysteries
may be replaced by the sorrowful on the Sundays in Lent, and by the joyful on the Sundays of
Advent and those from Epiphany until Lent.
292

For Rosary indulgences it is no longer necessary to say the five decades without interruption;
one may now separate the decades, provided that all five are said the same day.
293 Whether the
Apostolic and the Bridgettine indulgences can be gained despite such separation of the decades
is not altogether clear.
294 For Crosier indulgences the question does not arise, since these are given
for every bead recited, even if one does not intend to complete a decade.
295

As will be emphasized later, the Our Fathers and the Hail Marys are the only vocal prayers
prescribed for the authentic rosary, and for gaining the indulgences granted for its recitation.
Therefore it is not necessary, though it is highly recommended, to announce (in public recitation)
or to enunciate (in private recitation) the appropriate mystery at each decade; it suffices that one
recall the mystery mentally.
296 The meditation itself should be made at least immediately before or
after the vocal prayers of the decade,
297 but preferably while the latter are being recited,
298 in which
case one’s thoughts should dwell on the mystery rather than on the words of the vocal prayers.
299
Among the various ways of meditating on the Rosary mysteries, a centuries-old one still in vogue
is that of considering at each Hail Mary a distinct point connected with the mystery.
300 Devotion
is sometimes intensified if each decade is said for some particular intention, of one’s own
choosing.
301

No less than meditation, vocal prayer — formation of the words with tongue and lips (not
necessarily audible unless circumstances, such as public recitation or alternate recitation with a
companion, call for this) — is of the essence of the authentic rosary, and is a condition for gaining
any indulgences.
302 Note, however, that, according to the general law of the Church, mutes can gain
indulgences attached to public prayers if, in company with others praying in the same place, they
piously raise their minds and hearts to God, or if, in the case of indulgenced private prayers, they
repeat these in their minds, or express them by signs, or even merely run over them with their
eyes.
303 In applying this general concession to the praying of the rosary, doubtless some provision
should be made for meditation on the mysteries, e.g., by meditating before or after reading, or
mentally recalling the vocal prayers, or (if this be possible) while “signing” them.

Strictly speaking, the fifteen Our Fathers and the hundred and fifty Hail Marys are the only
vocal prayers that belong to the rosary; no others are mentioned when the Popes undertake to tell
what the authentic rosary is. Over the centuries, however, other vocal prayers, varying in different
regions, have come to be added. Thus in the U.S.A. and many other countries, the rosary proper
is preceded by the Sign of the Cross, the Apostles’ Creed, an Our Father, three Hail Marys, and a
Glory be to the Father.
304 But in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking countries these prayers come
at the end of the rosary.
305 In Italy they are not said at all.
306 The Dominicans, too, omit them,
preferring to commence the rosary like the Office of the Bl. Virgin Mary.
307

Whatever the origin of these three introductory Hail Marys (a question to be touched upon
later), they have come to be prayed for an increase of faith, hope, and charity, as was suggested
in 1658 by Fr. Henry Boedeker.
308 Germans insert an express petition to that effect after the name
“Jesus”: “der den Glauben in uns vermehre,” “der die Hoffnung in uns stärke,” “der die Liebe in uns
entzünde.” An old and widely used Jesuit manual for the Sodalists of Mary directed that the three
Hail Marys honor Our Lady’s prerogatives as Daughter of God the Father, Mother of God the Son,
Spouse of God the Holy Spirit.
309 Sometimes the Trinitarian interpretation of the three Hail Marys
is combined with that of Boedeker.
310

Following a practice which was recommended in 1589 by Thomas Sailly, S.J., and whose
fifteenth-century antecedents will be noted later, Catholics in many countries, especially in
German-speaking regions of Europe, interpolate in the middle of each Hail Mary of a decade, after
the name “Jesus,” an express reference to the pertinent mystery; for example, the fifth sorrowful
mystery is mentioned, in every Hail Mary of the decade, as follows: “... Jesus, who was crucified
for us.”
311 Quite the same is St. Louis de Montfort’s method of adding after “Jesus” a word or two
appropriate to the respective mystery, such as “Jesus incarnate” (1st decade), “Jesus carrying His
Cross” (9th decade), “Jesus crowning thee” (fifteenth decade).
312 Some Eastern Catholics, notably
those of the Ruthenian and Byzantine-Slavic rites, add a brief mention of the corresponding
mystery at the end of their own shorter form of the Hail Mary.
313

Widespread, but not universal, is the practice of adding at the end of each decade a Glory be
to the Father,
314 or, when the rosary is recited for the dead, “Eternal rest,” etc.
315 In some places,
however, the doxology is said immediately after the Our Father, before the decade of Hail Marys.
316
In Italy it seems to have been omitted, at least in public recitation, until quite recently.
317 At the end
of each decade (after the Glory be to the Father, when this is added to the decade), many recite
various ejaculations, such as that requested by Our Lady in the third of her apparitions at Fatima:
“O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to heaven,
especially those that most need Thy mercy.”
318

After the five (or ten or fifteen) decades it is usual with us to say the Salve Regina (“Hail, Holy
Queen ...”) and the oration “O God, whose only begotten Son ...”, with versicles and responses after
each of these. But in some countries the Salve Regina, etc., precede the rosary proper, which then
concludes with the Litany of the Blessed Virgin and certain versicles and prayers.
319 This is also
Dominican practice.
320 Almost everywhere the recitation of the rosary ends, as it had begun, with
the Sign of the Cross.

None of the foregoing additions to the fifteen Our Fathers and the hundred and fifty Hail
Marys is necessary either for the integrity of the authentic rosary or for gaining indulgences,
whether Apostolic, Bridgettine, Crosier, or Rosary indulgences.
321 On the other hand, there is no
reason to fear that any of these additions would imperil the acquisition of indulgences. For none
of them alters the substance of the indulgenced prayers of the rosary, and the Sacred Apostolic
Penitentiary, in an authoritative interpretation of canon 934, 2 of the Code of Canon Law, has
ruled that the indulgences attached to prayers are lost only by those additions, omissions, or
interpolations which alter the substance of such prayers.
322 Further, to dispose of another
conceivable difficulty, the additions at the end of the decades are not a notable interruption of the
rosary,
323 and in any case even a notable interruption of the decades is now permitted without
detriment to the Rosary indulgences, and probably without detriment to the Apostolic and
Bridgettine indulgences.
324 Although the additions we have been speaking of do not endanger
indulgences, and while one may use them in private recitation of the rosary, where they are not
yet approved custom for public recitation they should not be introduced into such recitation
without permission of the Ordinary.
325

From what has been said about canon 934, 2, as interpreted by the Sacred Apostolic
Penitentiary, it is clear that, to gain indulgences, the prescribed Our Fathers and Hail Marys of the
rosary must be said without any omission which would alter the substance of these prayers.
Nevertheless, when two or more recite the rosary in common, they may alternate the parts of
these prayers, one saying, for example, the first half of the Hail Mary, the other, or others, saying
the second half;
326 this now holds good also for recitation of the rosary in conjunction with a radio
broadcast, provided that the radio portion of the recitation is “live,” that is, not produced by sound
tapes, records, or other mechanical means.
327 Also to be noted is the fact that the indulgences
attached to the recitation of the rosary can be gained by all, even the faithful of the Latin rite, who
recite the Hail Mary according to the shorter form used in the Ruthenian, Byzantine-Slavic, and
other Eastern rites.
328

Beads grouped upon a string or chain facilitate recitation of the rosary.
329 By fingering them
successively as prayer follows upon prayer, one can keep count automatically without being
distracted from the prayers and meditations.
330 Since beads for fifteen or even ten decades are
rather cumbersome, and because it is more common to pray only a third of the full rosary each
day, the usual rosary beads have but five groups, each consisting of ten small beads (for the Hail
Marys) and one larger bead (for the Our Father preceding each decade). For the doxology after
each decade one generally fingers the links of chain between the last small bead and the following
large bead. To this set of beads there is attached, for the prayers prior to the rosary proper, a
pendant consisting of a crucifix or medal stamped with the cross, upon which one recites the
Creed; a large bead, for the Our Father, then three small beads for the three Hail Marys.
331 The
short length of chain on which these are mounted also bears a large bead for the Our Father
preceding the first decade, and is joined with the five decades by a medallion of the Blessed Virgin,
on which it is customary to say the concluding Salve Regina.

Contrary to a widespread belief, the use of rosary beads is not required either for praying the
authentic rosary or, with two exceptions, for gaining the Rosary indulgences.
332 The exceptions are
two indulgences granted by Pope Benedict XIII, which demand the use of rosary beads especially
blessed by a Dominican Father or other priest having the necessary special faculty.
333 To obtain the
indulgences in question, normally one must hold the Dominican-blessed beads and even finger
them successively.
334 But if several recite the rosary in common, it is sufficient that one of their
number have and use the beads;
335 the rest, of course, should unite themselves in prayer with the
person holding the rosary, and should refrain from exterior occupations which would prevent
interior recollection.
336 Further, in the case of a person reciting the rosary alone, if manual labor
or any other reasonable cause prevents him from using the beads, he can gain the indulgences if
he has the beads on his person, e.g., in his pocket,
337 and provided, of course, that his occupation
does not prevent the requisite meditation. Excused also from holding and fingering the beads are
the physically handicapped who are unable to do so
338; they should, however, one assumes, have
the blessed beads on their person.

One and the same set of rosary-beads can receive, from priests having the respective faculties,
the indulgenced Apostolic, Bridgettine, Crosier, and Dominican blessings.
339 As with the Dominican
indulgences, to gain the Bridgettine or the Crosier indulgences one must tell the beads, it seems,
or at least hold them.
340 Excepted are the physically handicapped who cannot do so.
341 The further
exceptions noted above for the Dominican indulgences also apply here: when several recite the
rosary in common, it suffices that one of them have and use the blessed rosary beads;
342 in reciting
the rosary alone, if any reasonable cause prevents one from holding the blessed rosary beads, it
suffices that these be on his person (and that he be able to give internal attention to the vocal
prayers).
343 To gain Apostolic indulgences through recitation of the rosary one does not have to
hold the blessed rosary beads or even have them on his person; in fact, one does not have to have
rosary beads at all, if he possesses some other devotional object which has been given the
indulgenced Apostolic blessing.
344

Thanks to express derogations from the general law that several indulgences cannot be gained
by one and the same work to which various indulgences are attached by different titles,
345 it is
possible to obtain by one recitation of the rosary several indulgences on different titles. Thus the
Dominican indulgences can be gained cumulatively with the other Rosary indulgences granted for
recitation of the rosary, if the rosary beads have the Dominican blessing.
346 Further, since the Popes
declare that their concession of Apostolic indulgences does not derogate from other indulgences
which may have been granted by the Supreme Pontiffs for the prayers, pious works, or exercises
which are mentioned, a single recitation of the rosary can gain both the Apostolic and the Rosary
indulgences — the Dominican indulgences included, if the rosary beads have the Apostolic and the
Dominican blessings.
347 Again, if the rosary beads have the Crosier as well as the Dominican
blessing, a single recitation of the rosary can obtain the Crosier cumulatively with the Dominican
and the other Rosary indulgences.
348 To sum up, the Apostolic, Crosier, Dominican, and the other
Rosary indulgences can be gained cumulatively by one recitation of the rosary, if the rosary beads
have the three blessings, provided that the other conditions (e.g., the meditation on the mysteries,
required for the Rosary indulgences) are fulfilled.
349 It is sometimes, but mistakenly, asserted that
the Bridgettine indulgences, too, can be gained cumulatively with the Dominican and the other
Rosary indulgences, and the Crosier indulgences as well, if the beads have the respective
blessings.
350 So far as the Bridgettine indulgences are concerned, the only derogation from the
general law about cumulation of indulgences (C.I.C., can. 933) is that with reference to Apostolic
indulgences.
351

Although it is desirable that, when possible, the rosary be said while kneeling, this is not
necessary.
352 In fact, one may recite the rosary and gain its indulgences anywhere
353 (for example,
while sitting, walking, riding, working, before rising from bed, after retiring) provided one is able
to meditate on the mysteries.
354 The rosary may be prayed during Mass: privately by the individual
who finds this the best way for him to assist at the Holy Sacrifice;
355 and even publicly, not only
during October devotions,
356 but also — if the Bishop consents — at other times of the year.
357
Revival of the ancient custom of our forefathers, daily recitation of the rosary in a family group,
has been repeatedly urged by the Sovereign Pontiffs and encouraged by the granting of further
indulgences.
358

II. ORIGIN OF THE ROSARY

The history of the optional features which eventually came to be added to the rosary’s essence
has been sufficiently treated in our earlier pages. We are concerned here only with the rosary
proper, the devotion described by Pope St. Pius V.
359 The first certain evidence of what is
substantially our rosary devotion — the recitation of 150 Hail Marys divided into fifties and tens,
the fifteen Our Fathers, with some kind of meditation on what are approximately our fifteen
mysteries of the Redemption (along with a “sub-mystery” for each of the 150 Hail Marys) —
belongs to the latter half of the 15th century, when Alan of Rupe, O.P. (Alan de Rupe, de la Roche,
van der Clip, d. 1475), aided by Jacob Sprenger, Michael Francisci, and other fellow Dominicans,
propagated throughout northern France, Flanders, the Netherlands, and northern Germany his
“Psalter of Christ and of Mary.” The foundation by Alan and his colleagues of the first Rosary
confraternities, with rich spiritual advantages for their members, the rapid multiplication of such
confraternities, the effective use made by the Dominicans of the new art of printing (they quickly
produced edition after edition of Rosary picture books, with woodcuts representing the mysteries,
and explaining various methods of practicing the devotion) and the hearty support of other
Religious Orders and of the secular clergy, spread the rosary (as Alan’s “Psalter” came to be called,
though he himself disliked and avoided the term) far and wide, and gradually brought about that
uniformity which enabled it to become a devotion of the universal Church.
360

The origin of Alan’s Psalter or rosary is a complex problem, not yet definitively and completely
resolved; we have space for little more than a résumé of the major opinions on the subject.
361 To
begin with Alan’s, according to his posthumously published works,
362 the devotion had been
practiced long before the times of St. Dominic Guzmán (d. 1221) but, after dying out, was restored
by the founder of the Order of Preachers, in obedience to revelations from the Blessed Virgin,
notably in a vision granted to the saint near Toulouse at the height of the conflict with the
Albigensians. Later the rosary again fell into disuse, until it was revived by Alan after he, too, had
been favored with revelations from Our Lady. Alan’s account of the history of the rosary was
based, he said, on these revelations, on the writings of a certain John de Monte and a certain
Thomas de Templo (described as companions of St. Dominic), and on a tradition of the Dominican
Order.
363

Whereas Alan maintained that St. Dominic was only the restorer of the rosary, in the sixteenth
century and thereafter many Dominican and other writers came to present the saint as, under
God, the first author of the devotion, whose essentials he devised, if not in response to a formal
revelation by Our Lady, then at least under the influence of a divine inspiration.
364 This version
became and for a long time remained the commonly received view. A great number of official
papal statements over the course of four hundred years and the Roman Breviary (second nocturn
of Matins for the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary, Oct. 7) endorse this view, but do not impose it.
365
These documents of the Holy See tend to speak of St. Dominic’s alleged institution of our rosary
as having been prompted by an inspiration from on high, rather than by a formal apparition and
revelation of the Blessed Mother.
366

In 1733, his research on the life of St. Dominic led the Bollandist, William Cuyper, S.J., to
regard Alan of Rupe as the real author of the rosary devotion.
367 In the first quarter of the present
century, Herbert Thurston, S.J., while rejecting the thesis of Alan’s authorship, continued Cuyper’s
attack on the claims making St. Dominic either the restorer or the institutor of the rosary.
368
According to the English Jesuit, some elements entering into the composition of the rosary
antedated St. Dominic, others did not come into existence until long after his death, and there is
no evidence connecting any single feature of the devotion with the person of the founder of the
Friars Preachers. In Thurston’s opinion, repetition of the Hail Mary (the first half of our present
prayer — the second half became common only toward the close of the Middle Ages), generally
according to the number 50 or its multiples, and often limited to 150 in imitation of the 150 psalms
of the Davidic Psalter, was already widespread early in the 12th century. Further, the introduction
of Our Fathers to divide the Hail Marys into tens cannot reliably be traced farther back than the
middle of the 14th century, and may have been the contribution of a German Carthusian, Henry
Egher (Henry of Kalkar), around 1365.
369 As to the very soul of the rosary devotion, the practice
of meditating in conjunction with recitation of the Hail Marys, this seems to derive from another
German Carthusian, Dominic of Treves (Dominic Helion, Dominic the Prussian), who, around
1409, composed and popularized 50 short appendages to as many Hail Marys (which in those days
still concluded with “Jesus”); these clausulae, as they were called, referred to various events in the
life of Jesus and Mary.
370 So arose the idea of dwelling on the life of Our Lord and His Blessed
Mother while saying the Hail Mary, and, to adapt this idea to the recitation of 150 Hail Marys,
Alan and his colleagues amplified the 50 topics of the Carthusian Dominic (whom Alan may have
confused with St. Dominic) to 150 which later, if not from the start, were subordinated, as “sub-mysteries,” to 15 main mysteries, approximately our present ones.
371 Finally, to render the
illustrated Rosary books less costly, and also to make the practice of the devotion independent of
printed lists and hence easier, the many sub-mysteries were dropped, leaving only the readily
memorized 15 mysteries.

Briefly, our rosary grew slowly and gradually, did not spring into being ready-made, was not
the creation of any one person; of its several elements, some existed before St. Dominic, the others
arose long after him, and the final form into which they all crystallized was due, under God’s
Providence, to accidental circumstances. Thus the late Father Thurston, whose views have found
wide favor.
372

As to our own opinion, leaving aside the question of the merits of his reconstruction,
373 we
may say that, in the light of the criticisms leveled by him, Cuyper, and others against the earlier
views of Alan, etc., it does not seem likely that our rosary, as such, was either restored or
originated by St. Dominic. But one may still doubt that the latter contributed nothing at all to the
genesis of our devotion. At the very least, some indirect influence should be conceded to St.
Dominic, in that he impressed upon his sons that spirit which made the rosary what it is today.
374
Indeed, perhaps he exercised even a direct influence of one kind or another. Proponents of this
view appeal to data not yet known in Thurston’s day or overlooked by him. They contend,
moreover, that the data he did exploit leave room for interpretations and conclusions quite
different from his own.

For instance, it escaped Thurston’s notice that Alan of Rupe invoked not only special
revelations to himself and the writings of supposed companions of St. Dominic (John de Monte,
Thomas de Templo), but also “tradition.”
375 This gives rise to the possibility that there really was
an internal tradition of the Dominican Order connecting its founder with some feature of the
rosary, a tradition which Alan so misinterpreted and embellished as to make St. Dominic an
apostle of the fully formed devotion. Indeed, some evidence can be offered for the actual existence
of such a tradition.

There is, for example, the fact that, in his De vita regulari, Humbert De Romanis, O.P., the fifth
General of the Dominicans, who died only forty years after St. Dominic (1263), impressed upon
the novices the superiority of mental prayer over vocal, and urged that, after Matins of the Blessed
Virgin, they should meditate with ardor on the benefits of God, that is, on the Incarnation, the
Nativity, the Passion, and similar themes, and then recite the Our Father and the Hail Mary.
376
Further, the Constitutions of the Beguines of Ghent (who had Dominicans as their spiritual
directors), believed to have been drawn up around 1236, enjoined daily recitation of the Psalter of
the Virgin, at which the presiding Beguine was “to read aloud before each Our Father and each
Hail Mary some mystery from the life of Christ or of the Blessed Virgin.” To be sure, Thurston
holds this passage to be a later interpolation or revision.
377 How much later? He does not say. But
M. Mahé assigns the passage to the revised Constitutions of 1354, still long before Alan’s time.
378

Also cited in evidence is a manuscript of 1328, the work of a Dominican of Soissons. Entitled
Rosarius, the document contains a poem addressed to Mary which seems to suggest that St.
Dominic had a mission from on high to save the world by preaching devotion to the Hail Mary,
a devotion conjoined with meditation on some mysteries of the Redemption.
379 Then, too, there
is a woodcut produced in 1488 by Francis Domenech, O.P., of the monastery of St. Catherine in
Barcelona, depicting distinctly our 15 mysteries, which, moreover, are clearly designated as the
Joyful, the Sorrowful, the Glorious.
380 If, as is possible, Domenech was not influenced by Alan’s
movement in distant northwestern Europe, his woodcut, whose further details relate the rosary
to St. Dominic, may be additional evidence attesting, independently of Alan’s, to the existence of
a tradition within the Order of Preachers.
381

In their efforts to link the Dominicans’ founder to one or more features of the rosary, some,
rejecting Thurston’s assertions of the prevalence of Hail Marys before St. Dominic, insist that the
latter was the real propagator of the prayer.
382 Others, recognizing that the true genius of the
rosary is in its combination of vocal prayers to Mary with meditation on the Redemption, say that
it does not really matter whether St. Dominic was the first to spread the Hail Mary, or whether
the recitation of precisely 150 Hail Marys divided into fifties and tens antedated him, or was
inaugurated by him, or arose only later. It is enough, they contend, if he had (whether from a
divine inspiration or from a formal revelation is again immaterial) the basic idea of uniting or
alternating the saying of Hail Marys with meditation on mysteries of our Redemption — enough
even if an exact number and the specification of those mysteries, our fifteen, came to be
determined only after St. Dominic’s time.

It has been suggested, not implausibly, that the great foe of the Albigensians did in fact have
what amounts to that idea: the saint’s celebrated sermons on the chief mysteries of our salvation,
sermons not abstract but concrete in character, were for his hearers so many meditations on those
mysteries, before and in between which he was wont, it is surmised, to invite the congregation to
recite Hail Marys in order to obtain the divine blessing.
383 If so, was not the most fundamental
aspect of the future rosary already at hand, and should not St. Dominic be credited with
authorship of the substance of our devotion?

In support of this hypothesis, it is to be recalled that meditation on the mysteries of our
salvation figured largely in the early “Dominican tradition” (Humbert De Romanis, the Beguine
Constitutions?, the Rosarius), and that in the traditional Dominican understanding of the rosary,
as in the Church’s estimate of the devotion, meditation is in fact the very soul of the rosary, and
indeed, meditation on the mysteries of the Redemption, meditation on the life, death, and glory
of Jesus Christ.
384 Despite his seeming preoccupation with Hail Marys and the number of them to
be recited, Alan of Rupe himself appears to have regarded meditation as the quintessence of the
devotion, and indeed, meditation first and foremost on Christ, secondarily on Mary. Did he not
call the devotion the “Psalter of Christ and of Mary”? Moreover, Alan quoted the Blessed Mother
as saying to him in a vision: “It is a very beautiful, profitable prayer ... to recite the Angelic
Salutation 150 times. But more pleasing to me, and much more profitable, is the Angelic Salutation
when it is combined with meditation on the life, passion, and glory of Jesus Christ, for meditation
is the soul of this prayer.”
385 Hence the celebrated poem of the Danish author, Master Michael,
printed in 1496, may have reflected Alan’s mind accurately when it said that, although it would
be best if one could penetrate the mysteries of the life of the Savior and of His Blessed Mother
without any oral prayer, and tarry there, man’s unstable spirit needs vocal prayer to help him
remain recollected, and so Alan wisely added vocal prayer to the meditations.
386

The hypothesis outlined above would largely vindicate the many papal attributions of the
rosary to St. Dominic.
387 Future research may yet verify its one problematic point, the intercalation
of Hail Marys between the saint’s preaching of the different mysteries.
388 We must await the
verdict of history.
389

III. EXCELLENCE OF THE ROSARY

As Pope Pius XII emphasized, among the special prayers and supplications by which, in
addition to the honors of the Sacred Liturgy, Catholics are wont to venerate the Blessed Mother
of God above all the other saints reigning with Christ in Heaven, “the Rosary, as all know, has
pride of place.”
390

No form of extra-liturgical devotion to Mary is more widely practiced among the faithful or
found by them to be more satisfyingly complete than the rosary, which has come to be regarded
as the verybadge of Catholic piety. No form of extra-liturgical devotion to Mary has been
recommended more warmly or frequently by the Popes. With perhaps two exceptions, all the
Sovereign Pontiffs from Sixtus IV in 1478 down to John XXIII, especially Leo XIII (in 23 documents,
ten of them encyclicals entirely on the rosary) and his successors, have extolled this form of
prayer, which has been the favorite, moreover, of such saints as Teresa of Avila, Francis de Sales,
Louis de Montfort, Alphonsus Liguori, Don Bosco, Bernadette, and many more.

Our Lady herself has approved the rosary in the course of numerous apparitions, as at Lourdes
in 1858 and at Fatima in 1917. Indeed, God Himself has signaled His approbation by coming to the
Church’s rescue when, sore beset, she has had special recourse to the rosary and Mary’s powerful
intercession. Outstanding instances of divine deliverance of the Church through the intercessory
power of Our Lady of the Rosary are the crucial victories of the Christian forces over the Turks,
at Lepanto in 1517, at Vienna in 1683, and at Temesvar and Corfu in 1716, and the settlement of
the “Roman Question” in 1929.
391

Why is the rosary so excellent and so efficacious a form of prayer? We have room only for
some of the reasons advanced by the many, above all the Popes, who have explored this profound
subject.
392 To begin with the vocal prayers of the rosary, the flowers out of which this mystic
crown or garland is woven for Our Lady, what prayers can be found more suitable or sublime than
the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary?
393 The first is the noblest and holiest of prayers, that which
was taught us by our divine Redeemer Himself. It permits us, as far as in our power lies, to render
to God the glory which is His due, and at the same time it takes into account all our spiritual and
bodily necessities. How can the Eternal Father, when addressed with the very words of His Son,
fail to be pleased, how can He refuse to come to our aid? As to the Hail Mary, it is composed of
the divinely inspired salutations of the Archangel Gabriel and of St. Elizabeth, along with the pious
entreaty — added by the Church — that God’s Mother help us now and at death. How can
Heaven’s Queen fail to be pleased and moved by this tribute to her dignity, power, and glory, and
to their source, the divinity of her Son?

First, as is meet and just, comes the Lord’s Prayer, addressed to the heavenly Father. Only
thereafter do we turn to Our Lady. Thus the rosary heeds the proper hierarchy of prayer.
394 If our
tongues linger longer with the Hail Mary, repeating it ten times to the Our Father’s one, it is
precisely that our poor petitions may be supported, commended, enhanced by the much more
acceptable ones of her who is full of grace, the most blessed of mere creatures, the very Mother
of God — in the Hail Mary we beseech the Blessed Virgin to speak for us, to pray in our name and
behalf. Finally, by its repetition of Hail Marys and Our Fathers the rosary is seen to excel in a
quality which Christ Himself said prayer must have if it is to be efficacious — perseverance.
395

Hence, even if it were simply a fervent recitation of so many Our Fathers and Hail Marys, the
rosary would still be an admirable form of devotion. But its supreme and unique excellence derives
from its wedding of those vocal prayers to meditation, and indeed, meditation on the mysteries
of our Redemption. Far from being just an ingenious device for relieving the repeated vocal
prayers of “monotony,” this meditation is the very soul of the rosary; the mysteries are not there
for the sake of the prayers, “the prayers are there for the sake of the mysteries.” And, as to these
mysteries upon which we should dwell, it would be a mistake to think of them as chiefly the joys,
sorrows, and triumphs of the Blessed Virgin. Much rather does the Church describe them as “the
mysteries of our Redemption,” “setting forth the entire life of Jesus Christ”; “the mysteries of his
life, passion, death, resurrection and glory.”
396 Thus the rosary is explicitly Christocentric, and one
may say of it what Pius XII said of the Liturgical Year: “Our Saviour dominates the scene in the
mysteries of His humiliation, of His redemption and triumph.”
397 Of course, the rosary honors and
contemplates Mary too, and rightly so, for the same reason that the Liturgical Year does likewise:
“Because of the mission she received from God, her life is most closely linked with the mysteries
of Jesus Christ, and there is no one who has followed in the footsteps of the Incarnate Word more
closely and with more merit than she.”
398 Hence our rosary is truly what Alan of Rupe chose to call
it, “the Psalter of Christ and of Mary,” wherein we dwell, according to the happy formula of Leo
XIII, “on the great mysteries of Jesus and Mary united in joys, sorrows, and triumphs.”
399

Meditation on this cycle of Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries makes the rosary not
only “a breviary or summary of the Gospel and of Christian life,”
400 but also a compendium of the
Liturgical Year. Therewith the rosary stands revealed as a dynamic teacher and nurturer of
Christian faith, morality, and spiritual perfection, fostering in various ways faith, hope, charity,
and the other virtues, and mediating special graces, all to the end that we may become more and
more like unto Christ.

To descend to some details, in presenting the chief mysteries of our religion unto an increase
of faith, the rosary — like the Gospel, and like the Liturgical Year
401 — proposes them not abstractly
but graphically, “less as truths or doctrines to be speculated upon, than as present facts to be seen
and perceived,”
402 “almost as though they were unfolding before our eyes.”
403 It “presents to the
mind, like many pictures, the drama of the Incarnation of Our Lord and the Redemption.”
404 “Thus
presented with the circumstances of place, time and persons, these mysteries produce the most
living effect,”
405 steeping the soul in these salutary truths, enlarging the soul’s hope, intensifying
its charity toward God and man.
406

Other virtues, too, are stimulated, encouraged, and cultivated in the soul of him who meditates
on the mysteries of the rosary, so that this devotion effectively leads to the practice of the truly
Christian life and to Christian perfection.
407 For, in proposing to our meditation the mysteries of
Jesus and His Mother, the rosary, like the Gospel and like the Liturgical Year,
408 offers us inspiring
examples of all virtue. Above all, there are the lessons taught by the conduct of our Savior Himself.
“What an example we have set before us and shining everywhere in Our Lord Christ’s work of
salvation ... ,” moving us to “straightway set out in the footsteps of Christ and follow them through
every obstacle.”
409 For a deeper appreciation of this aspect of the rosary’s excellence, it should be
recalled that, as did Our Lord Himself, the Church, her Fathers and Doctors, notably St. Thomas
Aquinas, extoll the efficacy of Christ’s example.
410

As to the power of Mary’s example, “lest we be dismayed by the consciousness of our native
weakness and grow faint when confronted with the unattainable example which Christ, who is
Man and at the same time God, has given, along with the mysteries which portray Him, we have
before our eyes for contemplation the mysteries of His Most Holy Mother. ... In Mary we see how
a truly good and provident God has established for us a most suitable example of every virtue.”
411
The more perfectly we imitate Our Lady, the more like do we become to her Model, Christ. For
“there is no one who has followed in the footsteps of the Incarnate Word more closely and with
more merit than she.”
412 “Nobody ever knew Christ so profoundly as she did, and nobody can ever
be more competent as a guide and teacher of the knowledge of Christ.”
413 Thus through Mary we
learn to clothe ourselves with Christ, we put on Christ; “Christ is formed” in us (Gal. 4:19).
414
Hence, if we imitate Our Lady, it is in order to become like to Christ. She is not our ultimate
exemplar, not the center and fundamental principle of our spiritual life — there is only one
Christian spirituality, that in which Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and one may speak
of a “Marian spirituality” only in the sense that we are to tend to Jesus through Mary.
415

So, then, “following these most holy examples (of Jesus Christ and of His Mother), we ascend
to the happiness of the heavenly fatherland by steps of ever higher virtue.”
416 The Popes also stress
that this contemplation, in the rosary, of the inspiring examples of Jesus and Mary is salutary not
only for the individual but also for society; for society in miniature, the family,
417 and for civil
society.
418

But it is not just by the power of example that the rosary tends to form Christ in us. For, one
may apply to this devotion what Pope Pius XII, invoking the Doctors of the Church, said of the
mysteries of Jesus as proposed in the Liturgy: Far from being merely events of the past, “these
mysteries are ever present and active ... ; they still influence us because each mystery brings its
own special grace.”
419

Doubtless the Holy Father had in mind the profound teaching of the Angelic Doctor on the
efficient causality of the mysteries of Christ with respect to our sanctification.
420 According to St.
Thomas Aquinas, the “mysteries of Christ” are not simply speculative truths, they are the events
in His life, each of which determined His sacred humanity in such wise as to make it an
instrument peculiarly adapted to produce in us the grace corresponding to each mystery.
421 The
“mysteries of Christ” are “mysteries” in the sense of “sacrament,” that is, sign and instrumental
cause of our spiritual progress; they are not totally of the past, they remain as a stable disposition
in the glorified humanity of the Savior, to produce in us the effects of grace corresponding to each
of them.
422 For us actually to receive such special benefit from this or that mystery, we must come
into spiritual contact with the mystery, by faith, hope, and charity.
423 Thus St. Thomas Aquinas.
When, therefore, the rosary, stimulating faith, hope, and charity, puts us into spiritual contact with
a particular mystery of Christ, it mediates to us a special grace or virtue, making us that much
more like unto our Divine Savior.
424

Truly, then, devout meditation on the mysteries of the rosary enables us to “both imitate what
they contain, and obtain what they promise,”
425 and the rosary leads us indeed “to Jesus through
Mary.”
426 In the light of all that has been said, we can now better appreciate why the Blessed
Mother is so pleased by the rosary, why it so effectively enlists her intercession. She would agree
with the words Alan of Rupe placed on her lips: “more pleasing to me, and much more profitable,
is the Angelic Salutation when it is combined with meditation on the life, passion, and glory of
Jesus Christ, for meditation is the soul of this prayer.”
427 She cannot but treasure this devotion
whose meditations make us so like to her Divine Son; she cannot resist the pleas of those who so
resemble Him. The rosary is the perfect Marian devotion not merely because, synthesis and crown
of all devotions to Our Lady, it “sums up in itself the honor due to her,”
428 but also and especially
because it is the most explicitly Christocentric Marian devotion.

IV. INDULGENCES FOR RECITING THE ROSARY

Last, but not least, the rosary also excels in that it can greatly expedite our entry into Heaven,
speed our union there with Christ. For this devotion has been munificently endowed by the Popes
with indulgences — those pardons in whole or in part of the debt of temporal punishment which
may still remain even after the guilt of sin has been forgiven, a debt which, unless pardoned,
would have to be paid either in this life or in Purgatory.

As to the Rosary indulgences properly so-called, we confine ourselves to the general Rosary
indulgences granted for recitation of the rosary.
429 In the present context “rosary” means a third
part of the full rosary — five decades, and “recitation” is to be understood as devout recitation.
These indulgences, all of which are applicable to the souls in Purgatory, are as follows.
430

The faithful may gain an indulgence of five years every time they recite the rosary. Farther,
if one recites it daily for a whole month, he may gain a plenary indulgence, under the usual
conditions.
431

Those who recite the rosary in company with others, whether in public or in private, may gain
an indulgence of ten years, once a day; also, a plenary indulgence on the last Sunday of each
month, if they perform such a recitation at least three times in any of the preceding weeks, and
provided they go to confession, receive Holy Communion, and visit some church or public oratory.
If, however, they recite the rosary together in a family group, they may gain, besides the
indulgence of ten years: a plenary indulgence twice a month, provided they perform this recitation
daily for a month, go to confession, receive Holy Communion, and visit some church or public
oratory; further, on condition of daily recitation of the rosary for a week, and of confession and
Communion, a plenary indulgence, to be gained on each Saturday, and on two other days of the
week, and furthermore on each of the feasts of the Blessed Virgin in the universal calendar.
432

Those who recite the rosary in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament publicly exposed or even
reserved in the tabernacle may gain, as often as they do this, a plenary indulgence, on condition
of confession and Communion.

Those who resolve to perform a pious exercise in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary for fifteen
uninterrupted Saturdays (or if hindered on Saturday, for as many respective Sundays immediately
following) may gain, if they recite the rosary or meditate on its mysteries in some other way, a
plenary indulgence, under the usual conditions, on any of these fifteen Saturdays or corresponding
Sundays.

Those who, in October, recite the rosary either publicly or privately may gain an indulgence
of seven years each day; also, a plenary indulgence, if they recite the rosary on the Feast of the
Rosary and throughout the octave, and moreover, go to confession, receive Holy Communion, and
visit a church or public oratory; further, a plenary indulgence if they recite the rosary for at least
ten days after the octave of that Feast, and go to confession, receive Holy Communion, and visit
a church or public oratory.

None of the above indulgences requires the use of rosary beads, much less of blessed rosary
beads. If, however, one uses rosary beads specially blessed by a Dominican, or by another priest
having the requisite faculties, he may gain, for daily recitation of the rosary throughout the year,
one plenary indulgence, to be obtained on any day of the year, under condition of confession, Holy
Communion, and prayer for the intentions of the Pope; also, an indulgence of 100 days for every
Our Father and Hail Mary, provided one intends to recite and does recite five decades within one
day.
433 These two Rosary indulgences were granted by Pope Benedict XIII, and are the only
“Dominican indulgences” properly so-called.
434

So much for the Rosary indulgences. Of Crosier indulgences we have spoken elsewhere. As
to Apostolic indulgences, among those decreed by Pope John XXIII for weekly recitation of five
decades of the rosary (or certain other religious works) is a plenary indulgence obtainable on
certain feasts, on condition of timely reception of the Sacraments of Penance and Holy
Communion, and of prayer for the Pope’s intentions; an indulgence of seven years on each of the
same feasts, for persons not receiving the Sacraments on those occasions but who are contrite and
pray for the Pope’s intentions; an indulgence of three years for every performance of any of the
religious works listed in the papal decree.
435

For good measure, and by way of conclusion, we may mention some of the Bridgettine
indulgences: a plenary indulgence, on condition of confession, Communion, visit to a church or
public oratory, and prayer for the Pope’s intentions: (a) once a month for those who daily recite
at least the five-decade chaplet for a month; (b) once a year for those who daily recite the five-decade or six-decade chaplet for a whole year. Also, for those who are in the habit of reciting at
least the five-decade chaplet weekly, a plenary indulgence at the hour of death, provided that the
dying person receives the Sacraments of Penance and Communion (or, if unable to receive the
Sacraments, has perfect contrition), and devoutly invokes the name of Jesus, with his lips, if
possible, otherwise in his heart. Finally, a partial indulgence of 100 days for each Our Father, Hail
Mary, and Creed, provided the five-decade chaplet is completed the same day.
436

The Scapular Devotion

By CHRISTIAN P. CEROKE, O.Carm.

THE most highly developed of Marian Scapular devotions is that of the Brown Scapular of Our
Lady of Mount Carmel. Since the seventeenth century, the Brown Scapular has been a universal
Catholic devotion, considered to be, together with the rosary, a customary form of Marian
devotional practice. The popularity of the Scapular devotion was due to the sixteenth and
seventeenth century popes, who promulgated the so-called Sabbatine Privilege and who approved
the Confraternity of the Scapular for every diocese throughout the Catholic world. The growth
and development of the Scapular devotion reached its culmination in 1726 in the extension to the
universal Church of the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel for July 16.
437

The wearing of the Scapular fosters a true devotion to Mary that is based on her supernatural
mission in the redemption of mankind. Two Marian doctrines are proposed in the devotion of the
Brown Scapular: Mary’s Spiritual Maternity and her Mediation of Grace. The Scapular teaches a
practical confidence in the intercession of the Blessed Virgin to obtain for its wearer the grace of
final perseverance, or a happy death. The two general conditions to obtain this benefit are that one
must honor Mary by wearing the Scapular faithfully until death and endeavor sincerely to lead a
Christian life. This reliance on Mary’s intercession for the gift of final perseverance derives
historically from the belief that the Blessed Virgin promised in an apparition to St. Simon Stock,
Prior General of the Carmelites (1247?-1265), that all who die wearing the Scapular will not suffer
the eternal flames of hell. This tradition has become known as the “Scapular promise.”

The devotion also teaches that the aid of Mary may be confidently expected in purgatory by
all those who have faithfully worn the Scapular and have fulfilled two other conditions: the
practice of chastity according to one’s state of life and the daily recitation of the Little Office of
the Blessed Virgin.
438 This privilege of the Scapular devotion has been thought to stem from an
apparition of Mary to Pope John XXII, who then promulgated this spiritual benefit to the faithful
in 1322. According to the copies of the Bull of promulgation attributed to John XXII, the devotee
of the Scapular would be released from purgatory on the Saturday after death. Because of the
allusion to Saturday, the document of John XXII has been called the “Sabbatine Bull” and its
Marian privilege the “Sabbatine Privilege.”

THE ORIGIN OF THE SCAPULAR DEVOTION

Historically, the devotion of the Scapular among the Catholic laity originated from the
tradition of the Marian apparition and promise of the Scapular to St. Simon Stock.
439 From about
1400, Carmelite authors allude to the wearing of the Scapular by the laity in reliance on the
Virgin’s promise of eternal salvation. Carmelite authors of the fifteenth century begin to record
a devotional view of the Scapular, insinuating its heavenly origin. According to Grossi (ca. 1411),
Mary gave the Scapular to St. Simon Stock. According to Bradley (ca. 1450), in bestowing the
Scapular Mary changed the Carmelite habit.
440 Still later authors added new motives for the wearing
of the Scapular by the laity. Calciuri (1461) alluded to miracles that had been worked through the
Scapular; and Leersius (1483) added that the Scapular had been worn by saints.
441 This tradition of
the fifteenth century, which began to develop the devotional value of the Scapular and of its
promise, culminated in 1479 in a work by Arnold Bostius, a Belgian Carmelite of Ghent. His
manuscript work, De patronatu et patrocinio B. V. M., formulated the solid basis of Marian doctrine
on which the Scapular devotion was founded. Bostius explained how the Scapular promise of
eternal salvation was a concrete illustration of the doctrine of Mary as Mediatrix of all Graces. The
reception of the Scapular as the pledge of Mary’s promise of eternal salvation placed the obligation
upon the members of the Confraternity to imitate Mary in her practice of virtue. Bostius’ work
was popularized by John Paleonydor, a Flemish Carmelite, in a book entitled Fasciculus Tripartitus.
Published in 1495, the book was frequently reprinted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
By the end of the fifteenth century, the theological structure of the Scapular devotion had been
essentially outlined: its doctrinal foundation was the cult of Mary as Mediatrix of all Graces; its
motive was the tradition of the apparition of Our Lady to St. Simon Stock with the promise of the
Scapular.
442

THE SCAPULAR PROMISE AND HISTORICAL CRITICISM

The question of the historical authenticity of the Scapular promise was raised in the
seventeenth century when the modern concept of scientific history was first developed.
443 It cannot
be said that the historical value of the tradition has been decided with finality. Recent historical
investigations into Carmelite medieval history have provided information on the tradition of the
Scapular promise that was not in the possession of scholars of past decades.
444

The Carmelites of the fourteenth century preserved the tradition of the Scapular promise as
part of the cult within the Order to St. Simon Stock. The narrative of the apparition and of the
promise of the Scapular was incorporated in the Carmelite Catalogue of Saints, or Sanctoral,
composed for the Order.
445 The account in its earliest known form reads as follows:

The ninth (saint) was St. Simon of England, the sixth General of the Order. He continually
besought the most glorious Mother of God to defend with a privilege the Order of Carmelites, which
enjoys the special title of the Virgin. He prayed devoutly:

Flower of Carmel

Vine Blossom-laden.

Splendor of heaven,

Child-bearing maiden,

None equals thee!

O Mother benign,

Who no man didst know,

On all Carmel’s children

Thy favors bestow

Star of the Sea.
446

The Blessed Virgin appeared to him with a multitude of angels, holding in her blessed hands the
Scapular of the Order. She said, “This will be for you and for all Carmelites the privilege, that he who
dies in this will not suffer eternal fire,” that is, he who dies in this will be saved.
447

There is no doubt that the origin of the Scapular devotion among the laity is traceable to this
fourteenth century narrative.
448 Its composition has been dated about the mid-fourteenth century.
449
Of greater significance, however, than the date of the narrative, is its location in the Carmelite
Sanctoral, where it forms the complete hagiographical notice on St. Simon Stock. If this story of
the Marian apparition and promise were not found in the earliest hagiographical notice on St.
Simon Stock, but only in documents of later origin, this fact would cast grave suspicion on the
authentic origin of the tradition. The appearance in the fourteenth century narrative of the poem,
the Flos Carmeli, reveals the existence of a cult of the apparition at this time within the Order.
450
A Marian devotion induced by the Scapular promise existed within the Carmelite Order before it
arose among the laity.
451 The story of the apparition of Mary and the promise of the Scapular was
a fully formed tradition within the Order by the mid-fourteenth century, one hundred years after
the death of St. Simon Stock. The tradition was not originally motivated by the spread of the
Scapular devotion among the laity. Nor was the tradition utilized by the medieval Carmelites to
claim a unique Marian privilege.
452 The absence of these motives behind the tradition tells in favor
of its authenticity.

In the past, scholars have urged three difficulties against the historicity of the Scapular
promise: (1) absence of documentary evidence for the tradition from the thirteenth century;
453 (2)
silence of Carmelite authors of the fourteenth century concerning the promise;
454 (3) confusion in
the tradition between the Carmelite habit and the Carmelite Scapular as the garment supposedly
designated by Mary.
455 These objections no longer constitute serious difficulties against the
authenticity of the Scapular tradition. Documentary evidence cannot be expected from the
thirteenth century since the Carmelite Order did not begin to produce an extensive literature until
the middle of the fourteenth century.
456 The appearance of the written tradition of the Scapular
promise coincides with the blossoming of literary activity within the Order.
457 In the face of modern
research into the history of Carmelite literary activity in the fourteenth century, the argument
from silence against the tradition of the scapular promise loses point. The account of the Marian
apparition to St. Simon Stock is a constant written tradition as far hack as literary activity reveals
itself to be an important factor in the life of the Order. Finally, the conclusion of some historians
that the apparition was originally associated by the Carmelites with their habit in general rather
than with the Scapular in particular is certainly mistaken. There is an unbroken line of evidence,
beginning with the Chapter of Montpellier in 1287 that the terms habit and Scapular were used
interchangeably by the medieval Carmelites.
458 When the word habit is employed in Carmelite
authors in connection with the Marian promise to St. Simon Stock, the term means simply
“Scapular.”

The sole reason for rejecting the historical authenticity of the Scapular promise is the absence
of thirteenth century documentation revealing Carmelite knowledge and acceptance of the story
of the apparition. The absence of such evidence leaves open the possibility that the Scapular
tradition developed as a legend in the thirteenth or early fourteenth century. While the possibility
of a legendary origin for the tradition of the Scapular promise must be admitted, its legendary
origin cannot be affirmed.
459 Beginning with the documentary evidence in the fourteenth century,
the essential details of the tradition remain invariable: (1) the apparition of Mary, (2) to St. Simon
Stock, (3) with the Scapular, (4) stating the words of eternal life for all who die clothed in this
garment.

THE SABBATINE PRIVILEGE: ORIGIN AND HISTORICAL CRITIQUE

The Sabbatine Bull occupied a place of key importance in the spread of the Scapular devotion
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Throughout this period the popes repeatedly
promulgated the Sabbatine Privilege in allusion to the Bull of 1322 attributed to Pope John XXII:
Clement VII (1530); Paul III (1534; 1549); Pius IV (1561); Pius V (1566); Gregory XIII (1577); Urban
VIII (1628); Clement X (1673; 1674; 1675); Innocent XI (1678; 1679; 1682; 1684).
460 Since according
to the Sabbatine Privilege the souls of the faithful departed would benefit in purgatory from the
intercession of the Blessed Virgin, the Church found it useful to stress the privilege in order to
teach the legitimacy of the doctrine of indulgences and of Marian devotion.
461

The tradition of the Sabbatine Bull seems to have been first spread in the fifteenth century.
The Bull was known to the Carmelites Calciuri in 1461 and Leersius in 1483. It was referred to by
the Carmelite General Chapter of 1517. Historically, however, the tradition of the Sabbatine Bull
is clearly vulnerable. No evidence of the Bull appears in the registers of John XXII. Although it is
recognized that the absence of a papal document from the medieval registers is not a conclusive
argument against its authenticity, no positive historical evidence from other sources supports the
papal origin of the Bull. Its literary character is entirely too odd to recommend it as the work of
John XXII. For these reasons, historians have rejected the authenticity of the Sabbatine Bull.
462 The
apparent spuriousness of the Bull naturally casts serious doubt on its tradition that the Sabbatine
Privilege originated in a Marian apparition to Pope John XXII. Three theories have been proposed
to explain the origin of the tradition of the apparition and the Bull. According to one view the
tradition would have originated in an oral declaration by John XXII.
463 This theory accounts for the
spurious character of the Bull and for its peculiar style. The explanation is too conjectural to win
credence. A second theory would derive the Sabbatine Bull from an original authentic document
from John XXII which became corrupt in the course of time.
464 But no evidence has been produced
from existing copies of the Bull to show a gradual corruption of its text. A third theory considers
the Bull to be an interpretation, based on theological grounds, of the Marian promise to St. Simon
Stock.
465 Since Mary’s Mediation of Grace, of which her promise of eternal salvation is a reflection,
embraces the final goal of the Christian life, which is union with God, it is logical to conclude that
her maternal assistance makes itself felt in purgatory.
466 This third theory, that the Sabbatine
Privilege is a more developed understanding of the significance of the Marian promise to St. Simon
Stock, is the most plausible explanation of the origin of the Sabbatine Bull. The copies of the Bull
indicate a close relationship between the promise to St. Simon Stock and the Sabbatine Privilege.
The Bull states, “One who perseveres in holy obedience, poverty and chastity — or who will enter
the Holy Order — will be saved.” Then follows the declaration of the Sabbatine Privilege
concerning release from purgatory for “others” who wear the holy “habit” of the Order. It would
seem, then, that the Sabbatine Privilege arose historically in a fuller understanding of the Marian
promise to St. Simon Stock.

THE DECISION OF THE HOLY OFFICE ON THE SABBATINE PRIVILEGE

Since the early seventeenth century, Carmelite preaching of the Sabbatine Privilege has been
theologically independent of the historical authenticity of the Sabbatine Bull. In 1613 the Holy
Office under Pope Paul V issued a decree on the Sabbatine Privilege which took account of the
papal bulls of the sixteenth century. These Bulls had promulgated the privilege according to the
tradition of the Sabbatine Bull. The decree of the Holy Office made no reference to the Bull of John
XXII or to the tradition of the Marian apparition to him. It simply affirmed the privilege itself. The
decree follows:

The Carmelite Fathers may preach that the Christian people can piously believe in the aid of the souls
of the brethren and confratres of the Sodality of the Most Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel. Through her
continuous intercessions, pious suffrages, merits, and special protection the Most Blessed Virgin,
especially on Saturday, the day dedicated to her by the Church, will help after their death the brethren
and members of the Sodality who die in charity. In life they must have worn the habit, observed chastity
according to their state, and have recited the Little Office. If they do not know how to recite it, they are
to observe the fasts of the Church and to abstain from meat on Wednesdays and Saturdays, except for
the feast of Christmas.
467

This decree of Paul V stated in effect that the spiritual authority of the popes of the sixteenth
century had sanctioned the Marian teaching of the Sabhatine Privilege. This aspect of the devotion
of the Brown Scapular was thus declared spiritually fruitful for the laity.

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE SCAPULAR PROMISE

The first affirmation of theologians concerning the Scapular promise of eternal salvation deals
with the necessity of ruling out formalism in the practice of the devotion. Formalism is the
physical wearing of the Scapular without sincere intent to serve God. The theological reason for
ruling out formalism is that exterior acts of religion must be a reflection of one’s interior mind and
will if they are not to be hypocritical. The Scapular is merely a symbol having in itself no intrinsic
power of grace. As a symbol it possesses a twofold import, one in relation to the Blessed Virgin,
one in relation to its wearer. As a sign of consecration to Mary, the Scapular is a reminder of the
spiritual prerogatives enjoyed by her in the economy of the redemption, and it is a pledge that her
role be activated in favor of the wearer of the Scapular. In relation to its wearer, the Scapular is
a sign that one has resolved to dedicate himself to the service of Christ and Mary according to his
station in life. The Scapular symbolizes both the recognition of the spiritual maternity of Mary and
an acceptance of the spiritual duties that Christians, as children of Mary, are obligated to
undertake in the service of God. For the layman who becomes a member of the Scapular
Confraternity the spiritual duties are summed up in the observance of the Ten Commandments,
daily prayer, attendance at Mass on days of obligation, the reception of the Sacraments of Penance
and the Holy Eucharist, and the faithful performance of the duties of one’s state. The Scapular
devotion does not provide an escape from the ordinary duties of Christianity, but is rather an
incentive to undertake them with fervor and exactitude in the knowledge that one thus prepares
himself to arrive at the final goal of the Christian life, union with God in eternity. In order to insist
that the Scapular is meaningless without interior devotion, the Church has inserted the word pie,
“piously,” into the words of the promise concerning those who die in the Scapular.
468

The interpretation of the promise to St. Simon Stock, “He who dies in this will not suffer
eternal fire,” must be based on sound principles of theology. The words themselves simply express
the object of Mary’s promise, eternal salvation, and the pledge of her assistance, the material sign
of the Scapular to be worn continually. To ascertain the meaning of the promise, one must have
recourse to two principles for the interpretation of private revelation. (1) All private revelation
must be understood in the light of the truths of salvation divinely revealed by Jesus Christ and His
Apostles. These truths are proposed by the Church, the divinely appointed teacher. (2) Private
revelations concerning the Blessed Virgin must be understood in the light of the spiritual values
inherent in true devotion to Mary. These values have been revealed by God and are taught by the
Church. Only when these two principles are utilized do we arrive at a correct estimate of the
promise of the Scapular.

The practice of the Christian life, however perfectly it may be accomplished, cannot merit in
justice the grace of final perseverance. The grace of final perseverance is a gift of God by which
we die united to Him in supernatural friendship. All theologians teach it as certain that a good life
does not entitle us, in justice, to obtain this grace from God. To live in the supernatural friendship
of God is His gift, and so it is His gift also to die in this friendship. The moment of the death of all
men, whether in the pursuit of good or of evil, lies in the hands of God. Those who are faithful to
the divine commands, truly repentant for their sins, and who avail themselves of the means of
grace established by Christ may remain, not absolutely certain,
469 but confident of their salvation.
This confidence derives from the virtue of Christian hope, by which we rely on the promises of
God that He wills the salvation of all men and gives them the means to attain it. It is precisely in
connection with the grace of final perseverance that the Church recommends the devotion of the
Scapular. Mary has promised that the grace of final perseverance will be granted through her
intercession to all those who, by means of the Scapular, dedicate themselves to her and wear it
until death out of devotion to her and to the teachings of Christ. The particular value of the
Scapular devotion consists in the special help of Mary, so that the grace of final perseverance, or
of a “happy death,” may be obtained through her intercession.

This interpretation of the Scapular promise is but an affirmation of the spiritual value of
Marian devotion: one who practices true devotion to Mary cannot lose his soul for eternity. This
proposition of the power of Mary’s intercession has been expressed in papal teaching.
470 It is the
consciousness of the Church on the value of true Marian devotion. The same awareness is
expressed in the Ave Maria, wherein the gift of final perseverance is requested: “Holy Mary ... pray
for us now and at the hour of our death.” Reliance on Mary’s intercession, put into these words
of momentary prayer, becomes in the symbol of the Scapular a continual prayer that spans the
moments of a lifetime, to the supreme moment of death.

The necessity of interior devotion does not prevent the sinner from benefiting from the
Scapular promise,
471 since all men are sinners. Only the degree, not the fact, of sin in man is
debatable. To affirm that the Scapular devotion is not of value to sinners, including those humanly
judged to be the worst of them, would be to say that God fails to hear their prayers. The teaching
of Christ is that God hears the prayers of the sinner (Lk. 18:9-14). The question of the Scapular and
sinners is falsely posed when it is asked how the Scapular promise can save the worst of them. The
question can only be whether or not the sinner who wears the Scapular out of devotion makes
those interior acts in response to divine grace that are necessary to his salvation. The answer to
this question is known only to God, who alone may scan the secrets of the heart of man.

THE SCAPULAR DEVOTION IN MODERN LIFE

The popes in modern times have been solicitous in their encouragement of the Scapular
devotion. St. Pius X permitted the substitution of a Scapular Medal for the cloth Scapular in
recognition of the changed circumstances of life, precisely to encourage the dedication to Mary
signified by the Scapular. For any reason, even simple convenience, the faithful invested in any
Scapular except that of the Third Orders, may substitute a Scapular Medal which need only be
carried on the person. The Medal was not intended as a new form of the Scapular devotion, but
only as an aid to its continual practice. Catholics should be instructed to make free and wise use
of both Scapular and Medal according to their judgment and circumstances. The permission for
the Medal reflects the mind of the Church that the Scapular itself is only the exterior sign of an
interior devotion.
472

In 1890 Leo XIII had begun to grant the faculty to confessors to commute the condition of
abstinence into other good works for the gaining of the Sabbatine Privilege. In order to gain the
privilege one must (1) wear the Scapular or the Scapular Medal; (2) observe chastity according to
one’s state in life; (3) recite daily the Little Office of Our Lady, or if one does not know how to
recite it, abstain from meat on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The commutation of the third
condition, due to practical difficulties in the circumstances of modern life, has become a common
practice. The confessor is free to choose any suitable good work as the daily substitute. The
commutation of Carmelite confessors is usually to seven Paters, Aves, and Glorias.

OTHER MARIAN SCAPULARS

From time to time in the history of the Church Scapular devotions have arisen to foster love
of Mary and to encourage the practice of particular virtues. The Black Scapular of the Seven
Dolors originated from the habit of the Servite Fathers. The inspiration for the habit of the Order
and for its devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows is attributed to an apparition of Mary to its founders.
Pope Martin V approved a rule for the Third Order secular in 1424. The Blue Scapular of the
Immaculate Conception, which the Church has favored with an extraordinary number of
indulgences, originated in an apparition of Mary to the Ven. Ursula Benincasa in 1617. Great
graces were promised by Mary to those who would honor her Immaculate Conception by wearing
the Blue Scapular. The condition was expressed that they live chastely according to their state in
life. Other Marian Scapulars are of more recent origin: the white Scapular of the Immaculate Heart
of Mary, approved by Pius IX in 1877; the white Scapular of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,
approved by the Congregation of Rites in 1900; the white Scapular of Our Lady of Good Counsel,
approved in 1893 by Leo XIII for the purpose of invoking Mary’s guidance upon its wearer; the
white Scapular of Our Lady of Ransom bearing the cross of Aragon, which originated in the
thirteenth century in connection with the Fathers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Redemption
of Captives; the black Scapular of Our Lady Help of the Sick, the badge of the Confraternity
founded by St. Camillus de Lellis for the aid of the sick, approved in 1860 by Pius IX.
473

RECENT POPES AND THE SCAPULAR

Pius XI and Pius XII have urged those wearing the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount
Carmel to be especially attentive in their personal lives to the requirements of true Marian
devotion. Pius XI wrote, “... although it is very true that the Blessed Virgin loves all who love her,
nevertheless those who wish to have the Blessed Mother as a helper in [the hour of] death, must
in life merit such signal favor by abstaining from sin and laboring in her honor.”
474 Pius XII stressed
the spiritual importance of the Scapular devotion:

We are not here concerned with a light or passing matter, but with the obtaining of eternal life itself
which is the substance of the promise of the most Blessed Virgin which has been handed down to us. We
are concerned, namely, with that which is of supreme importance to all and with the manner of
achieving it safely... But not for this reason may they who wear the Scapular think that they can gain
eternal salvation while remaining slothful and negligent of spirit, for the Apostle warns us: “In fear and
trembling shall you work out your salvation” (Phil. 2:12).
475

Pius XII likewise emphasized the value of the Scapular devotion for society itself:

There is no one who is not aware how greatly a love for the Blessed Virgin Mother of God
contributes to the enlivening of the Catholic faith and to the raising of the moral standard. These effects
are especially secured by means of those devotions which more than others are seen to enlighten the
mind with celestial doctrine and to excite souls to the practice of the Christian life. In the first rank of
the most favored of these devotions, that of the holy Carmelite Scapular must be placed — a devotion
which, adapted to the minds of all by its very simplicity, has become so universally widespread among
the faithful and has produced so many and such salutary fruits.
476

The Holy Slavery of Love

By PATRICK J. GAFFNEY, S.M.M.

ST. LOUIS MARY DE MONTFORT’S present influence on the Christian world, primarily because
of his doctrine on total consecration to Our Lady, can only be termed immeasurable. It is this
teaching of the French missionary on total consecration — or “Holy Slavery,”
477 as it is also called
— which will be briefly studied here. In order to understand the doctrine of St. Louis de Montfort
on this subject, we will first trace the history of “Holy Slavery” up to the time of St. Louis (1673-1716), briefly explain his teachings concerning consecration to Mary, and finally cite some of the
numerous encomiums which popes and theologians alike have showered upon his works.

I. THE HISTORY OF “HOLY SLAVERY” PRIOR TO ST.
LOUIS
478

St. Louis de Montfort himself declares that “this devotion [Holy Slavery] is not new,”
479 and
adopts H. Boudon’s statement: “it is so ancient that we cannot fix precisely the date of its
beginnings. It is certain, however, that for more than seven hundred years we find traces of it in
the Church.”
480

A. The Term “Slave of Mary”

Although the title “slave of Mary” may be said to be implicit in those Fathers of the Church
who recognize the Mother of God as “Queen” or “Lady,”
481 the expression is explicitly used by a
number of the Fathers. Several authors cite St. Ephraem (✝ 373) as the first to call himself a “slave
of the Mother of God,”
482 yet the text cited is of doubtful authenticity.
483 However St. Ildephonsus of
Toledo (✝ 669) did make use of the title,
484 as did St. John Damascene (✝ 749),
485 Euthymius of
Constantinople (✝ 917),
486 the brother of St. Peter Damian, Blessed Marinus (✝ 1016),
487 the Abbot
Odilon (✝ 1049),
488 St. Anselm of Canterbury (✝ 1109),
489 St. Bernard (✝ 1153),
490 and Adam of St. Victor
(✝ 1192).
491

The expression “slave of the Mother of God” is also found on official seals used in the fifth and
sixth centuries in Africa
492; Pope John VII (✝ 707) prided himself on the title,
493 as did Pope Nicholas
IV (✝ 1292) and Pope Paul V (✝ 1621).
494 The fact of calling oneself “slave of the Mother of God” was
declared customary as early as the seventh century;
495 it existed in Ireland at least by the ninth
century,
496 and was given official sanction in the approbation of the community of the “Servites”
of Mary in the thirteenth century. Thomas à Kempis (✝ 1471) also made extensive use of the term.
497

B. Confraternities of the Holy Slavery

Although the expression “slave of Mary” dates from the early ages of the Church, the first
Confraternity of the Holy Slavery appears to have originated in Spain on the second of August,
1595, under the leadership of Sister Agnes of St. Paul, of the Franciscan Conceptionists at the
convent of St. Ursula in Alcalá de Henares.
498 In 1608 the Franciscan, John of the Angels, not only
joined the confraternity but rewrote and enlarged the statutes of the organization, adding a short
introduction on the notion of Holy Slavery.
499 At the request of the Conceptionist Community of
Alcalá, another Franciscan, Melchor de Cetina, composed in 1618 what may be called the first
“Handbook of Spirituality” for the members of the confraternity.
500 The association was approved
by Pope Clement XII in 1730.
501

In 1612 the Benedictine, Anthony de Alvarado, founded at Valladolid, Spain, a distinct
confraternity of the Holy Slavery under the title “The Slaves of the Exiled Holy Virgin,” which was
approved almost immediately by Pope Paul V.
502 Father Peter de la Serna, Mercedarian, who was
acquainted with the “Slaves of the Exiled Virgin,” published at Seville in 1617, Statutes and
Constitutions of the Slaves of Our Lady of Mercy.
503 The confraternity soon spread throughout the
Mercedarian Order.

In 1619 another confraternity was formed at Alcalá de Henares, under the mysteries of the
Sorrows, Assumption, Nativity, Conception, and Annunciation of Our Lady; this confraternity
received the approval of the Holy See in 1685.
504

Especially through the work of the Franciscan, John of the Angels, the confraternity of Alcalá
numbered among its members even King Philip III of Spain and his wife, Queen Margaret, and
many other notables of both Church and State. The devotion of “Holy Slavery” became known
therefore to the confessor of Queen Margaret, Simon de Rojas, a Trinitarian (✝ 1624).
505 Asked by
the King what reward he wanted for having aided the Queen on her deathbed (✝ 1611), de Rojas
requested the King’s help in founding a confraternity of slaves of the glorious name of Mary under
the invocation “Ave Maria.” The Confraternity of the Slaves of the “Ave Maria” soon spread
throughout the monasteries of the Trinitarians and was approved by Rome as early as 1616.
506

Since Belgium was at this period under Spanish rule, it was but natural that Simon de Rojas
thought of extending his confraternity to the Low Countries. However, his community possessed
no monasteries in Belgium, and de Rojas therefore asked his friend, the Augustinian, Bartholomew
de los Rios (✝ 1652), to accomplish this task for him. In 1622 de los Rios left for Belgium as the
preacher of Isabella, wife of Archduke Albert, governor of the Low Countries. The first
confraternity of the Holy Slavery was founded in Belgium in 1626, recognized and indulgenced by
Urban VIII in 1631.
507 Through the work and writings of de los Rios — and also with the help of his
fellow Augustinians — the confraternity of the Holy Slavery spread rapidly throughout the Low
Countries.
508

The devotion was brought to Poland through Prince Wladislaus IV who heard a sermon of de
los Rios on the Holy Slavery while on a visit to Belgium.
509 The Theatines especially preached it
throughout Italy.
510

Up to this date, however, “the devotion of ‘Holy Slavery’ had not as yet reached the clarity and
plenitude which it achieved under Saint Louis de Montfort. Moreover, [the consecration] is not
addressed to Jesus, the Incarnate Wisdom, in dependence on Mary; it does not present to us the
imitation of this filial dependence as its principal motive. Likewise, it leaves the spiritual Maternity
of Mary only in the shade.”
511

Thanks to Cardinal de Bérulle (✝ 1629), the devotion of “Holy Slavery” was made part of the
French School of Spirituality. Having become acquainted with the confraternities in Spain, he
became its great propagator in France.
512 Even as developed by this founder of the French School,
however, the devotion of “Holy Slavery” differed greatly from the system which would be
explained by St. Louis. “On the part of Jesus, Bérulle assigns as foundation of his Donation, the
state of servitude of the Holy Humanity of the Incarnate Word; Montfort, the state of dependence
of the Incarnate Word Himself in relation to Mary in the entire redemptive work. On the part of
Our Lady, Bérulle bases his Donation on the Divine Maternity and the Universal Sovereignty
which flows from it; Montfort, on the spiritual Maternity and the special dominion of Mary over
the members of the Mystical Body.”
513 Cardinal de Bérulle did insist, however, on the consecration
being the equivalent of the renewal of the Baptismal Promises,
514 also emphasized by Montfort.
515
Following and developing the doctrine of de Bérulle, John Olier (✝ 1657), St. John Eudes (✝ 1680),
and Henry Boudon (✝ 1702) also adopted the practice of “Holy Slavery.”
516 It was especially from
this source, the French School of Spirituality, that St. Louis de Montfort received his knowledge
of total abandonment, total consecration to the Mother of God.

Even before St. Louis de Montfort composed his True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, therefore,
the devotion of the “Holy Slavery” had spread throughout Catholic Europe, as C. Dillenschneider,
C.Ss.R., remarks.
517 It had been approved and indulgenced by numerous popes and was being
spread by many religious communities including the Jesuits, Benedictines, Mercedarians,
Trinitarians, Franciscans, Augustinians, Oratorians, Sulpicians, Theatines, and Dominicans. At
times, some of the members of the various confraternities did go to an excess, insisting solely upon
external signs of this devotion, and these abuses were condemned by Rome.
518 Never, however, was
the devotion itself condemned; in fact, its many approbations from various popes and the many
indulgences showered upon its confraternities are proof enough of the truth of St. Louis’ words:
“We cannot see how it could be condemned without overturning the foundations of
Christianity.”
519

II. TOTAL CONSECRATION ACCORDING TO ST. LOUIS

St. Louis de Montfort is by no means the founder of the devotion of “Holy Slavery.” Yet,
because of his particular theological and ascetical explanations of this act of total consecration, he
himself boldly declares: “But after all, I loudly protest, that having read nearly all the books which
profess to treat of devotion to Our Lady and having conversed familiarly with the best and wisest
men in these latter times, I have never known nor heard of any practise of devotion toward her
at all equal to the one which I now wish to unfold.”
520 Montfort’s doctrine on “Holy Slavery” will
be best understood by considering first the dogmatic foundations of his consecration and then the
consecration itself.

A. Theological Foundations of Total Consecration

During most of his sixteen years of priesthood, St. Louis traveled throughout the countryside
of Western France, preaching missions and retreats. He was not a professional theologian. The
pulpit was his rostrum, the crowded church his class. Although his writings are relatively
numerous,
521 we cannot expect to find a section devoted to a scholastic explanation of total
consecration to Our Lady. However, even though he wrote particularly “for the poor and the
simple,” his books and pamphlets are founded on solid theological principles which a serious study
of his works clearly brings to light.
522

In a very general sense, it may be said that St. Louis de Montfort bases his “Holy Slavery” upon
the role which Mary plays in the entire work of salvation. “That grand Lord, always independent
and sufficient unto Himself, never had nor has now any absolute need of the Blessed Virgin. ...
Nevertheless ... having willed to commence and to complete His greatest works by the most
Blessed Virgin ever since He created her, we may well think He will not change His conduct in
the eternal ages.”
523 Our Lady is, therefore, “the inseparable companion of His life, of His death, of
His glory, and of His power in heaven and upon earth.”
524

However, what is the precise privilege, that aspect of her redemptive role upon which St. Louis
builds his consecration? It appears to be her “complete spiritual maternity,” i.e., her motherhood
of men considered with its implicit consequence, her authority and dominion over the hearts of
men. Since Mary’s spiritual maternity is, according to Montfort, deduced from her Motherhood
of the Redeemer and her Coredemption, we will first consider these two privileges as the radical
foundations of “Holy Slavery”; we can then consider the proximate foundation of total
consecration, the “complete spiritual maternity.”

1. The Radical Foundations of Total Consecration: Mother of the Redeemer

and Coredemptrix

Not only is the Divine Maternity the fundamental mystery of Mary in St. Louis’ teaching, but
it is also the principal foundation of her spiritual maternity of men. “If Jesus Christ the Head of
men is born in her, ... the members of this Head must also be born in her by a necessary
consequence ... the Head and Members are born of the same Mother.”
525 Basing himself on the unity
of Head and Members through Christ’s capital grace which existed at the very first moment of the
Incarnation, St. Louis — and St. Pius X after him
526 — declares that by conceiving Christ the
Redeemer, Mary by that very fact spiritually conceives all those who with Him form but one
Mystical Body.

However, Mary’s spiritual maternity is also based upon her co-redemptive action, which,
therefore, forms a part of the foundation of St. Louis’ total consecration. Our Lady’s role in the
redemption may be considered both at the Incarnation and at Calvary; St. Louis insists on the
Blessed Mother’s co-operation in both these phases of the one act of redemption.

Our Lady’s part in the redemptive Incarnation is considered principally under two aspects by
St. Louis: her merit of the Incarnation, and her consent to become the Mother of God. Montfort
explicitly teaches that the patriarchs were unable to merit the Incarnation, for “their cries, their
prayers and their sacrifices had not enough force to attract the Eternal Wisdom,”
527 yet Our Lady
did merit this “grace of graces”: “there was found only Mary who by the sublimity of her virtues
attained to the very throne of the Divinity and who has merited this infinite treasure.”
528 Our Lady
has therefore merited not only the acceleration of the coming of the God-Man — which the
Patriarchs of the Old Testament could also do — but the Incarnation itself. Although not explained
by St. Louis, we can well presume that he is referring to a “de congruo” merit, “in ordine
executionis.”

However, Mary is “Coredemptrix” in an even greater sense because her consent was necessary
in God’s plan for the Incarnation to take place: “The Eternal Wisdom desired to become man in
her, provided that she give her consent.”
529 St. Louis therefore calls Our Lady a victim with Christ
at the very moment of the Incarnation: “Their hearts, united by strong and close ties, are offered
both together to be two victims to hold back the chastisement which our crimes merit.”
530 Montfort
can therefore conclude: “In this mystery [the Incarnation] the elect have received their birth.
Mary, united with Jesus, chose them in advance, to have part in their riches, their glory, and their
power.”
531 Already at this first phase of the Redemption, Mary, the New Eve, “has turned God’s
maledictions into a blessing” for us.
532

St. Louis de Montfort also insists on Mary’s co-operation in the very formal act of redemption,
Christ’s death upon Calvary. We may distinguish in this final act of the redemption a double
aspect: the suffering and death of Christ on the Cross which forms the material element, and the
willing acceptance of His Passion and Death, His obedience to His Father even to the death of the
Cross, which make up the formal and principal element. According to Montfort, Our Lady co-operated in both these aspects. Our Blessed Mother’s participation in the material element of the
Redemption is clearly explained by the saint when speaking of the intense sufferings of Our Lady
caused by the Passion of her Son and offered for the human race.
533 Her role in the formal element
is stated in the True Devotion: “He [Jesus] glorified His independence and His Majesty in
depending on this admirable Virgin, in His conception, in His Birth and His presentation in the
temple, in His hidden life of thirty years, up to His Death, where she had to assist, in order that
He make with her but one and the same sacrifice and in order to be immolated by her consent to
the Eternal Father, as Isaac of old was offered by Abraham’s consent to the will of God. It is she
who has nursed Him, nourished Him, supported Him, raised and sacrificed Him for us.”
534 So strong
are these words that they appear to affirm the proximate and immediate co-operation of Our Lady
in the objective redemption.
535

We, therefore, belong to Christ and to Mary as a result of the redemption. She has redeemed
us with Christ and hence she, too, has acquired rights over the entire human race.
536

2. The Proximate Foundation of Total Consecration:

The Complete Spiritual Maternity

Because Our Lady is the Mother of Christ the Redeemer, because she is the companion of Jesus
in the work of redemption, she can be called, and truly is, the Mother of Men. St. Louis clearly
deduces this privilege from Mary’s Maternity of the Head of the Mystical Body and also from her
share in the redemption.
537 It is upon this privilege of the spiritual maternity that St. Louis de
Montfort has formally built his edifice of total consecration. Basing himself upon the role which
Our Lady plays in the sanctification of men, Montfort often considers Mary’s maternity of men
as that of a woman with child: “all the predestinate ... are in this world, hidden in the womb of the
Blessed Virgin, where they are guarded, nourished, brought up, and made to grow by that good
Mother until she has brought them forth to glory after their death, which is properly the day of
their birth.”
538

Yet in this prerogative of Our Lady’s actual spiritual maternity is contained implicitly her
dominion over the souls of men. For since she is the “true Mother”
539 of men and the members of
the Mystical Body are in this life “hidden in Mary’s womb,” she has received a great authority over
the souls of the elect in order to accomplish her task as spiritual mother: “For she cannot make her
residence in them as God the Father ordered her to do, and as their mother, form, nourish, and
bring them forth into eternal life ... she cannot, I say, do all these things unless she has a right and
a domination over their souls by a singular grace of the Most High.”
540 Mary is therefore the
Mother of Men; yet, as Montfort insists, a tender Mother with great authority, a Mother who is
the Queen of the hearts of her children whom she is nourishing with grace. This “complete”
Maternity appears to be the very foundation of St. Louis’ “Holy Slavery of Love.” The consecration
will be the formal recognition that we have a Mother, a Mother who has true authority over us
in order to form us into Christ: “Mother and Mistress”; it will be the formal recognition that we
are her children, yet so much her children that we depend completely upon her as a child yet
unborn: “children and slaves.”

That this is truly the foundation of “Holy Slavery” can be seen from the first 37 numbers of the
True Devotion where St. Louis summarizes Mary’s role in the subjective redemption as a Mother
with child, a Mother with authority. Moreover, he sees in the story of Rebecca and Jacob the
Biblical figure of this devotion, for Mary, as Rebecca, is a Mother who loves her children, nurtures,
protects, and defends them.
541 Although the example used is no longer a woman with child,
nonetheless, her spiritual maternity with authority is clearly brought out. St. Louis’ Hymn, The
Devout Slave of Jesus in Mary, constantly extolls the “devout slave” as a “child at the breast” in
total dependence on his mother, “in whom and through whom it does all things.”
542 And in the very
Act of Consecration, Montfort declares: “I choose thee today for my Mother and Mistress,” and he
calls the consecrated souls: “children and slaves,” again expressing Our Lady’s spiritual Maternity
with the explicit reference to her authority over the hearts of her children in order to carry out
her task as Mother.
543

The solid theological foundation for St. Louis de Montfort’s “Holy Slavery of Love” is
therefore, radically, the Divine Maternity and the Coredemption. He has, however, “formally based
his Holy Slavery of Love ... on the spiritual maternity of the Blessed Mother.”
544

B. The Consecration of St. Louis

St. Louis de Montfort’s total consecration is the adequate recognition of the “complete”
maternity of Mary over the souls of men. The essential part of his formula of consecration clearly
brings this out: “In the presence of all the heavenly court, I choose thee this day for my Mother
and Mistress, I deliver and consecrate to thee, as thy slave, my body and soul, my goods, both
interior and exterior and even the value of all my good actions, past, present and future, leaving
to thee the entire and full right of disposing of me and all that belongs to me, without exception,
according to thy good pleasure, for the greater glory of God in time and in eternity.”
545 St. Louis’
consecration embraces, therefore, “(1) our body, with all its senses and its members, (2) our soul,
with all its powers, (3) our exterior goods of fortune, whether present or to come, (4) our interior
and spiritual goods, which are our merits and our virtues and good works, past, present, and future
... we give her all that we have in the order of nature and in the order of grace and all that may
become ours in the future in the orders of nature, grace and glory; and this we do without reserve
of so much as one farthing, one hair or one least good action; we do it also for all eternity.”
546

As H. Boudon before him, St. Louis explains the meaning of consecrating our interior and
spiritual goods: “In this consecration ... we give her all the satisfactory, impetratory, and
meritorious value of our good actions; in other words, the satisfactions and the merits of all our
good works. We give her all our merits, graces, and virtues — not to communicate them to others,
for our merits, graces, and virtues are, properly speaking, incommunicable ... but we give them to
her to keep them, augment them, and embellish them for us. ... Our satisfactions, however, we give
her, to communicate to whom she likes, for the greatest glory of God.”
547 St. Louis de Montfort
himself concludes: “By this devotion, we give to Jesus Christ in the most perfect manner —
inasmuch as it is by Mary’s hands — all that we can give Him.”
548

Following Cardinal de Bérulle, St. Louis insists that this consecration is “a perfect renewal of
the vows and promises of Holy Baptism,”
549 because in this consecration we reaffirm what was
promised in Baptism: to renounce Satan, his pomps and works, and to take Christ for our
sovereign Master in all things. The consecration is, St. Louis points out, a perfect renewal, for it
adds three modalities to the promises of Baptism: “... in Baptism we ordinarily speak through
another ... but in this devotion we do it ourselves, voluntarily, knowing what we are doing; ... in
holy Baptism, we do not give ourselves to Jesus through the hands of Mary, at least not in an
explicit manner; and we do not give Him the value of our good actions. We remain entirely free
after Baptism, either to apply them to whom we please or to keep them for ourselves. But by this
devotion we give ourselves to Our Lord explicitly by the hands of Mary and we consecrate to Him
the value of all our actions.”
550

However, St. Louis is not content with the mere recital of an act of consecration: “It is not
enough to have given ourselves once as slaves to Jesus through Mary, ... it is not very difficult to
enroll in a confraternity nor to practise this devotion insofar as it prescribes a few vocal prayers
every day; but the great difficulty is to enter into its spirit. Now its spirit consists in this, that we
be interiorly dependent upon Mary.”
551 This interior spirit of total consecration to Mary, St. Louis
sums up in the formula, “to do all our actions through Mary, with Mary, in Mary, and for Mary;
so that we may do them all the more perfectly through Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, and for Jesus.”
552
Although differing somewhat in his explanation of this formula in his Secret of Mary and True
Devotion, these interior practices are paramount in the living of the Montfortian consecration.

To do all our actions “through Mary” implies renouncing our own dispositions and trying to
do everything with the intentions of the Mother of God: we must “deliver ourselves to the spirit
of Mary to be moved and influenced in the manner she chooses. We must put ourselves in her
virginal hands, like a tool in the grasp of a workman, like a lute in the hands of a skillful player.
We must lose ourselves and abandon ourselves to her, like a stone one throws into the sea.”
553

“With Mary” means imitation, accomplishing our actions as Mary would, were she in our
place: “We must in all our actions regard Mary as an accomplished Model of every virtue and
perfection which the Holy Ghost has formed in a pure creature for us to imitate according to our
little measure.”
554

The practice “in Mary” is founded upon St. Louis’ repeated statement that we are in this world
“hidden in the womb of Mary.” We must, therefore, “become accustomed little by little to recollect
ourselves interiorly and thus try to form within us some idea or spiritual image of Mary. She will
be, as it were, the oratory of our soul in which we offer up all our prayers to God.”
555

“For Mary” does not mean “that we take her for the last end of our services, for that is Jesus
Christ alone; but we take her for our proximate end, our mysterious means, and our easy way to
go to Him ... we must work for no recompense ... except the honor of belonging to so sweet a
Queen and the happiness of being united through her to Jesus her Son by an indissoluble tie, in
time and in eternity.”
556

III. APPROVALS OF ST. LOUIS’ DOCTRINE

Hidden in a trunk for many years, as St. Louis himself had prophesied,
557 the Treatise on True
Devotion was found only in 1842 at the Motherhouse of the Montfort Fathers, Vendée, France.
Together with the other writings of Montfort, it was sent to Rome for careful scrutiny in view of
his proposed beatification. The first reaction of the Promoter of the Faith was a stinging
condemnation: “the devotion which the pious author proposes and upholds ... could never be
approved by the Church; ... every sign of approbation or commendation of this writing must be
avoided by all means.”
558 However, other censors appointed by Rome clearly answered all
objections against the True Devotion, and in 1853 it was officially declared to be free from all error
and in no way an impediment to Montfort’s cause for beatification.
559

This approval of the Congregation of Rites has been re-echoed by bishops and theologians of
the Church, as Francis Parisi declared in an address before Pope Pius XII in one of the preliminary
steps to the canonization of Louis de Montfort: “There exists an extraordinary witness to his
[Montfort’s] Marian devotion — his Treatise on True Devotion to Mary, written in his own hand.
This work has merited for him in the past and continues to merit for him today the praise and
admiration of theologians, bishops, cardinals, and of the Sovereign Pontiffs themselves.”
560

Of the many encomiums showered upon St. Louis de Montfort by the Sovereign Pontiffs, none
can equal those of St. Pius X. Not only did he declare his dependence on this French missionary
in writing his encyclical Ad diem illum,
561 but he granted a plenary indulgence “in perpetuum” to
those who recite St. Louis’ formula of consecration.
562 He also granted special indulgences to the
Confraternity of Queen of All Hearts, founded to further total consecration,
563 and in 1913 erected
it into an Archconfraternity.
564 He himself joined the Association of the Priests of Mary (composed
of the members of the clergy who practice the “Holy Slavery of Love”) and granted the apostolic
blessing to all those who even merely read the True Devotion, declaring in his concession of the
blessing, “we eagerly recommend the Treatise of True Devotion.”
565

Benedict XV, in a letter to the Superior General of the Montfort Fathers on the occasion of the
second centenary of the death of their founder, declared that it was their vocation to spread
devotion to Our Lady by explaining the True Devotion, which he declared was “of great unction
and high authority.”
566

The love of Pope Pius XII for St. Louis de Montfort and his works is well known. In the De tuto
decree for Montfort’s canonization, the saint’s True Devotion is spoken of as a shorter path to
perfection,
567 and in the homily delivered on the day of the canonization, the Holy Father declared
the saint’s devotion to Our Lady to be “flagrans, solida, ac recta.”
568 On the following day,
addressing the pilgrims who had come to Rome for the canonization, the Holy Father spoke of St.
Louis as the guide “who leads you to Mary and from Mary to Jesus; ... he is incontestably one of
those who have worked the most ardently and the most efficaciously to make Mary loved and
served.”
569 And addressing himself especially to the members of the communities Montfort founded,
the Pope, alluding to the Marian doctrine of St. Louis, declared: “Remain faithful to the precious
heritage which this great saint has left you in legacy! A magnificent heritage, worthy of being
continued by you, and of devoting yourselves to it and sacrificing yourselves for it without ever
counting your strength or your life.”
570

Bishops and theologians alike have repeated these praises of the Sovereign Pontiffs. The first
International Marian Congress, held at Fribourg in 1902, was eloquent in its praise of St. Louis de
Montfort: “Considering that the devotion to the Blessed Mother according to Blessed de Montfort
is a magnificent synthesis of the most developed Marian theology; that it is the most perfect form
of cult to the Blessed Mother; that it harmonizes so well with the actual movement of Catholic
piety and that it seconds it powerfully; that it answers the present-day needs and offers in the
present strife a special and providential help, the Congress defers to the desires expressed by a
great number of cardinals, bishops, and theologians, and formulates the wish that this devotion
be propagated among the faithful and principally among the clergy and religious institutes.”
571 The
Marian Congress of Rome (1904) repeated similar praise for St. Louis,
572 as did the Marian
Congresses of Einsiedeln (1906),
573 Trier (1912),
574 and the special Marian-Montfortian Congress held
at Barcelona in 1918.
575

Father Faber summed up the praises of the Church for the writings of St. Louis —and in
particular for the True Devotion — when he wrote: “I would venture to warn the reader that one
perusal will be very far from making him the master of it. If I may dare to say so, there is a
growing feeling of something inspired and supernatural about it, as we go on studying it; and with
that we cannot help experiencing that its novelty never seems to wear off, nor its fulness to be
diminished, nor the fresh fragrance and sensible fire of its unction ever to abate.”
576

Filial Piety

by VERY REV. PETER A. RESCH, S.M.

FILIAL PIETY is not a devotion in the sense that it is bound up with special prayer-programs or
blessed objects; it is a pattern or way of life.

Etymologically, the term filial piety is a literal rendering of the Latin pietas filialis, which
signifies the sum-total of dispositions that constitute the attitude of childlike devotion and adult
reverence which a good son or daughter manifests for his or her parents. Thus we speak properly
of filial piety to God, to our parents, to our spiritual fathers, to our heavenly patrons, to our earthly
fatherland; thus also, filial piety to Mary our Mother; thus also, the filial piety of Jesus, the divine
Model, to Mary His Mother.

The Marian devotion called Filial Piety (capitalized), which it is the object of this Chapter to
explain, consists in the reproduction or extension of the filial piety of Jesus to Mary in the life of
the Christian.

The principal proponent of this aspect of Marian doctrine and practice was William Joseph
Chaminade (1761-1850), founder of the Marianists, who belonged to the “French School” of
spirituality. Filial Piety is the proper physiognomy and distinguishing trait of Marianist spirituality
and apostolate. The practice of Filial Piety is best expressed in the work of the Marianist
Mariologist, the Reverend Emile Neubert, entitled My Ideal, Jesus, Son of Mary.

The foundation of Filial Piety is Christ, “for other foundation no one can lay, but that which
has been laid, which is Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 3:11). In the French School, “Christianity comprises
three points, and all its method is contained therein — namely, to contemplate Jesus, to unite self
to Jesus, and to act in Jesus.” This is the admirable doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ: by the
fact that we are in the state of grace we live the life of Christ. All our striving should be to live
with Christ in the most intimate union possible. Little by little, we take on the spirit of Jesus
Christ, “this mind which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5), and we advance toward
transformation into, and identification with, the divine Model. “Your life is hidden with Christ in
God” (Col. 3:3).

All the perfection of the Christian life consists in conformity with Jesus Christ. “Jesus Christ,”
writes Father Chaminade, “practiced all the virtues to the most sublime perfection; some of these
virtues have entered more especially into the plan of His admirable mysteries, for example, His
love for the Blessed Virgin.”
577 Since, then, as followers of Christ, we have the obligation to imitate
His virtues, we cannot neglect striving to imitate His example of filial piety to Mary. It is thus
through Jesus that we go to Mary and, vice versa, through Mary that we are formed to the likeness
of Christ. Such devotion to Jesus Christ is indispensable for the practice of true Filial Piety. The
Marian “devotion” taught by Father Chaminade is Christo-centric in the highest degree.

How did the Son of God manifest His filial piety to Mary? From all eternity He predestined her
to be His mother. He lavished unique privileges upon her. He exempted her from the laws to
which the whole human race is subject. He made her immaculate in her conception, free from all
concupiscence, unsullied by any imperfection, more replete with grace than all the angels and
saints — the Mother of God and ever a Virgin. He willed that she should have an essential part in
the very mission with which the Father has entrusted Him: He, the Redeemer, determined that she
should be the Coredemptrix with Him. He willed that she be associated with Him in heaven where
He “assumed” her, body and soul, after her sojourn on earth, so that, as He is advocate with the
Father, she should be advocate with Him in the distribution of all graces to all men. In His Mystical
Body, directed by the Holy Spirit, He lives in the Church. What the Church does is really done by
Him — all the veneration and love which the Church has shown her: the defense and proclamation
of her privileges, the institution of feasts and devotions in her honor, the approval of sodalities and
religious societies destined to serve her. The piety of the children of the Church: the saints, the
great servants of Mary, the fervent souls drawn to honor her in a special way, the ordinary
faithful, interested, enthusiastic, when there is question of devotion to Mary — what is all this, if
not a grand manifestation of the incomparable filial love of Jesus for Mary?

Thus almost imperceptibly we enter into the vital stream of Filial Piety — of Christ’s very filial
piety toward His mother.

Evidently our Filial Piety toward Mary cannot become identical with that of the divine Model.
Mary gave Jesus His natural life; she is our mother in the supernatural order. She could not, of
course, give supernatural life to Jesus; on the contrary, it is from Him that she drew hers. Our Filial
Piety will, therefore, not be identical with, but analagous to that of the divine Model. Our
reproduction of the filial piety of Jesus will consist in “taking on” the filial dispositions, both
natural and supernatural, of Jesus for Mary in order to reproduce them with all the possible
perfection consistent with our condition as members of the Mystical Body.

Our Filial Piety should complete that of Jesus. “What is lacking in the sufferings of Christ,” says
St. Paul with astonishing boldness, “I fill up in my flesh for his body, which is the Church” (Col.
1:24). Nothing assuredly was lacking in the sufferings of Christ as Head of the Mystical Body, but
in view of the co-operation needed for their application to the members, the sufferings of the Head
needed completion. In this respect, all the dispositions of Christ lack something in His members.
That is why we must endeavor to imitate Him “until we all attain to the mature measure of the
fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). What is thus true of the virtues of Christ — His humility, His
charity, His gentleness — is true also of His filial piety toward Mary, His Mother. In us, His
members, there is something lacking in this filial piety; we must endeavor to fill up this lack by
reproducing as perfectly as possible in ourselves the filial dispositions of Jesus for Mary so as to
attain the mature measure of Christ, Son of Mary.

Our Filial Piety is a participation in that of Jesus. In the natural order we may, as we do for a
hero or a saint, study his traits and copy them in our conduct. But there is a more profound
reproduction, and it is a problem of the interior life. Faith teaches us that by grace we become
participants of the divine life (2 Pet. 1:4); that we become members of a body of which Christ is
the head. Thus St. Paul could dare to write: “For me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21) ... “It is now no
longer I that live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). Hence, if I am humble, chaste, patient, it is
Christ who is humble, chaste, patient in me. If I love the Blessed Mother, it is no longer I that love
her, it is Christ who loves her in me. Thus my filial piety toward Mary is more than a simple
extension or imitation of that of Jesus, the result of my efforts to resemble Him; it is a genuine
sharing in His filial piety; it is Jesus who, through me, loves and honors Mary and desires to make
her loved and honored better.
578

For whoever would embrace the practice of Filial Piety the essential act is total consecration
(belonging) to Mary according to one’s state of life. From all eternity the Son of God determined
to become the Son of Mary. At the first moment of the Hypostatic Union, He ratified with His
human will this disposition of the divine will. Henceforth He will persevere throughout eternity,
consciously and fully, in His filial belonging to her. In imitation, then, of the divine Model, the
Christian will constitute himself, as totally as possible, in the state of a son of Mary; he will renew,
affirm, and strengthen this consecration on every occasion, formally, spontaneously, habitually.
(Marianists make this total consecration to Mary the object of a special perpetual religious vow.)

As Jesus on earth grew in the experiential knowledge of Mary, our Marian Filial Piety must
prompt us to study ever more and more thoroughly the prerogatives and glories of our heavenly
Mother.

As Jesus honored, and still honors, His Mother on earth and in heaven, we too must honor her
by participating in the approved veneration of her, celebrating her feasts, reciting her office and
rosary, wearing her scapular and miraculous medal, etc.

Jesus resembled Mary, in a human way, as any good son resembles his mother. “If you are
children of Mary,” said Father Chaminade, “imitate Mary ... The greatest obligation contracted by
this wonderful filiation is to imitate the virtues of which Mary has given the example to the whole
world.”
579 We must allow ourselves to be formed, as other Christs, “as members of Christ, in the
bosom of the august Mary, where Jesus Christ, conceived by the operation of the Holy Ghost, was
formed, through her maternal care, to our resemblance.”
580

Jesus taught us to come to Him through Mary: “Behold thy mother!” We must teach and
preach Mary to the world by word and example.

In a human way, Jesus confided in Mary during His mortal life; so also will the imitator of
Christ daily confide to Mary both his temporal and his spiritual problems.

Among all the manifestations of the filial piety of Jesus for Mary which the Gospel allows us
to discern, none is so plain as His life of union with her: a physical union first, then a union of
thought, of sentiment, of will, and of action. It would be outside the scope of this chapter even to
begin to enumerate ways and means for the child of Mary to imitate his divine Model on this
point.

Jesus associated Mary in the work of the Redemption. The apostolic mission of Mary is an
integral and essential part of Marianist Filial Piety. If we mention it only in conclusion, we do so
to give it a position of emphasis to bridge the idea of Marian apostolate over with that of
consecration mentioned in the beginning. From Mary’s function as spiritual Mother and from her
mission in the apostolate Father Chaminade drew the conclusion that the essential act of Filial
Piety is a special consecration to Mary in order (1) to recognize her maternity and freely to accept
it, as Jesus freely became her child, and (2) to assist her in her apostolate and raise up others to do
so. Father Chaminade was a precursor in expounding this doctrine; no theologian, before the 1950
Marian Congress of Rome, had treated it. Here we can merely point out that the practice of total
Filial Piety implies that we aid and assist the Blessed Virgin in her apostolic mission of saving the
world.
581

The prayer of St. Anselm, indulgenced for Marianists, expresses succinctly the mystique of
Filial Piety: “O good Jesus, by the love with which thou didst love thy Mother, grant me, I beseech
thee, that I also may truly love her as thou lovest her and desirest her to be loved.”
582

The Immaculate Heart

by REV. JOHN F. MURPHY, S.T.D.

IN 1944 when the Holy Father extended the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to the
universal Church as a principal Marian observance, he indicated that beyond serving as a
memorial and reminder of his earlier solemn consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart
(December 8, 1942), the Feast would be instrumental also in preserving peace among nations,
ensuring liberty for the Church of Christ, and effecting a strengthening of the faithful in the love
of purity and the practice of virtue.
583

With these statements the Holy Father gave a final sanction to a devotion which, in the
designs of God, had in recent times become widely appreciated,
584 and yet which, in his own words,
could actually be traced back in vestige to the commentaries of the Fathers on the Sponsa of the
Canticle of Canticles.
585

I. HISTORY OF THE DEVOTION

In his Gospel, St. Luke himself twice mentions the Heart of our Blessed Mother; first on the
occasion of the arrival of the shepherds at Bethlehem (Lk. 2:18-19), and again upon finding our
Blessed Lord in the temple (Lk. 2:51). It is because of these two references that St. John Eudes
claimed, in a sense, a scriptural foundation for the devotion.
586

Actually, in the early centuries of the Church we have no indication of any notable devotion
to the Immaculate Heart, yet Christian literature through the years transmitted the seeds of the
devotion which eventually, through the instrumentality of St. Bernard and later, through St.
Bernardine of Siena and others, became determined as a special Marian veneration.

From the sixteenth century especially, there is evidence of specific references and devotional
practices to Mary’s Immaculate Heart. As an instance, Julius II (✝ 1513), the great Renaissance
Pope, promulgated certain invocations to the Immaculate Heart to be recited at the sound of the
Angelus. Prior to St. John Eudes, and as a link between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
St. Francis de Sales (✝ 1622) formulated something of a synthesis of what had developed up to his
day. He spoke of the perfections of the Heart of Mary, the model of love for God, and dedicated
to her most chaste Heart his Theotimus.
587

However, barring a number of private revelations, prior to the writings of St. John Eudes there
is not to be found any theological treatise dealing directly and expressly with the devotion to the
Immaculate Heart.
588 Certainly there is a constant growth of associated references, and an
awareness of the distinctive role which the virginal Heart of Mary had been predestined to play
in the salvation of souls and in the whole divine economy, but the fixed terms describing the
devotion were yet to be determined, and the devotion was still private in nature.

With St. John Eudes (1601-1680) the devotion to Mary’s Heart was made public and received
ecclesiastical approbation, but was limited to certain locales and religious communities. Through
St. John’s efforts also, there arose liturgical veneration of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, and since
his day the science of the liturgy has played an influential role in clarifying the exact nature of the
devotion. In the course of the process of beatification and canonization of St. John Eudes the
Church emphasized his role in establishing this liturgical devotion, and the brief of beatification
notes that, not without divine guidance, he rendered Mary’s Heart liturgical veneration, and
should be regarded as the Father, Doctor, and Apostle of this devotion.
589

Early in his influential years St. John had a feast established for his own Congregations and
with episcopal approval in certain French dioceses. In 1641 he composed its special Office and
Mass. In the year 1680 he completed his famous work, Le Coeur Admirable, consisting of 12 books,
characterized by sound theology and deep piety, the first complete work to be published on the
subject.

As early as 1644 St. John had wished to observe the Feast of the Most Pure Heart of Mary as
the patronal feast of his Congregations of priests and nuns; he celebrated it on October 20. The
first public feast in honor of the Heart of Mary was celebrated in Autun in 1648, the result of the
Saint’s efforts and with episcopal approval. The Holy See, when petitioned in 1669, refused
approbation of this Office and Mass. However, by this time many French Bishops, according to
accepted custom, were allowing the feast to be celebrated in their dioceses on February 8.

By 1672 the feast was celebrated more or less throughout all France. In 1729 the Holy See,
when petitioned again, refused official approbation of the proposed Office and Mass, although the
Papal Legate to France had approved an office as early as 1668. Somewhat later, in 1773, a proper
office received papal approval for the first time; this by Pope Clement XIV (✝ 1774). Shortly
thereafter, in 1787, the feast received further papal endorsement from Pope Pius VI (✝ 1799).

It was not until 1805 that a general papal approbation was granted. Pope Pius VII (✝ 1823) gave
the faculty for the celebration of the Feast of the Most Pure Heart of Mary on the Sunday after the
Octave of the Assumption to all dioceses and religious institutes which asked for it. In 1855 under
Pope Pius IX (✝ 1878), a complete proper Office and Mass for this feast was approved by the Sacred
Congregation of Rites. The Office composed by St. John Eudes, universally used in France for over
a hundred years, was finally approved for the Eudists in 1861. The Office found in the Appendix
of the old Roman Breviary was granted in the year 1857.
590

In the ensuing years liturgical cult and nonliturgical practices continued to gain popularity.
This was due partially to the success of the cause with which it was associated in earlier decades
— that of the Sacred Heart.
591 But it was not until many years later and due to various influences
that the Office and Feast of the Immaculate Heart received final acknowledgment.

In recent decades, although there have been instances of local and limited consecration of
individuals, families, and dioceses to the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
592 these consecrations were
in no way universal. Hence in 1942 the devotion received a great impetus in the action of the Holy
Father, Pius XII, when in St. Peter’s Basilica on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, not as a
merely spontaneous act, but as the consequence of historical developments of high moral
significance, he solemnly consecrated the entire world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
593

In 1944, to commemorate this special solemn consecration, he extended the Feast to the whole
world, to be celebrated with a special Office and Mass on the twenty-second day of August, the
octave-day of the Assumption, as a double of the second class.
594

The Holy Father’s action was the crowning of a vast movement springing from a heritage of
many years, and embodying the highest of tributes to Our Lady on the part of the Church.

II. THE OBJECT OF THE DEVOTION

Not only because of her fullness of grace and her preeminence among men, but especially
because she is really and truly the Mother of God, Mary deserves a special and unique veneration.
The Divine Motherhood, the basic motive for the cult of hyperdulia, is the basis also for our
devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart.

When we honor Mary’s Immaculate Heart, we honor her entire person.
595 All special
venerations, whether of a mystery of Mary’s life, or of a special virtue, or of something pertaining
to her body or soul, have in common the same object: the person of Mary.

A special devotion to Mary’s Heart is most reasonable, however, because such a veneration,
directed to a more noble part of the Blessed Mother’s body, includes also and especially all that
the Heart of Mary itself represents, symbolizes, or implies.
596

In all languages the word heart is rich in connotation and deep in symbolism. Primarily, of
course, the heart is a natural symbol of love and of internal affections, but it is a symbol which is
commonly greatly extended. In fact, because men use the word heart in a proper, symbolical, and
metaphorical sense, we understand the Immaculate Heart of Mary to represent Mary’s entire
sanctity, with all her virtues, gifts, and perfections, and all especially as consummated in her love.
597

To understand thoroughly the meaning of the devotion to the Immaculate Heart it is necessary
to describe accurately the object of the devotion, for cult, being a relative thing, is determined by
the object with which it has relationship. In regard to objects in the concept of cult in general, we
distinguish two things — the material object, or that which we venerate, and the formal object, or
the precise reason why we offer this worship or veneration.
598

In the case of the Blessed Mother, all cult rendered to Mary, all types of devotion shown her,
are directed ultimately to her person as such. Thus in the devotion to the Immaculate Heart we
realize as the material object of our veneration the person of Mary in her physical and moral
integrity, to which, of course, her Heart pertains.
599 It is evident from the title of the devotion that
we venerate in a special way the Heart of the Mother of God, and the reasons why Mary’s Heart
is chosen as a special object of veneration are multiple.

As a noble physical organ, the heart of Mary played an important role in her physical
maternity, and is intimately connected with the affections of Mary’s maternal soul. The splendor
of Mary’s sanctity and the mysteries of her life, especially her maternity, are concentrated in the
love reflected in her Heart. “The synthesis of the life of the Mother of God is love, which makes
her heart, after the heart of Christ, a most worthy object of religious devotion.”
600

Moreover, Mary’s Heart is reasonably an object of veneration inasmuch as the Church
ordinarily approves for veneration only objects in some way concretized and possessing a material
element. Such objects fulfill man’s spiritual needs more adequately and correspond to man’s own
make-up of both body and soul. In her wisdom the Church desires to impress men sensibly as well
as spiritually; hence the appropriateness of a physical element in this devotion to Mary’s great
charity.

For men to honor the love of Mary without reference to her physical heart, or the heart of
Mary entirely divorced from the idea of love is a practice of salutary piety, but not the devotion
to Mary’s Immaculate Heart as approved by the Church.
601 Thus we say that Mary’s physical heart,
together with her love, enters into the particular devotion to the Immaculate Heart of the Mother
of God.
602

As indicated above, the formal object of our veneration is always the excellence found in the
material object which merits our veneration. Thus in the case of the devotion to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, we note the august excellence of Mary’s entire person, body and soul. However,
the precise aspect of her excellence, and the particular quality of Mary upon which we focus our
attention in this devotion, following the indications of the Holy Father, is Mary’s extraordinary
holiness, and especially her love for God and man. And this excellence of Mary’s love, the primary
reason for our devotion, is understood in its normal full extension, thus including her
extraordinary and singular sanctity, her virtues and gifts, and her entire interior life.
603

In Marian cult generally we venerate Mary for three reasons — her eminent sanctity, her
Maternity, and her share in the redemptive work of Christ. But all these are intimately connected
with her love.

In the case of her sanctity, it is seen as the fruit of sanctifying grace which culminates in
charity. The quintessence of Mary’s sanctity is her supernatural love, which St. Thomas calls the
form, root, and motive of all the other virtues, and hence the source of all supernatural activity.
604

Mary’s Maternity is also profoundly related to love, and therefore to her heart. Love preceded
it, entered the act, and marked the existing relationship thereafter.

In the role of Coredemptrix, Mary’s participation in the redemption of men was the fruit of
her love. It was because of her love that she consented to share in this redemptive work, and
because of the strength of her love that she carried out her role perfectly.

Therefore, the splendor of Mary’s sanctity, the entire grand mystery of her Maternity, and the
fullness of her mission as Coredemptrix of mankind are inseparable from her love, and therefore
truly reflected in her Heart.

Because of the connection between Mary’s sanctity and her Maternity, and between her role
as Coredemptrix and her Maternity, the devotion to the Immaculate Heart in its final analysis
resolves itself in an exaltation of Mary’s love in the function of her Maternity.
605

In the devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart, it is from the material object, Mary’s heart, that
we draw the title for the devotion; and it is from the formal object, Mary’s love, that we derive the
meaning of the devotion. Both the material and formal objects are distinguishing marks
differentiating the devotion to the Immaculate Heart from all other Marian venerations.
606

We can define it, then, paraphrasing official ecclesiastical documents, as the veneration of the
physical Heart of Mary, considered as the symbol of her eximious and unique holiness, and
reflecting especially her most ardent love for God and Jesus Christ her Son, and her motherly
affection for men redeemed by the divine blood.
607

III. THE PURPOSE OF THE DEVOTION

An understanding of the end and purpose of the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
is indispensable for a full appreciation of this special Marian veneration.

The very nature of the devotion indicates clearly that its purpose is to unite men to God
through Mary’s Heart, and this union is accomplished primarily by two acts which are themselves
part of the devotion — the acts of consecration and reparation.

A. Consecration

In an act of consecration to the Immaculate Heart, our act is ultimately referred to God
Himself, for one is consecrated to Mary only because she is God’s Mother, and by her offices,
especially that of Queenship, is closely associated with Him, becoming for us a link or
steppingstone to God Himself.
608

Moreover, since consecration amounts to a total gift of self, an offering and pledging of
complete and exclusive service and devotion, a handing over of not only what we have but of what
we are, not for a time but perpetually, such an act can be referred ultimately to God only, for He
alone has the right of complete ownership over our body and soul. Consecration to Mary remains
valid and salutary, however, because of her peculiar relationship with Him.

An act of consecration as such is an act of religion, or more specifically an act of devotion,
embodying within itself also acts of faith and love.
609 In every act of consecration we can
distinguish three basic elements: a transition from the profane or secular to the domain of the
sacred, a constancy and stability in the new pledge or bond, and the existence of some kind of
rite.
610

An act of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary has as its theological foundation
Mary’s universal sovereignty or dominion. In view of this fact, a consecration implies two things:
the recognition of our dependence on Mary, and the regality and dominion which demand this
submission. The act itself, though often repeated, implies an habitual attitude of dependence on
Mary as our Queen.

The dogmatic foundation of consecration, then, is the dominion and universal sovereignty of
Mary. Beyond her Queenship, some would regard her Maternity as also a foundation in view of
the association and dependence of Mother on Son and Son on Mother. Certainly the divine
Maternity is the foundation of Mary’s Queenship, and in this sense is also the foundation of
consecration. Commonly, however, we refer to her Queenship and dominion as the adequate
foundation of our act.
611

Thus it is fitting, and not a mere coincidence, that the opening words of the formula of
consecration employed by His Holiness Pope Pius XII in the solemn consecration of the world
referred to earlier, concern directly Mary’s sovereignty ... “Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, Help
of Christians ...”

The more directly and profoundly the nature of Mary’s Queenship is understood, the more
clearly we see the nature of our dependence on her in the order of grace, and understand our
consecration. Our Lord possesses dominion over us by a double right: by nature, as the Son of God
and King of Kings, and by an acquired title, as our Redeemer. With Mary, we see an analogy — as
Christ is our King, she is our Queen. As Christ has a natural right to sovereignty by reason of the
Hypostatic Union, Mary has a right by reason of the divine Maternity. Christ has an acquired right
by the Redemption of men; Mary has an acquired right by reason of her Coredemption.
612 There
can also be added to this double title a third, namely, dominion through divine choice, or as the
Holy Father expressed it, “by singular [divine] election.”
613

Fittingly, the Holy Father ordained that on the Feast of Mary’s Queenship, May 31, the act of
consecration of the human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is to be renewed with the hope
that through our consecration an era of Christian peace and triumph of religion may begin.
614

Because of the value of a consecration made freely and willingly, an act of consecration to the
Immaculate Heart is a marvelous tribute to Mary’s Queenship and the most genuine manifestation
of devotion to her Heart. It is more than an ordinary prayer and more than a promise, for a true
and complete act of consecration is a state whereby we habitually realize the import of our
belonging to Mary.

Consecration as an habitual state, moreover, is more salutary than a single act or even a series
of acts. In consecration to the Immaculate Heart, the whole world and all in it is separated from
the profane and given over totally and perpetually to Mary’s Heart. In this way Mary is shown a
complete veneration, and nothing of greater significance can be offered her. The solemn act of
consecration in this sense synthesizes all other elements and acts which constitute Marian
devotion.
615

B. Reparation

According to the Holy Father, in honoring God it is not sufficient that our worship and prayer
be that of adoration and gratitude alone; we must also, through the act of reparation, “satisfy the
just anger of God,” and begin the union with God which an act of consecration confirms.
616

In the devotion to the Immaculate Heart, Mary’s love for God and Jesus her Son as well as her
love for man redeemed by the blood of Christ, calls forth in like fashion our reparation for the
sinful ingratitude and forgetfulness of men. Reparation to Mary is rooted in her union with Christ.
Jesus and Mary, inseparable in life and action, are likewise inseparable in cult and in our acts of
reparation. Every outrage committed against our Blessed Lord is necessarily an outrage to His
Mother and causes her more displeasure than offenses committed directly against her own person.

Since Jesus and Mary, in virtue of one, not two distinct decrees, are united inseparably in the
work of Redemption, in a parallel way the practice of reparation is integrated in the devotion to
the Immaculate Heart.
617

In the case of Mary, then, as in the case of the Sacred Heart, our act of reparation prepares us
for the union which the act of consecration effects, and along with our acts of veneration and
imitation is actually embodied in our consecration to the Immaculate Heart.
618

In all our acts of reparation in atonement for our sins we are mindful that Mary herself is the
model and “Mother of Reparation.”
619 It is she who, principally through her sufferings at the foot
of the cross, merited the title of Coredemptrix and universal Mediatrix. Through her example of
love for God we are led to a closer union with our divine Saviour, and through our acts of
reparation and through our consecration to Mary there is effected the purpose of our devotion to
her Immaculate Heart, the uniting of ourselves to God through the Heart of His Blessed Mother.

The Pious Practice of Expiation to Mary

by LEONARD PEROTTI, O.F.M.

IF THE Pious Practice of Expiation to Mary (Pia Praxis Expiatoria Mariana) is rather new in the United
States as a manner of honoring the Mother of God, this is not true of Europe. There it has
flourished for the past twenty-five years, especially in Italy where it originated and where it has
been introduced into almost every diocese. In addition, eighty religious Orders have adopted it,
as have also many Vicariates and Prefectures Apostolic all over the world. A brief sketch of the
history of this practice is in order before we explain its nature and the place it has in the field of
Marian devotion.

The Pious Practice owes its origin to Dr. Luigi Picchini, a fervent Franciscan Tertiary. Dr.
Picchini was present at the closing May devotion in the church of Santa Maria Formosa, Venice,
in 1932. This was a solemn function in honor of Our Lady, taking the form of expiation for all the
blasphemy and scurrilous speech by which her Immaculate Heart is so offended. Very much
inspired by this practice, Dr. Picchini pondered the question, Why not propagate over the whole
world the reservation of a day during May to express to Mary our deep grief at what she suffers
from so many of her children — from their unbelief and denial of her privileges, from their distrust
of her intercessory power, and above all, from the blasphemies leveled at her?

Cardinal La Fontaine, Patriarch of Venice, encouraged Professor Picchini to pursue this
objective; and so, in June of 1933, he approached the bishops of Italy as well as the heads of
religious Orders. His plea was that by the following May this Marian devotion of expiation would
be practised in every diocese and in all the churches of religious institutes. The response was most
heartening. The month of May, 1934, witnessed a marvelous propagation of this form of love for
the Mother of God. Prior to this, in September of 1933, the founder of the Pious Practice enjoyed
the favor of a private audience with Pope Pius XI. The Holy Father warmly encouraged Dr.
Picchini in this spiritual enterprise, and a few months later spoke publicly in approbation of the
practice. Then, at the request of Cardinal La Fontaine, the Holy Father, through his Secretary of
State, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, issued a document which was to become the Magna Carta of the
Pious Practice. The same warm approval was later given by Pope Pius XII to Cardinal Piazza,
Patriarch of Venice, and to Father Matteo Micheluzzi, Director of the Pious Practice, in 1941 and
1952 respectively. In letters to the above-mentioned, the Holy Father showed great delight at
knowing how far this devotion had spread, and encouraged a special day of Marian expiation
during the month of May.

World War II had the sad effect of interrupting and retarding the growth of Dr. Picchini’s
spiritual enterprise. Still, at war’s end, he very patiently brought together the loose ends once
more. But now his advanced age and failing health were against much activity — he was 91 years
old when he began searching for someone to carry on his work! His one great desire was that after
his death the success of the Pious Practice would be assured. With this in mind, he considered
entrusting it to the Order of Friars Minor. He approached the Minister General of the Franciscans,
not only because he was a Tertiary, but also because the Seraphic Order had been among the first
to receive the Pious Practice with enthusiasm, as far back as 1933. On February 2, 1947, the Most
Reverend Pacificus M. Perantoni, General of the Order, wholeheartedly accepted the direction and
propagation of the Pious Practice and officially aggregated it to the Seraphic Order. Headquarters
were set up at San Francesco della Vigna, Venice, in the Seraphic Province of St. Anthony.

The Pious Practice has been called “the most beautiful flower of the month of May that can be
offered to the Virgin most holy.” The well-known mariologist, Father Gabriel M. Roschini, O.S.M.,
has written that this practice of Marian expiation is a flower far surpassing all others in the
luxuriant field of Catholic piety by the delicacy of its perfume.
620 The attractiveness of this devotion
is explained by Pius XI as due to its being inspired with the purpose and the spirit of Fatima’s
message — reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Pious Practice has no other program
or scope than this: to atone for the injuries and the offenses which sadden the Heart of our
heavenly Mother.

The filial duty of reparation to our Mother’s Immaculate Heart springs from faith and love.
The fervent child of Mary believes that the sins which repeat the Passion of Jesus also renew the
painful sword which pierced the Heart of Mary. These sins present a frightful picture: a steadily
advancing materialism, lapses from the Faith, profanation of the sacraments, the impiety of the
baptized, the desecration of marriage by sins preceding and following it, and others. The
affectionate child of Mary desires to make reparation as much as possible for the offense which
these sins cause the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and particularly to console the Sorrowful Heart of
God’s Mother for the blasphemies hurled against her, and for the scornful denial of her sublime
prerogatives, especially her Immaculate Conception.

In holding a Marian day of expiation during the month of May, the greatest liberty is allowed
pastors and superiors of religious groups. The faithful also are completely free in doing what their
piety suggests. There are no prescribed prayers or set functions. It is suggested, however, that this
day of expiation be held on the last Sunday of May, or on the last day of that month. This can be
announced in the parish bulletin on the preceding Sunday. In many dioceses this day assumes a
definite solemnity: in the morning, Holy Mass and a general Communion of the people in a spirit
of reparation; in the afternoon, a Holy Hour of reparation with an appropriate sermon and
prayers. Chaplains of hospitals and similar institutions would ask the patients to offer their
sufferings and prayers for the intentions of the Pious Practice.

In promoting this day of reparation in May, the Pious Practice is by no means content to rest
there, as though the goal had been reached. This is a beginning; this is the least that Mary may ask
of those who love her. The spirit of this holy enterprise goes far beyond any passing act of one
day; it instills into loving souls an attitude, a need, a desire of frequent, even daily reparation as
something demanded in return for Mary’s sacrificial love of us. The Marian day of expiation in the
fairest of months will serve as a rallying point for many deeds of reparation to Mary during the
entire year. Opportunities for this are innumerable: frequent acts of sincere sorrow for one’s sins;
willing acceptance of the hardships and inconveniences which life brings; the observance of the
Five First Saturdays; and, above all, fidelity to the daily Rosary. Sincere and persevering reparation
to Mary’s Immaculate Heart is the best means of insuring genuine expiation to the Sacred Heart
of Jesus. In this, as in all, we go most safely to Jesus when we go through Mary.
621

Marian Orders and Congregations

by MARION A. HABIG, O.F.M.

THROUGH the centuries the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, has
flourished increasingly in the Catholic Church. Since this is true of the ordinary faithful, the so-called laity, one should not be surprised to find that it is even more strikingly true of the religious
orders and congregations in the Church. In a certain sense, all of them may be called “Marian”;
some of them, however, have a special claim. The most evident is the fact that the name of Mary,
in some form or other, appears in the official name of the order or congregation.

But there are other reasons which are no less valid. A religious order or congregation may
rightly be called “Marian,” for instance: (1) because it honors Mary as its special patroness or
Queen; (2) because its Rule and Constitutions prescribe special community exercises of devotion
to Our Lady; (3) because its members have championed the great prerogatives of the Blessed
Virgin or made important contributions to Mariology; (4) because its members have introduced
various forms of devotion, such as rosaries, crowns, scapulars, medals, prayers, hymns, etc., among
the faithful; (5) because they have founded and directed confraternities, sodalities, societies of Our
Lady; (6) because they have written and distributed devotional literature concerning Our Lady;
(7) because they have built churches and shrines in honor of Our Lady and encouraged pilgrimages
to such shrines or ministered to the spiritual needs of the pilgrims; (8) because they have
commenced the celebration of new feasts of the Blessed Virgin; (9) because they have promoted
devotion to Our Lady by preaching sermons or conducting novenas in her honor; etc.

In one short chapter it will not be possible to treat this vast subject adequately. We can only
present a selection of the principal facts, and indicate where more information can be found. We
shall endeavor to adhere strictly to proved historical facts and the most recent findings and data
available.
622 First we shall discuss the orders and congregations of men with papal approval which
have a Marian name; then add some remarks on the larger and older orders of men whcih have
a special claim to being styled “Marian,” even though their name is not such; and finally offer a
list of Marian orders and congregations of women in the United States, arranged according to
various titles of Our Lady.

I. ORDERS AND CONGREGATIONS OF MEN WITH A
MARIAN NAME

The religious orders and congregations of men, approved by the Holy See, whose official name
contains the name of Mary in some form or other are 38 number. Of these 20 are represented in
the United States. The latter we shall treat more at length; and the remaining 18 we shall merely
list with date and place of founding, place of headquarters, and total membership.

Both groups will be enumerated in the order in which they appear in Annuario Pontificio 1959.
The Annuario, which is the official directory fo the Holy See, divides all religious orders and
congregations of men with papal approval into the following groups: (1) Canons Regular; (2)
Monks; (3) Mendicant Friars; (4) Clerics Regular; (5) Ecclesiastical Congregations, including clerical
religious congregations whose members take vows but no solemn vows, and societies of secular
priests who do not take vows; (6) Religious Institutes or Brotherhoods. To these are now added
the Secular Institutes with papal approval, whose members, however, are not regarded as
“Religious.” None of these Secular Institutes thus far has a Marian name.

1. The Carmelites (O.Carm.)

Carmelite writers have described their order as being “wholly marian” in character. They have
also claimed its members to be “first-born spiritual sons of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” To the
Carmelites themselves it was long an accepted tradition that the order was founded some nine
centuries before Christ by the Prophet Elijah and that his disciples on Mt. Carmel in Palestine were
the first members of the order: likewise, that the order continued to exist through the centuries
in the Holy Land until it was transplanted to Europe in the fourth decade of the thirteenth century.
However, Father Élisée de la Nativité, himself a Discalced Carmelite, in 1952 wrote a scholarly
study in which he declares that the Old Testament origin of the order must be classified as a
legend, although this legend contributed not a little to the evolution of the order’s Marian
character.
623 The gradual development and growth of devotion to Our Lady in the Carmelite order
is an important historical fact which is often overlooked. This is true also of other religious orders
which date back to the Middle Ages.

The first historical documents concerning the Carmelite Order go back only to the twelth
century. About 1155, a Crusader from Calabria, Berthold of Malifaye, son of the Count of Limoges,
with ten companions retired to Mt. Carmel and began living there as a hermit. In 1210 Albert,
Patriarch of Jerusalem, gave the hermits of Mt. Carmel a rule, based on that of St. Basil. The
hermits built a chapel in honor of Our Lady in 1220 — and this is the first time the name of Mary
appears in the documents. Pope Honorious III gave the Hermits of Mt. Carmel his approval in
1226, 1227, and 1228. In the bull of 1227 they are called, for the first time, the Hermits of St. Mary
of Mt. Carmel.

About 1235, the victories of the Saracens made it more and more difficult to live the religious
life on Mt. Carmel, and hence the Hermits migrated to Europe and established themselves in a
short time on Cyprus and Sicily and in France, Flanders, and England. As the Carmelite chronicler,
Friar William, put it, the Hermits moved from Mt. Carmel to Europe that they might be able “to
devote themselves for all times to the service of the Lord God and His Mother the Virgin Mary.”

The Rule of the Hermits of Mt. Carmel was adapted to the life in Europe, and in 1247 the Order
of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mt. Carmel, as it was now called, received renewed papal approval.
At that time St. Simon Stock was the superior general of the order. He it was who introduced the
Brown Scapular of Our Lady
624 as a means of promoting devotion to Our Lady among the faithful,
and thus emphasized the Marian character of the Carmelite Order. The Carmelites became one
of the orders of mendicant friars in 1253 by a decree of Pope Innocent IV.

Among the aims of the Carmelite Friars are mentioned: special devotion to the Mother of God,
and promotion of devotion to the Blessed Virgin under the title of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel
particularly by means of the Brown Scapular. At the present time the order has 2187 professed
members. The prior general and his assistants reside in Rome.
625

The Second Order of Carmelites, a contemplative order of nuns, was founded in 1452 by the
Prior General John Soreth. Blessed Jane of Toulouse (about 1400) is regarded as the first member
of the Third Order of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. It was certainly in existence by 1452, as is evident
from a pronouncement of Pope Nicholas V. Carmelite Tertiaries of Avranches in Normandy in
1702 formed the first community of the Carmelite Third Order Regular.

In the United States the Carmelite Fathers have two provinces: the Province of the Most Pure
Heart of Mary with headquarters in Chicago, established in 1864; and the Province of St. Elias with
headquarters in New York, erected in 1922.
626

2. The Discalced Carmelites (O.C.D.)

A stricter autonomous branch of the Carmelite Order was founded in 1562 by the two well-known saints, St. Teresa of Jesus of Avila and St. John of the Cross. The Order of Discalced
Carmelite Friars, Ordo Fratrum Carmelitarum Discalceatorum, is now more numerous than the
original order, having 3433 professed members. Headquarters are also in Rome. Its aims are: the
contemplative and apostolic life, missions among the infidels, and the cult of Our Lady of Mt.
Carmel. In the United States this order has the following units: the Province of St. Therese with
headquarters in Oklahoma City, and the Province of the Immaculate Heart of Mary with
headquarters at Holy Hill, Hubertus, Wis., both erected in 1947; also foundations of four European
provinces, with headquarters at Sonora, Arizona; Alhambra, Calif.; Murdo, S. Dak.; and Munster,
Ind.

In India there is a Carmelite Order of men, of the Third Order Regular, with 463 professed
members: the Third Order of Discalced Carmelites of Malabar, Tertius Ordo Carmelitarum
Discalceatorum Malabarensium (T.O.C.D.). They were founded in 1855, and approved in 1906. Their
purpose is similar to that of the Discalced Carmelites. There are also some sisterhoods of the Third
Order Regular of the Discalced Carmelites. Most of the monasteries of contemplative Carmelite
nuns in the United States belong to the Second Order of Discalced Carmelites.
627

3. The Mercedarians (O. de M. or O.D.M.)

The Order of Our Lady of Mercy, Ordo Beatae Mariae de Mercede redemptionis captivorum, was
founded in 1218 as a military order for the purpose of liberating Christian captives from the hands
of the Saracens. The founders were St. Peter Nolasco (Nolasque), King James I of Aragon, and the
Dominican St. Raymond of Peñaforte. Peter Nolasque was born about 1189 at Carcassone in
southern France. According to a tradition of later date, he took part as a young man in the crusade
of Simon IV of Montfort against the Albigensians. Jayme or James, son of Peter II of Aragon, who
was an ally of the Albigensians, was taken as a hostage, and Peter Nolasque became his tutor.
Subsequently Peter followed his pupil to Barcelona. There he conceived the idea of founding a
special order for ransoming Christians who had been enslaved by the Mohammedans — an order
similar to the then recently established Trinitarian Order.

According to a tradition of the Mercedarians, which however is found recorded for the first
time only in 1445, Peter Nolasque was deliberating whether to found this order or to devote
himself to an eremitical life in a cave near the famous shrine of Our Lady of Montserrat, near
Barcelona, when, in 1218, Our Lady of Montserrat appeared to him as well as to King James I of
Aragon and Raymond of Peñaforte and urged them to found the Order of Our Lady of Mercy.

In 1223 Peter Nolasque pronounced the usual three religious vows and added a fourth binding
him to offer himself as a substitute, if this should be necessary, to free a Christian captive of the
Mohammedans who was in danger of apostatizing. Soon afterwards he was joined by thirteen
noblemen, of whom six were priests. Raymond of Peñaforte undertook the direction of the new
order, which observed the Rule of St. Augustine; and he wrote special constitutions which
exhorted the members to cherish a special devotion to Our Lady. Pope Gregory IX gave his
approval in 1235.

The new order consisted of knights and brothers, some of the latter being priests. During the
lifetime of St. Peter Nolasque, 2718 Christian prisoners were freed by the Mercedarians from
Mohammedan servitude, 890 of these by St. Peter himself. In the course of its history, the order
liberated a total of about 70,000 prisoners from the hands of the Moslem. In 1318 Pope John XXII
ordered that henceforth the superior general be a priest. The knights then separated from the
order and joined the military order of Our Lady of Montesa, founded in 1319 by King James II of
Aragon for the purpose of battling against the Moors in Spain. Thus the Mercedarians ceased to
be a military order. The privileges of religious orders in the strict sense were granted to them in
1690; and in 1725 they were placed among the mendicant orders.

The Discalced Mercedarians were founded in 1602 by Father John Baptist González, O.D.M.,
and approved in 1606. This stricter branch lasted in Spain till 1835, and in Italy till 1866.

As early as 1265 several women of Barcelona banded together to form the Third Order Secular
of Our Lady of Mercy. The first superior of a religious community of the Mercedarian Third Order
Regular was St. Mary of Cervello, who died in 1281. This sisterhood continued in existence till
1835, and was reestablished in 1860. In 1933 it had a membership of over 700.

The Second Order of Mercedarian nuns was founded by Father Anthony Velasco, O.D.M., in
Seville, and approved by Pius V in 1568.

The Discalced Mercedarians also had their Second Order and Third Order. The latter was
founded by St. Mary Anne of Jesus in 1624.

A special feast of Our Lady of Mercy was observed on September 24. Pope St. Pius X in 1904
granted a toties quoties plenary indulgence to all the faithful visiting a church of the Mercedarian
First Order or of the Mercedarian Sisters of the Third Order on this feast.

The Mercedarian First Order has its headquarters in Rome. At the present time it has 810
members. In the United States a monastery of the Mercedarians was founded in 1921 at
Middleburg Heights, Ohio.
628

4. The Servites (O.S.M.)

Seven prominent citizens of Florence, who had long been members of the Laudesi
confraternity, having for its main purpose the veneration of Our Lady, were assembled in the
confraternity church on the feast of the Assumption in 1233. Suddenly all of them felt inspired to
give up their earthly possessions and to enter upon a religious life. With the permission of Bishop
Ardinghus of Florence they carried out this desire on the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady by
retiring to the secluded Villa Camaria outside the city walls and putting on a rough penitential
garment of gray color. Bonfiglio Monaldi, one of the seven, served as the superior of the group.

On the feast of the Epiphany, 1234, as two of them went on a begging tour through the streets
of Florence, little children cried out: “Ecco i servi della Madonna — Behold the servants of Our
Lady!” From that time on they were called “the Servants of Mary.”

According to a tradition of the order, Our Lady appeared in 1240 to the seven founders, as the
Mother of Sorrows, holding in her hands a black habit, a palm branch, and the Augustinian Rule
upon which were inscribed the words: “Servi Mariae.” That same year they pronounced the three
religious vows and put on a black habit as a symbol of the Sorrows of Our Lady. The Order of the
Servants of Mary, Ordo Servorum Mariae, received papal approval in 1249 and 1304. Pope Martin
V placed it among the mendicant orders.

From the beginning, the Servants of Mary or Servites have distinguished themselves by
practicing and promoting devotion to Our Lady, particularly to Our Lady of Sorrows. The first
chapter of their constitutions, edited about 1280 by St. Philip Benitius, fifth superior general, is
entitled: “De reverentiis Beatae Mariae Virginis — Concerning reverences to be shown to the
Blessed Virgin Mary.” Later the following practice was introduced: before beginning the Mass
prayers at the foot of the altar, a Servite priest says: Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum! —
and the server answers: Benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus! Every
church of the Servites is dedicated to Our Lady.

Devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows has been promoted by the Servites particularly through the
Black Scapular,
629 the Crown of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady,
630 and, since the beginning of the
eighteenth century, the Via Matris Dolorosae — the Way of the Sorrowful Mother.
631 The latter is
a devotion resembling the Way of the Cross and consists of seven stations recalling the Seven
Sorrows of Our Lady. Since 1937 the Servites of Chicago have fostered this devotion in the United
States with phenomenal success.

There are two Servite Provinces in the United States, both of them having headquarters in
Chicago: the American Province, established in 1870, and the Italian Province of St. Joseph, erected
in 1927. Headquarters of the order are in Rome; and the total number of professed members is
1700.

Stricter branches of the Servites have existed in the past: the Servites of the Observance, begun
in 1411; the Servite Observants of Corvara, founded in 1491; and the Hermit or Discalced Servites,
established in 1593.

The Second Order of Servite Nuns was founded by St. Philip Benitius in the thirteenth century;
and hence they are also called Philippine Nuns. The Servite Third Order Secular, which had its
beginnings in Perugia already in 1255, received the approval of Pope Martin V in 1424. The Sisters
of the Servite Third Order Regular, also known as Mantellate, were founded 1306 in Florence by
St. Juliana Falconieri.
632

5. The Piarists (Sch.P.)

The Piarists, known in Italy as “Scolopi” (from scuole pie) and in Spain as “Escolapios,” have
the following official name: Ordo Clericorum Regularium Pauperum Matris Dei scholarum piarum
(the last word being the source of the name Piarists); in English, Order of Poor Clerics Regular of
the Mother of God of Pious Schools. Their headquarters are in Rome; and they have a total of 2300
professed members. In the United States they have two foundations: one, the “American Branch,”
at Derby, Buffalo, N. Y.; and the other, the “Catalan-Spanish Branch,” in Los Angeles, Calif.

The founder of the Piarists was St. Joseph of Calasanz, born in 1556 in the castle of that name
at Petralta de la Sal in Aragón, Spain, and died in 1648 at the age of 92 in Rome. In 1597 he opened
the first free school in Rome. By 1604 he had twelve associates, and they began to live in a
community. Ten years later they were placed under the jurisdiction of the Congregation of Clerics
Regular of the Mother of God which had been founded in 1574 at Lucca by St. John Leonardi and
had charge of the Church of Santa Maria in Portico.
633 However, in 1617 St. Joseph and his
companions were organized into a separate congregation, the founder taking the name of Father
Joseph of the Mother of God. Besides the usual three vows, they took a fourth vow binding
themselves to the Christian education of youth without remuneration. They observed the Rule of
St. Augustine. St. Joseph wrote special Constitutions, which were approved in 1621; and in the
same year, the new congregation was raised to the rank of a religious order and was granted the
privileges of the mendicant orders. Subsequently, difficulties arose, and for a time the order was
reduced to a congregation; but in 1769 it became an order once more and all privileges were
restored.

The Congregation of the Daughters of Mary, a branch of this Order for women, was founded
in Spain in 1832.

St. Joseph of Calasanz distinguished himself by a special devotion to the Mother of God; he
taught his pupils to recite, before going to sleep, the Hail Mary five times in honor of the five
letters of the name Maria; and when he was at the point of death, Our Lady, as the Madonna dei
Monti, appeared to him. The Constitutions which he wrote prescribe special devotions to Mary;
and the members of the Piarist Order take special pains to foster devotion to Our Lady among the
boys whom they teach.
634

6. The Picpus Fathers (SS.CC.)

The Picpus Fathers are so named because of Picpus Street in Paris, where their mother house
was established in 1805. They are called also the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts. Their full name is:
Congregatio Sacrorum Cordium Jesu et Mariae necnon adorationis perpetuae Ss. Sacramenti Altaris,
Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of Perpetual Adoration of the Most
Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.

They were founded by Father Joseph Peter Coudrin (✝ 1837) at Poitiers, France, in 1797 (1800);
and they were approved as a religious congregation by Pius VII in 1817. In 1826 they began to do
missionary work in Oceania, where one of their best known missionaries was Father Damian de
Veuster (✝ 1889), the Apostle of the Lepers at Kalawao on Molokai.

The purpose of the congregation is “the devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,
practised and propagated by a contemplative-active life.” Its headquarters are at Grottaferrata near
Rome; and its professed members are 1700 in number. A North-American Province was established
in 1946, with headquarters at Fairhaven, Mass. There is also a Hawaiian Province.

The Sisters of the Sacred Hearts and of Perpetual Adoration were also founded at Poitiers in
1797. They are called “Zelatrices” by the people.
635

7. The Holy Ghost Fathers (C.S.Sp.)

Near the Sorbonne in Paris, Father Claude Francis Poullart de Places in 1703 founded the
Seminary of the Holy Spirit under the protection of the Immaculate Conception. This marked the
beginning of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, whose Constitutions were approved by the Holy
See in 1824. Since it encountered great difficulties in recruiting new members, this Congregation
was united in 1848 with the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which had been
founded in 1841 by the Ven. Francis Mary Paul Libermann for the purpose of supplying
missionaries to the colored of Africa and America. Father Libermann, a saintly convert from
Judaism, became the first superior general after this union. The official name of the new
congregation is: Congregatio Sancti Spiritus sub tutela Immaculati Cordis Beatissimae Virginis
Mariae, the Congregation of the Holy Ghost under the patronage of the Immaculate Heart of the
Most Blessed Virgin Mary. Its headquarters are in Paris; and it has a total of 4500 professed
members. A Province of the United States was established in 1873, with headquarters in
Washington, D. C. The society conducts Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.
636

8. The Montfort Fathers (S.M.M.)

The Montfort Society of Mary or Company of Mary was founded in 1705 by St. Louis Mary
Grignon [or Grignion] de Montfort (1673-1716), the author of The True Devotion to Mary. After he
had labored zealously as a parish missionary in many dioceses of France, and had thought for five
years of founding a special society of priests for this purpose, he established his congregation at
St. Laurent-sur-Sèvre in the Vendé, France. He wrote a Rule which received preliminary
approbation in 1825 and final approbation in 1872. The society spread to other parts of the world,
including the foreign missions. Its headquarters are in Rome; and its professed members are 1563
in number. A United States Province was established in 1948, and has its headquarters at Ozone
Park, N. Y.
637

9. Oblate Fathers (O.M.I.)

The Oblates of Mary Immaculate were founded at Aix in the Provence, France, in 1816, by
Father Charles Joseph Eugene de Mazenod, subsequently Bishop of Marseilles (1837-1861).
Originally the members of the new society were called Missionaries of Provence, then Oblates of
St. Charles; but since there was a society in Milan which had the latter name, the French society’s
name, at the suggestion of the founder, was changed to the Oblates of the Immaculate Virgin
Mary, Congregatio Oblatorum Beatae Mariae Virginis Immaculatae. This was done in the papal brief
of 1826 which approved the society. In 1841 its first missionaries departed for overseas missions.
Then its membership began to grow quite rapidly. The founder added special regulations to the
Rule for missionaries. As aims of the society are mentioned: parish missions, direction of
seminaries, and missions among the infidels. The headquarters are in Rome. Its total membership
is 6833. In the United States four provinces have been established: the Eastern Province, in 1883,
with headquarters in Washington, D. C.; the Southern Province, in 1904, with headquarters in San
Antonio, Tex.; the Province of St. John the Baptist, in 1921, with headquarters at Lowell, Mass.; and
the Central Province, in 1924, with headquarters at Belleville, Ill.
638

10. The Fathers of Mercy (S.P.M.)

In 1808, at Lyons, France, a society of secular priests, called the Missionaries of France, was
founded by Father Jean Baptiste Rauzan, in order to repair the harm done to the Church by the
French Revolution. Several times their houses were confiscated and the members were dispersed;
but they always reestablished themselves. In 1834 the Society was formally approved by Pope
Gregory XVI. They came to the diocese of New Orleans, La., in 1839, and two years later to New
York City. From 1814 to 1903 their motherhouse was in Paris; but now it is in Brooklyn, N. Y., and
there is a Procure in Rome. The name Missionaries of France has been changed to the Fathers of
Mercy or the Society of the Priests of Mercy of the Immaculate Conception. Its members take the
vows of obedience, chastity, and stability, and make the promise to observe the spirit of poverty.
The congregation now has fourteen establishments in the United States and Canada, and a total
membership of 163, of whom 95 are priests and the rest seminarians and novices.
639

11. The Marist Fathers (S.M.)

The Society of Mary, Societas Mariae, was founded in 1822, and approved in 1836. In the
pilgrimage church of Our Lady near Lyons, France, known as Notre Dame de Fourvière, a group
of priests in 1816 dedicated themselves to the service of Mary by missionary work. Encouraged
in 1822 by Pope Pius VIII, they began to live in a community at Belley. The purpose of the society
includes the self-sanctification of its members by special devotion to Mary, the education of boys
in higher schools and seminaries, the preaching of parish missions, and missionary work abroad.
The first superior general of the society was Jean Claude Marie Colin, one of the founders.
Headquarters are in Rome; and the members are 1898 in number. In the United States, the
Washington Province was begun in 1863, and the Boston Province was established in 1924.

Father Champagnat, one of the first Marists, in 1817 founded the Marist Brothers, who will be
mentioned later. And in 1816, Father Colin founded the Marist Sisters, or Sisters of the Most Holy
Name of Mary, for the education of girls. Their motherhouse is now at Martelange in Belgium.
These must be distinguished from the Marist Missionary Sisters (of the Third Order Regular of
Mary) who were founded in 1880 at Saint-Foy-les-Lyon, and have an American motherhouse at
Framingham Centre, Mass., since 1922. A separate German branch of the latter, the Missionary
Sisters of the Most Holy Name of Mary, were founded at Meppen in 1920. In the Fiji Islands, the
Marists founded the native religious congregations of the Little Brothers and the Little Sisters of
Mary, in 1882. The Third Order of the Society of Mary was established in 1850, and has its main
centre in Rome.
640

12. The Marianists (S.M.)

Another Society of Mary, known also as the Marianists or the Brothers of Mary, came into
being about the same time as the Marists. Their founder was Father William Joseph Chaminade
(1761-1850). During the French Revolution (1789-1796), he secretly exercised the sacred ministry
in Bordeaux with constant danger to his life. Finally he was banished to Spain (1797-1800), and
there, at the shrine of Our Lady del Pilar in Saragossa, he received his mission to restore Christian
life in France as an apostle of Our Lady. In 1801 he began to establish Marian confraternities for
all classes of society. From his young men’s confraternity at Bordeaux developed, in 1817, the
Society of Mary; and from his young ladies’ confraternity arose, in 1816, the Daughters of Mary.

The Society of Mary consists of priests and brothers; and although the brothers constitute the
greater portion of the membership, the superior general is always a priest. The members seek to
sanctify themselves through the education of boys and the direction of Marian societies. Besides
the usual three vows, at their solemn profession they take a fourth vow of stability; that is, they
dedicate themselves by a special vow to Mary and receive a golden ring which they wear on the
right hand as a sign of their dedication to Our Lady. After receiving preliminary approbation in
1839, the Congregagation was approved in 1865, and their Rule in 1891. Their mother house is now
in Rome; and they have 2600 members. In the United States and possessions, the Society has three
provinces: the Cincinnati Province, established 1849, with headquarters at Dayton, Ohio; the St.
Louis Province, established 1908, with headquarters at Kirkwood, Mo.; and the Province of the
Pacific, established 1948, with headquarters at Honolulu, T. H.
641

13. The Eudist Fathers (C.J.M.)

The Congregation of Jesus and Mary was founded at Caen, France, in 1643, by St. John Eudes
(1601-1680). The founder’s name explains their popular title of “Eudist Fathers.” The purpose of
the society is the preaching of parish missions and the direction of seminaries for the secular
clergy. Following the example of their founder, the members also seek to promote devotion to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Born at Mezerai in 1601, Father Eudes
joined the Oratorians in 1623 and was made superior of the Oratory at Caen in 1639. In 1632 he
began to devote himself to the preaching of parish missions. Realizing the need of seminaries
conducted in accordance with the decrees of the Council of Trent, he and several other secular
priests of Normandy founded a secular congregation for the purpose of directing such seminaries.
They began to live in a community at Caen in 1643; and although they took no vows, they
promised obedience to a superior who was elected for life. Father Eudes, the first superior, wrote
a twofold Rule, consisting of a Rule of Our Lord Jesus Christ which outlined the duties of
members, and a Rule of the Blessed Virgin which described the virtues they were to practice. Both
consisted to a great extent of passages from Holy Scripture. The Rule was approved by the Holy
See in 1674.

By 1792 the society was conducting twelve major and five minor seminaries in France. In the
French Revolution the congregation became extinct; but in 1826 it was founded anew, and in 1874
it was approved once more by the Holy See. In 1934, the society had about 625 members. The
headquarters are now in Rome. A Province has been established in Canada, and the Society is
represented in the United States with headquarters at Washington, D. C.
642

14. The Assumptionists (A.A.)

After he had founded a teaching sisterhood, called Ladies of the Assumption, in 1839, Father
Emmanuel Joseph Maria Maurice d’Alzon, Vicar General of Nîmes, France, with four companions
founded the Augustinians of the Assumption in 1845. Officially they are also called Pious Society
of Priests of the Assumption, Pia Societas Presbyterorum ab Assumptione. Pope Pius IX gave his
approval to the new society in 1864. Devoting themselves especially to educational and missionary
work, the Assumptionists spread rapidly, especially in France and the Near East. With the aid of
a ship of their own, named Notre Dame de Salut and later Étoile, they organized pilgrimages to
Lourdes, Rome, and Jerusalem. In Jerusalem they built a hospice for pilgrims and called it “Notre
Dame de France.” In the Near East they sought to promote the reunion of Bulgarian and Greek
schismatics with the Holy See. They founded the parish of the Assumption in Belgrade in 1928,
and another of the same name in the Kum-Kapu district of Istanbul (Constantinople). They are the
directors of the Archconfraternity of the Assumption of Our Lady for the conversion of the Orient,
which was erected in the Greek Catholic Church of Anastasis in Istanbul on May 25, 1898. When
the congregation was suppressed by the French government, it spread to other parts of the world.
It is back in France again at the present day, but headquarters are in Rome. A United States-Canada Province was established in 1946, with headquarters in New York City. The total number
of members in the world is now 1900.

For missionary work in the Balkan countries and the Near East, Father d’Alzon in 1864 founded
a second sisterhood, the Oblate Sisters of the Assumption; and in the same year Father Pernet, one
of the first companions of Father d’Alzon, founded a nursing sisterhood called the Little Sisters of
the Assumption. Father Picard, the second superior general of the Assumptionists, in 1896,
founded the “Orantes” or Praying Sisters of the Assumption.
643

15. Claretian Fathers (C.M.F.)

The Claretian Fathers were founded 1849 at Vich in Spain by St. Anthony Maria Claret for
missionary work at home and abroad. Their official name is Congregation of the Missionary Sons
of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Congregatio Missionariorum filiorum
Immaculati Cordis Beatae Mariae Virginis. At their religious profession the members make a
solemn promise to propagate the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Preliminary approval
was granted in 1860 and final approval in 1924. Headquarters are in Rome; and the Congregation
now has 2800 professed members. In the United States it has a Western Province with
headquarters in Los Angeles, and a Vice-Province of the East with headquarters in Chicago.
During the Spanish Revolution which preceded World War II, 286 Claretians won the martyr’s
crown at the hands of the Communists in Spain.
644

16. La Salette Fathers (M.S.)

The Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, Missionarii Beatae Mariae Virginis a La Salette,
were founded 1852 by Bishop Philibert de Brouillard of Grenoble, France, to provide priests for the
shrine of Our Lady of La Salette. However, the society grew beyond the limits of La Salette, and
now also counts among its purposes the conducting of missions and retreats, parochial and social
work, and missionary work among infidels. The Holy See approved of the society in 1879, 1890,
and 1929. Headquarters are now in Rome. The professed members are 937 in number. In the United
States three provinces have been established. The so-called American Province, begun in 1892, was
canonically erected in 1933 and has its headquarters at Bloomfield, Conn.; the Province of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary, with headquarters at East Brewster, Mass., was established in 1945;
and the Province of Our Lady Queen of Poland has headquarters at Olivet, Ill. Since 1958 there is
also the Vice-Province of Mary Queen, with headquarters in St. Louis, Mo.
645

In 1895 the La Salette missionary, Father John Baptist Berthier founded at Grave in Holland
a special religious congregation to care for belated vocations, the Congregation of the Missionaries
of the Holy Family (M.S.F.), which is also represented in the United States.
646

17. The Scheut Fathers (C.I.C.M.)

At the ruins of a chapel of Our Lady in the field of Scheut (Scheutveld), near Brussels, Belgium,
Father Theophilus Verbist in 1863 laid the cornerstone for a foreign mission seminary. That
marked the beginning of the Missionaries of Scheut, or the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart
of Mary, Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae, which was approved by Pope Leo XIII in 1900.
When China was reopened to missionaries in 1861, Father Verbist and some other priests of
Belgium wanted to go to that country as missionaries; but Cardinal Barbaro, prefect of the Sacred
Congregation of Propaganda, urged them to found a mission seminary in Belgium before departing
for the missions, and so this Belgian foreign mission society was established. Its first missionaries,
Father Verbist one of them, went to Mongolia in 1865; and in 1888 the society commenced
missionary work also in the Congo. Headquarters are at Scheut-lez-Bruxelles, Belgium, although
there is a procure in Rome. The society has 1765 members. A United States Province with
headquarters at Arlington, Va., was established in 1949.
647

18. The Consolata Fathers (I.M.C.)

Another missionary society named for Our Lady is the Missionary Institute of La Consolata,
Institutum Missionum a Consolata, which was founded 1901 at Turin, Italy, by two priests, Fathers
Allamano and Camisassa. The Holy See gave the society preliminary approval, in 1909, and final
approval in 1923. It is engaged in missionary work in Africa. Headquarters are in Turin, but there
is a procure in Rome. At the present day it has 750 professed members. The society is aided in its
missionary work by the Consolata Sisters. In the United States the Consolata Fathers have a
foundation at Batavia, N. Y.
648

19. The Marian Fathers (M.I.C.)

The Marian Fathers’ full name is the Congregation of the Marian Clerics Regular under the
title of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Congregatio Clericorum
Regularium Marianorum sub titulo Immaculatae Conceptionis Beatissimae Virginis Mariae. This
congregation was founded 1673 at Corabiev, Poland, by the Piarist Father Stanislaus Papczynski.
It devoted itself to the sacred ministry and to educational and missionary work. By 1909 the
congregation had become all but extinct, only one member being left at the time. Archbishop
George Matulewicz then began its restoration and thus became its second founder. It obtained
renewed papal approval in 1910; and today it has 435 professed members. Headquarters are in
Rome. In the United States two provinces have been established: the Province of St. Casimir, begun
in 1913 and erected in 1930, which has headquarters in Chicago; and the Province of St. Stanislaus
Kostka, begun in 1931 and erected in 1948, which has headquarters at Stockbridge, Mass.
649

20. The Marist Brothers (P.F.M. or F.M.S.)

The Marist Brothers of the Schools, Institutum Fratrum Maristarum Scholarum, also called Little
Brothers of Mary, Institutum Parvulorum Fratrum Mariae, were founded 1817 at La Valla, near
Lyons, France, by one of the first Marist Fathers, Blessed Marcellin Joseph Benedict Champagnat.
They devote themselves to educational work in Christian and pagan countries. The brotherhood
was approved by the Holy See in 1859, 1863, and 1903. At the present day they have 8646
members; and hence, after the Christian Brothers, they are the largest religious brotherhood in the
Catholic Church. Their generalate is at Saint-Genis-Laval, Rhône, France; and there is a procure
in Rome. A United States Province, with headquarters at Esopus, N. Y., was established in 1912.
650

* * *

The orders and congregations of men with papal approval which have no establishment in the
United States are the following:
651

Teutonic Order of St. Mary in Jerusalem, founded at Acre or Akko, then in Syria, in 1190.
Headquarters in Vienna. Professed members, 88.

Order of the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God (O.M.D.), founded at Lucca, Italy, in 1574.
Headquarters in Rome. Members (R), 84.
652

Congregation of the Oratory of Jesus and Mary Immaculate, founded 1611 in Paris.
Headquarters in Paris.

Congregation of the Oblates of the Blessed Virgin Mary (O.M.V.), founded at Pinerolo, Italy,
in 1815. Headquarters in Rome. Members (R), 160.

Congregation of the Sons of Mary Immaculate, founded 1821-1847 in Italy. Headquarters in
Brescia. Professed members, 250.

Congregation of the Sons of the Blessed Virgin Mary Immaculate (of Luçon) (F.M.I.), founded
at Chavagnes-en-Paillers, France, in 1828. Headquarters at Ste. Marie, France, Members (R), 166.

Pious Society of Priests of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (of Lourdes), founded
1848 in France. Headquarters at Garaison, France. Professed members, 86.

Congregation of the Canons Regular of the Immaculate Conception (C.R.I.C.), founded in
Genoa, Italy, in 1866. Headquarters in Rome.

Congregation of the Priests of St. Mary of Tinchebray, founded 1851 in France. Procure in
Rome.

Capuchin Brothers of the Third Order of St. Francis of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Sorrows,
founded 1889 in Spain. Headquarters in Madrid. Professed members, 330.

Congregation of the Sons of St. Mary Immaculate, founded 1904 in Italy. Headquarters in
Rome. Professed members, 102.

Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (of Mallorca),
founded 1890 in Spain. Headquarters at Paz. Professed members, 134.

Institute of St. Mary of Guadalupe for Foreign Missions (M. de G.), founded 1949 in Mexico.
Headquarters in Mexico City.

Institute of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy (F.D.M.), founded 1839 in
Belgium. Headquarters at Starrenhof, Belgium. Professed members, 400.

Hospital Brothers, Sons of the Immaculate Conception (Conceptionists), founded 1857 in Italy.
Headquarters in Rome.

Brothers of the Pious Congregation of the Presentation, founded 1802 in Ireland. Headquarters
at Mt. St. Joseph, Ireland. Professed members, 315.

Brothers of Mercy of St. Mary Auxiliatrix or Our Lady of Help, founded 1850 in Germany.
Headquarters at Trier, Germany. Professed members, 390.

Brothers of Our Lady of Lourdes, founded 1830 in Belgium. Headquarters at Oostakker, Ghent,
Belgium. Professed members, 924.

It may be well to point out that the membership of these 18 Marian orders and congregations,
with the exception perhaps of the Brothers of Our Lady of Lourdes, is comparatively small; hence,
all of the larger orders and congregations of men which have a Marian name are represented in
the United States.

Noteworthy too is the fact that of the 38
653 such orders and congregations (6 orders and 32
congregations), which we have discussed or enumerated, 2 were founded in the twelfth century,
2 in the thirteenth, none in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 2 in the sixteenth, 4 in the
seventeenth, 3 in the eighteenth, 22 in the nineteenth, and 3 in the twentieth century. And of the
four founded in the seventeenth century, one was re-established in the nineteenth and another
in the twentieth. Thus the nineteenth century, with all its revolutions and persecutions of the
Catholic Church in Europe, stands out as the one in which the most Marian congregations of men
by far were established.

It is of interest to note also that in France more such congregations were established than in
any other country. Of the 38 Marian orders and congregations of men with papal approval, 15
were founded in France, 9 in Italy, 5 in Spain, 3 in Belgium, and one in each of the six countries
of Palestine, Syria, Germany, Ireland, Poland, and Mexico.

II. NOTABLE MARIAN ORDERS AND
CONGREGATIONS OF MEN WITHOUT A MARIAN
NAME

After enumerating 34 papal orders and congregations of men which have a Marian name,
Father Roschini reminds us that all religious families without exception honor the Blessed Virgin
as their Patroness, Queen, and Mother, and with great zeal promote devotion to her. In this
respect, however, he adds, the Cistercians, Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, Salesians, and others
are worthy of special mention.
654

We shall discuss briefly the following older and larger orders and congregations: Benedictines,
Cistercians, Carthusians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians, Jesuits, Vincentians,
Redemptorists, and Salesians.

1. The Benedictines (O.S.B.)

The Order of St. Benedict, named for its founder, was established in the sixth century. Not
counting four smaller, separate communities like the Camaldolese Benedictines, but only those
belonging to a confederation which was formed in 1893, the Benedictines now have a total
membership of 11,500.

The first indications of devotion to Our Lady among the Benedictines are found in the eighth
century. In the ninth century, the Benedictines played an important role in the development of
Marian theology; and in the eleventh century, they contributed much to the growth of devotion
to Our Lady among the faithful, particularly in Normandy and England.

Abbot Ambrose Autpert of St. Vincent-au-Vulturne (✝ 784) is regarded by Dom Morin as the
first great Mariologist of the Latin rite before St. Bernard. His sermons on the Nativity and the
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin are the first Latin sermons which treat exclusively of Our Lady.
Herman Contractus, a monk of the abbey of Reichenau (✝ 1054), wrote sequences in honor of Mary
and is the author of the Alma Redemptoris Mater, and probably also of the Salve Regina.
655 St.
Anselm of Canterbury (✝ 1109) wrote eloquently of the prerogatives of Mary and fostered a tender,
childlike devotion to her. “Nothing except God,” wrote St. Anselm, “is greater than Mary.” Eadmer
(✝ 1124), a monk of St. Saviour in England and secretary of St. Anselm, in his De conceptione
Sanctae Mariae, clearly affirms the Immaculate Conception, deducing this prerogative from the
principles set down by St. Anselm; and he contributed much to the devotion to Mary Immaculate.
Another English monk, Nicholas of St. Albans, writing to Peter of Celle who opposed the
celebration of a feast of the Immaculate Conception because of St. Bernard’s opinion on the matter,
replied that we should rather seek to promote the glory of Mary than that of St. Bernard. The first
to apply to Mary the words of the Canticle of Canticles was Abbot Rupert of Deutz (✝ c. 1130). At
the end of the fourteenth century, Abbot Hugh I of Cluny ordered that the Salve Regina be chanted
daily after Compline in all the monasteries of the Cluny Congregation of Benedictines.
656 This, of
course, is not the whole story. We have merely selected a few examples which will have to suffice
in this brief survey. The same will be true of the other orders and congregations which we shall
discuss in the following paragraphs.

2. The Cistercians (S.Ord.Cist. and O.C.R.)

The Holy Order of Cistercians, which also observes the Rule of St. Benedict, was founded by
St. Bernard in 1098. According to Heimbucher, the Cistercians, in 1933, had over 1000 members;
while the Reformed Cistercians or Trappists (O.C.R.), in 1955, had 3612 members.

Among Mariologists as well as clients of Mary, St. Bernard stands out as one of the greatest.
Even though he held the opinion that Mary was not immaculately conceived, his sermons contain
an almost complete synthesis of Marian doctrine; and in those sermons he, more than anyone else
of his time, fostered a genuine devotion to Our Lady. He and St. Anselm were the two great
Marian writers of western monasticism. Rightly, therefore, has he been called Citharista Mariae,
Mary’s Harpist. The Cistercians and Trappists of subsequent centuries down to the present day
have followed St. Bernard’s example. The general chapter of the Cistercians in 1134, for instance,
made the ruling that all monasteries of the order should henceforth be dedicated to St. Mary,
giving as a reason the fact that the founders of Cîteaux came from Molesme where the church was
dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
657

3. The Carthusians

The Order of Carthusians was founded by St. Bruno in 1084. At the present time it has a
membership of 679. The Carthusian monks have manifested their devotion to Our Lady from early
times by their liturgical and private prayers, by votive Masses in her honor, by the practice of
repeating the Angelic Salutation, by the quadruple Angelus, etc.

Especially noteworthy is the role that they played during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
in the development of the Rosary. In the Middle Ages the 150 Psalms, divided into fifties or one
third part, was a favorite form of devotion for religious and learned persons; and the common
people imitated them by repeating the same number of Paters. In the eleventh century, for
instance, the monks of Cluny who were not priests recited either fifty Psalms or fifty Paters for
a deceased confrere. Strings of beads used for the purpose of counting the number of Paters
recited, were called “paternosters” throughout Europe in the Middle Ages; and in the thirteenth
century at least the manufacturers of such strings of beads, called “paternosterers,” formed an
important craft guild. The English “paternosterers” were wont to congregate in what is still known
as Paternoster Row. In the twelfth century, when the Angelic Salutation, that is the first part of
the Hail Mary, came into general use as a formula of devotion, it became customary also to repeat
50 or 100 or 150 Aves in place of the same number of Psalms. The practice was a familiar one by
the middle of that century; and the 50 Aves were even divided into sets of ten. Since it was a
Salutation of Our Lady, the repetition of the Ave was accompanied by genuflexions and other
marks of reverence. The recitation of 150 Aves was called the Psalter of Our Lady. It was only
toward the end of the fifteenth century that the complete Hail Mary, with the Holy Mary added,
came into use.
658

Now, the contributions made by the Carthusians to the development of the Rosary are the
following. It was Dom Henry Egher of Kalcar, a monk of the Carthusian monastery at Cologne (✝
1408), who introduced the practice of separating the 15 decades of the Psalter of Our Lady by
inserting a Pater noster before each decade. And the two monks of the Carthusian monastery of
St. Alhan near Trier, Dom Adolph of Essen (✝ 1439) and especially Dom Dominic Helion of Prussia
(✝ c. 1450), introduced the practice of meditating on certain definite mysteries of the life of Our
Lord and Our Lady during the recitation of a Rosary of 50 Aves. In fact, the legend that St.
Dominic, the founder of the Dominicans, was the author of the Rosary, which dates back only to
about 1470, may well have had its origin in the erroneous identification of the fifteenth-century
Carthusian Dominic as the St. Dominic of the thirteenth century.
659

4. The Dominicans (O.P.)

The Order of Preachers or the Dominican Friars were founded at the beginning of the
thirteenth century by St. Dominic. At the present day they have a total membership of 8500.

There is no longer any doubt, as Dominican scholars themselves admit, that St. Dominic was
not the author of the Rosary and that the Rosary as we have it now dates back only to the latter
part of the fifteenth century. However, St. Dominic and his first companions did have a great
devotion to Our Lady. The first chapter of the old chronicle Vitae fratrum, the Fioretti of the
Dominicans, is entitled: “That Our Lady by her intercession obtained from her Divine Son the
institution of the Friars Preachers.”
660 Friar Romeo de Livia, one of the Companions of St. Dominic,
was wont to recite the Ave a thousand times a day; and he died holding in his hands a knotted
cord which he had used to count his Aves. On his apostolic journeys St. Dominic loved to sing the
Ave maris stella; and Friar Jordan of Saxony used to chant the Salve Regina. The latter had the
conviction that Our Lady was particularly solicitous in guarding and promoting the Order of
Preachers. Though he was not the author of the practice, it was his custom to recite after the Ave
maris stella, the Magnificat and four Psalms the initial letters of which formed the word MARIA.
661
Already in 1266 Dominican lay brothers began to add the Ave to the Paters of their Office.

As far as the Rosary is concerned, it is due to the zealous efforts of the Dominicans, who began
to establish confraternities of the Rosary in the latter part of the fifteenth century, that the Rosary
has been universally adopted in a fixed and definite form — the form in which we have it now —
as a favorite form of devotion to Our Lady. The Dominican Alan de Rupe (de la Roche) and his
confreres established the first confraternities of the Rosary in 1470-1475. One of the first
confraternities of the Rosary is known to have been established at Cologne in 1474 by the
Dominican Father Jacob Sprenger. In 1569 Pope St. Pius V, himself a Dominican, placed the
Confraternity of the Rosary in the exclusive care of the Dominicans.
662

5. The Franciscans (O.F.M., O.F.M.Conv., O.F.M.Cap.)

The First Order of St. Francis of Assisi, founded in 1209, comprises the three autonomous
branches: Friars Minor (Ordo Fratrum Minorum), with 25,848 members; Friars Minor Conventual
(Ordo Fratrum Minorum Conventualium), with 3650 members; and, since 1525, Friars Minor
Capuchin (Ordo Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum), with 14,225 members.

Regina Ordinis Minorum, ora pro nohis — Queen of the Franciscan Order, pray for us! The
privilege of adding this invocation to the Litany of Loreto was granted to all the Franciscan orders
by St. Pius X in 1910. The Pope expressly declared at the time that the permission was given, not
only to the three branches of the First Order (43,723 members), but also to the Poor Clares or
Second Order (ca. 17,000 members), to the priests, brothers, and sisters of the Third Order
Regular
663 (more than 30,000 Franciscan Sisters in the United States alone), and to the Third Order
Secular (ca. 2,000,000).

In 1950 Pope Pius XII instituted a special feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary Queen of the
Franciscan Order (Regina Ordinis Minorum), to be celebrated annually by the Franciscan orders as
a double of the second class on December 15. That day is the octave day of the feast of the
Immaculate Conception, who was chosen as the Patrona principalissima by the Friars Minor in
their general chapter at Toledo, Spain, in 1645, by the Friars Minor Capuchin in 1714, and by the
Friars Minor Conventual in 1719.

Actually it was St. Francis himself who chose Our Lady as the special Patroness of his orders.
His first biographer, Thomas of Celano, writes: “What is a very special source of joy, is the fact
that he (Francis) chose her (Mary) as the Advocate of his order; and he entrusted to her shielding
mantle his children whom he was to leave that she might guard and protect them to the end.”
664

St. Francis of Assisi was not only the Herald of the Great King but also the Knight of Our Lady.
With knightly love and filial devotion he venerated Our Lady especially as the Queen of Heaven,
who like our Blessed Redeemer embraced holy poverty as her lot on this earth. His ardent
devotion to Our Lady is indicated by the fact that he made the beloved chapel of Our Lady of the
Angels (which he had received from the Benedictines) the mother church of his order, and there
obtained from Our Lord, through Mary’s intercession, the unusual Portiuncula Indulgence.

St. Francis wrote a paraphrase, not only of the Our Father, but also of the Angelic Salutation,
commencing with the words: Ave Domina sancta, Regina sanctissima (“Hail holy Lady, most holy
Queen”). This beautiful and poetic prayer he recited daily before beginning the Divine Office, and
he often exhorted his brethren to do the same. It is found in the breviary of the Friars Minor
(Rome, 1951) before the Ordinarium Divini Officii. It is significant, too, that all four of the final
antiphons in honor of the Blessed Virgin are found for the first time in the Franciscan breviary of
1249; and the Regina coeli appears here for the first time anywhere.

Following the example of their founder, the sons of St. Francis through the centuries have
distinguished themselves as devoted clients of Our Lady, as champions of her great prerogatives,
and as promoters of childlike devotion to her among the faithful. Some of those eminent in this
regard, especially by their writings and sermons, have been: St. Anthony of Padua (✝ 1231), whose
authentic sermons contain a complete exposition of the Mariology of his times; St. Bonaventure
(✝ 1274), who by his decree of 1263 greatly promoted the custom of saying the Angelus, if he did
not actually introduce it; Friar Conrad of Saxony (✝ 1279), whose commentary on the Angelic
Salutation was one of the popular books of the later Middle Ages; Ven. John Duns Scotus (✝ 1308),
the Subtle and Marian Doctor, who is justly regarded as the champion of the Immaculate
Conception inasmuch as he satisfactorily answered the objections which were raised against this
prerogative of Mary; St. Bernardine of Siena (✝ 1444), the great Marian preacher, who, as Card.
Dominic Ferrata has said, “has few equals in writing and singing the praises of Mary, and is
excelled by none”; Friar Bernardin de Bustis (✝ 1515), who was the author of a Mariale, which was
held in high esteem until the eighteenth century, and also of the Little Office of the Immaculate
Conception, which was formerly attributed to St. Alphonse Rodríguez, S.J.; St. Leonard of Port
Maurice (✝ 1751), who zealously promoted the devotion of the Three Aves and the proclamation
of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception; and lastly, the modern Franciscan missionary bishop,
the Most Rev. Ange-Marie Hiral, Vicar Apostolic of the Suez Canal, who labored indefatigably to
bring about the institution of the new feast of Our Lady Queen of the Universe.
665

Of Franciscan devotions to Our Lady, space will permit us to mention only one, the Franciscan
Crown of Seven decades, which had its origin in the middle of the fifteenth century and was
promoted by St. Bernardine of Siena. At first the 72 Aves of which it consists recalled the
traditional 72 years of Our Lady’s life on earth; subsequently its seven decades also commemorated
the seven joys of Our Lady, a devotion which dates back to the beginning of the thirteenth
century.
666 And of Franciscan Marian associations, we can allude only to a few: the Pious Union of
the Militia of Mary Immaculate, founded 1917 in Rome mainly through the efforts of the Servant
of God, Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, a Conventual Franciscan (and promoted in the United States by the
Friars Minor Conventual);
667 the Great Marian Union of Masses of Ingolstadt, Bavaria, with over
a million living members (and United States headquarters at St. Anthony Friary in St. Louis); and
the Guard of Honor of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (with United States headquarters at St.
Francis Church in New York City).

6. The Augustinians (O.S.A.)

Besides the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, who were established in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries and earlier and now have 910 members, there are the Hermit Friars of St. Augustine
(O.E.S.A. or O.S.A.), organized in 1256 and now having a membership of 3755; the Recollects of St.
Augustine (O.R.S.A.), founded in 1588 and having 1009 members; the Discalced Hermit Friars of
St. Augustine, a stricter branch begun in 1592-1599, which according to Heimbucher had 982
members in 1925; and the Assumptionist Augustinians, who have already been mentioned and
have 1900 members — a total, therefore, of 8556 Augustinians. All of these, observing the Rule of
St. Augustine and heirs of this great doctor’s learning and spirit, have always manifested a great
devotion to Our Lady and zealously fostered it among the faithful.

The writings of St. Augustine, although they do not discuss the Immaculate Conception,
contain numerous references to Mary and expound Catholic doctrine concerning the Mother of
God in a brilliant manner; and the spiritual children of St. Augustine in later centuries have
contributed much to the development and better understanding of Mariology.

Worthy of special mention is the Congregation of St. Victor of the Canons Regular of St.
Augustine, established in Paris about 1110. Deservedly renowned for their mystical writings on
Mary, are the famous teachers of this congregation’s theological school: Hugh of St. Victor (✝
1141), called the second Augustine; Achard of St. Victor (✝ 1171); Richard of St. Victor (✝ 1173);
Gauthier of St. Victor (✝ 1180); and Adam of St. Victor (✝ 1192).

Among the Hermit Friars of St. Augustine, the two outstanding Mariologists were St. Thomas
of Villanova (✝ 1576) and Bartholomew de los Rios (✝ 1652).

Devotion to Our Lady among the faithful has been promoted by the Augustinians especially
in the form of devotion to Our Lady of Consolation (although the shrine of Our Lady of
Consolation at Carey, Ohio, is in the care of the Friars Minor Conventual), and devotion to Our
Lady of Good Counsel.
668

7. The Jesuits (S.J.)

The Society of Jesus may rightly be called also the Society of Mary. Not only the Jesuits
themselves but others, too, have made that assertion, for instance, the Dominican Van Ketwigh
in his Panoplia Mariana. And the glorious history of the Jesuits bears out that statement.

Founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1540, the Society now has 30,958 members, the largest
number of religious in the Church under one superior general.

Our Lady played an important part in the conversion of St. Ignatius. He began his conversion
by lying prostrate one night before an image of the Blessed Virgin and consecrating himself
irrevocably to the service of God under Mary’s patronage. Another night soon afterward, his
biographers tell us, he had a vision of the Mother of God, surrounded by a bright light and holding
the Infant Jesus in her arms; and this vision filled his soul with such spiritual delight that ever
after all sensual pleasures were insipid to him.

St. Ignatius then made a pilgrimage during which he visited three shrines of Our Lady: first
to Aránzazu, where probably he took the vow of chastity; then to Navarra, where he restored an
image of Our Lady; and then to Montserrat, near Barcelona, where he made a general confession
of his past life to a saintly Benedictine priest. Later, when he founded the Society of Jesus in Rome,
he wished to establish the first house at the shrine of Our Lady de la Strada. These are merely
some instances indicating St. Ignatius’ devotion to Our Lady, a devotion which he bequeathed to
his spiritual sons.

One of the first companions of St. Ignatius, St. Francis Borgia, had a certain number of copies
made of the ancient painting of Our Lady in St. Mary Major’s Basilica in Rome, a picture which
is attributed to St. Luke; and he gave these to the first missionaries of the Society to carry along
to pagan lands. St. Francis Xavier always concluded his catechism instructions in the mission
countries of the East with the prayer, Salve Regina. The Little Office of the Immaculate
Conception, written by the Franciscan Friar Bernardin de Bustis, owes its widespread diffusion
especially to the efforts of the two Jesuit saints, Alphonse Rodríguez and Peter Claver. The famous
Jesuit theologian, Francisco Suárez, who received his extraordinary mental endowments in a
miraculous manner through Mary’s intercession, has been called the Father of Mariology, not as
a separate study, but as a part of theology.

However, it is the Sodality of Our Lady above all, which in the hands of the Jesuits has served
as an effective means of promoting genuine devotion to Our Lady among the faithful throughout
the world. The Sodality has sought to imbue its members “not with a vaguely enthusiastic piety
and asceticism, but a sober genuinely Catholic devotion and a joyous, zealous effectiveness for
good in the sphere in which each member moves.”
669

Shortly before his death in 1942, the Jesuit superior general, Father Ledochowski obtained for
the Jesuit Order the Holy See’s permission to celebrate the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary Queen
of the Society of Jesus, as a double of the first class. Under that title the Jesuits had been invoking
Our Lady for a long time past. The feast is observed on April 22, the anniversary of the solemn
profession of St. Ignatius and his first companions.
670

8. The Vincentians (C.M.)

The Vincentians or Lazarists, founded by St. Vincent de Paul in 1625, at the present day have
5200 members. The spiritual sons of St. Vincent are especially known as promoters of the devotion
to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. After Mary Immaculate had appeared in 1830 to St.
Catherine Labouré, a member of the Sisters of Charity, who were also founded by St. Vincent, M.
Aladel, assistant of the Vincentians, had struck the “miraculous medal” of Mary conceived without
sin; and within four years more than 4,000,000 of these medals were distributed throughout the
world. In 1838 the Association in honor of the Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary, whose
members wear the miraculous medal as a badge, was founded at the church of Notre Dame-des-Victoires in Paris. In the same year it was raised to the rank of a confraternity. Pope Leo XIII, in
1894, granted the Vincentians the privilege of celebrating, on November 26, a special feast
commemorating the manifestation of Mary Immaculate through the miraculous medal.
671

9. The Redemptorists (C.Ss.R.)

St. Alphonse Maria Liguori, who is counted among the greatest clients of Mary, founded the
Redemptorists in 1732. Today they have 8138 members. Of the writings of St. Alphonse, his work
on The Glories of Mary is probably the best known. When St. Alphonse was appointed a bishop,
he kept an image of Our Lady of Good Counsel in his rooms, which were the poorest in the
episcopal residence. During his last illness, which lasted fourteen days, he prayed almost
constantly, keeping his eyes fixed on the crucifix and a picture of Our Lady. And during the night
before his holy death, when an image of the Blessed Mother was carried to his bed, he immediately
opened his eyes and, as he gazed upon the image, his whole countenance became radiant with
delight.

Although the Redemptorists have always imitated their founder in his devotion to Our Lady,
it was in the course of the past century that they became in a particular manner the apostles of
devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. In 1866 the ancient picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help
was solemnly enthroned on the high altar of the Church of St. Alphonse in Rome (in Via Merulana,
not far from St. Mary Major); and the next year this picture was solemnly crowned. From that time
on, the Redemptorists began to acknowledge and to venerate Our Lady of Perpetual Help as their
own Patroness and to promote devotion to her all over the world. A special Confraternity of Our
Lady of Perpetual Help and St. Alphonse was founded in 1871; and in 1876 it was raised to the rank
of an archconfraternity. Pope Pius IX became its first member; and today it has about 2,700,000
members. A special feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was also instituted in 1876 for April 26.
At Santiago, Chile, the Redemptorists began what is called the perpetual veneration of Our Lady
of Perpetual Help, which means that a series of “choirs” spend ten continuous hours daily in
devotions to Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
672

10. The Salesians (S.D.B.)

Little more than a century ago, 1841, the Salesians were founded by St. John Bosco; but today
they are the largest congregation in the Church, having a membership of 17,356. Even among the
orders, only the Jesuits and the Franciscans have a larger membership.

St. John Bosco is rightly called the apostle of devotion to Our Lady Help of Christians. It was
not only a personal devotion of his, but he wished his followers also to cherish a special devotion
to Our Lady under this title. The sisterhood which he founded is called the Daughters of Our Lady
Help of Christians. In 1869 he founded an association of clients of Our Lady Auxiliatrix or Our
Lady Help of Christians, which has been raised to the rank of an archconfraternity and now has
some 25,000,000 members.
673

III. MARIAN SISTERHOODS IN THE UNITED STATES

Religious orders and congregations of women, having papal approval, are about 300 in number,
according to Father Roschini.
674 In Annuario Pontifico 1959 there are 38 pages of fine print, listing
the religious sisterhoods of the world which have received papal approval. Very many of these are
Marian sisterhoods in the sense that the holy name of Mary, in some form or other, is contained
in their official name. All of them are Marian sisterhoods in the sense that their members excel in
devotion to Our Lady. This is true also of the sisterhoods which have only diocesan approval.

In this survey we can present only a list of the 123 sisterhoods in the United States, including
both papal and diocesan communities, which are named for Our Lady. But even this list may
perhaps be regarded as a contribution to Mariology, especially since the various sisterhoods are
classified according to the several titles of Our Lady.

In the list that follows, the date following the name of the sisterhood indicates the year in
which it was established in the United States. (U.S.) after the date means that the sisterhood had
its origin in the United States. The place name which follows shows where the headquarters
(provincial or general mother house, or independent convent) are located.
675

I. Assumption of Our Lady:

1.   Congregation of the Assumption, 1919, Germantown, Philadelphia, Pa.

2.   Little Sisters of the Assumption, 1891, New York, N. Y.

3.   Sisters of the Assumption B.V.M., 1891, Nicolet, P. Q., Canada (with houses in the United
States).

II. Heart of Mary:

4.   California Institute of the Sisters of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, Los Angeles, Calif.

5.   Daughters of the Heart of Mary, 1851, New York, N. Y.

6.   Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 1929, Akron,
Ohio.

7.   Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary (Colored), 1917 (U.S.), New York,
N. Y.

8.   Franciscan Sisters, Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, 1872, Wheaton, Ill.

9.   Religious of the Holy Union of the Sacred Hearts, 1886, Fall River and Groton, Mass.

10. Sisters, Daughters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 1878, Tucson, Ariz.

11. Sisters of St. Francis of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 1913, Hankinson, N. Dak.

12. Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 1882, Bay View, Saco, Me.

13. Sisters, Servants of the Holy Heart of Mary, 1889, Beaverville, Ill.

14. Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 1845 (U.S.), Monroe, Mich.; West
Chester, Pa.; Scranton, Pa.

III. Immaculate Conception:

15. Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception (also called:
Dominican Sisters of the Sick Poor), 1879, New York, N. Y.

16. Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception, 1902, Great Bend,
Kans.

17. Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception, 1929, Justice, Oak
Lawn, Ill.

18. Congregation of the Third Order of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate, 1865 (U.S.), Joliet, Ill.

19. Daughters of Mary of the Immaculate Conception, 1904 (U.S.), New Britain, Conn.

20. Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, 1927, San Fernando, Calif.

21. Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, 1922,
Paterson, N. J.

22. Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, 1891 (U.S.), Little Falls, Minn.

23. Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, 1936, Buffalo, N. Y.

24. Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Order of St. Francis, 1901 (U.S.), Rock
Island, Ill.

25. Franciscan Sisters of Mary Immaculate of the Third Order of St. Francis in Pasto, 1932,
Amarillo, Texas.

26. Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and St. Joseph for the Dying, 1919 (U.S.),
Monterey, Calif.

27. Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, 1926, Woodbridge, N. J.

28. Minim Sisters of Mary Immaculate, 1926, León, Guanajuato, Mexico (with houses in the
United States).

29. Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, 1873 (U.S.), Newton, Mass.

30. Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, 1946, Marlboro, Mass.

31. Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate, 1920 (U.S.), Monroe, N. Y.

32. Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, 1874, (U.S.), New Orleans, La.

33. Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Lithuanian), 1936,
Putnam, Conn.

34. Sisters of St. Francis of the Immaculate Conception, 1891 (U.S.), Peoria, Ill.

35. Sisters of St. Francis of the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, Conventuals of the Third
Order, 1892 (U.S.), Hastings-on-Hudson, N. Y.

36. Sisters, Servants of Mary Immaculate, 1935, Toronto, Ont., Canada (with houses in the
United States).

37. Sister-Servants of the Holy Ghost and Mary Immaculate, 1888 (U.S.), San Antonio, Tex.

38. Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God,
1868 (U.S.), Millvale, Pittsburgh, Pa.

39. Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, 1868 (U.S.), Clinton, Iowa.

IV. Mary:

40. Company of Mary, 1926, Douglas, Ariz.

41. Congregation of the Sisters Marianites of Holy Cross, 1843, New Orleans, La.; Princeton,
N. J.

42. Cordi-Marian Missionary Sisters, 1926, San Antonio, Tex.

43. Daughters of Mary, Health of the Sick, 1935 (U.S.), Vista Maria, Cragsmoor, N. Y.

44. Daughters of Mary, Help of Christians (also called: Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco), 1908,
Paterson, N. J.

45. Daughters of Mary and Joseph (also called: Dames de Marie), 1926, Los Angeles, Calif.

46. Daughters of St. Mary of Providence, 1913, Chicago, Ill.

47. Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of St. Mary, 1860, New Orleans, La.

48. Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of St. Mary of the Springs, 1830, Columbus, Ohio.

49. Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, 1903, New York, N. Y.

50. Little Company of Mary Nursing Sisters, 1893, Evergreen Park, Ill.

51. Little Franciscan Sisters of Mary, 1889 (U.S.), Baie St. Paul, P.Q., Canada (with houses in the
United States).

52. Mantellate Sisters, Servants of Mary, 1916, Blue Island, Ill.

53. Marist Missionary Sisters (also called: Missionary Sisters of the Society of Mary), 1922,
Framingham Centre, Mass.

54. Medical Missionaries of Mary, 1950, Winchester, Mass.

55. Religious of Jesus-Mary, 1877, Highland Mills, N. Y.; El Paso, Tex.

56. Servants of Mary, 1893, Omaha, Nebr.; Ladysmith, Wis.

57. Servants of Mary (also called: Servite Sisters), Portland, Ore.

58. Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1833 (U.S.), Dubuque, Iowa.

59. Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, 1859, Marylhurst, Oregon; Los Gatos, Calif.;
Albany, N. Y.

60. Sisters of Mary of the Catholic Apostolate, 1949, Corpus Christi, Tex.

61. Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, 1840, St. Mary of the Woods, Ind.

62. Sisters of Reparation of the Congregation of Mary, 1890 (U.S.), New York, N. Y.

63. Sisters of St. Mary, 1886 (U.S.), Beaverton, Ore.

64. Sisters of St. Mary of Namur, 1863, Kenmore, N. Y.; Fort Worth, Tex.

65. Sisters of St. Mary of the Third Order of St. Francis, 1872 (U.S.), St. Louis, Mo.

66. Sisters Servants of Mary (Trained Nurses), 1914, Kansas City, Kans.

67. Sisters of the Holy Humility of Mary, 1864, Villa Maria, Pa.; Ottumwa, Iowa.

68. Sisters of the Purity of Mary, 1916, Aguascalientes, Mexico (with houses in the United
States).

69. Society of Mary Reparatrix, 1908, Cincinnati, Ohio.

70. Society of the Sisters of St. Ursula of the Blessed Virgin, 1902, Kingston, N. Y.

V. Mother of God:

71. Sisters of Mary Mother of God, 1952 (U.S.), Long Beach, Calif.

72. Sisters Poor Servants of the Mother of God, 1947, Norton, Va.; High Point, N. C.

VI. Notre Dame:

73. School Sisters de Notre Dame, 1910, Omaha, Neb.

74. School Sisters of Notre Dame, 1847, Milwaukee, Wis.; Baltimore, Md.; St. Louis, Mo.;
Mankato, Minn.

75. Sisters of the Congregation de Notre Dame, 1860, Grymes Hill, S. I., N. Y.

76. Sisters of Notre Dame, 1874, Cleveland, Ohio; Covington, Ky.; Toledo, Ohio.

77. Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, 1840, Waltham, Mass.; Ilchester, Md.; Reading, Pa.;
Cincinnati, Ohio; Saratoga, Calif.

78. Congregation of Notre Dame de Sion, 1912, Kansas City, Mo.

VII. Our Lady of Africa:

79. Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa (also called: White Sisters), 1929, Belleville, Ill.

VIII. Our Lady of the Angels:

80. Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of the Holy Angels, 1923, St. Paul, Minn.

IX. Our Lady of Charity:

81. Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, 1843, 7 Provinces in the U.S.

82. Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge, 1855, 12 independent convents in the United
States.

X. Our Lady of Christian Doctrine:

83. Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine, 1910 (U.S.), Nyack, N. Y.

XI. Our Lady of Guadalupe:

84. Sisters of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament of Guadalupe, 1925, Mexico City,
Mexico (with houses in the United States).

XII. Our Lady of Loretto:

85. Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (also called: Ladies of Loretto), 1892, Toronto, Canada
(with houses in the United States).

86. Sisters of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross (also called: Loretto Literary and Benevolent
Institution), 1812 (U.S.), Loretto, Nerinx, Ky.; Webster Groves, Mo.; Kansas City, Mo.;
Denver, Colo.

XIII. Our Lady of Lourdes:

87. Sisters of St. Francis of the Congregation of Our Lady of Lourdes, 1916 (U.S.), Sylvania,
Ohio.

88. Sisters of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis of the Congregation of Our Lady of
Lourdes, 1877 (U.S.), Rochester, Minn.

XIV. Our Lady of Mercy:

89. Daughters of Our Lady of Mercy, 1919, Newfield, N. J.

90. Missionaries of Our Lady of Mercy, 1946, Kansas City, Mo.

91. Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy, 1829 (U.S.), Charleston, S. C.

92. Sisters of Charity of Our Lady, Mother of Mercy, 1874, Baltic, Conn.

XV. Our Lady of Mt. Carmel:

93. Carmelite Sisters of the Aged and Infirm, 1929 (U.S.), Germantown, N. Y.

94. Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus, 1912, Wauwatosa, Wis.

95. Carmelite Sisters of the Third Order, Alhambra, Calif.

96. Carmelite Sisters of St. Therese of the Infant Jesus, 1917 (U.S.), Oklahoma City, Okla.

97. Congregation of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 1833, New Orleans, La.

98. Corpus Christi Carmelite Sisters, Middletown, N. Y.

99. Discalced Carmelite Nuns (also called: Second Order of Carmel), 1790, 45 convents in the
U.S.

100.           Institute of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, 1947, Hamilton, Mass.

XVI. Our Lady of Perpetual Help:

101.           Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, 1901 (U.S.), Ferguson, Mo.

XVII. Our Lady of the Cenacle:

102.           Congregation of Our Lady of the Retreat in the Cenacle, 1892, New York, N. Y.;
Milwaukee, Wis.

XVIII. Our Lady of the Rosary:

103.           Congregation of Our Lady of the Rosary, 1899, Rimouski, Canada (with houses in
the United States).

104.           Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of the Most Holy Rosary, 1849, Sinsinawa,
Wis.

105.           Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of the Most Holy Rosary, 1859, Newburgh,
N. Y.

106.           Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of the Most Holy Rosary, 1877, Adrian,
Mich.

107.           Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of Our Lady of the Rosary, 1876, Sparkill,
N. Y.

108.           Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of the Queen of the Rosary, 1876, Mission
San José, Calif.

XIX. Our Lady of the Sacred Heart:

109.           Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, 1873,
Springfield, Ill.

110.           110. Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, 1877,
Grand Rapids, Mich.

XX. Our Lady of Sorrows:

111.           Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows, 1949 (U.S.), Beaverton, Ore.

112.           Poor Sisters of Jesus Crucified and the Sorrowful Mother, 1924 (U.S.), Brockton,
Mass.

113.           Sisters of the Holy Cross and of the Seven Dolors, 1881, Manchester, N. H.

114.           Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother of the Third Order of St. Francis, 1889, Milwaukee,
Wis.

XXI. Our Lady, Queen of the Clergy:

115.           Congregation of Antonian Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Clergy, 1932, Chicoutimi,
Canada (with houses in the United States).

116.           Servants of Our Lady, Queen of the Clergy, 1936, Lac-au-Saumon, Canada (with
houses in the United States).

XXII. Our Lady of Victory:

117.           Our Lady of Victory Missionary Sisters, 1918 (U.S.), Huntington, Ind.

XXIII. Presentation of Our Lady:

118.           Dominican Sisters of Charity of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1906,
Fall River, Mass.

119.           Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1854, 10 mother houses in
the U.S.

120.           Sisters of the Presentation of Mary, 1873, Hudson, N. H.: Biddeford Pool, Me.

121.           Sisters of St. Mary of the Presentation, 1903, Spring Valley, Ill.; Valley City, N. Dak.

XXIV. Visitation of Our Lady:

122.           Sisters of the Visitation of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
Dubuque, Iowa.

123.           Visitation Nuns, 1799, 19 independent convents in the United States.

Marian Confraternities

by CHARLES J. CORCORAN, C.S.C.

A CONFRATERNITY is a voluntary association of the faithful, established and guided by
competent ecclesiastical authority, for the furtherance of public worship through the promotion
and exercise of special works of Christian charity or piety. It is distinct from the sodality and the
pious union. Unlike the sodality, its essential function is works of devotion; nor does it demand
its members to fulfill the obligations normally imposed upon sodality members. It differs from the
pious union in so far as it is always canonically erected and stresses the personal sanctification of
its members rather than the good of the neighbor. A confraternity which has received the
authority to aggregate to itself other associations and to communicate its advantages to them is
called an archconfraternity.
676

The confraternity appears to have been the peculiar prerogative of the cult of the Blessed
Virgin. Whenever and wherever the faithful have united to promote the Christian life, they have
invariably tended to form a Marian confraternity. And among these associations is found such
stimulating diversity that we cannot but recognize that each has its own genuine contribution to
make to Marian devotion. It is not sheer coincidence that confraternities first appeared in the East,
for devotion to Mary began and developed in the Orient far earlier than in the West. The great
Marian feast days were adopted by the Latin liturgy from the Greek-speaking part of the Empire
where they had already been celebrated for several centuries. The first recorded apparition of
Mary occurred in the East when she appeared to St. Gregory of Nazianzen. The first literary
documents of Marian devotion issued from the Fathers of the Greek Church. Images of Mary were
originally venerated in the Orient, and the first Marian shrines were to be found in Caesarea,
Edessa, Lydda, and on Mount Athos.
677

We have meager information about the Oriental prototype of the Marian confraternity. We
do know that confraternities existed in very ancient times at Constantinople and Alexandria, and
among these were several expressing some Marian virtue or trait. We are told that members of
such associations invoked the aid of Mary in some private and public difficulty. Possibly the
Oriental version of the confraternity does not antedate the fourth century, for it is recorded in the
sixth century that the Abbot Leontius, a famed theologian of the era, belonged to a confraternity
in Jerusalem founded by the Patriarch St. Elias in a.d. 494.
678 No consequent history of a Marian
confraternity is recorded until nearly nine hundred years later.

The later centuries of the Middle Ages, characteristically described as the “Age of Mary,”
provided fertile soil for the re-flowering of the confraternity. It might not be far amiss to suggest
that the Marian confraternity of the Middle Ages epitomized the extent and variety of the spiritual
life of the faithful, that interior life which provided the inspiration and aspiration for the still
unrivaled creations of medieval art. H. Durand asserts that the first Marian confraternity in the
West of which there is record was founded in Greece sometime prior to the thirteenth century.
But since its devotions were more of a private or domestic nature — an icon was carried from
house to house and private devotions were held before it — it could hardly qualify as a
confraternity in the technical sense.
679 The first such confraternity is thought to have been the
association founded at Paris by Bishop Odo around 1208. Among its members were men and
women of the highest social rank. We have records of at least seven others established before the
end of the century. From this time on, Marian confraternities rapidly multiplied throughout
Europe. A few of these primitive associations are still extant and thriving today, but most of the
current confraternities are of later origin. In the following paragraphs, brief notices will be given
of only the larger and better known among the confraternities.

1. Archconfrateraity of the Rosary

This confraternity is one of the more popular and prevalent of all the Marian associations.
Though figures are not available, it probably enjoys the largest membership of all by far. The
reason is quite obvious. For centuries the rosary has been proclaimed, and has been in fact, the
most common and popular form of devotion to Our Lady; little wonder, then, that the faithful
should so readily enroll in an association which, while it commits them to the recitation of the
rosary, also assures them substantial additional benefits.
680 These include, besides the special
protection of Our Lady of the Rosary, affiliation with the Dominican Order and a share in the
merits of all its members throughout the world. Obligations incumbent upon members of the
confraternity are: recitation of the fifteen decades of the rosary within each week, on beads blessed
for Dominican indulgences, and reflection on the mystery of each decade. The fifteen decades may
be recited all at once or at separate times or in part, provided only the total obligation is
discharged within the week. Failure to recite the rosary entails no sin but the omission entails the
loss of membership benefits. An indispensable condition for affiliation is the inscription of one’s
name on the register of the Dominican Church or house where the confraternity has been
canonically erected.

We have no clear-cut evidence of the existence of the Rosary Confraternity prior to the latter
part of the fifteenth century. Certainly there were some Dominican guilds and associations before
that time, but the available data does not warrant their identification with the Rosary
Confraternity. In 1470 Blessed Alan de Rupe founded at Douai (France) the first rosary association,
and four years later a successful confraternity was launched in Cologne by the Dominican James
Sprenger.
681 Through the efforts and zeal of the Dominican Fathers membership in the new
association quickly increased, and new affiliates multiplied rapidly throughout the universe.
682
Organization of these confraternities has always remained the exclusive prerogative of the
Dominicans, and no new association anywhere may be founded without the consent of the
Dominican General. On October 2, 1898, Pope Leo XIII issued the Apostolic Constitution Ubi
primum which proved equivalent to a new charter for the Rosary Archconfratemity insofar as it
specified its rights, privileges, and indulgences. The confraternity is the largest organization of its
kind within the Church and today may be found erected in virtually every parish.

2. The Confraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Ever since the coming of the Carmelite Friars to Europe about 1280 certain benefactors were
granted a participation in the prayers and good works of the Order and admitted to certain
suffrages after death. These were known as Confratres. From this practice there developed in the
sixteenth century, according to all probability, the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
or, as it is more popularly known, the Confraternity of the Scapular.
683 From the date of its formal
establishment the growth of the association bordered on the miraculous. At the outset of the
seventeenth century it existed in over a thousand Carmelite houses, and numbered among its
members practically every pope, bishop, and prince of the era. The confraternity has continued
to prosper in contemporary times and enjoys the reputation of being one of the oldest as well as
one of the more prominently known devotions to Mary.

Affiliation with the confraternity is automatic upon enrollment in the Brown Scapular; in other
words, the association comprises all those who have been so enrolled. Sole condition for
membership is the wearing of the scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Members, if they wish,
may gain the Sabbatine Privilege which is associated with, but independent of, the confraternity.
This requires the observance of two simple conditions: recitation of the Little Office and the
observance of chastity according to one’s state of life. Since virtually every other Catholic is
enrolled in the scapular, current membership in the confraternity is roughly estimated to be in
excess of 200,000,000 persons.

3. Confraternity of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

No Marian cult boasts the colorful and tumultuous history associated with the founding of this
confraternity. Since the fifteenth century the devotions of the confraternity have been related to
the veneration of the image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help now actually in the Church of St.
Alphonsus in Rome. Originally venerated in Crete (this oriental origin explains its icon form), the
image was stolen by a merchant of the island and placed in the Church of St. Matthew in Rome
on March 27, 1449. In the Revolution of 1798 the Church was plundered and the image removed
from public cult and secreted. Sixty-five years later, through a series of providential circumstances,
it was located in an oratory at Santa Maria in Posterula. Meanwhile, the Redemptorists had erected
a house on the ruins of old St. Matthew’s dedicated to their holy Founder. On December 11, 1865,
Pope Pius IX ordered the picture transferred to this Redemptorist house, thus returning the image
to the site which the Blessed Mother herself was said to have chosen for its veneration by the
faithful. From that time on, the Redemptorists have assumed the propagation of the devotion to
Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
684

Restoration of the image to the Church of St. Alphonsus precipitated fresh devotion to Mary
through the image. At the request of Father Mauron, Superior General of the Redemptorists, Pius
IX granted permission for the canonical erection of the confraternity in Rome.
685 This was effected
on the feast of the Holy Trinity, June 4, 1871. So popular did the devotion become, and so rapid
the growth of similar associations, that on March 31, 1876, Pope Pius IX raised it to the dignity of
an archconfraternity and himself enrolled as its first member.
686

The archconfraternity proposes to honor Mary as Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and to have
particular recourse to her in spiritual and temporal necessities. Members must be enrolled in the
confraternity catalogue of a Church where the association has been canonically erected; practically
every Redemptorist Church enjoys this right. The Act of Consecration to Our Lady of Perpetual
Help with renewals on stipulated occasions is required of all members. In return, members share
in the public works and devotions of the confraternity and of the Congregation, and enjoy the
advantages of many plenary and partial indulgences. World-wide in scope, the confraternity
numbers units throughout Europe and the Americas. Each year new associations have been
aggregated to the archconfraternity so that the latest estimate (May, 1948) recorded 2713
confraternities, numbering 2,700,600 members dispersed throughout the world.

4. Confraternity of Our Lady Help of Christians

This association is the third living monument founded by St. John Bosco to the honor and glory
of Mary. The erection of the confraternity in the Sanctuary of Baldocco in Turin on April 18, 1869,
was the Saint’s reply to the insistent plea of the faithful who desired to unite in a mutual spirit of
prayer and devotion to Mary under the title Help of Christians. Canonical erection of the
confraternity occasioned world-wide requests for membership.
687

Devotion to Mary under the aegis Help of Christians is very ancient and replete with historical
significance. The appellation is anterior to the pontificate of Pius V, and in origin it antidates that
of the Litany of Loretto.
688 Even the new confraternity was not the first to honor Mary under that
title but was, in part, a revival of the original association founded in Bavaria in 1684 in
thanksgiving to Mary for the signal graces with which she favored the Christian warriors in the
delivery of Vienna from the siege of the Turks in 1683.

Revival of the confraternity culminated Don Bosco’s ambition, inspired by a prophetic dream,
to devote himself with Mary’s help to mission work, most especially among boys. A papal brief
of March 16, 1869, established the association; on April 5, 1870, Pope Pius IX favored it with the
status of an archconfraternity. Later, Pope Leo XIII granted it two other privileged concessions.
689
Membership is effected through registry with a Salesian institution where the confraternity has
been canonically erected. The sole obligation binding upon members, though not under pain of
sin, is the observance of seven simple rules. More than one hundred branches with a total
membership of 25,000,000 persons are currently affiliated with the archconfratemity.
690

5. Confraternity of Mary Queen of All Hearts

This confraternity was founded by Father Lavallée in Ottawa, Canada, on March 25, 1899, and
approved by Leo XIII on June 22 of the same year.
691 Numerous branches took root from the Ottawa
foundation and soon spread through all North America. In the United States the first canonical
erection of this confraternity took place on December 8, 1928 in the Church of St. Francis of Assisi,
New York City, through the efforts of Brother Cajetan Baumann, O.F.M. In 1906 it was established
in Rome, and seven years later it was raised to the dignity of an archconfraternity by Pope St. Pius
X. A clerical branch of the confraternity was founded in 1906. Both lay and clerical groups are
administered by the Company of Mary (the Montfort Fathers) founded by St. Louis M. Grignion
de Montfort.
692

The purpose of the confraternity is to establish within men the reign of Mary as a means of
facilitating the reign of Jesus in souls — the holy slavery of Jesus through Mary which St. Louis
de Montfort formulated into a definite method of the spiritual life. Obligatory conditions for
membership are enrollment in the official register of the association, recital of the Act of
Consecration, and some accompanying good works. Currently, the confraternity numbers 89
branches throughout the world. No membership figures of the worldwide association are available,
but the Ottawa branch exceeds 100,000 members while the Bay Shore unit in the United States
approximates 40,000 persons.
693

6. Confraternity of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady

The founding of this confraternity anticipated the establishment of the religious order which
was to direct its destiny. In the early years of the thirteenth century seven youths from as many
prominent patrician families formed a community of laymen known as Laudesi, or Praisers of
Mary. While engaged in the exercises of the association on the feast of the Assumption (1233), the
Blessed Virgin appeared to them and recommended the foundation of a religious order. On April
15, 1240, following another apparition of the Blessed Virgin, the Order of the Servants of Mary was
established. Thus, from humble beginnings as an association of pious laymen, was born one of the
most remarkable and zealous Orders in the Church.
694

The history of the confraternity was either terminated or obscured with the founding of the
Order, for it does not appear again until 1645. The immediate predecessor of the confraternity
appears to have been the Third Order, or the Association of the Habit, as it was known prior to
1645. Somewhat earlier than this, about the turn of the sixteenth century, several associations
dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrow had been established in the city of Bruges through the efforts of
John Van Coudenberghe. Eventually, certain of these groupings were aggregated to the Servite
Order which has since propagated the devotion of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady. Branches of
the Confraternity exist throughout the world.
695

7. Confraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

The first canonically erected confraternity to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was founded in
Naples in 1640 by Father Vincent Guinigi, Cler. Reg. Much better known, however, are those
associations dedicated to the Heart of Mary founded by St. John Eudes beginning in 1648. Most
famous of these foundations is that of Morlaix, established in 1666. In 1806 the Archconfraternity
of the Sacred Heart was founded in the parish church of St. Eustace in Rome and approved two
years later. Perhaps the most patronized confraternity dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
is that founded in Paris in 1836 by Father Degennetes. This association enjoyed the status of an
archconfraternity and was especially devoted to Mary as the patroness for the conversion of
sinners. The over-all purpose of the Immaculate Heart confraternities is the more perfect living
of the Christian life and the adoption of the spirit of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as a
preparation for union with Jesus. Current membership is in excess of 50,000,000 persons.
696

8. The Confraternity of the Three Hail Marys

In the year 1261 Our Lady appeared to St. Mechtilde and assured her that the daily recitation
of three Hail Marys in thanksgiving to each of the Three Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity would
obtain for her the Blessed Virgin’s assistance in the hour of death. The Saint immediately
propagated the devotion which soon gained great renown. Much of the subsequent history of the
association has been lost, and it appears to have gone into temporary eclipse. Within
comparatively recent years it was revived in France by Father John Baptist of Blois, O.F.M.Cap.
From this time on, it began to prosper again and was elevated to the rank of an archconfraternity
in 1921 by Pope Benedict XV.
697 Members of the group are obligated to recite daily the three Hail
Marys with the ejaculation: “My Mother, deliver me this day from mortal sin.” The association is
credited with the conversion of innumerable sinners.
698

9. The Confraternity of the Blue Scapular

Origins of this association are traceable to a vision of the Blessed Virgin granted to Venerable
Ursula Benincasa on the feast of the Purification in 1617. The Blessed Virgin bade the nun to found
a hermitage in which consecrated women would lead solitary and penitential lives. Eager for the
sanctification of all men, the holy woman begged the Blessed Virgin for a similar devotion for the
laity. Mary consented, stipulating that the laity wear a small blue habit and faithfully discharge
the duties proper to their state of life. The Scapular, as it came to be known, was received with
incredible favor, and eventually led to the founding of the confraternity. The association was
established in 1894 in the Theatine Church of St. Andrea della Valle in Rome and was raised to the
dignity of a confraternity within a year. Admission to the confraternity requires investiture with
the Blue Scapular and inscription in the register of the Association. Those who received the
Scapular prior to September 18, 1894, are not obliged to enroll in the confraternity. The association
is administered and propagated by the Theatine Fathers.
699

10. The Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception

This Marian association stems from the eighteen apparitions of the Blessed Mother to St.
Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes, in Southern France, in 1858. The confraternity was established
shortly after the apparitions. The American unit of the association was founded at Notre Dame,
Indiana, December 8, 1874, as part of the University’s total consecration of its life and activity to
the glory of Mary. This foundation is now affiliated with the archconfraternity since established
at Lourdes. Membership in the association is free and every name inscribed on its register is in
perpetuity. Members are obligated to a few simple devotions which do not bind under pain of sin.
The society enjoys many plenary and partial indulgences.
700

11. The Confraternity of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament

Early in January of the year 1851 Blessed Pierre Eymard, a Marist priest renowned for his
devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Fourvière in
France. Shortly after, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and proposed the establishment of the
Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. In Paris, on January 6, 1857, the new congregation was
duly approved and constituted, and became the champion of the devotion to Our Lady of the
Blessed Sacrament.
701 The confraternity itself was established in Lyons, France, in 1870, and was
disseminated throughout Europe and the Americas where it has been held in high repute.
702 It
should be noted that the confraternity aroused much theological speculation and contention as
to the nature of Mary’s relationship with the Eucharistic Christ.
703

12. The Confraternity of the Guard of Honor

Chronologically, the latest Marian association to be raised to the rank of an archconfraternity
is the one popularly known as The Guard of Honor of The Immaculate Heart of Mary. It was
founded by the zealous German Franciscan, Father Bonaventure Blattmann (✝ 1942), at St. Anne’s
monastery in Munich, and canonically established by an Apostolic Brief of Pius XI in 1932. By 1951
The Guard had attained to such prominence in the field of Marian apostolate that Pius XII elevated
it to the dignity of an archconfraternity on December 17 of that year.

The aim of The Guard members is to give a practical answer to the message of Fatima: to pray,
to do penance, to promote devotion to Our Lady and consecration to her Immaculate Heart, and
to accept willingly the trials that God sends them for the conversion of sinners. The guards are
also exhorted to engage in catechetical instruction, to visit the dying and prepare them to receive
the sacraments, and to work actively for the conversion of pagans.
704

Ever since its foundation The Guard of Honor has spread all over the world, particularly in the
United States, with amazing speed. Its present membership is estimated to be well over three
million.
705

Conclusion. These brief notices by no means exhaust the number of Marian confraternities.
706
However, they are representative of the nature, scope, purpose, and function of the confraternity
in the prayer and devotional life of the Church. In summation, we may say that virtually all these
associations originated with one or another of the various religious orders and congregations. The
name “confraternity” itself probably comes from the Latin “confratres,” the appellation given to
members of the laity who allied themselves with the various religious houses and participated in
the spiritual goods of the community without being actual members. A final distinguishing mark
of the confraternity is that its members are not bound in conscience to observe its rules and
obligations.

Marian confraternities suggest a simple but effective way to honor Our Blessed Lady in her
various titles and privileges. In addition, they help us to realize and understand the fundamental
truth expressed by Pope Pius XII in 1947 at the time of the canonization of St. Louis Grignion de
Montfort: “True devotion, that of Tradition, that of the Church, that, We say, of Christian and
Catholic good sense, tends essentially toward union with Jesus under the guidance of Mary.”
707

Finally, the Marian confraternity assists in bringing to fruition Mary’s own prophecy in her
sublime Magnificat: “All generations shall call me blessed.”
708

Marian Associations

by WILLIAM F. KEEGAN, C.S.C.

ASSOCIATIONS of the faithful erected for the exercise of some work of piety or religion are called
“pious unions.” When constituted as organic bodies, they are known as “sodalities”; when erected
for the embellishment of public worship, they are termed “confraternities.” The basic concept —
pious unions — while distinct from the third order, confraternity, and sodality, is, nevertheless,
an alliance with an explicit religious purpose. It possesses spiritual benefits, enjoys ecclesiastical
approbation, and has the privilege of aggregating to itself similar groups under the aegis of a
“primary” pious union.
709 These concepts and distinctions are applicable to the organizations to be
considered in the following pages.

Marian associations have existed and flourished in the Church since the middle of the
sixteenth century. Originally, they were classified into three distinct groups: associations for
young men, associations for girls, and associations for the faithful of both sexes. This division has
more or less continued down to the present, although different ages have witnessed the
predominance of one or another of these categories in the spiritual life and devotion of the faithful.
In contemporary times emphasis is placed upon associations for the faithful of both sexes. This
tendency has been accompanied by a deeper stress upon personal sanctification rather than upon
the exercise of public cult.

In this chapter we shall give a brief account of: (1) The Children of Mary; (2) The Pious Union
of Our Lady of Good Counsel; (3) The Court of Mary; (4) The Militia of Mary Immaculate; (5) The
Reparation Society of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; and (6) The Blue Army.
710

I. THE CHILDREN OF MARY

The oldest known Children of Mary sodality was founded by Bl. Peter de Honestis (degli
Onesti) in Ravenna (Italy) in the thirteenth century. However, no further traces of it have been
discovered after the founder’s death.
711 Similar groups were started by St. Peter Canisius (✝ 1597)
in Freiburg in 1581;
712 by provost Jost Knab (✝ 1658) in Luzern, approved by Alexander VII in 1650;
713
by Father Lucchetti of Bergamo, in Lugano, 1817;
714 and by Father X. de Ravignan, S.J. (✝ 1858), in
Paris.
715

Historically more important than the above is the Children of Mary sodality originating from
the apparitions of Our Blessed Lady to St. Catherine Labouré in 1830. It was formally organized
through the zeal of the Superior General of the Vincentians in 1847, and approved by Pius IX that
same year. There are about 5000 sodalities attached to this group, and their total membership is
now in the millions. It is from this pious union that the most famous Children of Mary sodality
actually derives, namely, the one established in the parish of St. Agnes in Rome in the year 1862
by the Lateran Canon Orestes Passeri. It was approved by Pius IX and later raised to the rank of
“primary.”
716

The Children of Mary sodality is perhaps the most highly organized of all the various Marian
associations. Minimum age for membership is fifteen years, and applicants remain in the category
of postulants for a period of from three months to a year before being formally enrolled as
members. Characteristic of this sodality is the wearing of the Miraculous Medal. By authorization
of the Sacred Congregation of the Council in 1931, the pious union may be erected in all the
parishes and institutions whose pastors or chaplains request it. The Paris motherhouse of the
Sisters of Charity is the nerve-center of the association, but for all practical purposes each group
retains its independence. The primary aim of the sodality is the veneration of Our Blessed Lady
in her Immaculate Conception, and the personal sanctification of its members coupled with a true
social apostolate.
717

II. THE PIOUS UNION OF OUR LADY OF GOOD COUNSEL

The pilot model for Marian associations of the faithful of both sexes is the one known as The
Pious Union of Our Lady of Good Counsel. It was founded in the second half of the eighteenth
century in Genazzano (Italy) for the purpose of honoring Mary under the title of Our Lady of Good
Counsel, whose miraculous icon is said to have appeared in the Augustinian church of that town
in 1467. The association, formally approved by Benedict XIV in 1759, has since enjoyed wide
popularity, not only in Italy, but also in the United States where it claims over one million
members. In 1903 Leo XIII added to the Litany the invocation: “Mother of Good Counsel, pray for
us.”
718

III. THE COURT OF MARY

This pious union was founded by Father Raymond Leal, S.J., in Madrid in the year 1839. It is
made up of “choirs” of 31 persons, each of whom undertakes to visit a church on a different day
of the month, particularly during May, and recite the Litany and the Hail, Holy Queen before an
image of Our Lady in order to obtain the grace of a happy death.

This association, which was approved by Pius IX in 1847, and enriched with many indulgences
by Gregory XVI, has witnessed an amazing growth within recent decades, not only in Spain, but
in other countries as well. At present it boasts of some 20,000 “choirs.”
719

IV. THE MILITIA OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Of more recent origin is the association known as The Militia of Mary Immaculate. It drew its
inspiration from the celebrated story of Alphonsus Ratisbon’s conversion in 1842 through the
mediation of Mary Immaculate. Learning of this spiritual saga while a student in Rome (1917), a
Polish Conventual, Friar Maximilian Kolbe, was inspired to invoke Mary’s intercession anew for
the conversion of contemporary anti-Christians. Accordingly, together with six other Franciscan
friars, he founded the Militia in Rome on October 17, 1917. The express purpose of the
organization is to conquer souls for Christ through absolute self-dedication to Mary Immaculate.

Under the auspices of the Friars Minor Conventual, the Militia received the formal approval
of Benedict XV on April 4, 1918. On January 2, 1922, it was canonically established as a pious union
by Cardinal Pompilj. Pius XI later elevated it to the dignity of a primary union with affiliates in
Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The ranks of the organization grew from 450 members in 1920 to
a current enrollment of two million. Membership is open to any Catholic of either sex, and
members are free to choose their own appropriate means of promoting the specific aims of the
organization. No member of the Militia contracts any obligation binding under pain of sin. After
many years of apostolic labors, Father Kolbe met a holy and heroic death in the Nazi concentration
camp at Oswiecim, Poland, on the Vigil of the Assumption, August 14, 1941. His cause for
beatification has been officially initiated.
720

V. THE REPARATION SOCIETY OF THE IMMACULATE

HEART OF MARY

The Fatima apparitions of Our Lady in 1917 provided the incentive for the creation of two
recent and popular Marian associations, both of which are dedicated to implement the desires
expressed by Our Lady to the three Portuguese children. The first of these associations is The
Reparation Society of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, founded in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1946 by
Father John Ryan, S.J. As its name implies, its members endeavor to offer public reparation to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary and thereby obtain the conversion of sinners. The principal means for
achieving this purpose: daily recitation of the Rosary, daily sacrifices, the First Saturday
communion and meditation.
721

The organization of the group was made purposely flexible so that the members could adapt
the movement to local needs and circumstances, while, of course, adhering to the primary goal of
the association, namely, the rebuilding of human society through the sanctification of its members.
The association may be organized anywhere by anyone. A monthly publication, Fatima Findings,
supplies a meditation for the First Saturday of each month, adapted to the liturgical season. As of
1954, membership in the society was estimated to be 62,679 in 54 countries. It is particularly strong
along the eastern seaboard of the United States.

VI. THE BLUE ARMY

Another important and rapidly developing association which draws its inspiration from the
Fatima apparitions is The Blue Army, founded in 1947 by the Rt. Rev. Msgr. Harold V. Colgan, pastor
of St. Mary’s church in Plainsfield, N. J. Headquarters are now located in the newly constructed
East-West Shrine near the site of the Fatima basilica. An information center has also been
established in Paris to co-ordinate the activities of the association throughout the network of its
member nations which now encircle the Iron Curtain. Monsignor Colgan is the international
director of the movement, while the American national commander is Mr. John M. Haffert.
722

Members of The Blue Army pledge themselves to carry out Our Lady’s requests at Fatima for the
conversion of Russia and for world peace through the practice of prayer and self-denial. They
likewise bind themselves (although not under pain of sin) to recite the Rosary. The Rosary, the
Scapular, self-sacrifice and reparation are the weapons with which The Blue Army endeavors to
achieve its goal. The association publishes a bi-monthly organ entitled Soul. It also gives an annual
award for outstanding service in counteracting the evil of Communism and promoting world
peace. In 1954 The Blue Army numbered five million members in 33 countries; of these, two million
and a half were in the United States.
723

The above selective sampling will afford some understanding of the scope and variety of the
ubiquitous Marian associations. While regarded, in a sense, as the nadir in the firmament of
religious organizations dedicated to the honor of Our Lady, these and other pious unions do shed
together an effulgence which they may lack individually. Their very informality, their flexibility
of rules and organization, admirably lend themselves to the varying temperaments and
inclinations of the faithful; thus they provide ready and facile means for the veneration of Mary
under her numerous titles and prerogatives. In addition to providing excellent means for the
cultivation of Marian virtues, they also furnish a suitable outlet for that spontaneous devotion
which has so often contributed to the promulgation of Marian doctrines.

The Sodalities of Our Lady

by RICHARD L. ROONEY, S.J.

SEPTEMBER 27, 1948, is a date that will long be remembered. It was on that day that Pius XII, on
the occasion of the second centenary of the publication of the Golden Bull, Gloriosae Dominae of
Benedict XIV on the Sodalities of Our Lady, gave to the Universal Church his Apostolic
Constitution, Bis saeculari, on the same subject.
724 Unquestionably this great document, which the
Pope himself called their Magna Charta,
725 marks the opening of a new epoch in the life of these
Marian organizations. To understand the full significance that this constitution has for them and
for the Church in this Age of Mary and Age of the Laity, it must be seen against the background
of the previous four hundred years of the Sodalities’ existence.

Even a cursory review of those four centuries will show anyone the clear fact that, since their
inception in 1563, the Sodalities of Our Lady have written more than one page ablaze with light
and life in the history of mankind and of the Mystical Body of Mary’s Son. To relate their
achievements in full would require a volume. What follows in these pages is but a thumbnail
sketch of the breadth and depth of the influence these organizations have exerted — and are still
exerting — in the Church of Christ.

Just one of their accomplishments, however, can be seen from the following statistics. Sixteen
sodalists have risen to the Chair of Peter, Pope Pius XII being the most outstanding sodalist of our
own age. Forty-three sodalists have been canonized. More than sixty of them have been beatified.
Thirty-eight sodalists, twenty-seven of them men, have founded forty-three religious
communities. Many other sodalists have governed nations; not a few of them have had supreme
command of armies.
726

Even if the Sodalities had nothing else to show for their existence than these great souls, they
would be well worthy of consideration in any volume that deals with what men have done and
are still doing today for Jesus through Mary.

I. BIRTH AND CRADLE DAYS

The year 1563 came in the midst of a critical period of the Church’s life, a period not unlike
today’s in fact.

Within the Church itself the dark night of ignorance of religious truth reigned in the souls of
many. Men’s minds were plunged into a whirlpool of revolutionary ideas and false theories. The
lower classes were forsaking the bosom of Mother Church. In many places, too many of the clergy
lacked both the knowledge and the conduct that their station called for.

The Moslem hordes had risen again out of the East and were battering at the gates of Christian
Europe. It was only in 1571 that their assault was finally repulsed by the famous victory at
Lepanto.

In Northern Europe the Protestant revolt was in full swing. The Eucharistic Christ and His
Mother were being exiled from the Scandinavian peninsula, from England, parts of the
Netherlands, Germany, and France.

It was with this frightening and challenging world-picture before his eyes that a young priest,
John Leunis by name, a teacher at the Roman College of the Society of Jesus, called together a few
of his most promising students one afternoon in the fall of 1563. This was the first of what grew
into a series of meetings held daily throughout the remainder of that school year. It was out of
these mustard-seed beginnings that the nearly 80,000 Sodalities spread across the world today took
their start.
727

On a table, arranged like an altar, around which these meetings centered, there was a statue
of Our Lady. Devotion in the sense of complete devotedness to her was to characterize everything
that this original band and their successors did. They have always, right from the beginning,
looked to her as Queen of Apostles, for it was not Fr. Leunis’ intention that these original sodalists
should meet, say a few prayers, go through some devotional exercises in Mary’s honor, listen to
a talk, and then let it go at that.

Such piety as this was hardly sufficient to meet the terrible dangers and exciting challenge of
those times any more than it would be equal to those of our own century. After the mind of the
founder of his Order, St. Ignatius, it was the young Jesuit’s intention to make real, active apostles
of these young men.
728 They were to be apostles, first of all, to their fellow students, then to their
families and their environment. He wanted these young men to develop such an intensely
vigorous apostolic Christ-life within themselves that after college they would go forth to cast the
fire of their zeal on all those with whom they came in contact wherever they might go in the
world.

Father Leunis’ ambition and plan were not entirely original. Twenty years before, St. Ignatius
and his first companions had formed lay men and boys into apostolic groups which were to give
a lasting quality to their own priestly ministries.
729 Similar organizations had also been instituted
for the students of the infant colleges of the newly founded Society of Jesus. The original group
that surrounded Fr. Leunis was apparently at first only another one of these earlier groups. They
little knew, unpretentious as their meeting and their actions were, that they were actually the
seedlings of organizations that would spread over the whole globe and be characterized some four
hundred years later by Pope Pius XII as being “among the most powerful spiritual forces” in the
Church.
730

All the students of the Roman College in those days talked Latin. Hence they called this group
of theirs by the names of congregatio, sodalitium, sodalitas. These are the names that have been
retained and have been used interchangeably in all official documents and in the papal bulls,
apostolic letters, and constitutions ever since. Today, while those in other countries adhere to the
word “congregation,” the word “sodality” is the common usage among those who speak English.

As Fr. Leunis’ group met day after day during the scholastic year of 1563-1564 and as it grew
from the first mere handful to some seventy-odd members from among all the classes in the
College a definite plan formed in the young Jesuit’s mind. By the end of that year it had
crystallized as follows.
731

Although no formal patron had been chosen in their earliest days, by the spring of 1564 the
group dedicated itself to the Blessed Virgin Mary as its heavenly patroness under the title of her
Annunciation, the title of the Roman College Church that was then abuilding. This original Marian
character has remained ever since as an outstanding mark of all the Sodalities that have grown
out of that original one.

The organizational structure of this first Sodality was simple enough. The seventy or so
sodalists were divided into a number of small groups, twelve in all. At the head of each of these
was a sodalist whose office it was to see to the conduct and studies of the other sodalists under
his care. These twelve division heads were appointed to their positions by a Prefect, a man elected
from among the older and more mature Sodality members. At the peak of this organizational
pyramid was Fr. Leunis himself as Priest Director.

In order to achieve the twofold purpose of this Sodality, namely, continual advance in apostolic
holiness and progressive proficiency in studies, Fr. Leunis drew up a set of rules (leges).
732
Subsequent editions, those, for example, of 1587, 1855, and 1910, have not changed these
substantially but have only given them greater detail and applied them to the needs of the times.
733
These rules saw to it that the sodalists went through certain daily and weekly spiritual exercises
and engaged in the labors of the apostolate.

Each day they assisted at Mass and recited the Rosary or some other prayer in honor of Our
Lady. Further, as part of their daily after-class meetings, they made a mental prayer for a quarter
of an hour, discussed what they had done or were planning to do, and made an examination of
conscience. Every week the sodalists received the Sacrament of Penance and went to Holy
Communion. Though these latter seem quite ordinary at present, they were very revolutionary
actions in those days. On Sunday the Priest Director gave a short, informal, inspirational
instruction. On feast days, after Vespers, some sodalists went to visit the sick in hospitals, others
made pilgrimages to the tombs of the saints, and still others devoted themselves to various works
of mercy and of the apostolate.
734

So much space has been devoted to this original Sodality simply because it set the essential
pattern from which all subsequent Sodalities have deviated but little. The four essential
characteristics of today’s Sodalities noted by Pius XII in the Bis saeculari are easily discernible in
their original prototype: a consecrated devotion to Mary, a deep and intense interior life flowing
over into a dynamic apostolate, and all of these being worked at under the leadership of Christ in
His Church.
735

II. THE SODALITIES GROW

It was not long before this first Sodality of the Roman College showed that sign characteristic
of all living bodies: the power of reproduction.

The original sodalists almost to a man, after they had finished their studies, initiated Sodalities
for the faithful in every state of life and every class of society where they went.

Both by reason of their activities, and because Fr. Leunis himself was sent by his superiors to
Perugia, Paris, and other cities and towns in Europe where he repeated what he had done in
Rome,
736 by 1573 or in the space of ten short years, there were Sodalities in twenty-two important
cities of Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal. Not long after, they sprang up also in Belgium, the
Netherlands, the Rhineland, Bavaria, Bohemia, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, and Mexico.
737 They
constituted a very militant section of the laity’s spearhead of Counter Reformation in those
countries where Protestantism had made its inroads. God alone knows how many sections of those
countries and how many thousands of souls these early Sodalities brought back to the true faith.
738

III. THE PRIMA PRIMARIA

Twenty years after the foundation of his first Sodality, Fr. John Leunis died at Turin on
November 19, 1584.

Only sixteen days later Pope Gregory XIII issued his bull Omnipotentis Dei by which he gave
the original Sodality at the Roman College full canonical status and enriched it with many and
valuable indulgences and privileges. In this same bull the Pope designated it as the Primary
Sodality and declared that all other Sodalities that existed in the colleges of the Society of Jesus
for students and for all classes of the faithful would henceforth depend on the Roman College
Sodality “as members on their head.” Finally, this Pope also gave the General of the Society of
Jesus the authority to aggregate other Sodalities to the First Primary Sodality, thus enabling them
to share in the indulgences and privileges he had bestowed upon it.
739

It is easy enough to see why this first Sodality should be called Primary. The term First Primary
or Prima Primaria, however, can be confusing. Its meaning becomes clear when one remembers
that the Sodality at the Roman College had expanded greatly in the twenty years of its existence.
By 1569 it had been broken down into two main divisions: one for high school students, the other
for collegians and students of theology. By 1590 it had grown yet more, so that further division
was necessary. While these divisional groups together made up but one Sodality (the Primary
[Primaria] Sodality mentioned by Pope Gregory), they were named individually First Primary,
Second Primary, Third and Fourth Primary. With the passage of time the Primary Sodality was
reduced again in numbers to such an extent that only the First Primary, the Prima Primaria
remained. It is this Prima Primaria or First Primary Sodality that is in existence today. It is to this
same Prima Primaria also that all those who wish to share in its spiritual riches are aggregated
even at the present time.
740

As the Sodalities increased in popularity and spread, they encountered certain difficulties. To
clear these up, further papal documents and grants were issued. For example, Pope Sixtus V in his
bull Superna dispositione, of January 5, 1587, authorized the General of the Jesuits to erect more
than one Sodality in a single college or religious house of the Order, and to affiliate them to the
Prima Primaria.
741 Again, the same Pope on September 29 of that same year by another bull,
Romanum decet, extended this power of affiliation so that Sodalities in religious houses that did
not belong to the Society of Jesus as such but that were under Jesuit care could erect Sodalities and
affiliate them also.

By the year 1658 the Sodality of the Roman College had some 1459 other Sodalities affiliated
with it. In those days membership in these organizations was restricted to men only. It was not
until September 8, 1751, that Pope Benedict XIV granted the General of the Society of Jesus the
right to affiliate Sodalities of women to the Prima Primaria. Actually, many vigorous Sodalities of
women and girls were functioning prior to this grant, one of them being that founded in 1705 at
Marseilles, France, by Fr. Joseph Croiset, S.J.
742

It is interesting to note that the Sodalities in those days were to be found in every walk of life
and on every social level of the faithful. There was a Sodality of sailors and fishermen of the Port
of Naples. There were Sodalities for priests, seminarians, artisans, civic officials, merchants,
students, folk of the middle class, nobles, apprentices, domestics, yes, even one for beggars!
743

Two other facts are also noteworthy. First, all these early Sodalities were formed along
functional or vocational lines. Until 1825 there were no Parish Sodalities. The reason for this is
obvious. The Jesuits did not have parish churches as we know them today, but only what are
called “collegiate” churches. Hence their Sodalities were not parochial but city-wide in
membership. Second, even a very brief run-through of the work done by those same earlier-day
Sodalities shows that they were deeply engaged in what we call today the Social Apostolate.
Cardinal Bausset of France, speaking of them in 1808, summed up their labors in these words:

Men still remember that in the principal commercial towns there never was more order and peace,
more honesty in business, less bankruptcy and less depravity, than when the Sodalities existed. The
Jesuits knew how to link the Sodalities with all professions and with all social institutions. These
Sodalities helped maintain among all classes and conditions that public morality, that spirit of order,
and that prudent economy which keeps peace and harmony in families and makes for the prosperity
of empires.
744

When the Society of Jesus was suppressed in 1773, the Sodalities ceased to be mere lay
prolongations of a religious Order and became the direct possession of the Church as such. At that
time, there were about 2500 of them throughout the then-known world. This is a small number,
of course, in comparison with their present count of nearly 80,000. Nevertheless, we gather from
history and from the Bis saeculari of Pope Pius XII that these two centuries were actually the
Golden Age of the Sodalities’ existence.

IV. DEATH AND RESURRECTION

In their earliest years the Sodalities of Our Lady fought valiantly against the horrendous evil
of the Protestant Deformation.

In the midst of the seventeenth century, however, they joined battle with another even more
insidious enemy, one that was spawned within the household of the Church itself: Jansenism.

One instance will suffice to show how bitterly the Jansenists opposed the Sodalities. During
the reign of Louis XIV, the marshals of the French armies actively recruited officers for the
Sodalities of the military. Immediately on the death of the King, however, the Jansenists obtained
from the French Regent an order banning all Sodalities in the armed forces.
745

To protect and strengthen the position of the Sodalities which they admired so thoroughly, the
Popes who reigned during these troublous times praised them highly and poured fuller favors on
them. On September 27, 1748, for example, in the Golden Bull mentioned before, Pope Benedict
XIV extolled them and granted them tremendous new privileges and indulgences. Despite the fact
that all the Sodalities of France had been suppressed by then as a result of Jansenist pressure —
those in Spain and Portugal and Naples soon underwent the same fate — Pope Clement XIII in his
bull Apostolicum, which was a vigorous rebuke to the Sodalities’ enemies, solemnly praised them
and confirmed and renewed all the grants made in their favor by the bulls and apostolic
constitutions of his predecessors.

By 1773, however, the political pressure brought to bear on the Papacy by the anticlerical and
Jansenistic rulers and statesmen of France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy became insufferable. On July
21 of that year, in a brief entitled Dominus ac Redemptor, Clement XIV yielded and suppressed the
Society of Jesus and all its works and ministries. He withdrew all jurisdiction from the General of
the same Society and all the faculties and powers he had enjoyed up to that time. Among these
latter, of course, was that of aggregating Sodalities to the Prima Primaria. With this power gone,
fresh erections and affiliations of Sodalities became impossible. To all appearances the Sodalities
were crushed. It looked as though they had been crucified and buried in the tomb of complete and
final extinction.

However, like the Son of her to whom the Sodalities had dedicated themselves, they were to
rise again. As a matter of fact, only four months after the suppression of the Society of Jesus,
Clement XIV himself provided expressly for their survival by his brief Commendatissimam, by
which he set up a special commission of three cardinals to whom he entrusted the Roman College
and the power to aggregate Sodalities to its Prima Primaria. For the time being and in principle
at least, the Sodalities were saved from oblivion.

Nevertheless, certain distressing questions began to arise. Where, how, by whom could
Sodalities be erected? And affiliations, what of them? On May 2, 1775 Pope Pius VI, successor to
Clement XIV, gave the answer to these perplexities. In his letters patent of that date he turned
over to his own Cardinal Vicar and his successors whatever powers were needed to erect and
affiliate Sodalities of Our Lady in the future. These powers were later extended and given over to
the Director of the Prima Primaria. Finally, Pope Leo XII in 1824, some ten years after the
restoration of the Society of Jesus, returned fully and definitively to the General all of the powers
he had once enjoyed. At last, on March 7, 1825, this same Pope granted the Father General of the
Jesuits the new power to affiliate to the Prima Primaria, with the consent of the local Ordinary,
even those Sodalities erected in his diocese that are completely independent of all direction by the
Society of Jesus itself.
746

V. THE SODALITIES IN MODERN TIMES

The resurgence of the Sodalities was rather slow at first. Two old enemies account for that: the
anticlericals and the Jansenists. This pair were bitterly disappointed at seeing the Sodalities rise
out of the grave to which they had consigned them, stand on their feet again and deploy
themselves as of old against atheism, irreligion, secularism, and the avoidance of frequent
Communion.

The anticlericals followed the tactic of ridiculing the Sodalities, labeling them as associations
exclusively for overly pious women and children.

The more the sodalists tried to promote closeness to Christ in the Eucharist by frequent
reception of Holy Communion, the more the Jansenists raged against them. Pope St. Pius X, of
course, at once gave the accolade to the Sodalities and sealed the doom of Jansenism with his
decree of December 20, 1905.

Almost as an echo of this decree, a clarion call came from the General of the Society of Jesus
to the sodalists of the world challenging them to return to a full living-out of the Sodality way of
serving Jesus through His Blessed Mother. To help them answer this call, the General began about
1910 to establish National Sodality Secretariates or Service Centers in all the countries of the globe.
The Jesuits assigned to these offices are to devote themselves totally to serving all kinds and types
of Sodalities in every way possible, to help them develop practical and effective programs of action
and thus fulfill their purpose of producing Catholics marked by the outstanding depth and fervor
of their interior lives and the zeal and vigor of their apostolic labors.

VI. SIGNS OF DECADENCE

At the time this challenge was issued it was much needed. During the years that had elapsed
between the suppression of the Society of Jesus and the present, three major crippling defects had
crept into too many Sodalities.

First, they became largely mass organizations. The careful selectivity that had marked the
earlier days was put aside. Quantity, not quality, became the watchword.

Second, the distinction between the Sodalities of Our Lady and those groups of later origin
stemming from the Rue du Bac in Paris and called “The Children of Mary” was lost sight of. These
latter are restricted in membership to women and girls. Many men and even priests thought that
the Sodalities, too, were for women only.

Finally, the vitally apostolic nature of the Sodalities of Our Lady that is of their very essence
was neglected. Too many of them became little more than societies for the pietistic, for the
recreation-minded, for raising funds.
747

Both experience and the following figures show that the first two of those impressions were
not unfounded. A percentage breakdown of the number of affiliations from 1585 to the present
indicates that 30 per cent of the total number were Sodalities of men, 60 per cent of women, and
10 per cent of those which enroll both men and women.

Incidentally, one of the surest ways to lay the all-too-common bogey that all of these Sodalities
are Jesuit-dominated is the presentation of the stark and conclusive fact that only from 3 to 5 per
cent of the Sodalities throughout the world are under Jesuit direction.
748

VII. SODALITIES IN THE UNITED STATES

The immediate successors of the North American Martyrs established Sodalities here on the
North American continent among the Hurons as early as 1647.
749

The first Sodality in what is now the United States, however, was one for workingmen
established in New Orleans in 1738.
750 The first one to come into existence after the Revolutionary
War was that at Georgetown University, Washington, D. C. The initial reception of new members
took place on December 9, 1783, but the Sodality itself was not affiliated officially with the Prima
Primaria until February 5, 1833.
751

The number of Sodalities in the United States has grown from about 50 in 1850 to 18,761 in
1959.

The greatest impetus to the Sodality movement in our country should be attributed chiefly to
two men: Fr. Edward Garesche, S.J., who was appointed National Promoter of Sodalities for the
United States in the Autumn of 1913, and Fr. Daniel A. Lord, S.J., who, though still a scholastic in
that year, aided Fr. Garesche and then succeeded him in his national post in 1925.

Fr. Garesche stated that the initial investigation he made on setting up the first National
Secretariate here to ascertain the actual condition of our American Sodalities disclosed “an
extremely discouraging condition in the Sodalities themselves. ... All the activities of the Sodalities
were confined, in most places, to attendance at meetings where some prayers and the Office of the
Blessed Virgin were recited, and to monthly Communion.”

Beyond the field work that he did to remedy this, Fr. Garesche, with the then Mr. Lord’s
assistance, initiated The Queen’s Work magazine, as “the Official Organ of the Sodalities in
America.” The first issue appeared appropriately enough in May of 1914. At present, its field of
appeal has been restricted to teen-age sodalists. This was supplemented by Action Now!, a
magazine for interested adult sodalists, Direction, published first in 1954, for Sodality Directors,
Moderators, and Officers, and The Junior Sodalist and The Children’s Moderator, publications for
those working on the elementary school level.

Continuing Fr. Garesche’s apostolate in 1925, Fr. Lord traveled back and forth across the
country for the next thirty years igniting the light of faith and the fire of enthusiasm for Christ
and His Mother and their common cause in the minds and hearts of thousands of young people.
By his genius, personality, prodigious writing and talking, by means of his plays, music, and
pageants, he brought newness of life to countless old and dying Sodalities. During more than a
quarter of a century Fr. Lord wrote numberless books and pamphlets, gave many, many retreats
and lectures, conducted hundreds of Sodality rallies and conventions, instituted the Annual
Meeting of Diocesan, Deanery, and Union Directors, initiated the now nationally famous Summer
Schools of Catholic Action, wrote the official Motion Picture Production Code (1930) for decent
movies, and promoted the “Knights and Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament.”

By the time of his death in 1955, Fr. Lord had also built up the national office from a staff of
four priests with whom he started out, to the institution that was then housed in a six-story office
building in St. Louis with a staff of eight priests and some seventy lay people.

The ensuing figures give some idea of what these two main leaders of the Sodality movement
along with their fellow workers accomplished over the years in the United States.

Over half of the parishes listed in the Official Catholic Directory have Sodalities. Sodalities of
Our Lady are to be found also in nearly 2500 high schools and academies, in 250 Catholic colleges
and universities, and in some two thirds of the approximately 400 Catholic nursing schools in our
country. Junior Sodalities, corresponding to the Junior Holy Name Societies here and the Blau-ring
and Maria-garde in Europe, are active in about 40 per cent of our Catholic grade schools.
752

On May 31, 1948, the first of several now active Sodalities for priests, instituted and directed
by Fr. Joseph Hughes of the Diocese of Duluth, was affiliated with the Prima Primaria.
753

In 1950 Fr. Gerald Seguin, at that time an assistant at Notre Dame Parish, Malone, New York,
Diocese of Ogdensburg, selected seven married couples from the roster of 1200 families in that
parish and formed them into a Cana Sodality which has been copied elsewhere since.

Two outstanding Sodalities are to be found in Cleveland, Ohio. One of them is the
undergraduate students’ Sodality at John Carroll University. The other is the Cleveland Alumni
Sodality, directed by Msgr. Joseph Spitzig, Archdiocesan Director of Sodalities.

There are numerous Faculty Sodalities in various colleges, v.g. at Xavier University in
Cincinnati, Ohio, and Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut.

In 1954, under the inspiration of Fr. Francis K. Drolet, S.J., Promoter of the Sodalities for that
region, a Sodality was instituted for professional people, both men and women, from all over New
York City. Philadelphia, too, has its excellent Xavier-Damian professional Sodality, now under the
direction of Fr. Lewis Delmage, S.J.

Sodalities in schools of nursing throughout the United States and Canada owe a deep debt of
gratitude for their success to the tireless labors in their behalf of Fr. J. Roger Lyons, S.J., Fr. Lord’s
first successor as National Promoter.

Over the years the high school Sodalities, on whom Fr. Lord concentrated especially, have been
undoubtedly the most active and enthusiastic.

After the sudden demise of Father Lyons, on September 22, 1949, the International Sodality
Secretariate appointed Fr. Aloysius J. Heeg, S.J., internationally known as a teacher of catechetics
and outstanding leader in work with Junior Sodalities, as National Promoter. He was followed in
this office in October of 1953 by the present writer. During the summer of 1956 Fr. James J.
McQuade, S.J., succeeded to the appointment as Director of the National Sodality Service Center.

In November, 1956, Pope Pius XII wrote to the Rev. Irwin Juraschek, President of the National
Diocesan Sodality Directors Conference, encouraging the directors to form a National Federation
of Sodalities here in the United States. The first meeting of this Federation took place in St. Louis,
January 19-20, 1957. Today 36 diocesan federations of Sodalities are members of the Federation,
an affiliate of the National Council of Catholic Men, Women, and Youth and of the World
Federation of Sodalities. It was this group that carried off the Second World Congress of Sodalities
in Newark, N. J., August 20-23, 1959.

Besides the Sodalities already mentioned, there have been others erected both on military
installations and in the armed forces themselves. Fr. Joseph T. O’Callahan, S.J., for example, the
only chaplain ever to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, established a Sodality on the
Ranger, one of our Navy’s airplane carriers in World War II.

Finally, in 1945 a young arthritic invalid, Mary Ellen Kelly of Marcus, Iowa, conceived the idea
of a Sodality of Shut-Ins. At first, because of technical difficulties, she was allowed to have only
a League of Shut-Ins who were already sodalists. By November 1, 1950, however, her prayers and
sufferings were rewarded with the establishment and affiliation of a real Sodality of Shut-Ins
erected at St. John’s McNamara Hospital, Rapid City, South Dakota, which now takes in Shut-Ins
from all over the country.

VIII. A LOOK AT THE SODALITIES’ FUTURE

With the publication of his Apostolic Constitution, Bis saeculari, Pope Pius XII threw open the
gates to a newer, fresher era in the life and history of the Sodalities of Our Lady. In that all-important document he called for the following: a full living of the Sodalities’ Rules of 1910, a
modification of those of the famous Sodality of Barcelona directed by Fr. Aloysius Fitter, S.J.;
754 a
renewal of spirit to be effected primarily and essentially by the observance of Rule 24, which calls
for greater selectivity in the admission of new members, a fuller and closer co-operation with the
Hierarchy and with other Catholic Action organizations. He also made it very clear in that
constitution that Catholic Action, while one in spirit, should be multiple in form. He further
declared that the Sodalities of Our Lady, when they followed his directives, are Catholic Action
strictly so-called “under the auspices and inspiration of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
755

Pius XII was rightly called “The Pope of Mary.” He may well be called “The Pope of the
Sodalities” as well. His great faith in their possibilities is evident not merely from the Bis saeculari,
not only from the eight official statements he made about them while he was still a cardinal, and
from the thirty-six other statements he issued in the form of apostolic letters, exhortations,
telegrams, discourses, and radio messages as Pope,
756 but especially from his erection of the World
Federation of Sodalities
757 and his presence and Allocution at the opening at St. Peter’s on
September 8, 1954, of the First International Sodality World Congress.
758

It was this great Pope’s will and hope that the Sodalities of Our Lady throughout the world
follow out the leads he had given them in so many ways and on so many occasions, and that they
become more selective, more deeply imbued with the interior life and hence more vigorous and
effective in all forms of the apostolate, “especially the social apostolate” — all, of course, duce
Ecclesia.

A statement issued by the headquarters of the Sodality World Federation in the summer of
1955 regarding the first year’s life of the Sodalities that followed upon the World Congress
indicates that Pius XII’s desires and hopes are being realized. All over the world now, a new, more
vigorous life is stirring. The dead and dying bones are rising from the plain again. All signs point
to the fact that the Sodalities of tomorrow, fired again with the same spirit of fervent love of God
and souls and with the same dynamic apostolic zeal of the early days may, in fact, eclipse their
progenitors’ achievements and establish an even more splendid record of deeds done for Jesus
through Mary.

The Legion of Mary

by ROGER M. CHAREST, S.M.M.

ON SEPTEMBER 7, 1921, in a modest “upper room” of Myra House, Francis St., Dublin, Ireland,
was born a Marian Catholic Action organization that was soon to encircle the globe and merit to
be called “a miracle of these modern times.”
759 We refer, of course, to the Legion of Mary.

“The Legion of Mary is an Association of Catholics, who, with the sanction of the Church and
under the powerful leadership of Mary Immaculate, Mediatrix of all Graces ... have formed
themselves into a Legion for service in the warfare which is perpetually waged by the Church
against the world and its evil powers.”
760 This broad definition, taken from the Official Handbook
of the Legion of Mary, will be brought into focus, we believe, once we have taken a closer look at
the Legion in its origin, its organizational framework, its methods and techniques, its doctrinal and
spiritual outlook and, finally, its prodigious growth and world-wide apostolic accomplishments.
761
Such a study should amply justify these words of its founder, Mr. Frank Duff: “The Legion is Our
Lady’s spirit come to life in people.”
762

I. MARIAN ORIGIN

Tracing the origins of the Legion of Mary, John Murray, former president of the Concilium,
writes: “The nucleus of the Legion in its personnel was that little group attending the monthly
Pioneer Council meeting in Myra House. It was in these informal ‘talks’ after the gathering that
the spirit which characterized the Legion from its first meeting was formed. In a consecutive
number of these talks, Mr. Frank Duff had outlined to his listeners the True Devotion to Our Lady,
as taught by Saint Louis Marie de Montfort in his Treatise. Those who established the Legion and
guided the new movement from the first moment were those who had heard those spiritual talks
each month at Myra House.”
763

Then came that historic first meeting — the evening of September 7, 1921, First Vespers of the
feast of Our Lady’s Nativity. The scene: a modest “upper-room” of an apartment on Francis St., in
an old and poor quarter of the city of Dublin. In the center of the room, on a table covered with
a white cloth, flanked by two lighted candles and two vases of flowers is enthroned a statue of the
Immaculate Conception, Miraculous Medal type. This simple setting, rich in Marian piety — the
inspired idea of one of the early arrivals — admirably expresses the spirit of the organization
which is about to be born.
764

At the hour agreed upon, this little group of inconspicuous persons — fifteen girls, most of
them in their late teens or early twenties; one layman, Mr. Frank Duff; and one priest, the late
Michael Toher — kneel on the floor around the improvised altar. They recite an invocation and
prayer to the Holy Spirit; then their work-hardened hands finger their rosaries. Their prayers
ended, they take their seats, we are told, and under the maternal watchfulness of Mary they
consider “how they could best please God and make Him loved in His world.”
765

The program of work they propose to accomplish is a precise one. They will visit an almshouse
of the city to console the forgotten poor and to bring them spiritual solace and relief. On one point
they are unanimous: if this is the work they are to undertake, then they will organize it in a way
that will insure regularity of visitation. In other words, it will be done seriously, methodically, or
not at all. They will follow the rules of the St. Vincent de Paul Society to a certain extent — weekly
meeting, prayer, spiritual talk, reports of each member on the previous week’s work; and then
concentrate upon an apostolate with Mary, a service for Mary, a life with Mary, in accordance
with the teachings of St. Louis de Montfort.

As much as that first meeting had been characterized by the unforeseen, by simplicity, by faith
and limitless confidence, the succeeding one was to abound in promise and hope beyond all
expectations. Witness the account of the very first visit made to the woman in the first bed. Let’s
call her Mrs. Smith. Now Mrs. Smith had been away from the Sacraments for many years. She
immediately confided her wish to “get right” again. Then there was Mrs. Little, bedridden for five
years, who wrote on a scrap of paper a little note addressed to her daughter: “If I can see you once
before death, then I shall die in peace.” There followed the case of Mary Browne, a profligate, who
confided her uneasiness at being obliged, because she had nowhere else to go on her dismissal
from the hospital the following week, to return to the man to whom she was not married. “If I
could only find a job,” she pleaded with the Legionary, “then I could make him return to his own
wife.” Would the kind visitor perhaps help her in this difficult situation?

One report followed another as a living proof that the hand of the Virgin Mary was in the
work; that the visitation was indeed hers and not theirs. These first Legionaries understood their
role in this soul-to-soul apostolate; they were to be mere docile instruments in the hands of the
Virgin Mary. Their intention was clear-cut: self-sanctification through the sanctification of others.
Their message was a precise one: to bring Christ into the world of souls through Mary’s all-powerful Mediation.

A new organization had been born — a spiritual army that was soon to encircle the globe: The
Legion of Mary.

II. ORGANIZATIONAL FRAMEWORK

During the first four years of its existence the organization was known as the Association of
Our Lady of Mercy. Later, in November, 1925, it adopted the name: Legion of Mary.
766

The Legion Handbook tells us that “The Legion is an army — the army of the Virgin most
humble.”
767 Like any army, it is built on discipline, “unrelaxed discipline,” a discipline which is based
on true humility and which must “bear on all the affairs of daily life and be ever on the alert for
opportunities to promote the general object of the Legion, namely, to destroy the empire of sin,
uproot its foundations and plant on its ruins the standard of Christ the king.”
768

Since the Legion “places before its members a mode of life rather than the doing of a work,”
it provides “an intensely ordered system, in which much is given the force of rule that in other
systems is merely exhorted or left to be understood, and in regard to every detail of which it
enjoins a spirit of scrupulous observance.”
769 This point of faithful adherence to the Legion system
in all its details is so important that the Legion “deems a member to be a member to the degree to
which he submits himself to the Legion system, and no more.”
770

Like any army, the Legion is composed of members who are in active service (active members),
and those who support the troops by their work and their prayers (auxiliary members). Modeled
on the armies of this world, the Legion takes its nomenclature from the old Roman Legion. The
use of such Latin terms as Praesidium, Curia, Senatus, etc., gives the Legion a note of universality
and unity.

The basic unit of the Legion is the Praesidium. This is the parish or institutional unit and it
ranges from approximately four to twenty active members, to which may be affiliated an indefinite
number of auxiliary members whose obligation it is to sustain the work of the active members by
their prayers and sacrifices. The prayers which the Legionaries, both active and auxiliary, must
say every day are to be found in the official prayer leaflet of the Legion, called the Tessera.

Each Praesidium — headed by four officers: president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer
— holds its meetings once a week. Since the Legion “took root from the St. Vincent de Paul
Society,” it is to be expected that its method of procedure is much the same. It is invariable and
consists of: (1) Prayer to the Holy Spirit; (2) Recitation of the Rosary; (3) Spiritual Reading; (4)
Reading of the minutes of the previous meeting; (5) Verbal account of preceding week’s work
given by each member; (6) Recitation of the Magnificat; (7) Assignment of work for the coming
week; (8) Discussion based on the Handbook; (9) Concluding prayers; (10) Blessing by the Spiritual
Director.
771

Let it be noted here that “No Praesidium shall be established in any parish without the consent
of the parish priest or of the Ordinary.”
772 Note also that no Praesidium can be organized in a
locality without the express permission of the governing body immediately above it, called the
Curia; and this permission can be given only if the new group pledges itself to adhere faithfully
to the rules and regulations as set down in the Legion Handbook.

When two or more Praesidia are established in a certain area, a higher body called a Curia is
formed. This group is made up of all the officers of the Praesidia in the locality, and chooses its
own officers from among them. When one Curia is placed in charge of several Curiae it becomes
a Comitium. This body does not generally exceed the boundaries of a diocese. Above the Comitium
is the Senatus, which is the governing body for an entire area. Finally, there is the Concilium,
which is the central governing body of the Legion throughout the world, with its headquarters in
Dublin, Ireland.
773

III. METHODS AND TECHNIQUES

At this point it may be well to ask ourselves two questions: First, what is the objective of the
Legion of Mary? Second, how does it achieve this objective?

“The object of the Legion of Mary is the sanctification of its members by prayer and active co-operation, under ecclesiastical guidance, in Mary’s and the Church’s work of crushing the head
of the serpent and advancing the reign of Christ.”
774 It is interesting to note how the Legion
Handbook identifies Mary’s work with that of the Church, in what concerns “advancing the reign
of Christ.” It is also well to point out that the above-mentioned Legion objective gives it full right
to be called “Catholic Action,” in the truest sense of the word.

Pope Pius XI once defined Catholic Action as, “The participation and collaboration of the laity
in the apostolate of the hierarchy.”
775 The Legion of Mary is Catholic Action founded on Mary.
776

To recognize from the very outset the role and influence of Mary in the dual work of personal
sanctification and the apostolate, then to submit oneself fully to this maternal influence through
intimate union with the Mediatrix of all graces in order to become an instrument of conquest in
her virginal hands, such is the secret of the Legionary apostolate, such is the method proper to the
Legion of Mary.

To be sure, there are many approved forms of Catholic Action. As Pope Pius XII pointed out:
“ ‘Catholic Action is not confined within a closed circle’ ... nor is it such that ‘it pursues its object
according to a special method and system,’ so as to abolish or absorb the other active Catholic
organizations.”
777 The fact is, some organizations will stress the study and the application of the
laws of psychology; others will concentrate their efforts on studying the social and intellectual
milieu, etc., all methods which, it will be readily conceded, merit our admiration and support. In
the Legion of Mary, however, the method is entirely different. Placing itself from the very outset
above all human strategy, it establishes a soul firmly in the realm of faith. And here is how.

Since the Legionary’s principal task is “to bring Mary to the world as the infallible means of
winning the world to Jesus,” it is obvious that “the Legionary without Mary in his heart can play
no part in this.”
778 Hence the necessity for each Legionary to seek union with Mary through
imitation of her virtues and complete dependence upon her. “Its members ... thus grown into living
copies of Mary, the Legion sees itself in truth a Legion of Mary, united to her mission and
guaranteed her victory.”
779

This union with Mary and imitation of her virtues will inevitably lead to an apostolate which
is essentially Marian, i.e., an apostolate through which Christ will not only be seen in every person
but will be tended to and cared for with the love of Mary herself. To quote the words of the
Handbook: “... in and through her Legionary, Mary participates in every Legionary duty, and
mothers souls so that in each of those worked for ... not only is the person of Our Lord seen and
served, but seen and served by Mary, with the same exquisite love and nurturing care which she
gave to the actual body of her divine Son.”
780

For the Legionary, as for Mary herself, a crowd is never just a crowd. It is an assemblage of
individual souls, each meriting particular attention, infinite love. Hence the Legionary instruction:
“The Legion must direct itself to the individual soul.”
781 This is the way the Legion faces the
problem of people in the aggregate. It does not presume to belittle or ignore crowd psychology,
rather it seeks to transform that crowd by approaching and transforming the individuals in it.

Thus the Legion method and technique may be said to be both spiritual and psychological. It
is spiritual in the sense that it is based on union with Mary; it is psychological because it is
grounded on sound elementary psychology.

IV. SPIRITUAL OUTLOOK

This brings us to our fourth consideration: the Legion Spirituality. Does the Legion of Mary
have a spirituality of its own ... a spirituality that can be universally adopted and which rests on
good solid theological grounds? If so, where is this spiritual doctrine to be found?

Let us begin by answering the last question first. The spiritual doctrine of the Legion of Mary
is to be found principally in the Legion Handbook. A storehouse of doctrine and action in which
theory and practice intermingle freely —lest one should dominate to the detriment of the other —
the Legion Handbook holds the key to a spirituality which has already reaped its fruits of holiness
and even martyrdom!

The Legion’s spirituality, symbolized in the Legion of Mary Standard, is centered on the Holy
Spirit, the Sanctifier, the One who not only overshadowed Mary in the work of the Incarnation
but who also came down upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost. And the reason for this is
obvious: the Legion is essentially Marian and apostolic. It must, therefore, be animated by the Holy
Spirit both for the sanctification of its members and for their apostolic action.

That is why every Legion meeting is opened with a prayer to the Holy Spirit. The “Legionary
Promise” which marks the formal entry into Mary’s Legion is made directly to the Holy Spirit. It
is not our purpose here to elaborate on the Legion Promise which, to our way of thinking,
embodies the very spirit of the Legion of Mary. Suffice it to refer the reader to the masterful
commentary of the Legion Promise, by Bishop Suenens, in his book The Theology of the
Apostolate.
782

It may be well to point out here, with Bishop Suenens, that the Legion Promise, though
directed to the Holy Spirit, is essentially Christo-centric because, in this Promise, “neither the Holy
Spirit nor the Blessed Virgin have any meaning for us without reference to the mystery of the
Incarnation.”
783 Christianity, says the author, has been defined as an exchange of two loves in Jesus
Christ. First, the Love that descends from heaven to seal the sacred alliance is called the Holy
Spirit. And second, the love which ascends to meet that Infinite Love is called Mary. The secret
meeting place of these two loves: in Christ Jesus.

The work of the Holy Spirit in the Church, therefore, is to bring to realization the work of
Christ in the world, just as it is the work of Mary to lead us to Christ. Briefly, the Legionary is
asked to lend himself to the action of the Holy Spirit in and through Mary to serve Christ and to
continue His mission on earth.

And this brings us to the Marian outlook of the Legion. “Under God,” says the Legion
Handbook, “the Legion is built upon devotion to Mary.”
784 Not any kind of devotion, but an
adequate devotion which can only be acquired “by union with her.”
785

We have already indicated that the Legion seeks union with Mary through imitation of her
virtues. Here we would like to show how the Legion seeks to identify itself with Mary, particularly
in her motherhood of souls. Mary’s whole life and destiny, says the Handbook, have been a
motherhood, first of Christ, then of men. “On the day of the Annunciation she entered on her
wondrous work, and ever since she has been the busy mother attending to her household duties.
For a while these were contained in Nazareth, but soon the little house became the whole wide
world, and her Son expanded into mankind. And so it has continued: all the time her domestic
work goes on and nothing in that Nazareth-grown-big can be performed without her. Any caring
of the Lord’s body is only supplemental to her care; the apostle only adds himself to her maternal
occupations; and in that sense,” concludes the Handbook, “Our Lady might declare: ‘I am
Apostleship,’ almost as she said: ‘I am the Immaculate Conception.’ ”
786

If Mary’s motherhood of souls is her essential function in the Church today, then the
Handbook rightly concludes: “Without participation in it [her motherhood of souls] there can be
no real union with her.”
787 In other words, “true devotion to Mary must comprise the service of
souls. Mary without motherhood and the Christian without apostleship would be analogous ideas.
Both the one and the other would be incomplete, unreal, unsubstantial, false to the divine
intention.”
788

In order to obviate the danger of dissociating devotion to Mary from apostleship in the Legion
system, let us look a little further into the doctrinal sources of the Legion’s Marian spirituality.

“To understand the spirituality of the Legion of Mary,” writes Bishop Suenens, “one must
know its history and especially one must grasp the spiritual bond that links the Legion to the
doctor of Marian Mediation, St. Louis Marie de Montfort.”
789 And Bishop Patrick Flynn, of Nevers,
once wrote: “The Legion spirituality is but the applying to the modern apostolate of the admirable
doctrine of Blessed Grignion de Montfort. The Handbook explains and comments upon, in its
sometimes diffuse but always orthodox way, the classical Treatise on True Devotion to Mary.”
790

That the Legion spirituality owes much to St. Louis De Montfort’s writings is attested to by
Frank Duff himself. The founder of the Legion says: “The Legion of Mary owes, you might say,
everything to the Montfort devotion.”
791 And the Legion Handbook states: “It can be safely asserted
that no Saint has played a greater part in the development of the Legion than he. The Handbook
is full of his spirit. The prayers re-echo his very words. He is really the tutor of the Legion: thus
invocation is due to him by the Legion almost as a matter of moral obligation.”
792

If the Legion Handbook is full of De Montfort’s spirit, and if the Legion prayers re-echo his
very words, it may be well for us to dwell briefly on the intimate relationship between the
Handbook and the True Devotion. “It cannot be denied that the Handbook of the Legion of Mary
is a striking follow-up of the Treatise on True Devotion. It takes up the same doctrine and carries
it over into the field of effective and concrete action, within the reach of all men of good will.”
793

After pointing out that union with Mary entails sharing in her motherhood of souls, the
Handbook invites each and every Legionary to read and study the writings of its “tutor,” St. Louis
De Montfort. In Chapter twenty-seven, entitled: “The duty of Legionaries towards Mary,” we read
that “Legionaries should undertake De Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary.” A few gleanings from
this chapter will suffice to illustrate how the Legion of Mary strives to identify itself, so to speak,
with the De Montfort way of spiritual life.

“It is desirable that the practice of the Legionary devotion to Mary should be rounded off and
given the distinctive character which has been taught by St. Louis De Montfort under the titles of
‘The True Devotion’ or the ‘Slavery of Mary’ and which is enshrined in his two books, the True
Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the Secret of Mary.”
794

Describing the nature of this “Holy Slavery,” the Handbook continues: “That devotion requires
the formal entry into a compact with Mary, whereby one gives to her one’s whole self, with all its
thoughts, and deeds and possessions, both spiritual and temporal, past, present and future, without
the reservation of the smallest part or slightest little thing. In a word, the giver places himself in
a condition equivalent to that of a slave possessing nothing of his own, and wholly dependent on,
and utterly at the disposal of Mary.”
795

Lest this total consecration to Mary be mistaken for a mere passing act of devotion toward the
Mother of God, the Legionary is immediately reminded that although the True Devotion is
inaugurated by a formal act of consecration, “... it consists principally in the subsequent living of
that consecration. The True Devotion must represent not an act but a state.”
796

This state or attitude of soul of the individual Legionary will blossom forth, as we have already
shown, into a Marian apostolate. “The work of the Legion,” says the Handbook, “is essentially a
hidden one. It commences in the heart of the individual Legionary, developing therein a spirit of
zeal and charity.”
797 Through the Legion system, this zeal and charity will ever become manifest
by direct personal contact, in a soul-to-soul apostolate that will gradually raise the spiritual level
of the entire community.

If we inquire now into the nature of this Legion approach to souls, again we will find that it
is not only distinctly Marian but also, one might add, Montfortian. We quote from the Handbook:
“Souls are not approached except with Mary.”
798 Legionaries are asked to bring Mary to the world
by leading souls to a “calm examination of the role of Mary” in God’s plan of our redemption.
799
This will prompt them to give to others a full explanation of Mary’s part in our lives and of the
consequent “rich and full devotion” we owe her in return. Indeed, the Handbook asks: “How can
Legionaries talk in any other terms of her?”
800

Adopting De Montfort’s method of interior life with Mary, the Handbook takes up the formula
of “Through, With, In and For Mary,” and transposes it into the apostolic life of the individual
Legionary. Here are a few of its slogans, so to speak, culled at random from the Handbook: “Souls
are not approached except with Mary.”
801 “To tell Legionaries to immerse themselves in their work
is but the same thing as to urge them to bury themselves in Mary.”
802 “The Legion operates through
Mary.”
803 And, finally, “The Legionaries work for Mary, quite irrespective of the simplicity or the
difficulty of the task.”
804

Such is the Marian spirituality of the Legion of Mary — a spirituality that is totally Marian,
totally Montfortian. It might be noted here that although the actual making of the act of
consecration known as Holy Slavery is not enjoined as an obligation or condition of membership
in the Legion but rather left to the discretion and free choice of each Legionary, nevertheless, all
Legionaries are reminded that the Legion “... declares itself to be built on a fulness of devotion to
Mary which approximates, or is equivalent to, De Montfort’s own special form.”
805

We can think of no better way of closing these considerations than by quoting once again from
the writings of the Legion’s founder, Frank Duff. “It is desirable that every Legionary — not alone
its Active Members, but likewise each one of its great host of Auxiliary Members — should possess
a copy of De Montfort’s monumental exposition of the True Devotion. They should read it again
and again, and fully comprehend it and bring it into wholehearted play in their spiritual life. Only
then will they enter into the spirit of the Legion of Mary, to which, as the Legion itself declares,
Grignion de Montfort is veritably tutor.”
806

Such is, in broad outline, the basis for the Marian spirituality and apostolate of the Legion of
Mary, an organization that seeks to identify itself with Mary in her essential function of mothering
souls.

V. GROWTH AND CONQUESTS

Since the Legion is Our Lady working in and through her Legionaries, a study of this kind
would be incomplete without at least a few statistics indicating the ever growing influence of this
Catholic Action organization upon our modern world. Speaking of the growth of the Legion, Frank
Duff once compared it to the growth of a tree. The process, he said, operates along the lines of a
geometrical progression, that is, as the number of producing points grow, the rate of acceleration
becomes prodigious.

For example, here is a listing of the Legion foundations in chronological order. 1921, Ireland;
1928, Scotland; 1929, England and Wales; 1931, United States and India; 1932, Canada and
Australia; 1933, South Africa, British West Indies, New Zealand, Nigeria; 1936, Kenya; 1937, China,
Burma, Tanganyika; 1938, Ceylon, Central America (Panama), Uganda; 1939, Southern Rhodesia;
1940, Philippines, France, Mauritius, Malta, Gold Coast, Nyasaland, Sierra Leone; 1941, Egypt; 1942,
Netherlands, Gibraltar, Israel; 1943, Belgian Congo; 1944, Germany, Liberia; 1945, Reunion,
Belgium, Luxembourg, Seyschelles (Indian Ocean), Mexico; 1946, Madagascar, Italy, Switzerland,
Dominican Republic, Gambia; 1947, Colombia, Denmark, Sudan, Malaya, Martinique, Br.
Cameroons, Northern Rhodesia; 1948, Japan, Vietnam, Algiers, Fr. Equatorial Africa, Fr.
Cameroons; 1949, Austria, Lebanon, Portugal, Borneo, Hong Kong, Bahamas, Pakistan; 1950, Spain,
Venezuela, Argentine, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Fiji Islands, Fr. Togoland; 1951, Chile,
Indonesia, Cyprus, Peru, Angola; 1952, Macao, Taiwan, Thailand; 1953, Brazil, New Guinea, Cuba;
1954, Ecuador, Korea; 1955, Bolivia, Greece, Turkey, Norway, Nicaragua, Dutch Guiana, French
Guiana; 1956, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Dutch West Indies, Iceland; 1957,
Arabia, Ethiopia, Kingdom of Jordan; 1958, Iraq, Sweden.

At this writing the Legion of Mary exists in approximately eleven hundred dioceses and
vicariates, and we are told that each week two new dioceses are being added to the growing list.
The greatest point of growth right now is in the Philippines. There are approximately five
thousand five hundred Praesidia at work there at this time, and this number is increasing presently
at the rate of not less than one new Praesidium every day. Another rapidly growing area is the
Belgian Congo where there are over two thousand five hundred Praesidia at this writing.

The Legion of Mary Handbook has already been published in nineteen languages: English,
Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian, Chinese, German, Japanese, Arabic, Lungunda (E. Africa), Swahili
(E. Africa), Singhalese, Tamil (India), Telegu (India), Malayan, Portuguese, Korean, Maltese, and
Sesuthol (Basutoland, So. Africa). Translations are in preparation in: Polish, Irish, Burmese,
Russian and Indonesian. The Legion prayers have been published in approximately one hundred
languages and dialects.

In a letter to this author, dated August 9, 1958, Frank Duff writes: “The Legion is in point of
majority of members a coloured organization. It is working among all classes of people from the
lettered to the most primitive. It has shown its power to get a real membership out of the latter.
Also, a remarkable aspect of things has been the capacity of the Legion to convert. This has
applied to all the separated sections, i.e., Protestants, Buddhists, Hindus, Mohammedans.
Mohammedans have hitherto been considered as unconvertible, but the Legion in Africa has been
getting plenty of successes among them, especially in the Belgian Congo.”

To our request for statistics on validation of marriages, return to the Sacraments, etc., through
the Legion apostolate, Brother Duff answers: “It would be absolutely impossible to give you any
idea of those figures, because they are too immense. We had the Bishop of Cebu City, in the
Philippines, here with us recently and he told us that in a single day, two thousand five hundred
marriages were validated in that City, in the Stadium. It was all due to Legionary activity...

“In Chicago, in 1956, a visit to every home in one parish brought three hundred and sixty
persons into Instruction Classes, of whom two hundred and thirty were received into the Church
on the following 8th of December. In the following year, another parish attempted the same
visitation and succeeded in gathering together four hundred and eighty five. It will be realized,”
Mr. Duff concludes, “that there is nothing special about those particular parishes, and that the
same sort of results could be gained elsewhere with the same sort of effort.”

We could not conclude this brief study without mentioning the Legion in chains — we refer
to the Legion behind the “Iron” and the “Bamboo” curtains. Yes, we refer to the glorious and
immortal pages written in the blood of its martyrs in China, where four thousand Legionaries have
already been put to death for their faith and for their membership in the Legion of Mary, and
where some twenty thousand are still in prison and yet a vast unknown number retained in forced
labor camps.

If a tree is judged by its fruits, and if the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians, then the
Legion of Mary has every reason to hope for a glorious future in the battle front of Mary’s and the
Church’s warfare against the forces of evil. And if Edel Quinn (whose cause for heroic virtue has
already been introduced) is any indication as to what heights of holiness the Legion’s Marian
spirituality and apostolate can lead a soul, then we believe with the Legion and with St. Louis De
Montfort that “Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing that has been
or ever will be — a God-Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest of the saints that
there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints who shall
come at the end of the world are reserved for her. For it is only that singular and miraculous
Virgin who can produce, in union with the Holy Ghost, singular and extraordinary things.”
807

To anyone who wants to see the Holy Spirit working through Mary in an organization of
Catholic Action, we say: look at the Legion of Mary.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anonymous, La Légion de Maria, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 3, 1953, pp. 130-132; P.
Flynn, Bp. of Nevers, The Legion of Mary and Religious Formation, in Lumen Vitae, Vol. 8, 1953, pp.
271-282; Ch. H. Helmsing, Bp. of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Mo., Priests Who Have Made the
Legion of Mary, in Queen of All Hearts, Vol. 4, Nov.-Dec., 1953, pp. 12-13; M. Lefevre, La Légion de
Marie, in Evangéliser, Vol. 7, 1953, pp. 441-466; Fr. Leonard, C.P., The Legion of Mary, in The Clergy
Review, Vol. 4, 1932, pp. 380-388; M. O’Carroll, C.S.Sp., The Legion of Mary, in The Irish
Ecclesiastical Record, Vol. 66, 1945, pp. 353-359; L. J. Suenens, The Theology of the Apostolate of the
Legion of Mary (Westminster, Md., 1954), 159 pp.; Id., Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort et la Légion de
Marie, in Marie, Vol. 6, n. 3, 1952, pp. 85-87; Id., Spiritualité et rayonnement de la Légion de Marie,
in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 3 (Paris, 1954), pp. 637-658; I.
Omaechevarría, O.F.M., La Legión de María en el mundo, in Semanario Católico, mayo 9-15, 1954,
pp. 48-59; Frank Duff, The De Montfort Way (Bay Shore, N. Y., 1947), 38 pp.; Id., The Spirit of the
Legion of Mary (Glasgow, 1956), 241 pp.; Official Handbook of the Legion of Mary, 6th American
edition (Louisville, Ky., 1953), 348 pp.; Maria Legionis, Official quarterly publication, Dublin.; L. J.
Suenens, Edel Quinn (Dublin, 1954), 272 pp.; The Marianist, Dayton, Ohio, Vol. 46, No. 9; Vol. 48,
No. 9; R. M. Charest, S.M.M., Are You Acquainted With the Legion of Mary? (Bay Shore, N. Y., 1955),
63 pp.; N. Tchistiakoff, Des sans-Dieu à la Légion de Marie, in Marie, salut du monde (Paris, 1954),
pp. 178-186; Symposium on the Legion of Mary, reproduced from the Capuchin Annual (Dublin,
1957), 96 pp.; Cecily Hallack, The Legion of Mary (London, 1940), 192 pp.; F. J. Ripley, Holiness
Through Mary. A Companion to the Handbook of the Legion of Mary (Glasgow, 1950), 63 pp.

Mariological Societies

by ERIC MAY, O.F.M.Cap.

A VERY strong indication that ours is a Marian century lies in the recent great advancement of
Mariology as a science. One factor which made this possible was the establishment over the past
thirty years of several national Mariological Societies in different parts of the world. The very
number of such specialized groups and the outstanding quality of the work they have produced
within so short a time is a phenomenon perhaps unparalleled in the history of the Church.

In this brief, factual treatise we propose to discuss in outline form the history and work of all
known national Mariological Societies throughout the world. It should be kept in mind that we
are not speaking here of Marian centers, academies, congresses, and similar activities. We limit
our discussion to those groups of priests and theologians, united on a national level, who convene
at least annually to discuss Mariological questions. So far as data are available, we intend also to
mention the topics treated by these learned societies and to note the papers they have published.

I. BELGIUM (Flemish Society)

First in point of time was the Flemish Mariological Society.
808 Under the guidance of the noted
Marian scholar, Canon Joseph Bittremieux, a group of interested theologians met in 1931 at the
Norbertine Abbey of Tongerloo, Belgium. Various aspects of Mariology were discussed, and those
present agreed to continue meeting at Tongerloo annually, as a society. When Canon Bittremieux
died in 1950, Prof. Al Van Hove succeeded him as president, and the scholarly work continued.
The valuable annual proceedings have been published under the general title, Mariale Dagen.
809
Even a bare listing of the topics discussed year by year gives a sure indication of the Flemish
society’s vitality and thoroughness. The following schema indicates the main topics discussed
annually. All meetings took place at Tongerloo.

1.   1931 — Various Aspects of Mariology.

2.   1932 — Mary as the New Eve.

3.   1933 — Mary’s Perpetual Virginity.

4.   1934 — Mary’s Assumption.

5.   1935 — Mary’s Queenship.

6.   1936 — Mary’s Divine Maternity.

7.   1937 — Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

8.   1938 — Mary’s Fullness of Grace.
810

9.   1946 — Mary’s Coredemption.
811

10. 1948 — Mary as Dispensatrix of All Grace.

11. 1951 — Mary’s Assumption and Her Other Prerogatives.

12. 1953 — Mary’s Spiritual Maternity.
812

13. 1955 — Mary’s Queenship in the Light of the Encyclical Ad Caeli

Reginam.

14. 1956 — Devotion to Mary in the modern Era.

15. 1957 — The Fundamental Principle of Mariology.

16. 1958 — Our Lady in the Liturgy.

17. 1959 — Mary in the Annunciation Narrative.

II. FRANCE

Next, chronologically, came the French society of Mariologists, officially known as La Société
Française d’Études Mariales. This group of twenty-four scholars with a common interest in Marian
theology met for the first time in 1935, at Paray-le-Monial. First president of the society was Fr.
B.-M. Morineau, who guided the destiny of the group well until his death in 1949. He was
succeeded by the well-known patrologist, Msgr. G. Jouassard. With the exception of the war years,
1939-1946, the members of this society have met faithfully every year to discuss problems of
Mariological interest. And each year the annual proceedings have been published under the title
Bulletin de la Société Français d’Études Mariales.
813 Unlike the Flemish group, the French society
convenes in a different city of France each year. And unlike most other Mariological groups, the
French scholars have frequently devoted as many as three meetings to various aspects of a single
topic. The work accomplished in their yearly conventions is truly impressive.

1.   1935 — Paray-le-Monial — the Mariology of Various Doctors of the Church, and Mary’s
Spiritual Maternity.

2.   1936 — Mours — Various Mariological Problems, Especially Mary’s Merit.

3.   1937 — La Pierre-qui-Vire — Mary’s Queenship, Mary and the Hypostatic Order, Mary and
the Mystical Body.

4.   1938 — Saulchoir — Mary’s Primacy, and the Role of Analogy in Mariology.

5.   1947 — Chartres — Mary’s Sanctity.

6.   1948 — Lyons — Mary’s Assumption (session 1).

7.   1949 — N.-D. du Chêne and Solesmes — Mary’s Assumption (session 2).

8.   1950 — St.-Laurent-sur-Sèvre — Mary’s Assumption (session 3).

9.   1951 — Allier — Mary and the Church (session 1).

10. 1952 — Le Puy — Mary and the Church (session 2).

11. 1953 — Lille — Mary and the Church (session 3).

12. 1954 — Lyons — Mary as the New Eve (session 1).

13. 1955 — Angers — Mary as the New Eve (session 2).

14. 1956 — Besançon — Mary as the New Eve (session 3).

15. 1957 — Chevilly — Mary as the New Eve (session 4).

16. 1958 — Lourdes — Mary’s Queenship.

17. 1959 — Blois — Mary’s Spiritual Motherhood (session 1).

According to the latest Bulletin available, the French Mariological Society numbered one
hundred and nine members in 1959 and is growing rapidly.

III. SPAIN

The Marian authors and theologians of Spain entered the picture as a society in 1941. Their
founder was the renowned theologian Fr. Narciso García Garcés, C.M.F. The decision to found the
Sociedad Mariológica Española, as it is officially called, took form at a national Marian Congress
in the city of Saragossa the previous year and was put into effect with an initial meeting at
Madrid.
814 A point of particular interest to the Spanish theologians was the desire to bring to the
fore the excellent Mariological studies of Spanish scholars from the sixteenth to the eighteenth
centuries. The society began with forty-eight charter members. After the first three meetings in
Madrid, the group began meeting annually in various cities throughout Spain. All the painstaking
work done by the members has been published in the society’s organ, Estudios Marianos.
815 One gets
a good idea of what has been done by considering the topics of the annual conventions.

1.   1941 — Madrid — Various Mariological Problems.

2.   1942 — Madrid — Mary’s Coredemption.

3.   1943 — Madrid — the Principles of Mariology.

4.   1944 — Fátima — Mary’s Immaculate Heart.

5.   1945 — Saragossa — the Nature of Mary’s Grace.

6.   1946 — Montserrat — Mary’s Assumption.

7.   1947 — Valencia — Mary’s Spiritual Maternity.

8.   1948 — Madrid — Mary’s Divine Maternity.

9.   1949 — Salamanca — Mary’s Death.
816

10. 1950 — Rome — Current Mariological Problems.

11. 1951 — Madrid — the Encyclical Munificentissimus Deus.

12. 1952 — Barcelona — Mary and the Eucharist.

13. 1953 — Santander — the Mariology of St. Bernard.

14. 1954 — Saragossa — the Immaculate Conception.

15. 1955 — Valencia — Mary’s Queenship.

16. 1956 — Aránzazu — Mary and the Church.

17. 1957 — Madrid — Mary’s Coredemption.

18. 1958 — Lourdes — Mary’s Motherhood of the Church.

19. 1959 — Madrid — Mary’s Virginity.

In 1959 the members of this Spanish society numbered forty-two, the membership being
distinguished more for its quality than for its quantity.

IV. PORTUGAL

Portugal followed the lead of her next-door neighbor, Spain, by attempting to establish a
similar Mariological Society under the name of Academia Marial Portuguesa. In 1944, Portuguese
scholars had joined their Spanish colleagues in a Marian Congress at Fátima to discuss the
Immaculate Heart of Mary. As a result of that congress, theologians in Portugal were encouraged
to found their own Mariological society. The work of organization was entrusted to Canon Manuel
Mendes de Carmo and Fr. Aníbal Coelho.
817 A first meeting in 1945 found His Excellency, Bishop
José Alves Correia da Silva presiding. Unfortunately, the nascent society appears to have died at
birth; there has been no further evidence up to now of work done by its members as a group.
818

V. CANADA

Once the disastrous war years were over, interest in Mariology spanned the ocean and found
ready roots in Canada and the United States. In Canada, this interest was fanned to flame by the
great fervor attendant upon the Marian Congress held at Ottawa, June 22, 1947. A few months
later, December 16th, a dream of many years began to materialize with an official notice from His
Excellency, the Most Reverend Alexandre Vachon, Archbishop of Ottawa, of the existence of La
Société Canadienne d’Etudes Mariales. Then in 1948, a meeting was organized at Montreal by the
Comité Marial Franciscain du Canada, forerunner as it were of the national organization. The first
theological convention of the new Canadian Mariological Society was held at Ottawa in February,
1949, under the presidency of the well-known scholar, Dr. Augustus Ferland, P.S.S.
819 The meetings
held and the topics discussed so far, are as follows:

1.   1949 — Ottawa — Mary’s Assumption and Coredemption.

2.   1950 — Ottawa — Mary’s Assumption and Coredemption.

3.   1951 — Cap-de-la-Madeleine — Mary’s Assumption and

Coredemption.

4.   1952 — Nicolet — Mary’s Assumption and Coredemption.

5.   1953 — Montreal — Mary’s Assumption and Coredemption.

6.   1954 — Cap-de-la-Madeleine — Immaculate Conception.

7.   1955 — Quebec — Mary’s Queenship.

8.   1956 — Sherbrooke — Mary’s Spiritual Maternity.

9.   1957 — Ottawa — Mary’s Spiritual Maternity.

10. 1958 — Lourdes — Mary’s Coredemption.

Some of the valuable dissertations read at the above meetings have already been published.
820
The society publishes also a modest bulletin of information on the current Mariological movement,
called Ère mariale. In 1950 and 1954 the Canadian Mariological Society participated actively in the
International Mariological Congresses held in Rome.

At first, the number of active members was limited to twenty, then thirty — as a means of
preserving intact the scientific aims of the group. This measure was dropped as unnecessary at
the 1954 meeting. In 1956, forty-five active members were listed, including eleven diocesan priests,
two members of the laity, and thirty-two religious. There are numerous other members spiritually
affiliated to the society.

VI. UNITED STATES

In the United States of America, a country consecrated to the Blessed Mother of God, it was
only a matter of time before her scholars pooled their talents and efforts toward the establishment
of a Mariological Society.
821 The spadework of this movement was done at a preparatory meeting
held in Holy Name College, Washington, D. C., the evening of October 11, 1949. At the invitation
of Fr. Juniper B. Carol, O.F.M., the founder and constant guiding spirit behind this society, thirty-nine theologians met and agreed to establish The Mariological Society of America.
822 This decision
was remarkable in that only several years previous, a very vigorous and flourishing sister society
had been founded: The Theological Society of America. The Most Rev. Patrick A. O’Boyle,
Archbishop of Washington, gave his blessing to the Marian project, and the society struck root
at a second preliminary meeting one month later, November 8. The fruit was not long in coming.
Early in January, 1950, the first annual national convention of the Mariological Society was held
at the Catholic University of America, in Washington, D. C. One hundred and thirty-one charter
members were listed. The constitution of the society was approved and the purpose of the group
affirmed: “to promote an exchange of views on Marian doctrines and to further research in
Mariology.” Each succeeding convention of these American theologians has proved the wisdom
of establishing such a society, and the results in terms of learned Mariological papers and fruitful
discussion have been outstanding.
823 Even a bare listing of the topics discussed at the annual
meetings is most imposing.

1.   1950 — Washington, D. C. — Various Marian Topics, Especially the

Mariological Movement in the World Today, and the

Use of Sacred Scripture in Mariology.

2.   1951 — Worcester, Mass. — Mary’s Coredemption.

3.   1952 — New York City —Mary’s Spiritual Maternity.

4.   1953 — Cleveland, Ohio —Mary’s Universal Queenship.

5.   1954 — Washington, D. C. — Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

6.   1955 — St. Louis, Mo.— Mary’s Divine Maternity.

7.   1956 — New York City — Mary’s Virginity.

8.   1957 — Chicago, Ill. — Mary’s Death.

9.   1958 — Dayton, Ohio — Mary and the Church.

10. 1959 — Paterson, N. J. — The Fundamental Principle of Mariology.

11. 1960 — Detroit, Mich. — Our Lady in the Gospels.

12. 1961 — Pittsburgh, Pa. — Mary in the Old Testament.

An indication of the vitality of this American group is the constant increase in membership.
As of January, 1961, three hundred and thirty-three active members and sixty-five associate
members were listed. An average of one hundred members attend each meeting.

VII. BELGIUM (French Society)

The Belgian Mariological Society for French-speaking priests had its inception in a noteworthy
day of “Marian Sacerdotal Studies” in 1943. Led by His Excellency, Bishop Charue of Namur,
almost three-hundred participants, mostly parish priests, took an active and interested part in the
studies, and were encouraged to think in terms of founding their own counterpart of the Flemish
Mariale Dagen. World conditions being what they were at the time, realization of these high hopes
had to be deferred until 1951. In that year, through the initiative of the Bishop of Namur, the
hierarchy of Malines, Liège, and Tournai selected a committee to found this Mariological society
for French-speaking Belgians. The first president, Msgr. J. Lebon, was assisted by four professors
and doctors of theology. Yearly meetings were planned under the official title Journées Sacerdotales
d’Études Mariales. One year the tone of the meeting was to be scientific and doctrinal; the next
year the presentation was to be practical and popular. Thirty-nine scholars were present for the
first annual convention in 1951.
824 To the best of our knowledge, the following schema represents
the fruitful work done by this society.

1.   1943 — Namur — Consecration to Mary.
825

2.   1951 — Dinant — (doctrinal) the Scientific Structure of Mariology.
826

3.   1952 — Basse-Wavre — (practical) Means Toward an Easier

Understanding of Marian Doctrine, and Giving It

Its Proper Place in the Faith of the People.
827

4.   1953 — Dinant — (doctrinal).
828

VIII. GERMANY

In the closing days of December, 1951, Dr. Carl Feckes, professor of Mariology at the Seminary
of Cologne, gathered together a group of twenty-three interested German theologians and Marian
authors at Königstein, to discuss the feasibility of a Mariological society for Germany. With their
enthusiastic support, and more from scholars unable to attend the meeting, plans were laid to
found the Mariologische Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Theologen. Those present decided to treat
relevant Marian topics scientifically, in their relationship to ecclesiology, anthropology, mysticism,
the doctrine on grace, and the like. Yearly meetings were agreed on, to be held during the
Christmas holidays, and at Frankfurt if possible. Though in existence only a half-dozen years, the
German Society has already made its mark in the field of Mariology, as is evident from the work
done at its annual conventions.

1.   1952 — Frankfurt-Main — Pope Leo XIII’s Marian Phrase:

“[B.V.] ipsius generis humani personam quodammodo

agebat.”

2.   1953 — Königstein — Mary as Representative of the Church.
829

3.   1955 — Würzburg — the Importance and Significance of the

Franciscan School With Regard to Mariology.
830

4.   1956 — Frankfurt-Main — the Dogmatico-Scriptural Proof in

Mariology.

5.   1958 — Lourdes — Parallelism Between Mary and the Church.

The presence of fifty-five members at the 1957 meeting is an indication of the increasing
prestige of the German society.

IX. ITALY

Many important Marian Congresses and Academies have been held over the years in Rome
and other Italian cities. As yet, however, nothing corresponding to the specialized Mariological
societies of other nations has materialized in Italy. That attempts to found such a society may well
be realized soon seems evident from a number of resolutions passed at recent Marian gatherings.
831

X. MEXICO

The Mexican Mariological Society had its origin in a Marian meeting held in the city of
Guadalajara (Jalisco) in 1954, the Marian Year. It was promoted principally by His Excellency, The
Most Rev. Alfonso Toriz, Bishop of Chilapa (now Bishop of Querétaro), the Rt. Rev. Msgr. José
Ruiz Medrano, and Fr. Prudencio Lerena, C.M.F. The date October 16, 1957, marked the formal
foundation of the society, in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The following three days were
devoted to the first theological meeting, the subject of discussion being Mary’s Spiritual Maternity
in the Fourth Gospel. Four papers were read. M. Peinador, C.M.F., gave an introduction to biblical
sources and theological method of investigation. He followed this with an exegetical paper on John
19:25-27 in which the words of Christ are seen to proclaim Mary’s universal motherhood. Fr.
Joseph G. Vergara, S.J., gave an exposition of John 19:25-27 according to the magisterium of recent
popes, and Fr. A. Mercado, O.F.M., explained the same text according to some Franciscan
theologians of the Middle Ages, especially St. Bernardine of Siena. It is expected that all of these
studies will be published soon as the first volume of the society’s proceedings.
832

XI. POLAND

The latest addition to the growing list of national societies devoted to the study of Mariology
is that of Poland. Already since 1953 Polish Mariologists of various religious orders had gathered
annually to discuss Marian topics, particularly Our Lady’s Mediation; but the Society, as such, was
not formally organized until it held its first meeting at the national shrine of Jasna Góra on
October 14 and 15, 1958. First president of the Society is the well-known theologian, Father
Bernard M. Przybylski, O.P.
833

From the foregoing survey, brief but factual, it is readily apparent why the twentieth century
is indeed the “Age of Mary,” and that Mary’s loyal sons and scholars in virtually every nation
under heaven are probing deeper and deeper into her mysteries and prerogatives.
834

Marian Centers, Libraries, and Publications

by REV. WILLIAM G. MOST, Ph.D.

NOT the least among the many evidences of growth in interest in Mariology during the past few
decades is the development of many Marian centers of study, libraries, and publications. It is
primarily through these media that our students and scholars are ever enriching their fund of
knowledge concerning Our Blessed Lady’s unique prerogatives. Hence it is felt that the present
chapter will be of some profit to readers seeking further information on things Mariological.

While all Marian libraries may, of course, be regarded as Marian centers, there are many
Marian centers which do not possess a library. We shall endeavor to be complete only in our
mention of the former; space limitations allow us to give only a few examples of the latter.

I. MARIAN LIBRARIES AND MARIAN CENTERS

1. Rome. Probably the oldest and most important of all Marian libraries in the world is that
under the direction of the Servite Fathers at the International Marian Center of the College of St.
Alexius Falconieri in Rome. The idea of a specialized Marian library, to serve as a memorial of the
50th anniversary celebration of the definition of the Immaculate Conception, was proposed at the
Marian Congress of 1904 in Rome. An appeal made at that time resulted in the gathering of some
2250 Marian volumes by September, 1905, not counting 213 special albums commemorating the
anniversary in a special way. In accordance with the wish of Pope St. Pius X, the library was
housed at first in the Pontifical Leonine College. Later (the date and reason are uncertain) it was
moved to the Pontifical Apollinaris Seminary. In 1945, realizing that the library was not developing
and was used relatively little, Father Gabriel M. Roschini, O.S.M., in a private audience with Pope
Pius XII, suggested that the collection be moved to the College of St. Alexius. His Holiness was
pleased, and accordingly, after a formal request was made and granted in 1946, the library was
transferred to the Servite college in November of the same year. Since then it has grown into an
important and much frequented center of Marian research. On January 1, 1956, the library
possessed 7851 volumes, not counting some 24 manuscripts, 44 microfilms, many reviews (both
scientific and popular), and a special collection of Marian works written by members of the Servite
Order since 1940. In addition, on January 13, 1956, Pope Pius XII entrusted to the library also the
albums and special volumes sent to the Holy See from all over the world during the Marian Year
of 1954. Those who use the facilities of this library also have the important advantage of being able
to consult the numerous theological works in the general library of the college, which contains
some forty-five thousand volumes, a facility which is essential if one wishes to study the
development of theological thought on various Marian theses as presented passim in the more
general theological writings of past centuries.

Actually, the Marian library is but one of many Marian activities of the Centro Mariano
Internazionale (founded in 1945) at the College of St. Alexius. The center publishes many Marian
works, including the Ragguaglio Mariano (beginning in 1948), the Rassegna Bibliografica Mariana,
the Bibliografia Mariana, and the important quarterly, Marianum (founded by Father Roschini in
1939), the oldest scientific journal of Mariology. The center also maintains an agency for the sale
of Marian books. This service began with expositions of Marian books, and grew to such an extent
that in April, 1951, it was moved to a separate location, at Via SS. Apostoli 14.
835

2. The International Franciscan Marian Commission, established in 1946 at the Pontifical
Roman University of St. Anthony, developed, in 1950, into the Accademia Mariana Internazionale.
The Academy is not a Mariological society in the usual sense. Its chief activity is the promotion
of Marian congresses and scholarly publications, under the direction of Father Charles Balić,
O.F.M. The publications fall chiefly into seven important collections: The Bibliotheca Assumptionis,
the Bibliotheca Immaculatae Conceptionis, the Bibliotheca Mediationis, the Bibliotheca Mariana
Medii Aevi, the Studia Mariana (8 volumes containing more than 100 conferences given at six
congresses organized by the Friars Minor before the definition of the Assumption). Alma Socia
Christi (12 volumes with the papers given at the Mariological Congress of 1950 in Rome) and, more
recently, the Bibliotheca Mariana Moderni Aevi, Virgo Immaculata (18 volumes containing the
papers read at the Mariological Congress of Rome in 1954), and Maria et Ecclesia, a set of several
volumes now in course of publication, which gathers the dissertations read at the 1958
International Mariological Congress of Lourdes.
836

3. Lérida. Leaving the Eternal City, we travel westward to Spain, where, in 1862, the Rev. D.
José María Escolá Cugat, an apostolic missionary, founded the Pontifical and Royal Marian-Bibliographical Academy of Lérida, as a permanent memorial of the definition of the Immaculate
Conception. The founder wished to proclaim in his native land that, as the motto of the Academy
says: “Spain is the Patrimony of Mary,” and to urge Catholics everywhere to do “All for and
through Mary.” The Academy, as its title indicates, strives to publish and circulate, at a very low
price, both ancient and modern writings in praise of Mary. Annual contests for Marian works are
held. Pope Pius IX and every subsequent Pope have shown special marks of favor to the Academy.
The Pontifical title was granted by Pope Pius XI, the Royal title by Alfonso XII. The Academy has
members even outside of Spain, especially in Venezuela and the Philippines. It possesses a special
shrine, having an image of the Immaculate Conception distinguished by a silver heart adorned
with jewels, made in 1866.
837

4. Pontmain. To the north, at Pontmain, France, at the site of an apparition of Our Lady in 1871,
we find a Marian library and museum, founded in 1928 by Mlle. de Crozé as the first Marian
museum in France. It holds a wide variety of documents, engravings, images, photographs, medals,
relics. It is especially rich in literature relative to Marian apparitions and Marian shrines in France
and elsewhere. In January, 1956, the library had about 1600 books, brochures, and notices on
Mariology and Marian pilgrimages, Orders, art, and literature.
838 A special feature is a room having
the Hail Mary in 600 languages and dialects. The museum also has wax images of many persons
to whom Our Lady has appeared.

5. Vauban. At the Abbey of Our Lady of the Turning Stone, at St. Leger, Vauban, France, we
meet with another Marian museum and library, established by Dom Marie Dannay, O.S.B., in 1939.
The museum houses a permanent Marian exposition of objects of art, tokens of pilgrimages,
pictures, statues, medals, etc. The Marian library, which is especially rich in monographs on
French Marian sanctuaries, contained, on January 1, 1956, about 1200 Marian books and pamphlets.

6. Dreux. There is also a Marian library at the Redemptorist seminary in Dreux (Eure-et-Loire)
in France. It was founded in 1900 by the Rev. John Herrmann, C.Ss.R., along with the general
theological library of the seminary conducted by the Redemptorist Fathers. It is especially rich in
older works, having forty-five books of the sixteenth century, three hundred and fifty of the
seventeenth century, twenty of the eighteenth century, one thousand of the nineteenth century,
and five hundred of the twentieth century.

7. Banneux. A specially fine Marian library is located at Banneux in Belgium, where Our Lady
appeared in 1933. Abbé L. Arendt, a priest of the diocese of Liège, began his library in July, 1942.
By the end of 1957, it possessed well over 13,000 volumes, not counting several hundred Marian
magazines.
839 The Banneux library has become an important center of information to hundreds of
students of Mariology throughout the world.

8. Benburb. The Servite Priory of Our Lady of Benburb, in Benburb, North Ireland, has a Marian
Library which was founded in 1948 by the Very Rev. James M. Keane, O.S.M. By the end of 1955
it had approximately 700 Marian books.

9. Nicolet. The zeal of a distinguished Canadian layman, Commander Roger Brien, S.G.G., is
chiefly responsible for the splendid growth of the Centre Marial Canadien, at Nicolet, P.Q., founded
in 1946 with M. Brien as its director. It has become an international center of information and
promotion of Marian interests. The first project of the center was the outstanding popular
magazine Marie, begun in 1947, which L’Osservatore Romano justly appraised as “the most
beautiful Marian review in the world.” Its regular circulation is about 30,000 copies, but special
numbers may run to more than 60,000 copies. The center also publishes Marian Tracts, which
appear monthly from September to June (begun in 1949). It now has a museum, with an unique
collection of Marian iconography (over 350 artistic Madonnas, in addition to 3000 photographs of
Marian masterpieces from all over the world), and also a Marian library (begun in 1949) as well
as a sanctuary with a statue of Our Lady of the Interior Life.
840 In addition, the Centre maintains a
press service to more than 100 journals in Canada. Its releases are often read over Canadian radio
stations.

10. Iberville, Valcartier. Two smaller Marian libraries in Canada have been opened by the
Marist Brothers. The one, at Iberville, Quebec, had about 500 volumes on January 1, 1956; the
other, at the Ecole Normale of the Marists at Valcartier, Quebec, although it was founded only in
1954 (by Brother Eudore-Joseph), by the end of 1955 boasted of about 420 Marian volumes.

11. Dayton. The first large active library in the United States devoted exclusively to Marian
works is located at the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio. It was founded in 1943 by Father
Lawrence Monheim, S.M., as a project for the 1950 centennial of the Society of Mary in America.
On January 1, 1956, the library contained about 9100 books and 4050 pamphlets; in addition, 85
Marian periodicals are received regularly. The library also has a fine collection of other Marian
materials: films, recordings, statues, medals, stamps. A very important feature is the union catalog,
listing the whereabouts of Marian books in over 1000 general libraries. The library has several
publications of its own: a Marian Booklist (based on the union catalog — first published in 1949);
the monthly Marianist magazine; the scholarly Marian Library Studies (three studies had appeared
by the end of 1955) and Marian Reprints (mostly popular, and some scientific articles on Mary;
begun in 1952, seventy-six numbers had appeared by October, 1960). Two annual prizes are
awarded by the library: the Marianist Award, for outstanding service to the Mother of God (since
1950) and the Marian Library Medal (since 1953) for the best book on Our Lady, written in English
during the previous year.
841

12. Paterson. Father Juniper B. Carol, O.F.M., founder of the Mariological Society of America,
an internationally known authority on the Co-redemption, has gathered, over the past twenty-five
years, an especially fine theological Marian collection, now at the Franciscan Monastery in
Paterson, N. J. The library contains over 10,000 items (books, pamphlets, articles) including
photostatic copies and microfilms of hundreds of out-of-print pieces. It is estimated that Father
Carol has virtually everything written on the Co-redemption in any language.
842

13. Washington. About 1922, Msgr. Bernard McKenna began a Marian library at the National
Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on the grounds of the Catholic University of America, in
Washington, D. C. That collection has now been added to the Marian works in the Mullen Library
of the University, where its usefulness is enhanced by the presence of a large general theological
collection. The total of Marian books at present (January, 1956) is about one thousand.

14. Poughkeepsie. Our Lady’s Library at Marian College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., has had a
remarkably rapid growth. Founded in 1950 by Brother Cyril Robert, F.M.S., it had on hand, by the
end of 1955, a total of 9268 books, not counting magazines. The library also houses a large
collection of Marian art and Marian stamps.

15. New York. Another Marian center and library was established in New York City in 1954 by
Father Donald Maria O’Callaghan, O.Carm. By January 1, 1956, the library held about 1200
volumes, as well as a collection of Marian art. Marian forums are held annually for sisters and lay
persons. The center is also the headquarters for the work of the Scapular Apostolate and Militia,
which distributed three million scapulars to the armed services during World War II. Since the
close of the war, another million scapulars have been distributed to the armed services, and almost
another million to foreign missions. The Scapular magazine, now published at the center, appears
every two months.

16. Bay Shore, N. Y. As we have said, the number of Marian centers not having Marian libraries
is so great that we could not hope to treat all of them. We select, therefore, as especially
interesting examples, three outstanding centers in the United States.

Father Roger Mary Charest, S.M.M., of the Montfort Fathers, Bay Shore, N. Y., founded a
Consecration Center in that city on December 8, 1953. An annual prize, the Pius XII Marian
Award, is conferred yearly (the first was on December 8, 1955) on an individual or group that has
done outstanding work in promoting consecration to the Immaculate Heart as requested by Pope
Pius XII. The center also conducts a direct mail campaign yearly for consecration to the
Immaculate Heart. Queen of All Hearts, a bimonthly magazine (founded in 1950) is also edited at
Bay Shore, and specializes in the form of consecration to Our Lady taught by St. Louis de Montfort.
In connection with the center, Montfort Publications (founded about 15 years ago) publishes or
serves as an agency for a considerable number of Marian books and pamphlets. In addition, the
major seminarians of the Montfort seminary in Litchfield, Conn., began to offer by correspondence
a Marian Home Study Course (in nine lessons) at the close of the Marian Year, 1954. By February
12, 1956, two thousand three hundred and forty-seven persons had taken the course.

17. St. Louis, Mo. The General Office of the Sodalities of Our Lady now located in St. Louis, Mo.,
was first opened in 1913. It is the headquarters of the great Sodality movement in the United
States, which, in April, 1956, included 18,247 units. It publishes two periodicals, the Queen’s Work
and Direction, as well as a large number of pamphlets (not all on Marian topics, however). The
center also furnishes various supplies to Sodalities throughout the nation. In 1931, it inaugurated
the Summer Schools of Catholic Action, which, between 1931 and 1956, had enrolled 170,000
students. Six day sessions are held each year in various cities throughout the United States and
Canada.

18. Chicago, Ill. The Immaculate Heart Center was opened in Chicago, Ill., in December, 1955,
by Very Rev. James Mary Keane, O.S.M. It grew out of the Ambassadors of Mary, a lay
organization founded by Father Keane in 1946. For a long period, a weekly television program,
Behold Thy Mother, was given over Station WBKB-TV in Chicago. It also published, until 1959, an
exclusively Marian magazine, The Age of Mary, and maintains a Marian Information Bureau and
a Marian Bookshop. In addition, the Ambassadors keep eighteen Pilgrim Virgin statues in
circulation in the Chicago area, and have for some years provided First Saturday Retreats. The
center promotes especially the consecration taught by St. Louis de Montfort. All work is done by
volunteers.

19. Windsor, Ont. Chronologically the latest Marian Center to be erected is that in Windsor,
Ontario, for English-speaking Canada. Definitive plans were approved in October, 1955, and the
headquarters are at Assumption University, in charge of the Basilian Fathers. The announced
purpose of the Center is, among other things, to build up a Marian library eventually, to
disseminate Marian information, to publish Marian booklets, pamphlets and reprints, and to
conduct courses in Mariology.
843

II. MARIAN PUBLICATIONS

We have already mentioned a considerable number of Marian publications which emanate
from the above-mentioned Marian centers. A few other sets and periodicals may be recalled here.

In the entire world there are only two strictly scientific journals devoted exclusively to
Mariology: Marianum, of which we have already spoken, and Ephemerides Mariologicae, begun in
1951 by the Claretian Fathers of Madrid, Spain. Both of these journals appear quarterly, and each
issue normally contains articles in several languages (most commonly: Italian, Spanish, French,
Latin, English, Portuguese).

Besides these scientific periodicals, there is a very large number of magazines having a Marian
title, and devoted partially or entirely to Marian subject matter. Although these are, as a whole,
on the popular level, some of them do publish occasional theological articles. We could not hope
even to list all of these from all parts of the world, and so must be content with a partial list of
those published in the United States. We have already spoken of Direction, the Marianist, Queen
of All Hearts, the Queen’s Work, The Age of Mary, and the Scapular, in connection with the centers
from which each is published. Besides these, probably the best known are: Ave Maria, Fatima
Findings, Immaculata, Mary, Miraculous Medal, Perpetual Help, and Soul. Our Lady’s Digest is
especially notable for the relatively high number of theological articles it publishes.
844

The Mariological Societies described in Chapter 16 have many Marian publications, commonly
in the form of annual volumes containing the proceedings of the yearly meetings.
845 The oldest
group of such volumes is Mariale Dagen, which began to appear at Tongerloo in 1931, as the
journal of the Flemish Mariological Society (17 volumes had appeared by the end of 1959). In
France, the Bulletin de la Société Française d’Études Mariales began publication in 1936 (17 volumes
so far). Some of the most detailed studies are those of the Spanish Mariological Society, the
Estudios Marianos (now in its 21st volume). In the United States, the proceedings of the
Mariological Society of America have appeared annually as Marian Studies, since 1950.

Finally, we may mention some of the principal encyclopedic works in the field. One of the
oldest is the Summa Aurea de laudibus Beatissimae Virginis Mariae, edited by Joannes J. Bourassé.
846
It has the general character of a source collection, gathering up “all the more important things that
are found written about the most glorious Mary, Mother of God, in the Sacred Scriptures, the
works of the holy Fathers, the decrees of the Councils, the constitutions of the Roman Pontiffs, and
the books of celebrated Doctors.” There are eleven extensive indices.

Z. C. Jourdain has gathered together in his Somme des grandeurs de Marie
847 the preaching on
Our Lady from the first centuries to our day. It falls into five parts, treating of Mary in the thought
of God and in the Old Testament, during her mortal life, in the glory of Heaven, in the Church,
and in the Christian pulpit (this last section occupies volumes 5-11, and is a collection of
instructions and sermons from the Fathers, Doctors, theologians, ascetics, and orators of all
centuries).

The five volumes of the German Summa Mariana
848 of Jacob H. Schütz are divided into four
parts. The first volume contains the dogmatic and exegetical matter, together with a life of Mary.
The second and third volumes present the history of Marian devotion, especially such topics as
devotion to Mary in the oriental rites, in various nations, and in poetry and the arts, as well as
Marian apparitions, shrines, orders, and congresses. Marian feasts, litanies, hymns, scapulars,
confraternities, and related topics are treated in the fourth volume. The final volume is a large
collection of Marian sermons. In addition, there is a supplement to the second volume, discussing
the Marian poetry of Poland.

Some source collections of recent papal utterances on Mary have already been mentioned in
the first volume of this set.
849 We might add here a more recent, very important collection: Doctrina
Pontificia IV, Documentos Marianos, edited by Hilario Marín, S.I., in the Biblioteca de Autores
Cristianos.
850 It is the closest approach we have to a complete collection of the statements of Popes
and Councils on Mary. It takes in all the more important pronouncements from the beginning to
November 1, 1954 (inclusive). A Spanish translation is given at the top of each page, with the
original language at the bottom. There is an extensive, though not exhaustive index.
851

The Enciclopedia Mariana, “Theotokos,” recently appeared in Italy.
852 It is edited by R. Spiazzi,
O.P. The various articles were contributed by thirty-six theologians of various religious orders and
dioceses in Italy. It is in the form of essays, rather than in short alphabetic entries. It is truly
encyclopedic in scope, endeavoring to cover, at least briefly, every Marian topic.

France is fortunate in having the several splendid large volumes of the collection Maria, Etudes
sur la sainte Vierge, edited by H. du Manoir, S.J.
853 The first volume, the most important of the set,
treats of Mary in Scripture, in the Fathers, in liturgy, in dogma, in spirituality, and in the
apostolate. The other volumes deal with the history of Marian cult in the religious orders,
congregations, the diocesan clergy, and in the various countries of the world.

Germany is favored with two recent encyclopedic Marian works. The Katholische
Marienkunde,
854 edited by P. Sträter, S.J., is in three volumes. Its general scope resembles that of the
Du Manoir collection, though it is on a considerably smaller scale. More recent is the Lexikon der
Marienkunde,
855 edited by K. Algermissen, L. Böer, C. Feckes, and J. Tyciak. It promises to be, when
completed, the most comprehensive Marian encyclopedia. Thus far, only five fascicles have
appeared.

In Italy, Father Gabriel M. Roschini, O.S.M., has written two works which are virtually
encyclopedic. The earlier is his Latin Mariologia, in four large volumes.
856 It is practically
indispensable to Mariologists. More recently, his La Madonna secondo la fede e la teologia
appeared.
857 It is not a mere Italian translation of the previous work, though it could be considered
an adaptation of it. It is by far the best, most up-to-date, and most complete systematic treatise on
Mariology written by a single author. In it the author modifies a few of the opinions previously
held in his Latin Mariologia.

We have not, of course, done more than to mention some of the countless Marian publications,
and have confined ourselves to a few special classes.
858 The actual total of Marian works issued
since the invention of printing is estimated by Father G. M. Besutti, O.S.M., an authority on Marian
bibliography, as about 100,000 volumes.
859 So great a total is not surprising. For the Holy Spirit of
truth brings to the Church an ever deepening realization of the great things which He that is
Mighty has done for her. And so it is likely that the literary production centering on our Blessed
Lady will continue to increase in quantity, and we hope, in quality, to the praise and honor of her
whose dignity and holiness “no one except God can comprehend.”
860

Marian Congresses

by EAMON R. CARROLL, O.Carm.

MARIAN congresses are a distinctively twentieth-century contribution to the cult and study of
the Mother of God. The first international Marian congress was held in 1900. Along with the
international movement similar series of congresses on national and regional levels or in terms
of particular topics have taken place. And there have been almost countless individual congresses,
some small, others immense, some exclusively devotional in character, others both popular and
scientific, still others entirely theological. Such gatherings multiplied almost beyond enumeration
during the Marian Year, 1954, and were echoed in the Lourdes centenary observances in 1958.

The Marian and Mariological congresses of the past sixty years have played a role not only in
spreading devotion to our Blessed Lady, but also in deepening Marian theology. Many of the
conventions have featured study sessions as well as public manifestations in Mary’s honor.
Theologians have come together at Marian congresses to discuss Our Lady’s place in God’s plan,
and the results of their researches have sometimes been significant explanations of Marian
doctrines.

Many of the Mariological lectures held at congresses have been published in the printed
proceedings. Studied in order, such articles present a picture of the development of theological
thought about Our Lady in recent decades. The consideration has not been limited to the few
truths about the Mother of God that have been dogmatically defined. Under the guidance of the
teaching authority of the Church, theologians have attempted to see ever more clearly the
marvelous harmony that exists among all of Mary’s privileges, and in so doing they have pushed
forward the frontiers of Mariology.

The Holy See has repeatedly blessed the work of the congresses, and on occasion singled out
the study sessions. Speaking of the effects of the definition of the Immaculate Conception, the late
Pope Pius XII wrote in the bull of the Assumption:

Crusades of prayer were set on foot for this purpose; the study of the question was actively and
zealously encouraged by many eminent theologians either privately or publicly in ecclesiastical
universities and in other schools of theology. In many parts of the Catholic world national or
international Marian congresses were held. These studies and researches made it clearer that the
dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven was also contained in the deposit of faith
entrusted to the Church; and usually there followed many petitions beseeching the Apostolic See for
the solemn definition of this truth.
861

An important example of direct advice to the members of a congress was the radio message
of Pope Pius XII for the international Mariological congress held in Rome, 1954: Inter complures,
October 24, 1954, setting forth directives for the study of the sacred science of Mariology.
862 One of
the last messages of Pope Pius XII was his radio address for the solemn closing of the Lourdes
international congress, September 18, 1958, Vénérables Frères et bien-aimés fils, pèlerins de Lourdes.
863

The present Chapter is a survey of the principal Marian congresses in the period 1900-1958.
864
The field of investigation is too vast to attempt complete coverage; for example, the congresses
of the Marian Year alone, held in almost every country of the free world, would require a full-length book even to list and to summarize. The survey begins with the international congresses,
of which there have been ten to date. Next will be treated the major national congresses, namely,
the group of five held in Brittany, and the French National series, held at four-year intervals since
1927. Finally, a selection of principal single congresses will be given, e.g., the Brussels 1921
congress on Mary Mediatrix of all graces. The meetings of the Mariological societies of various
countries are not the proper concern of this Chapter, and these will be mentioned only in so far
as their foundation or some of their gatherings were in common with a Marian congress. Among
the myriad materials and events of which the congresses have been composed, emphasis has been
placed in this report on Mariological features, i.e., those elements which have advanced the study
of Our Lady. Particular note has been taken of relevant documents of the Holy See.

I. INTERNATIONAL CONGRESSES

First mention belongs to the international Marian congresses, which began in 1900. A
proximate preparation for them was a number of national congresses held in the last decade of the
nineteenth century. A Eucharistic congress at Turin in 1895 passed a resolution to hold Marian
congresses, and there were Marian congresses at Florence in 1897 and at Turin in 1898. At the
same time similar interest was expressed in France. The project was proposed at the twelfth
international Eucharistic congress at Lourdes in 1898. These hopes were realized in the Marian
congress held at Lyons in September, 1900. There is some difference of opinion as to whether the
Lyons meeting deserves to be called the first truly international Marian congress, or whether it
was a national congress. Without intending to settle the dispute, the listing used by the Academia
Mariana Internationalis is here followed, and Lyons named as the first. The complete list follows:

1.   Lyons-Fourvière, September 5-8, 1900

2.   Fribourg, Switzerland, August 18-21, 1902

3.   Rome, November 30-December 4, 1904

4.   Einsiedeln, Switzerland, August 17-21, 1906

5.   Saragossa, Spain, September 26-30, 1908

6.   Salzburg, Austria, July 18-27, 1910

7.   Trier, Germany, August 3-6, 1912

8.   Rome, October 23-November 1, 1950

9.   Rome, October 24-November 1, 1954

10. Lourdes, September 10-17, 1958

The Roman congress of 1950 was clearly divided, for the first time, into a scientific
(Mariological) part, and a popular (Marian) part. This useful arrangement was carried through at
Rome in 1954 and at Lourdes in 1958, so that the last three international assemblies have been at
the same time the eighth, ninth, and tenth Marian congresses, and the first, second, and third
Mariological congresses.

(1) Lyons, often referred to also as Fourvière, the name of the nearby shrine of Our Lady: the
majority of the many papers in the two volumes of proceedings deal with historical, or devotional
topics; e.g., a series of thirty sanctuaries, mostly in France, are treated in volume 2.
865 Fifty-six
separate essays deal with the Marian cult of various religious orders. Among the fifteen
resolutions of the congress, the first requests a feast of Our Lady’s universal queenship, that the
world be consecrated to the Blessed Virgin under her title of queen, and that “Queen of the
universe, pray for us” be added to the litany. The final resolution asks that a permanent
commission be nominated by the bishops to continue the Marian congresses. At the head of the
proceedings is printed Pope Leo XIII’s letter to Cardinal Coullié of Lyons, Multis praeclarisque
nominibus, September 12, 1899.
866

(2) Fribourg, Switzerland, was the site of the 1902 congress. A Marian exposition was held, and
the city was consecrated to Mary, queen of the universe. At the same time four study sessions
were held under the leadership of Msgr. Kleiser. Part of Pope Leo XIII’s letter of June 10, 1902, to
Msgr. Kleiser, Cum Nobis nihil antiquius, is reproduced in the acts.
867 There is little unity of theme;
the topics range over dogma, cult, history, art, and social matters. Yet in comparison to the Lyons
emphasis on history, Fribourg may be said to have had a doctrinal direction, especially regarding
the spiritual maternity.

The published French acts have a long dogmatic section, including studies on Pope Leo XIII’s
Marian encyclicals. Dom Paul Renaudin and Canon Pieraccini both discussed the definability of
the Assumption. J.-V. Bainvel is represented by an article on “Mary, Mother of Grace.” At the
German sessions similar topics were discussed: the encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII; Aug. Lehmkuhl,
S.J., and J. Groellner on the definability of the Assumption; Our Lady and the Eucharist; Mary’s
mediation of grace. Papers were given in French (A. Lhoumeau) and in German (L. M. Obermeier)
on Marian devotion according to B. Grignion de Montfort, and a resolution to spread this devotion
was passed.

(3) The Roman congress of 1904 commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the definition of the
Immaculate Conception. Pope Leo XIII established the first commission to prepare for the
congress, and Pope St. Pius X confirmed it. Study sessions, though many in number, took second
place to popular manifestations. The printed acts are mostly a descriptive record of the many
events; few of the papers were ever published.
868

At the direction of the Holy Father, the congress took an eminently practical line. The pontiff’s
brief to the commission urged the development of practical means to increase genuine devotion
to Mary.
869 Among those presenting papers were Father (later Cardinal) A. H. Lépicier, O.S.M.: “The
Immaculate Mother of God and Co-redemptrix of the Human Race,” and Father B. Vaughan, S.J.,
in English: “The Social Mission of the Virgin as the Second Eve.”
870 Among the results of the
congress was the creation of a Marian library, which has in recent years passed into the care of
the Servites in Rome.

(4) Originally planned for Cologne, the fourth international meeting was actually held at
Einsiedeln, Switzerland.
871 Pope St. Pius X sent a letter of encouragement, Honori magnae Parentis,
in which he reaffirmed the ideals proposed to the Roman congress two years before: the increase
of devotion to Mary most holy, and the improvement of the spiritual life of the faithful. “If we are
truly convinced — as your program so well states — that Mary is the most perfect example of the
Christian life, your congress must set out to arouse in the faithful of the whole world a new fervor,
and to lead them to imitate the Mother of God with a firmer will than they had before.”
872 Another
directive of the pope retains its value still for Marian congresses: “In consideration of the many
good results which can come from your meeting, We urge all the faithful who are devoted to the
Virgin to come in great numbers to the congress and urge all to prove themselves both prudent
in making decisions and prompt in putting their resolves into practice.”
873

The group of twenty papers on De Montfort’s teaching well illustrates the “practical” character
of Einsiedeln. The congress had sections not only in French and German, but also in such
languages as Spanish, Portuguese, Netherlandish; and Canada, England and the United States were
among the many nations taking part. Among the resolutions, a greater recognition of Our Lady’s
queenship was urged, e.g., by a proper Mass and Office. One organizational result of this meeting
was the formation of an international committee to plan future congresses. Msgr. Bauron of Lyons
and Msgr. Kleiser of Fribourg were named officers of the new committee.

(5) With the Saragossa gathering, 1908, the international movement took on a more theological
character, without prejudice to the popular and public honor to the Mother of God. The published
acts serve as a good chronicle not only of Saragossa, but of the whole background to the
international congresses. Fairly complete reports are given on Lyons, Fribourg, Rome, and
Einsiedeln, along with transcripts of documents from the Holy See. There is also a review of
contemporary regional congresses.
874

The menace of Modernism was the principal theme of the study sessions, based on St. Pius X’s
encyclical Pascendi. Mary, queen of the universe, destroyer of heresy, was invoked to crush the
head of the serpent of Modernism. The Assumption was also among the study subjects. Canon
Pieraccini’s paper on the opportuneness of a definition of the Assumption is reduced to a one-page
summary; C. Crosta’s report on the actual state of belief in the Assumption receives more space.
Among the resolutions were requests for the Assumption definition and for the consecration of
the whole world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The resolutions run to twenty pages, drawing
from Campana the just complaint that this was done in spite of secretary-general Bauron’s request
that they be limited to gain greater effectiveness.
875

(6) Salzburg, Austria, was the city of the sixth congress.
876 There were seven national sections:
German, Spanish, Franco-Belgian, Italian, Hungarian, Slovenian, and Polish. Each group issued its
own set of resolutions, in some cases suggesting that the next international congress be held in
its own country. It was decided to grant the French request for the next meeting at Rheims.
Among the final vota, the German section, seconded by the Hungarians, petitioned for the
dogmatic definition of the Assumption.

A number of papers dealt with the threat of Modernism; one bore this descriptive title: “The
faith in authority shown by Mary at the Annunciation is a condemnation of the Modernist concept
of faith.” Several conferences considered the bond between devotion to Mary and loyalty to the
Holy Father. This was in response to the pope’s words about the congress: “Under the protection
of her who has destroyed all heresies, let the Marian congress of Salzburg strengthen the unity of
Catholics among themselves, and with the head of the Church.”
877 A Spanish resolution urged that
the connection between Mary and the Roman pontiff be further studied in future meetings, and
hoped for future “papal” congresses, like the Eucharistic and Marian ones.

(7) Trier, August 3-6, 1912: the well-ordered acts with their abundant material reflect the
congress itself, and show what advances had been made in the twelve years since Lyons.
878 The
seventh meeting was transferred to Trier in Germany because Rheims was controlled by a Socialist
city government. A five-point program was followed in the study sessions:

a)   Pope Pius X’s “restore all things in Christ” is realized in De Montfort’s “Let the kingdom
of Mary come, that the kingdom of Christ may come.”

b)  the universal queenship of Mary, achieving its final expression in the Assumption and
coronation.

c)   the universal mercy of Mary, dispenser of all graces.

d)  the miracles worked at Mary’s shrines, especially Lourdes, confirm her royal and maternal
mercy.

e)   the papacy is the Marian kingdom par excellence. Devotion to Mary and loyalty to the
pope are counterparts.

These five major themes were all developed from theological, historical, and moral points of
view. German papers are the largest group in the acts, but there are also many French
contributions, and to a lesser extent Flemish, Polish, Italian, and Spanish (simply a list of topics).
The French studies include one by Dom Paul Renaudin on the Assumption, “The Triumph of the
Co-redemptrix.” His sage opening words are still applicable:

There is no doubt that the Marian congresses are not councils; they do not pretend to publish dogmatic
decisions, or to put themselves in the place of the teaching authority, or even to dictate to the teaching
authority a line of conduct. They wish only to place in relief more and more the person of Mary, her
virtues, her dignity, and the glory she enjoys in her eternal happiness.
879

In the German section such names appear as A. Miller, O.S.B. (Mary in the Old Testament); Dr.
J. Pohle (Mary’s Place in God’s Plan of Salvation); Dr. B. Bartmann (on the Immaculate
Conception); Fr. A. Lehmkuhl, S.J. (Mary, Mother of Mercy.) Over and over again the rapport
between the Blessed Virgin and the Holy See is stressed. Our Lady is “queen of the Holy See” —
she reigns through the actions of the supreme pontiffs.
880 A sign of the times was the Spanish
resolution, “that all who are devoted to Mary pray for Portugal, a land of the Immaculate, now
victim of Masonry.”

The outbreak of World War I prevented a congress in 1914, and it was not until after still
another World War that the interrupted series was resumed with the Roman congress of 1950. For
the first time there were clearly distinguished Mariological (October 23-28) and Marian (October
29-November 1) divisions. The congress was called “Mariological-Marian,” or in the line of the
international series, the eighth Marian and the first Mariological. The proceedings have been
published in twelve volumes under the title Alma Socia Christi, a phrase similar to several in
Munificentissimus Deus, and expressive of the association of the Mother of God with her Son the
Redeemer. Many of the papers dealt with phases of our Lady’s association in the redemptive work
of Christ. A student of years to come, comparing Alma Socia Christi with the acts of the congresses
between 1900 and 1912, will see for himself the strides made in Marian studies through the half-century.

In 1950 whole national Mariological societies collaborated, faculties of pontifical universities,
theologians from religious orders. There were plenary sessions held for the most part in Latin; and
then the individual sessions of the different groups, in various languages, including a United States
section, which studied the queenship. The more popular aspect, the “Marian” portion of the
congress, was not passed over. Indeed this was the occasion in the Holy Year when the world
gathered to pay tribute to the Mother of God. No Marian congress in history ever ended on so
glorious a note as the event that marked the closing of the 1950 congress. For on November 1,
1950, the Vicar of Christ infallibly proclaimed that the doctrine of our Blessed Lady’s corporeal
Assumption into heaven was a divinely-revealed truth. No attempt will be made here to survey
the studies given in 1950. The printed volumes are available and have been outlined and reviewed
in modern periodicals that are at the disposal of all.
881

(9) The ninth Marian and second Mariological congress was a feature of the Marian Year, 1954,
and again held at Rome, from October 24 to October 28 for the scientific part, and from October
29 to November 1 for the popular part. And again it was under the auspices of the International
Marian Academy, presided over by Charles Balić, O.F.M. Many of the papers in the eighteen
volumes of the acts, Virgo Immaculata, deal with the Immaculate Conception, but there is hardly
a significant matter in Mariology that is not treated by a capable author. The so-called debitum
peccati in Our Lady was a vividly debated topic in the congress. Members of the meeting were the
recipients of an important message from His Holiness, October 24, 1954, the eve of their opening
deliberations.
882

The organization of the program was similar to 1950, but there were many more participating
groups. General sessions were usually held in the mornings, and in the afternoons the specialized
groups held their meetings. Even the most skeletal survey of the vast amount of material that
resulted from these sessions, plenary and particular, would take pages. The reader is referred to
readily available sources.
883 The United States provided sections from the Catholic University of
America, Washington, D. C., and from the Franciscan National Marian Commission.

As in 1950, the Marian part followed the Mariological meetings, and the scholars left their
lecture halls to join the Christian people in parading through the Roman streets to honor Our
Blessed Lady and to see the Holy Father solemnly crown the ancient picture, Salus populi Romani.
On November 1, 1954, the supreme pontiff proclaimed the new feast of Mary’s queenship.
884

(10) In the Lourdes centenary year, 1958, Our Lady’s shrine city in the Pyrenees was the site
for the third Mariological congress (September 10-14) and the tenth Marian one (September 15-17).
Profiting by the experience of the Roman meetings of 1950 and 1954, the central committee, which
was again the Academia Mariana Internationalis, had drawn up the program well in advance.
885
The number of special sections was limited mainly to the national Mariological societies. “The
triumph of the Church through Mary” was the central theme; this was considered both in the
general sessions with Latin as the common tongue, and in the various vernaculars of the particular
sections. The division of material was as follows:

a)   The parallelism between Mary and the Church — German Mariological Society.

b)  The share of Mary and the Church in the redemption of Christ — Canadian Mariological
Society.

c)   Mary’s queenly power in the Church — Committee for the French National Marian
Congresses in association with the French Mariological Society.

d)

Mary, Mother of the Church, and her influence on the mystical body of Christ, which is
the Church — Spanish Mariological Society.

e)   The relationship of Mary to the priesthood, both hierarchical and spiritual — Latin
American committee.

f)   Mary and the Eucharistic life of the Church — Central Committee for International
Eucharistic Congresses.

g)  Mary and the spread and consolidation of the Church — committee of the “Church
suffering”

h)  Mary and the unity of the Church — international association “Unitas”

i)   Mary and the apostolate of the Church — the Catholic University of America, in
association with the Mariological Society of America and the Franciscan National Marian
Commission of the United States.

j)   Appearances of Our Lady and their meaning in the Church — Portuguese Mariological
Society.

k)  The miraculous cures of Lourdes and miracles — International Medical Bureau of Lourdes.

l)   Marian cult in the liturgy of the Church — Flemish-speaking Mariological Society (“Mariale
Dagen”)

m) Mary and religious art, with particular reference to the parallelism between Mary and the
Church — Pontifical Academy of the Immaculate Conception.

The Marian portion of the congress began with the arrival of the papal legate, Cardinal
Tisserant. The public events — open-air masses, sermons by cardinals and bishops, processions,
vigils, etc. — offered the crowds of pilgrims many opportunities to take part in the festivities. At
length on September 17 Pope Pius XII delivered what was to prove the last major Marian message
of his life, the radioaddress, Vénérables Frères et bien-aimés fils, pèlerins de Lourdes.
886

The International Marian Academy is preparing the proceedings of the Lourdes congress for
publication; they will no doubt run to many volumes.
887

II. NATIONAL AND PARTICULAR CONGRESSES

In addition to the international series, our century has seen innumerable other Marian
congresses. Certain groups of these have played a noteworthy role in the development of Marian
studies. Attention will be devoted to the following; (A) the Breton series; (B) the French national
meetings; (C) the Franciscan Assumptionist set; and, finally, (D) some single congresses of more
than ordinary importance.

(A) The Breton Series, 1904-1924

Probably the most significant series of regional congresses, in some respects surpassing even
the international movement, e.g., in the quality of the proceedings, was the set of five held in
Brittany, from 1904 through 1924. The sites were pilgrimage places of Our Lady, and the meetings
were gatherings of priests to study Marian doctrines.
888

(1) Josselin, November 21-24, 1904, on the Immaculate Conception: the acts contain a letter of
Cardinal Merry del Val, voicing the Holy Father’s interest.
889 The greater part of the meeting was
devoted to dogma, although there were also sections on devotion, art, and cult. The first dogmatic
paper was J.-V. Bainvel’s “The History of a Dogma,” on the Immaculate Conception.

(2) Rennes, March 22-24, 1908, in honor of the divine maternity and the Annunciation.
890 Seven
papers were devoted to the divine maternity, six to the Annunciation, and a set of nine papers was
on the cult of Our Lady in the diocese of Rennes. J.-V. Bainvel, S.J., contributed an article on the
maternal heart of Mary.
891 The Rennes meeting had the character of reparation for the harm done
to Mary’s honor, especially her divine motherhood, by a renegade son of Brittany; this was the
unfortunate Ernest Renan, although his name is not mentioned.

(3) Guingamp, sanctuary of Notre Dame de Bon-Secours, September 6-8, 1910, “in honor of the
Marian co-redemption and the Visitation.”
892 The first section of the congress considered the
coredemption, with papers by Hervé, Belon, Burlot, and DuBois. Belon’s paper was “Mary-Priest
— the Marian Coredemption Realised.”
893 Belon had good reason to discuss this subject, because
Bishop Morelle of Saint-Brieuc in convoking the congress had come out for a Marian priesthood
“strictly so-called.”

Belon shows the magnitude of the problem by his own indecision about the nature of the
Blessed Virgin’s priesthood. He grants her this title, yet says clearly at one point: “The Virgin
Mary is not a priest in the sense of that priesthood which is true of Christ and of his priest
ministers. But theology recognizes another priesthood: this, it is true, is simply analogous, of an
order which is purely spiritual and private. It is this which belongs to the baptized” (p. 104). Yet
this general priesthood, he continues, “stamped as it is by the divine motherhood, takes on such
proportions that it seems to pass to another order.” Laurentin relates that Belon had had an
audience with Pope St. Pius X not long before the 1910 congress, and told one of his students that
the pope had said in regard to the title “Virgin-Priest” (Virgo sacerdos), “one must proceed slowly”
(bisogna andare piano). As is well known, a decree of the Holy Office, dated 1913, but not published
until 1916, forbade images showing the Blessed Virgin in priestly vestments. Subsequent
documents have reinforced the disapproval, at least in the sense that the Holy See wishes silence
to be maintained lest poorly-instructed people misunderstand it.

A second main division of the congress took up Our Lady’s Visitation, the only such extended
treatment of this mystery known to the present writer. The papers considered the Visitation from
various standpoints — theological, topographical, artistic; and, of course, included studies on the
Magnificat, one of them by the Marist Père Georgelin, then of the Institut Sainte-Marie de
Washington. In addition to some essays on devotion to Our Lady in the diocese of St. Brieuc, there
was an article on the cult of Mary in Brittany across the sea, that is, in Wales. The Welsh language
and Breton belong to the same Celtic family.

(4) Folgoät (also spelled Folgoet), September 4-6, 1913.
894 The theme was Mary’s spiritual
maternity, and a resolution was passed that it be declared a dogma. In orderly fashion the speakers
developed the foundations of the doctrine, and the scriptural facts: the fiat at the Incarnation, then
individual lectures on John’s sanctification at the Visitation, on Cana (two papers), on Calvary, and
on Pentecost. J. de Tonquedec, Jesuit editor of Etudes, a native of the Quimper diocese, spoke on
the prayer of the holy Virgin. J. Le Rohellec, C.S.Sp., presented a long paper, “Mary, Dispensatrix
of Divine Graces,” which later appeared as a book.
895

(5) After the interruption of World War I the Breton series did not take up again until 1924,
when a final meeting was held at Nantes, October 14-16, on the subject of the Assumption.
896 The
printed proceedings open with a survey of the work of the Breton congresses by Canon E. Le
Garrec, associated with them from the start.

The assigned theme of the Assumption was studied in four sections. First was a discussion of
Our Lady’s death — its reason and manner, the possible place of her burial (Ephesus or Jerusalem),
the apocryphal transitus accounts, and an appraisal of them. Section two concerned the
resurrection of the Blessed Virgin; a preamble presented the contrasting opinions of J. Ernst and
Bainvel, while subsequent papers examined Scripture texts cited in favor of the Assumption, and
the theological reasons, especially the connection with Mary’s other privileges. The third part
consists of Bainvel’s article on the definability of the Assumption. The fourth division contains
various articles on the art and feast of the Assumption in France, as well as an essay on the woman
of the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse.

(B) French National Congresses, 1927-

The celebrations at Chartres in 1927 provided the opportunity to begin French national Marian
congresses, similar to the national Eucharistic congresses. The cardinals and archbishops ratified
this plan in March, 1928, and set up a “National French Committee of Marian Congresses,” with
headquarters at Chartres.
897 To date, seven congresses have been held. They are intended to be, and
have been in fact, country-wide manifestations of devotion toward Mary, but at the same time
have contained a strong doctrinal element, with leading theologians of France on their speakers’
rosters.

(1) Chartres, May 31-June 6, 1927, was occasioned by the ninth centenary of the founding of
the crypt of the Virgo paritura by St. Fulbert and the tenth centenary of the giving of the veil of
the Virgin.
898 The doctrinal themes were the divine maternity and the spiritual maternity. Practical
aspects were the promotion of the cult of Our Lady in the home and in the parish. Cardinal Dubois
was the papal legate; the acts contain the apostolic letter appointing him.
899

The congress days followed this order: a doctrinal point developed in a theological paper, then
a practical point of application to life, and finally in the evening a literary or artistic offering. On
the first day, for example, P.-M. Verrier, S.M., spoke of the virginity of Our Lady, two conferences
were given on the role of Our Lady of Chartres in individual and family life, and in the evening
papers on the Christian art associated with Chartres were given by G. Goyau and M. Denis.

(2) Lourdes, July 23-27, 1930, was the scene of the second national congress.
900 The doctrinal
papers dealt with the Immaculate Conception — the dogma, the history of its definition, and a
study of its place in theology, by E. Longpré, O.F.M., M. P. Pourrat, S.J., and J. Auriault, S.J.,
respectively. The sermons were on the Lourdes message relative to the Eucharist, prayer, and
penance. Three petitions were put in the form of resolutions: (a) consecration of the human race
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the pope; (b) extension of the feast of Mary Mediatrix to the
whole Church; (c) canonization of Blessed Bernadette.

(3) Liesse-Laon, July 18-22, 1934. There were meetings both at the Liesse shrine and at Laon.
Notre Dame of Liesse is devoted to Our Lady’s joy and this determined the direction of the
papers.
901 The doctrinal studies covered such topics as: Mary, cause and model of our joy; Mary,
cause of our joy by her mediation; Mary and the joy of a good death. The sermons carried on the
same theme, gathering a brilliant group of preachers: Pinard de la Boullaye, S.J., M. Gillet, O.P.,
Louis of the Trinity, O.C.D. Among the resolutions was a request “that the Holy Father deign to
make an official consecration of the human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, according to
the resolutions of the congresses of Chartres and Lourdes.” The acts include two documents from
the Holy See, directed to the legate, Cardinal Binet.
902

(4) The congress at Boulogne, July 20-24, 1938, was in honor of Our Lady’s queenship.
903
Cardinal Liénart was the papal legate. Again a double anniversary was saluted: the thirteenth
centenary of Marian cult at Boulogne, and the third centenary of the consecration of France to Our
Lady by Louis XIII, an event enthusiastically described by Duc de la Force of the French
Academy.
904

In the doctrinal reports P. Aubron, S.J., discussed Our Lady’s queenship from the historical
standpoint of positive theology, presenting the evidence of the liturgy, the catechesis, and the
magisterium. C. Dillenschneider’s approach was dogmatic — the theological foundations for the
queenship. He stressed that Mary’s royal power must be considered according to her feminine
character, hence especially in terms of her unique intercessory power. H. Barré, C.S.Sp., treated
the practical consequences of Mary’s sovereignty — our duties as her servants. An interesting and
acute study by Canon L. Détrez, “Pilgrimages — Their Spirituality,” answered objections against
pilgrimages in the light of recent directives of the Holy See. Among the resolutions was a renewed
request for the consecration of the entire world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for the
addition to the litany of “Queen of the world, pray for us.”

(5) La Salette — Grenoble, September 2-8, 1946.
905 A congress had been scheduled for Notre
Dame du Puy in 1942, but was impeded by World War II. As early as 1943 the national committee
decided to go ahead with the meeting planned for the La Salette centenary in 1946. The La Salette
congress had few public manifestations, but it was the quiet of intensity, in a land still aching from
the war, and in a Christian people mindful of the penitential message of Our Lady of La Salette.
Mary as coredemptrix was the main motif. An autograph letter of Pope Pius XII to S. Cruveiller,
superior general of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, appears at the head of the acts.
906

Distinguished theologians presented reports on Mary’s coredemption: C. Dillenschneider,
C.SS.R., M.J. Nicholas, O.P., and Canon Joussard. H. Rondet, S.J., spoke on the “Mother of mercy,”
and A.-M. Lépicier, O.S.M., on “The Sorrowful Mother.” Another set of scholarly studies dealt with
the appearances and advice of Our Lady of La Salette. Sermons given at the congress related both
the coredemption and the events of La Salette to daily Christian life.

(6) The next congress was devoted to the Assumption, and was held at Rennes, July 4-9, 1950.
The Holy Father’s letter to Cardinal Roques of Rennes is at the beginning of the publihsed acts.
907
The names of those who gave papers indicate the caliber of the congress: F. Cayré A.A., on the
germination and development of actual belief in the Assumption; B. Capelle, O.S.B., on the
Assumption in the liturgy; M.-J. Nicolas on the theology of the Assumption; H. Du Manoir on the
spiritual meaning of the doctrine; H. Barré on the possibility of hte definition; Msgr. L. Soubigou
on the benefits deriving from a definition. In the general conferences two De Montfort Fathers
spoke on the Marian doctrine and apostolate of their founder, who had passed his student years
in Rennes. Jean Guitton addressed the general assembly on “The Virgin Mary and the Mystery of
Human Existence.”

(7) The Marian Year supplied the theme at Lyons, June 29—July 4, 1954. The papal letter
naming Cardinal Gerlier legate recalls the glories of Lyons’ past, and the fact that this city was the
cradle of the work for the propagation of the faith.
908 The doctrinal reports presented a number of
French Mariologists, all treating different phases of the Immaculate Conception. Some of these
papers were: F.M. Braun, O.P., “Progress of the scriptural proof apropos of the Immaculate
Conception since the bull Ineffabilis;” B. Capelle, “The feast of the Conception in the West;” and
a particularly noteworthy paper by Msgr. Joussard, “The Marian theology of St. Irenaeus.” The
general conferences and the address to specialized groups were of the same high standard, e.g.,
H. Du Monoir’s talk to religious women, “The Spiritual meaning of virginity.”

(C) Franciscan Assumptionist Congress

The subject of the Assumption entered many of the congresses already reviewed, e.g., the
Rennes national congress of 1950 was entirely on this theme. The place of honor, however, belongs
to the series of Assumptionist congresses held in various countries under the sponsorship of the
Franciscan Fathers. The proceedings have been published in the series Studia Mariana by the
Academia Mariana Internationalis. In 1946 the superior general of the Order of Friars Minor set
up a central committee to promote the study of the Assumption. The committee decreed that study
congresses be held as soon as possible, first at Rome, and then throughout all the provinces of the
Franciscan world.
909

(1) The Roman congress, April 29—May 3, 1947, set the pattern for the subsequent ones.
910 The
material was divided into (a) historical-positive studies, covering the Fathers, the apocrypha,, the
tradition of the dormition at Jerusalem, the feast in eastern and western liturgy, the Assumption
in medieval literature, etc., and (b) exegetical-speculative studies — on the Scriptures, the dogmatic
value of the liturgy, the doctrine in the faith of the Church, and such favorite Franciscan themes
as the Assumption in the light of the absolute primacy of Christ, and the Assumption according
to the Scotist Marian principles. C. Balić gave a final paper on the definability of the belief.

(2) The Lisbon meeting, October 9-13, 1947, considered scriptural, patristic, and ancient
apocryphal references to the Assumption.
911 Several papers concerned Portugal and the
Assumption, as J. Montalverne’s exhaustive report on the ancient manuscripts in the monastery
of Alcobaza.

(3) Madrid, Spain, October 21-26, 1947.
912 The Spanish studies considered (a) general themes
relative to the Assumption, e.g., a study by A. Eguiluz on prayer formulas as indicative of doctrinal
belief — the old axiom “lex orandi, lex credendi”; (b) special subjects, as Father Montalverne’s on
the silence of the first centuries concerning the Assumption. The indefatigable Father Balić
reported his researches on manuscript codices in Spanish libraries, and then provided a summing-up paper on the significance of the Assumptionist movement in the world.

(4) The Canadian meeting, Montreal, August 15-18, 1948, was bilingual, and other theologians,
Redemptorist, Jesuit, Dominican, Sulpician, etc., joined efforts with the Franciscans.
913 In the larger
French section, the topics ranged from the problem of the Assumption through the reply of
tradition, to the teaching of theology. Among the studies, we find one on the Apocalypse by L.
Poirier, O.F.M.; on the first four centuries, by Cayré; on the Franciscan school, by Longpré; and on
the definability, by A. Ferland. The five papers of the English section included C. Morin, P.S.S.,
“The Assumption and Liturgy,” and B. Lonergan, S.J., “The Teaching of Theology.”

(5) Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 28-October 4, 1948, closely followed the Roman
division of material: an historical-positive section, then an exegetical-speculative section.
914 The
first section included reports on the doctrine of the dissident Churches of the East, on the
queenship of Mary in the liturgy, and studies on the cult of the Assumption in Ecuador, Peru,
Bolivia, Chile. The second section contained a conference on the queenship of Mary in the
Scriptures, and a theological explanation of the queenship, as well as studies more immediately
concerned with the Assumption. Among the better-known speakers who took part were J. M. de
Goicoechea, O.F.M., of Peru, and C. Koser, O.F.M., of Brazil.

At Puy-en-Velay, August 11-16, 1949, the talents of scholars of five nations were enlisted, e.g.,
the Jesuits Rondet and Boyer along with Franciscans Piana, Emmen, Bonnefoy, and Longpré.
915
Among the eleven dissertations are Piana’s on the Assumption according to the fifteenth century
Franciscan school. C. Boyer, S.J., of the Gregorian University, discussed the question of Our Lady’s
immortality de iure and de facto, in a paper titled “The Reasons for the Death of the Blessed
Virgin.” Longpré studied the relationship between the Immaculate Conception and the
Assumption from a Scotistic viewpoint. The divergent views of the various contributors provide
a good index to the healthy freedom of theological thought.

The United States congress was held at Washington, D. C., October 8-11, 1950, shortly before
the dogmatic definition.
916 Archbishop O’Boyle of Washington preached at the opening Mass. In
the academic sessions ten papers were presented by members of the three Franciscan branches of
the First Order. R. Ohlmann surveyed the Assumptionist movement, especially the Franciscan
congresses. A. de Guglielmo, O.F.M., discussed “The Immortality of Mary in the Light of Sacred
Scripture.” I. Brady, O.F.M., spoke on “The Relation between Sin and Death according to Medieval
Theologians.” M. Habig, O.F.M., reported on the cult of the Assumption in the United States, 1598-1888. M. Grajewski, O.F.M., took up the Marian cult of American Franciscans in terms of modern
Mariological studies.

N. Moholy, O.F.M., read a well-documented paper, “St. Irenaeus, The Father of Mariology.” R.
Huber, O.F.M.Conv., of the Catholic University of America, offered a similar study on the
Mariology of St. Anthony of Padua. N. Sonntag, O.F.M.Cap., discussed the Assumption according
to St. Lawrence of Brindisi. E. May, O.F.M.Cap., spoke of the Assumption in Franciscan exegetical
works. T. Plassmann, O.F.M., closed the collection with “The Papal Definition of the Dogma of the
Assumption,” written in anticipation of the event.

Although not customarily enumerated in this Franciscan Assumptionist series, the Jerusalem
congress, December 8-11, 1950, can be conveniently listed with them, for it concerns the
Assumption and was under the aegis of the Franciscan custodians of the Holy Places. Other
scholars collaborated with the Friars Minor.
917 Among the subjects were the Assumption in the
liturgy and theology of the Armenian, Chaldean, Maronite, Melkite, and Syrian (Antioch)
Churches. There is a carefully documented study by G. Giamberardini, O.F.M., “The Theology of
the Assumption in the Egyptian Church.” Another paper concerns the Islamic cult at the tomb of
the Virgin.

(D) Other Congresses

The international, Breton, French national, and Franciscan Assumptionist congresses have all
been discussed. To attempt to review the other smaller series and the almost countless individual
congresses, even those which were held during the Marian Year alone, would require a full-length
book. Moreover, many of the local congresses were almost exclusively popular in character, and
if proceedings have been published, these acts are often no more than extended chronicles of the
public displays of honor toward the Mother of God. In the present chapter the main emphasis has
been on meetings that have made a contribution to Mariology. Adhering to this criterion, a choice
will be made of the more important among individual congresses.

(1) At the initiative of the Capuchins, a “First De Montfort Marian Congress” was held at
Barcelona, Spain, September 18-21, 1918.
918 The bishop of Barcelona was the papal legate to this
meeting entirely devoted to the theme of true devotion to Mary. Father Arintero, O.P., was among
those who presented papers on Mary and the mystical body; his topic was the mission of Mary in
sanctification as the spouse of the Holy Spirit.

(2) Both in its study aspects and as a tribute of the trust of Christian peoples in the Queen of
peace, the Brussels congress, September 8-11, 1921, is a modern landmark regarding the mediation
of Mary. The congress was bilingual, French and Flemish.
919 Cardinal Mercier had sounded the
keynote in a pastoral letter:

... a more profound theological study of the place Mary, the Immaculate Virgin, occupies in the plan
of the redemption. There are corollaries still to be deduced from the divine maternity of Mary, from
her Immaculate Conception, from the fullness of her holiness, and above all from the share of her
sorrowing and immaculate heart in the redemptive sacrifice accomplished on Calvary. She is divinely
associated in a special degree in the mediation of Jesus, in His redemption; with Him she is His co-mediatrix, His co-redemptrix, as no one else is.
920

The Holy See authorized a proper Office and Mass on May 31, feast of Mary Mediatrix of all
graces, for Belgium and any other dioceses in the world that requested it. The Office and Mass
were originally composed by J. Lebon, but altered by other hands before they were finally
submitted for approval in Rome; hence the present propers, especially the collect, do not represent
fully the thought of Msgr. Lebon and the other associates of Cardinal Mercier.
921

The first part of the French study-reports was divided into (a) sources of Mariology — Scripture
and tradition; (b) Marian theology; (c) special questions. A second part dealt with history and
liturgy. L. Cerfaux showed the mediatory character of Mary’s grace, as expressed by Gabriel’s
greeting. P. Galtier, S.J., spoke on the maternity of grace in St. Irenaeus; Dom Capelle on the
Augustinian texts relative to the Immaculate Conception; B. Merkelbach, O.P., on the eminent
dignity of the Mother of God; and F. X. Godts, C.Ss.R., on the co-redemptrix. A. Vermeersch, S.J.,
spoke of “Mary, Queen of Peace,” and extended the significance of this title so meaningful in 1921
to the reconciliation effected in the redemption. Another volume of the French acts examined
Marian cult. M. Nepper, S.J., spoke on Russian cult of our Lady; Dom del Marmol, O.S.B., of
twelfth-century devotion to Mary; members of various orders on their respective approaches to
the Blessed Virgin — Benedictines, Dominicans, Carmelites, Jesuits, Redemptorists, Oblates of
Mary Immaculate, etc.

The Flemish had similar subjects. Doctrinal lectures were given by B. Merkelbach, J.
Bittremieux, L. J. Kerkhofs, J. Coppens — members of the distinguished company of theologians
Cardinal Mercier gathered around him, and whose studies contributed greatly to the present-day
appreciation of Mary’s mediation. An appendix to volume 2 of the French proceedings lists some
of the answers received from members of the hierarchy of various countries in reply to Cardinal
Mercier’s question about celebrating a feast of Mary Mediatrix of all graces.
922

(3) The Hispano-American congress of Seville, May 15-21, 1929, spanned the Old World and
the New.
923 Preparations for it began in 1927, under the leadership of J. Postíus, C.M.F., anxious to
provide a substitute for the interrupted series of international congresses. Besides Spain, and, to
an extent, Portugal, many Central and South American countries took part. Pius XI named
Cardinal Ilundain his legate.
924

The topics covered a wide range: doctrine, cult, spirituality, iconography, colonial history. The
selection of seventeen papers printed in full in the Acts are taken mainly from the section on
Marian theology and exegesis. D. Luis Rubio Moreno presented a lengthy report on Marian traces
in the Indies, documented from the general archive of the Indies located at Seville. During the
congress a solemn Mass was sung for the repose of the souls of the discoverers and colonizers of
America, with an absolution by the nuncio, Archbishop F. Tedeschini.

The major theological conferences were held on successive days. On May 15 the bishop of
Madrid preached on behalf of the definition of the Assumption and the Mediation of Mary. On the
next day Bishop Gomá y Tomás spoke on “the mediation of the Virgin and the mission of the
Catholic priesthood in the Church of Christ.” On May 17 Canon A. F. Nistal spoke on the
Assumption. Finally, on May 18 J. M. Bover, S.J., lectured on the “organic synthesis of Mariology
from the standpoint of the association of Mary in the redemptive work of Christ.”

(4) The United States joined the movement with the congress held at the Sanctuary of the
Sorrowful Mother, Portland, Oregon, August 13-15, 1934, seventh centenary year of the founding
of the Order of the Servants of Mary.
925 Cardinal A. Lépicier, O.S.M., presided, and gave several
addresses. He also presented the series of themes which were studied at the congress, e.g., “Mary
the holy Virgin, the new Eve, is justly and rightly called the coredemptrix of the human race
because of her real and efficacious cooperation in the work of human redemption.” Among the
speakers who took part were T. Burke, C.S.P., P. K. Meagher, O.P., J. Zeller, C.Ss.R., S. Juergens,
S.M., and A. Mayer, O.S.M. The attendance was in the tens of thousands.

(5) During the Marian Year the Catholics of the United States expressed their devotion to the
Mother of God in many ways. Universities held special lectures and convocations, e.g., the Marian
convocation, November 15-16, 1954, at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D. C.
Religious orders arranged special gatherings, dioceses celebrated Marian hours in huge stadiums.
The most impressive of these efforts, both doctrinally and devotionally, was the national Marian
congress organized by the Franciscan National Marian Commission, and held in San Francisco, Los
Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Sacramento, May 4-9, 1954.
926

There was a tremendous variety of public expressions of devotion — Pontifical Masses,
pageants, plays, concerts, pilgrimages, exhibits, even a pyrotechnical display over Monterey Bay.
Several days were set aside for theological sessions. Among the papers presented were: “The Cult
of the Immaculate Conception in the United States before 1854,” by M. Habig, O.F.M.; “Doctrine
of the Immaculate Conception in the Early Franciscan School,” by A. Wolter, O.F.M.; “The Fathers
of the Church and the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception,” by N. De Amato, O.F.M.; and “Our
Lady of Guadalupe, Bishop Zumárraga and the Immaculate Conception,” by F. de J. Chauvet,
O.F.M.

(6) Saragossa, Spain, October 8-12, 1940, held a congress which led to the foundation of the
Spanish Mariological Society, which met for the first time in 1941, and which is justly known for
its proceedings, Estudios Marianos. In Saragossa’s printed acts, which are otherwise mainly a
chronicle of events, there is the book-length study on the queenship by Angel Luis, C.Ss.R., a
significant contribution concerning this Marian truth.
927 At the actual congress there were many
other subjects, doctrinal, ascetical, etc. Dogmatic topics included the mediation, the Assumption,
the coredemption, and the relationship between the Blessed Virgin and the Eucharist. One of the
resolutions seconded the requests made at Lyons, Fribourg, and Einsiedeln for a consecration of
the universe to Mary Queen, and the granting of a liturgical feast.

Congresses, both national and international, of the various Marian congregations, the Children
of Mary, the sodalists, etc., might well receive a treatment all their own. Two will be considered
here:

(a) The Sodality world assembly at Barcelona, November 29-December 10, 1947, had as its
principal purpose to petition the Holy See to define the Assumption. The Holy Father addressed
the members by radio, December 7, 1947.
928 Recalling his own membership in the Marian Sodality,
the pontiff urged his hearers to avoid both the heresy of action and that timorous piety which
neglects the apostolate. Recalling how the Marian sodalities of a century before had petitioned
Pius IX to define the Immaculate Conception, and then awaited the great event, saying in the
silence of their hearts, “and now, Peter, instruct us,” Pope Pius XII made the same application to
the Assumption.

A first world-congress of the federated Marian sodalities gathered at Rome, September 8-12,
1954.
929 Ten thousand members gathered in St. Peter’s heard the Holy Father speak (September 8)
on the congress themes: (1) the selection of candidates; (2) union with the hierarchy; (3) co-operation with other apostolic associations.
930

Canadian congresses: (a) In 1929, June 13-16, a Marian congress was held at Quebec. In
addition to the enthusiastic and crowded popular manifestations, there were six sessions at the
University of Laval, on the subject of Mary’s mediation.
931 And in recent years in Canada there has
been a series of congresses, some national and bilingual, some local and mainly French. On several
of these occasions the Canadian Mariological Society has held its meeting at the same time as a
popular congress, and presented one or more of its papers to the general public. In fact, the plans
for the Société Canadienne d’Études Mariales were first drawn up at the important national
congress of Ottawa, 1947.
932

(b) Ottawa, June 18-22, 1947.
933 The pope named Cardinal McGuigan his legate by Ab Octaviensi
Archidioecesi, March 25, 1947, a letter containing counsels on the true concept of liberty in the light
of Our Lady’s life.
934 On June 19, 1947, the Holy Father delivered a bilingual radio message to the
congress, recalling Mary’s role in the history of Canada, and speaking of the spiritual
motherhood.
935

Marian Year congress at Cap-de-la-Madeleine, August 5-15, 1954.
936 The Canadian Society of
Marian Studies held its reunion August 12-13, so that the larger public was able to profit from
some of its sessions on the Immaculate Conception. A. Ferland, P.S.S., spoke on “The Immaculate,
Rule of Life for Christians.”
937 Papal interest was shown by the letter naming Cardinal Valeri legate,
Permagnus profecto, July 2, 1954, and by the Holy Father’s bi-lingual radio address of August 15,
1954, on Canada’s ancient love of Our Lady and her influence on Christian life in the present day.
938
On August 15 Cardinals McGuigan and Léger read the act of consecration of the nation in English
and French, and then Cardinal Valeri solemnly crowned the statue of Notre Dame du Cap.

Three Marian Year congresses: Philippines, India, Brussels. There were very many congresses
held all over the world in 1954. For the most part these have been well chronicled in the standard
magazines, Marianum, Ephemerides Mariologicae, the French-Canadian Marie, etc. Periodicals
specializing in papal pronouncements, as The Pope Speaks, devoted considerable space to the many
letters, radio messages, and other documents of Pope Pius XII directed to the Marian Year
congresses.
939 The majority of these gatherings were popular in character, and often exclusively
so; but a good number also contained doctrinal sessions and lectures. Short summaries will here
be given of congresses held in the Philippines and India, and mention also made of Brussels.

The meeting in the Philippines, December 1-5, 1954, is known as the second national, for there
had been an earlier one in 1926. Different days were assigned to the three themes — divine
maternity, Immaculate Conception, and Assumption.
940 The attendance of the people shattered
records in Philippine Church history. Special conferences were held for men, for women, for
youth, for religious, for priests. Three languages were used: Spanish, English, Tagalog. The
University of Santo Tomás was the meeting place for the priests’ section, which heard such
speakers as Archbishop Vagnozzi, the Papal Nuncio, and F. Vacas, O.P. A special theological
session was held at Santo Tomás, December 7. Cardinal Quiroga was the papal legate, and the
Holy Father addressed the congress by radio, December 5, 1954.
941

Valerian Cardinal Gracias was the papal legate to the Bombay, India, congress, December 4-8,
1954, a demonstration of faith unparalleled in Indian history.
942 The acts tell of all the details — civic
events, ordinations to the priesthood, a feeding of the poor. Cultural sessions were conducted in
various native tongues. There were also special meetings of priests and sessions for nuns. The
pope’s address given in English explained how genuine devotion to Mary is rooted in devotion to
Christ her Son.
943

Another bilingual national congress was held at Brussels, September 2-5, 1954. The pope’s
address was on consecration to Mary, its benefits and obligations.
944 Printed proceedings of both
French and Flemish sections apply Marian doctrine and example to all states of life. The Flemish-speaking Mariological Society (Mariale Dagen of Tongerloo) met at the same time. One day of the
congress featured lectures in German for people from eastern Belgium, with Carl Feckes as the
speaker.
945

Conclusion

Historically, the movement of Marian congresses dates only from the end of the nineteenth
century. The first international congress was held at Lyons, 1900, and Lourdes in 1958 was the
tenth. The congress movement has reflected and encouraged the growing interest in the study of
Our Lady as well as devotion to her; the last three world assemblies, Rome in 1950 and 1954, and
Lourdes in 1958, are good evidence of this with their specifically Mariological sections.

The Breton meetings, although limited in attendance, form a distinguished series of five from
1904 through 1924. After them may be mentioned the seven French national congresses, since
1927, both popular and theological, and the Assumptionist congresses organized in various
countries by the Franciscan International Marian Academy — scientific in character. The Marian
Year congresses, almost beyond accurate enumeration, ranged from the exclusively popular to the
very scientific.

What is the over-all balance from the doctrinal standpoint? One answer to this question is that
the congresses not only show the centers of Marian interest of the last sixty years, but also
indicate the development of doctrine, in so far as one can justly speak of development of doctrine
in so relatively short a period.

The Assumptionist movement is reflected in this period, perhaps less strongly, however, than
might have been expected, except in the years immediately preceding the definition. There is
evident a great interest in Our Lady’s queenship, in terms of doctrinal studies and resolutions as
well. Many petitions express the desire that the Holy Father consecrate the world to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary, although few papers treat this as a doctrinal theme.

In his address at the closing session of the Mariological congress at Lourdes, 1958, the legate
Cardinal Tisserant alluded to the role the century’s congresses had played in the development of
devotion to Mary, and reviewed in particular their influence on consecration to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, Mother and Queen. He proposed this consecration to the Lourdes congress as a
goal: “The tenth international Marian congress should encourage the development of consecration
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the part of individuals, of families, of societies.”
946

The mediation of Mary was studied particularly at the 1921 Brussels congress under Cardinal
Mercier’s leadership. Essays on this and associated truths, e.g., the spiritual maternity, the
coredemption, etc., occur throughout the sixty-year period.
947

Not all is gold in the final balance; much is alloy, and as one should expect of human effort,
there is a great deal of gilt. In some of the many published proceedings virtually the only parts of
lasting value are the documents from the Holy See. R. Laurentin tells how a distinguished
Mariologist by whose side he was standing at the closing session of a recent study congress on our
Lady —a congress productive of excellent work — remarked as the “resolutions” were being read:
“What a pity that all this dross is here too!”
948 But despite such human failings, the over-all
reckoning of the congress movement is an encouraging one. And the counsels of the Holy See sent
to the members of congresses have emphasized the lasting values of deeper understanding of the
mystery of Mary and the sound devotion founded on true doctrine.

Marian Shrines and Apparitions

by SALVATORE J. BONANO, C.M.F.

IN ORDER to keep this chapter within the boundaries of manageable exposition, the history of the
Marian shrines around the world will be confined to a mere condensation of available material to
the essential facts. It has not always been an easy task to determine which are to be considered
the main shrines of a given country, but the reader may rest assured that the great majority of
those dealt with here are certainly the principal national shrines, while the remaining few may
be ranked as at least important. Footnotes will enumerate other possibly noteworthy shrines in
the same country.

The liturgical coronation ceremony of Marian statues and paintings is intended to be a tribute
of honor paid by the faithful to their heavenly Queen, and a symbol of gratitude for countless
favors received. This ceremony, however, is reserved only for the more ancient and outstanding
shrines of Our Lady. The custom was established since at least the seventeenth century, when the
Chapter of the Vatican Basilica became heir to the legacy of Count Sforza Pallavicini that provided
gold crowns for celebrated images in the City.
949 The Canons of the Chapter determine which
paintings or statues shall be so honored.

I. THE HOLY LAND

Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

A wide-spread tradition of the ninth century points to the ancient town of Nazareth as the
birthplace of Our Lady, but a more solidly established second-century tradition favors the Holy
City of Jerusalem. After the year 400, numerous writers testify to the existence of a Marian
basilica, located in the northeastern sector of the Old City of Jerusalem, not far from the Temple,
near the Pool of Bethsaida. At the beginning of the seventh century, the Patriarch Sophronius
refers to this church as the place of Mary’s birth, and the recent findings of archaeology have
brought out the truth of his statement. Built in the first half of the fifth century over a small
oratory that had been in existence a hundred years previous, this church was destroyed by the
Persians in 614 and rebuilt between the eighth and ninth centuries.
950 In 1856 it came under the
jurisdiction of the French Government and was entrusted to the White Fathers of Cardinal
Lavigerie.

Church of the Annunciation

As early as a.d. 326, Constantine the Great had built a church in Nazareth above the grotto
where the Blessed Virgin heard the angel’s message that she was to be the Mother of God. After
its destruction by the Saracens, the Crusaders under Tancred erected a new church in 1100,
smashed, in turn, by the Moslems under Sultan Bibars in 1263.
951 Four hundred years later, a small
church was built on the ruins of the ancient basilica, and was replaced by the actual provisional
shrine erected by the Franciscans in 1730 to meet a deadline set by Turkish authorities. “In process
of construction at the present time and to be complete in 1957, is a new $2,000,000 Church of the
Annunciation. Only the foundations of the existing church, built in 1730, will be saved.
Excavations of the Franciscans and other archaeologists, preparatory to building the new Basilica,
have uncovered evidence, not only of the Crusader church, but of an earlier primitive and much
attended shrine at the very site of the Annunciation.”
952

Church of the Visitation

South from Haifa, about five miles west of Jerusalem, among the hills of Judaea, Mary hastened
to visit her cousin Elizabeth in the town of Ein Karin, today a picturesque village of 3200
inhabitants. In the year 700, the rather vague reference of the pilgrim Theodosius indicates Ein
Karin as the place of the Visitation, explicit mention appearing for the first time in a document of
the twelfth century. There are two venerable sanctuaries here, one at the east end of the village
at the site, according to a twelfth-century tradition, of the home of Zachary and Elizabeth, where
now stands the church of St. John the Baptist; the other, known as the Church of the Visitation,
which indicates the summer house to which Elizabeth retired and where she was visited by Our
Lady. The Church of St. John is said to date from the eleventh century and was built on an earlier
Byzantine church that had been destroyed by Arabs. Literary evidence seems to bear out that the
second shrine of the Visitation is based on an apocryphal legend that Elizabeth fled with her child
during Herod’s persecution into the mountain country.
953 There was a church on the site from the
fourth century to the end of the Crusades, but recent excavations have still failed to throw light
on how this shrine was given the title of the Visitation. The Franciscans have been custodians of
the post-Crusade church since 1679.

II. EUROPEAN SHRINES

ITALY

Our Lady of Loreto

On the Italian Adriatic shore, some 16 miles south of Ancona, lies the little town of Loreto, the
scene of a monumental shrine, enclosing and protecting the Holy House of Nazareth. According
to a tradition prevalent from the fifteenth century, this is the original house used by the Holy
Family at Nazareth and transported by angels in 1291 to Italy’s Loreto. A few arguments usually
alleged in favor of its authenticity are: (1) A document given by Pope Clement V, authorizing the
General of the Carmelites to build a church in Germany with donations offered by the Schevenden
family in fulfillment of a vow made before the miraculous image of Loreto. (2) The fact that the
House does not rest and has never rested upon foundations sunk into the earth where it now
stands. (3) The stone of the original walls and the mortar used are unknown in the neighborhood
of Loreto, but are chemically identical with materials most commonly found in Nazareth.
954

Over the House of the Holy Family, Constantine built a church which was destroyed by the
Arab invaders (cf. Church of the Annunciation, supra) and rebuilt by the Crusaders. The history
of the House between 1263 and 1291 is wrapped in mystery. The present Gothic basilica at Loreto
was built in the second half of the fifteenth century and was under the care of the Franciscans. The
Carmelites followed in 1489 and inaugurated the Litany which is now world-famous. In 1801, Pope
Pius VII crowned the original cedar-wood statue found in the House, but after the fire which
destroyed both altar and statue, Pope Pius XI crowned a replica of Our Lady of Loreto in 1924. The
Capuchin Fathers now care for the Shrine.

Saint Mary Major

Of first rank in the city of Rome is the Basilica of St. Mary Major, erected about the year 352,
during the reign of Pope Liberius. Legend has it that a wealthy patrician and his wife were
favored, in a dream, by an apparition of Our Lady on the night of August 4-5, and were requested
to build a church in her honor on the Esquiline Hill, at a spot that would be marked out by snow.
During that hot August night, while a miraculous snowfall traced the form and shape of the
basilica. Our Lady appeared to the Pope and informed him of the same event. A century later,
when the Council of Ephesus defined Mary’s divine Maternity, Pope Sixtus III rebuilt the present
basilica. From the seventh century on, it became known as St. Mary Major, because it was then,
and is to this day, the most important church in Rome dedicated to Mary.
955 It is flanked by the
Papal Palaces of Sixtus V on the right, and of Benedict XIV on the left. The imposing facade was
built by Pope Eugene III (1145-1153). Its greatest treasures are a painting of the Madonna and Child
known as the Salus Populi Romani, attributed to St. Luke and canonically crowned in 1838 by Pope
Gregory XVI, and the manger from the stable at Bethlehem.

Our Lady of Pompei

In the year 1872, Bartolo Longo, an Italian lawyer of Pompei in southern Italy, who had heard
a voice urging him to promulgate

the Rosary, journeyed to Naples in search of an image of Our Lady for the Rosary
Confraternity. There, at the cost of less than a dollar, he bought a poor old painting, depicting Our
Lady with the Holy Child, and giving a Rosary to St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena. It was
first enshrined in a small chapel at Pompei in 1876 and later in a new church that was consecrated
by Cardinal La Valetta in 1891. By command of Pius XI, the splendid structure we see today was
erected in 1939.
956

FRANCE

Our Lady of Chartres

Famed throughout the world for the perfection of its Gothic architecture is the Cathedral of
Notre-Dame de Chartres, seventy miles southeast of Paris. Here existed, if we are to believe
tradition, the first Marian shrine in the western world. On the spot where the Cathedral crypt now
stands, the first Christian missionaries of apostolic times found a grotto or vault where the Druids
had erected an altar “to the virgin about to conceive,” and a statue of a woman holding a child,
known since the founding of the Cathedral as Notre-Dame-sousterre. The oldest document relating
to the Druidic cult at Chartres is dated 1389, but it is considered by some historians as a fabled
account. However, the tradition reappears extensively in literature of the sixteenth century.
957

The first church, built probably in the fourth century, was destroyed by the Normans. Work
on a new church was begun in 1020 by St. Fulbert, but it was leveled by fire in 1194. The present
Gothic Cathedral, begun in 1260, was consecrated by Bishop Pierre de Mincy in the presence of
King St. Louis. In the Cathedral’s upper part, the objects of veneration are a fifteenth-century
Black-Virgin statue of Our Lady, known as Notre-Dame du Pilier, and the veil of the Blessed Virgin.

Our Lady of Lourdes

In 1858, at the time of the apparitions, the town of Lourdes numbered some 4000 inhabitants.
It was here, in the extreme southwest of France, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, that Our Lady
appeared 18 times to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous, called herself the Immaculate Conception,
asked that a chapel be built on the spot where people might come in procession, and requested
penance in a spirit of prayer.

On May 19, 1866, the Bishop of Tarbes, François Laurence (1845-1870), blessed the crypt and
said the first Mass in it in the presence of Bernadette. Five years later on the feast of the
Assumption, Bishop Pichenot dedicated the magnificent Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.
Next, in 1883, construction was begun on the Byzantine-Romanesque style Basilica of the Rosary.
Six years later Bishop Dilleres of Tarbes consecrated it and in 1885 built the Charity Hospital
nearby.
958 Three Little Sisters of the Poor founded the Hospital of Our Lady of Health for the
disabled in 1876, and in 1912 the Sisters of Charity of Nevers established a second Municipal
Hospital. Since 1885 an International Medical Bureau has been set up at Lourdes, whose purpose
is to determine the validity of the cures and witness their extraordinary character.

Pope Leo XIII authorized a special Office and Mass for Our Lady of Lourdes and extended the
feast to the Universal Church.

Our Lady of Salette

Though it occurred eight years before the apparitions of Mary at Lourdes, the story of La
Salette is little known. The weeping Mother of God appeared on September 19, 1846, to two
untutored children, 15-year-old Melanie Calvat and 11-year-old Maximin Giraud, on Mount
Gargas, above the village of La Salette Fallavaux, in the Diocese of Grenoble, southeastern France.
Our Lady’s message forewarned of dire punishment that would come upon the people if God’s law
continued to be broken and penance ignored.
959 The apparitions were canonically approved by Pius
IX in 1851. Four years previously a small chapel had been erected, and on May 25, 1872, the
foundation stone of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of La Salette was blessed. With a capacity for 2500
people the basilica was consecrated in 1879, and the statue of Our Lady of La Salette solemnly
crowned. The Missionaries of La Salette were approved in 1890 to care for the sanctuary and the
needs of the pilgrims.

SPAIN

Our Lady of the Pillar

Devotion to Mary under the title of Our Lady of the Pillar goes back to the time of the
Apostles, when St. James was preaching on the banks of the Ebro River in Zaragoza (Roman
Caesar-Augusta), in what is now the Province of Aragón, Spain. Our Lady, while still living,
appeared to him, holding the Divine Child in her arms, and surrounded by a choir of angels
carrying a pillar. She asked that a church be built on the spot in her honor and that the pillar be
placed therein as a symbol of the faith which the people would retain to the end of time.
According to tradition, St. James built the first chapel there, which later gave way to a more
splendid church, destroyed by fire in the fifteenth century. The present Gothic basilica was built
at the beginning of the sixteenth century by Don Hernando de Aragón under Bishop Castrillo
(1681-1715).
960 The Spanish baroque or Churriguerresque chapel housing the miniature statue of
Our Lady and Child and the six-foot-high jasper pillar on which it rests were designed by Ventura
Rodríguez and completed in 1765. The statue was canonically crowned in 1905, and Pius XII
granted the shrine the title and dignity of a Minor Basilica.

Our Lady of Covadonga

The battle of Guadalete and the defeat of King Don Rodrigo by the Moors in 711 marked the
end of Spanish independence under the Visigothic dynasty. But high up in the Pyrenees mountains
of Asturias, a small group of Spaniards under their leader Don Pelayo kept a guerilla warfare
against the Moors. A formidable army of Moslems, captained by Alcamor, resolved in 718 to wipe
out Don Pelayo’s soldiers. The latter, shortly before battle, retired into a cave in the mountain
fastnesses where they pledged themselves to fight for God and country under the protection of
Our Lady. In the ensuing battle, a thousand Christians routed a Moslem army of approximately
80,000 through Mary’s favor.

In the middle of the eighth century, King Alfonso I built a chapel in the cave (Covadonga
means: deep cave) and a Benedictine Monastery nearby to commemorate the event, dedicating
both to Our Lady.
961 The present church, in Greco-Roman style, was built in 1874 to replace the first
destroyed by fire in 1777. The statue was canonically crowned in 1918. The Augustinians
succeeded the Benedictines in the guardianship of the shrine in 1635.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

High up in the mountains of Extremadura, in the extreme western part of New Castille, stands
the historic shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. According to legend, the statue of Our Lady
venerated here belonged originally to the oratory of Pope St. Gregory the Great in Rome. When
St. Leander, Archbishop of Seville, visited the Pope, the latter donated the statue for Seville’s
Cathedral church. During the Moorish occupation it was hidden and, at the end of the thirteenth
century, miraculously discovered near the Guadalupe River, by a shepherd named Gil Cordero.
In gratitude to Our Lady of Guadalupe for a victory over the Moors at the battle of Salado (1340),
King Alfonso XI erected the present shrine over the ruins of an early chapel. It has been under the
care successively of the Mercedarians, Jeronymites, and Franciscans. On March 20, 1907, Our Lady
of Guadalupe was proclaimed Patroness of Extremadura, and in 1928 crowned Queen of all Spain
and Spanish America by Cardinal Segura.
962

PORTUGAL

Our Lady of Fatima

Between April and November of 1917, Our Lady appeared six times to three Portuguese
children in a field called Cova da Iria near Fátima, a village about 70 miles north of Lisbon. In her
apparitions she made an appeal for devotion to her Immaculate Heart, for prayer and penance, for
the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and first Saturday Communions of reparation;
she spoke of wars and persecution. On October 13, the day of the final apparition, the dramatic
episode of the dance of the sun took place, witnessed by a crowd of 70,000. A declaration of the
Bishop of Leiria, in whose diocese the apparitions occurred, approved the cult of Our Lady of
Fátima in 1930.
963

The first structure to be erected was a kind of an archway, replaced soon by a tiny chapel over
the spot of the apparitions. A second but still diminutive chapel was built in 1922 after the
dynamite outrage, and next to it, the Chapel of the Confessions, also known as the “Pavilion of the
Sick.” On May 13, 1928, the foundation stone of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary was laid,
and the finished structure consecrated on October 6, 1953, by Cardinal Cerejeira, Patriarch of
Lisbon. There are fifteen altars in honor of the fifteen mysteries of the rosary, and on either side
of the basilica stands a hospital with various offices including a Medical Bureau. The Papal Legate
of Pius XII, Cardinal Masella, crowned Our Lady’s statue on May 13, 1946, the 300th anniversary
of Portugal’s consecration to Mary Immaculate.

SWITZERLAND

Our Lady of Einsiedeln

The history of this shrine begins with the hermit St. Meinrad, who in the ninth century chose
this spot in the village of Einsiedeln (meaning hermitage) just a few miles from the Swiss city of
Zurich as a place to build a cell. After his death a chapel was built over the place of his oratory and
cell and the present Madonna chapel or Chapel of Grace within the shrine indicates the original
site. An ancient wooden wonder-working statue of the Madonna and Child, known as the Black-Virgin, and enshrined in the primitive chapel, was destroyed in the fire of 1465, but was
reproduced shortly afterward. In the middle of the tenth century a huge Basilica and an adjacent
Benedictine Monastery were built during the abbacy of St. Eberhard of Strasbourg, but the present
abbey is the sixth that has been built on the site.
964

GERMANY

Our Lady of Altötting

In upper Bavaria, about 60 miles east of Munich, stands the early Romanesque “Holy Chapel”
of Altötting. Built in the eighth century, it enshrines the miraculous age-blackened thirteenth-century statue of the Madonna. The heathen temple, where about the year 700, St. Rupert baptized
Otto the Bavarian, was turned into a Christian chapel, and is basically the same structure as the
Holy Chapel today. Here a Benedictine Monastery was founded in 876 and the shrine entrusted
to the care of the monks for over four hundred years.
965 After a short tenure by the Jesuits, the
Capuchins took up residence at the shrine.

Our Lady of Kevelaer

Perhaps the most famous of all shrines in Germany, Our Lady of Kevelaer, is located in the far
north of the Rhineland near the Dutch border and dates back to the seventeenth century. Its origin
was due to a paper picture of Our Lady, Comforter of the Afflicted, in the possession of a soldier
from Luxemburg, where devotion to Mary under that title had been flourishing. The Busmann
couple, living near the city of Kevelaer, had been requested by Our Lady to build a church there
in her honor. They bought the soldier’s picture and set it up in a small shrine, over which, in 1650,
was built the Chapel of Mercy (Gnadenkapelle). Papally crowned in 1892, the miraculous picture
is here venerated by thousands of pilgrims.
966

HOLLAND

Our Lady of ’sHertogenbosch

Christianity in Holland has always been characterized by an ardent devotion to Our Lady.
Perhaps the most magnificent shrine in the Netherlands is the Marian Gothic Cathedral of
’sHertogenbosch, in Northern Brabant. The Lady Chapel that houses the thirteenth-century statue
of the “Sweet Mother” was built in 1268, while the Cathedral itself dates in large part from the
fifteenth century. The statue was canonically crowned by authorization of Pope Leo XIII in 1878,
and St. Pius X granted the feast a Proper Office.
967

BELGIUM

Our Lady of Beauraing

Between November 29, 1932, and January 3, 1933, Our Lady appeared to five children of the
Voisin and Deggeimbre families in the small town of Beauraing, Province of Namur, south
Belgium. The message of Our Lady was an appeal for sacrifice, prayer, and devotion to her
Immaculate Heart.
968 In 1943, Bishop Andrew Charue of Namur expressed official, though reserved,
approbation of cult to Our Lady of Beauraing, but in 1949 he declared: “We are able in all serenity
and prudence to affirm that the Queen of heaven appeared to the children of Beauraing during the
winter of 1932-1933. ...” On the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1946, the statue of Our
Lady was blessed and the following year the cornerstone laid for the chapel of the apparitions.

Our Lady of Banneux

Just twelve days after the last apparition at Beauraing, Our Lady revealed herself to an 11-year-old girl, Mariette Beco, in the village of Banneux, a hundred miles distant from Beauraing, just ten
miles east of Liège, in eastern Belgium. In her apparitions Mary called herself the Virgin of the
Poor, and asked that a spring not far from the site be dedicated to her for the sick of all nations.
969
Official recognition of the eight apparitions was given by Bishop L. Kerkhofs in 1949. The chapel
requested by Our Lady was built in 1933, and in 1948 the cornerstone was laid for a new basilica
to be dedicated to Our Lady, Queen of Nations.

ENGLAND

Our Lady of Walsingham

Excluding Wales and Scotland, England has 250 Marian shrines, of which none ever rivaled
that of Walsingham, situated in the east coast County of Norfolk. In 1061, when St. Edward the
Confessor was on the throne, Our Lady appeared to a widow named Richeldis Faverches, of
Walsingham, and bid her to build in England a replica of the Holy House of Nazareth in honor of
the Annunciation. This she did, and in the thirteenth century, a Gothic church and Priory of
Augustinian Canons was established next to the Lady Chapel enshrining the Holy House. Henry
VIII destroyed the Priory and shrine in 1538, and the statue of Our Lady was brought to London
and burned publicly at Chelsea. At the end of the nineteenth century, English Catholics again
erected a shrine near the original site, and in 1922 the first pilgrimage since the Reformation made
its way to Walsingham.
970 A new shrine was built in 1938 on property belonging to the Anglicans.
A new statue, designed after the original burned in 1538, was enshrined in 1934 in the restored
“Slipper Chapel” near the original Walsingham shrine. Canonically crowned in 1954, Our Lady of
Walsingham is the Patroness of England.

IRELAND

Our Lady of Knock

Nearly three quarters of a century ago, Our Lady revealed herself to a group of villagers in the
chapel yard of a little parish church in the town of Knock (Cnoc) Mhuire, in the southeast end of
County Mayo, western Ireland. It was the evening of August 21, 1879, that she appeared, with St.
Joseph on her right and the Apostle St. John on her left. In the center of the wall of the church was
an altar and a cross in brilliant light, and at the foot of the cross a lamb.
971 Archbishop McHale of
Tuam declared the testimony of all witnesses, taken as a whole, trustworthy and satisfactory. In
1936 a Medical Bureau was established where hundreds of cures have been scientifically validated.
Knock (official name: Mary’s Knoll or Hill) is now a National Shrine where Our Lady, in the words
of Pius XI, reigns as the Queen of Ireland.

AUSTRIA

Our Lady at Mariazell

Mariazell is the West’s nearest shrine to the Iron Curtain, located in the Styrian Alps, at the
head of the Salza Valley, near the town of Enns, 50 miles southwest of Vienna. Though basically
Austrian, the shrine is the mecca for pilgrims from all of Central Europe. It owes its origin to the
Benedictine monk, Magnus, who in 1157 had set up a miniature statue of Our Lady and Child for
veneration on the spot that is marked by today’s three-towered basilica.
972 The first Romanesque
chapel gave way to a more splendid church, erected by King Louis the Great of Hungary in 1340,
and transformed in the seventeenth century into a Baroque basilica. On August 21, 1955, the
Carmelite Order laid the foundation stone of a new monastery dedicated to the Immaculate Heart
of Mary, adjacent to the shrine of the Magna Mater Austriae at Mariazell. The project was
completed in 1957, the shrine’s eighth centenary.

POLAND

Our Lady of Czestochowa

Of some 600 Marian shrines in Poland which possess miraculous statues and paintings, that
of Our Lady of Jasna Góra at Czestochowa holds first rank. According to legend, Our Lady’s
painting here is the work of St. Luke and was brought from Jerusalem to Constantinople by St.
Helena. Thence it passed into possession of various Russian princes until, in 1382, Duke Ladislas
of Opole sent it from the Castle of Belz in Ruthenia to Czestochowa. The Pauline Fathers are the
custodians of the painting.
973

In 1665, Charles Gustave and his Swedish army of 2000 invaded Poland, but met defeat at the
hands of a small military force led by the Prior of Czestochowa’s monastery. In gratitude, King
Casimir proclaimed Our Lady “Queen of the Crown of Poland.” Pope Clement IX authorized the
solemn coronation which took place on September 8, 1717.

III. AFRICA

Our Lady of Africa

On a hill overlooking the Mediterranean near Algiers stands the majestic Basilica of Our Lady,
Queen of Africa. Through the initiative of Bishop Pavy of Algiers and two pious women, M. Berger
and A. Cinquan, sufficient funds were gathered to erect a provisional chapel in 1857, on the spot
where thousands of pilgrims had come to venerate a small bronze statue of Our Lady, not far from
the site of the present basilica.
974 A year later, Bishop Pavy laid the cornerstone of the present
Byzantine-style church, completed in 1866. Pius IX decreed the coronation of the statue and the
elevation of the church to the rank of a basilica in 1876. The Trappists, White Fathers, and White
Sisters carry on their missionary work under the shadow of Our Lady of Africa.

IV. NORTH AMERICAN SHRINES

CANADA

Our Lady of the Cape

It was on a little cape that juts out into the St. Lawrence east of Three Rivers in the Diocese
of the same name, midway between Montreal and Quebec, that the Jesuits built a small chapel and
dedicated it to St. Mary Magdalene. Eventually, the neighboring settlement took the title of the
Saint and it is now known as Cap-de-la-Madeleine. In 1715 Father Paul Vachon built the present
chapel. The miracle-working statue, known as Our Lady of the Cape, was a parishioner’s donation
to the Confraternity of the Rosary in 1845 during the pastorate of Father Tourigny. In the spring
of 1879, during a novena to Mary, an ice bridge formed across the river under extraordinary
circumstances, and served for the transportation of stones for the erection of a new church to
supplement the old chapel.
975 This church was dedicated June 22, 1888, as a shrine to the Queen of
the Most Holy Rosary. St. Pius X authorized the coronation of the statue in 1904. Five years later
the First Plenary Council of Quebec declared the Church a shrine of national pilgrimage.

UNITED STATES

Our Lady of “La Leche”

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, on the grounds of the ancient mission of Nombre
de Dios in St. Augustine, Florida, early Spanish settlers erected the oldest shrine on United States
territory, under the title of Nuestra Señora de la Leche y Buen Parto (Our Nursing Mother of Happy
Delivery). Though devotion to Our Lady as Nursing Mother dates back to the first centuries, its
origin in Florida is traced to Madrid, where in 1602 a statue representing Mary nursing her Child
saved a mother threatened with death at childbirth. King Philip III of Spain personally undertook
the erection of a shrine in Madrid to honor Mary’s motherhood, and pioneer Spanish mothers
spread the same devotion when they came to Florida.
976 The present little chapel, enshrining a
replica of the ancient statue, was begun in 1915 on the site of the original Spanish church where
Our Lady was venerated as the Nursing Mother.

National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

The largest church in the United States dedicated to Mary is The National Shrine of the
Immaculate Conception, in Washington, D. C. The project, sponsored by Cardinal Gibbons, was
presented to Pius X for approval in 1914, and then placed for execution in the capable hands of
Bishop T. Shahan and his secretary, Father B. McKenna. Cardinal Gibbons laid the cornerstone of
the shrine’s crypt in 1920.
977 The style of the National Basilica is Byzantine-Romanesque and
cruciform in shape, surmounted by a great dome and a 317-foot-high bell-tower dominating the
façade. This magnificent multi-million dollar structure was solemnly dedicated on November 20,
1959.

Our Lady of Victory

The last great work of Msgr. Nelson H. Baker was the National Shrine and Basilica of Our Lady
of Victory which he started building in Lackawanna (Buffalo, N. Y.) at the age of eighty.
Completed at the cost of over three million and a half dollars, it was opened, dedicated, and
consecrated by Patrick Cardinal Hayes in May of 1926, and raised to the honors of a basilica by
Pius XI a year later.
978 Built of white marble in Renaissance style, it has two large towers and a
great dome, depicting within the Assumption of Our Lady and surmounted by a large bronze cross.
Attached to the shrine are several homes of charity.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

The shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, popularly known as The Mission Church, was built
by the Redemptorists in 1871 in the Roxbury district of Boston.
979 The image venerated in the
church is an exact copy of the original in the Church of St. Alphonsus on the Via Merulana in
Rome. Well known to Catholics the world over, it portrays the Blessed Virgin holding the Child
Jesus on her left arm, with the Archangels Gabriel and Michael presenting the instruments of the
Passion to the Child. The original mission church was replaced by a more stately temple in April
of 1878.

The Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother

This shrine was founded in Portland, Oregon, by the Servite Fathers in 1924. A truly unique
shrine, covering 60 acres on two levels or terraces, it is the goal for nearly a half million pilgrims
and visitors annually. Dominating the entrance is a crucifixion group in Carrara marble, leading,
on the lower level, to the heart of the Sanctuary, which is the grotto of Our Sorrowful Mother,
hollowed out of the granite walls of a cliff. On the Sanctuary’s upper level, directly above the
grotto, rises an imposing monument depicting the Seven Sorrows of Mary, and crowning it, a
bronze statue of “Mary Our Mother.” Structural work on a new Grotto Chapel of stone and marble
in contemporary classical vein is now more than half complete.
980

MEXICO

Our Lady of Guadalupe

It was on December 9, 1531, ten years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico, that Our Lady
appeared on five occasions to a poor Indian convert, Juan Diego, on Tepeyac Hill, not far from
Mexico City, and told him to convey to Bishop Juan de Zumárraga her wish that a shrine be built
on the spot where she stood. The sign given was the miracle of the roses and the life-size portrait
of Our Lady miraculously etched on the Indian’s cloak. To this day the picture may be seen above
the main altar of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
981

A small adobe chapel was erected at the site of the apparitions probably in 1531, and later three
others nearby. The largest church was begun in 1695, completed in 1709, and raised to the rank
of a basilica in 1904. The image was canonically crowned in 1895.

V. CENTRAL AMERICAN SHRINES

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Our Lady of Altagracia

The ancient basilica of La Altagracia at Higuey in the easternmost part of the Dominican
Republic is Mary’s first shrine in the New World. The painting of Our Lady under this title was
brought to the parish church of Higuey by two colonists, 14 years after the discovery of America.
982
The present stone church, completed in 1569 by Alonso de Peña, is now too small for the number
of pilgrims flocking to it, so in 1952 the cornerstone was laid for a much larger and more
magnificent shrine. The image was solemnly crowned in 1922.

COSTA RICA

Our Lady Queen of the Angels

Situated a few miles east of San José, the capital of Costa Rica, is the town of Cartago,
numbering 10,000 inhabitants. Here a miracle took place on the feast of the Queen of the Angels,
August 2, 1635, when a small Madonna and Child statue was discovered in a forest by a mulatto
girl named Juana Pereira.
983 The statue mysteriously returned to its original place after having been
twice taken to the girl’s home and once locked in the tabernacle of the parish church. The present
shrine is the fourth and was consecrated by Bishop Llorente in 1852. Declared Patroness of Costa
Rica in 1824, Our Lady Queen of the Angels was crowned in 1926 in virtue of a papal rescript.

VI. SOUTH AMERICAN SHRINES

ARGENTINA

Our Lady of Luján

Said to be the most magnificent in the entire western hemisphere, the shrine of Our Lady of
Luján owes its origin to a Portuguese landowner of Córdoba, Argentina, who in 1629 wrote to a
friend in Brazil for a statue of Mary Immaculate. When Our Lady had manifested her wish that
a chapel be built for the statue near the Luján River in the Córdoba region, the natives set to work
and built the first shrine in 1677.
984 A second more beautiful church was erected in 1763; this, in
turn, was replaced by today’s grand basilica, consecrated in 1910. The solemn coronation took
place in 1886 in the name of Pope Leo XIII.

BOLIVIA

Our Lady of Copacabana

This renowned Bolivian shrine is dedicated to Our Lady of the Purification, and is situated on
the banks of Lake Titicaca, near the borderline of Peru and Bolivia, in the ancient town of
Copacabana. Shortly after the Spanish conquest, an Indian convert claimed to have had a vision
of Our Lady and reproduced that vision in the form of a statue which he carved in 1582.
985 It was
the source of mass conversions of the natives, and soon a small shrine was built to house it.
Today’s Baroque basilica dates back to 1640, the work of the Augustinian Fathers. The statue of
Our Lady was crowned on the feast of the Assumption in 1925.

BRAZIL

Our Lady of Aparecida

While Brazil was still a colony of Portugal (1717), a certain Domingo García and his sons set
out to fish on the River Parahybam near Cabo Frio. They had had little success and were about to
return home when a last throw drew up from the rough waters a small wooden statue of Our
Lady.
986 Miracles were later attributed to it and the first chapel to enshrine it was built by Father
Villela in 1745. The Bishop of São Paulo crowned the statue in 1904. Under construction at present
is a huge basilica in the form of a Greek Cross which will supplement the church built in 1888.

COLOMBIA

Our Lady of Chiquinquirá

The city of Chiquinquirá nestles high up on the Andean plateau to the north of Bogotá,
Colombia. Its origin was occasioned by the working of a miracle at the country house of the
Spaniard Don Santana in the year 1586. While María Ramos, a cousin of Santana, was in prayer
before a shred-torn painting of the Madonna of the Rosary, Our Lady appeared and left her
beautiful image on the canvas.
987 The Capuchins built the present basilica in 1824 over the ruins
of an early stone church. Our Lady of Chiquinquirá was solemnly crowned in Bogotá in July of
1919 during Colombia’s first Marian Congress.

VENEZUELA

Our Lady of Coromoto

The village of Guanare (originally, Espíritu Santo) in the State of Zamora, Venezuela, was
founded by Fernández de León in the year 1593. What has made it famous throughout South
America is a diminutive, oval-shaped painting of Our Lady Queen and the Infant King, known to
the Cospe Indians as Our Lady of Coromoto. In 1651 the Chief of the Cospes and his wife were on
their way to fetch water in the Coromoto region when Our Lady appeared to them with the Child
in her arms. In a second and third apparition she asked them to receive Baptism, and in a fourth,
gave them a painting of herself.
988 After having been venerated in Guanare’s parish church for over
200 years, the image was finally transferred to a new Spanish-Baroque shrine, which today enjoys
the rank of a minor basilica. Our Lady of Coromoto was declared Patroness of the Republic in 1942,
and crowned on September 11, 1952.

VII. ASIATIC SHRINES

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

Our Lady of Antipolo

The original title of this national shrine at Antipolo near Manila in the Philippines was Our
Lady of Peace and Happy Traveling (Nuestra Señora de la Paz y del Buen Viaje), a popular Sevillian
invocation. Governor Juan Niño de Tavora brought the statue from Acapulco, Mexico, to the
Philippines in 1626, and donated it to the Jesuits at the mission center of Antipolo.
989 Here in 1632
construction on a shrine for the miracle-working statue was near completion, when Chinese
revolutionaries sacked the city and burned the shrine. Twenty years later, faithful Philippines saw
their dream fulfilled in the splendid church one can see today and where Our Lady reigns as
Patroness of the Philippine Archipelago.

CHINA

Our Lady of Zo-Se

The shrine of Our Lady of Zo-se, the center of Marian devotion for Chinese Catholics, does not
owe its origin to the working of a miracle or an apparition. It grew out of the zeal of a Jesuit
missionary, Father Della Corte, who in 1868 dedicated a little chapel to Mary and placed in it a
picture of Our Lady Help of Christians. It is on a hill called Zo-se, near the ruins of a former
Buddhist monastery, in the Province of Son-Kiang, about 25 miles southeast of Shang-hai.
990 Later
Bishop Languillat, S.J., laid the cornerstone of a beautiful basilica that was completed in 1873. Our
Lady of Zo-se was crowned and proclaimed Patroness of China in 1947.

JAPAN

Our Lady of Oura

In 1576, twenty-four years after the death of St. Francis Xavier, the first church dedicated to
Mary in Japan was erected in the town of Kyoto with the title of Our Lady of the Assumption. The
church of Our Lady of the Rosary was built in Edo in 1599, and a third shrine in Saga seven years
later. But the outstanding Japanese shrine is that of Our Lady of Oura, the little Gothic church
built in 1865 by Father Petitjean, Chaplain of the French Consulate on Oura Hill in the city of
Nagasaki.
991 Damaged by the atomic bomb in 1945, it was restored by the Japanese government and
has been declared a national monument.

RUSSIA

Our Lady of Vladimir

Our Lady of Vladimir (the Vladimirskaia) is the most famous Russian icon belonging to the
class known as Eleousa or tenderness images. It was brought to Kiev from Constantinople between
1125 and 1130, and subsequently transferred by Prince Andrew Bogolioubski to the cathedral of
the city of Vladimir. All the czars were crowned and all Patriarchs consecrated in the presence of
this miraculous image. Tradition attributes the icon to St. Luke, and historical sources inform us
that Chrysoberg, Patriarch of Constantinople, made a gift of it to George Dolgorouki who brought
it to Kiev.
992

When Moscow was threatened with invasion by the Tartar leader, Tamerlane, in 1395, Our
Lady’s image was taken there and placed in the Cathedral of the Assumption as a pledge of
protection. The liberation of the city from the invader is commemorated on Mary’s feast day,
August 26. The icon remained in Moscow’s cathedral until 1919 when it was moved to the
Tretyakov Art Gallery.

Devotion to Our Lady in the United States

by EDWARD A. RYAN, S.J.

FAITH in the divinity of Jesus is central in Marian devotion. Those who reject the Incarnation can
neither worship God in His human nature nor admit that He really assumed flesh from the flesh
of Mary.
993 Where faith in the Incarnation of the Eternal God in time and place is affirmed, there
of necessity veneration of the Mother of the Incarnate God flourishes. The Catholic Church has
remained true to this faith through the centuries, and consequently has taught and promoted
devotion to Mary. The Catholic Church in the United States follows the Catholic pattern in this
respect. The truth of the Incarnation and its consequences have been cherished by American
Catholics throughout their history. Indeed some fifty years ago when, in Europe, faith in the
divinity of Christ weakened and some Catholics succumbed to disbelief, the faith of American
Catholics remained on the whole unshaken. The Modernist crisis was scarcely felt in this country.
Even the errors ascribed to certain Americans at the time under the title of “Americanism” contain
nothing on this score. It can, then, be said with truth that the Church in America has been
constantly faithful to devotion to Mary.
994

The principle upon which veneration of Mary rests is that of honoring God in His works,
especially in His works of grace. He who loves and honors God’s creatures because they are the
works of God, honors their Creator, God Himself. We do not honor Mary as God; we know she
is a creature, and that it is only as a creature that we can honor her. We honor her as a saint and
the greatest of the saints.

On this score there is little with which to reproach American Catholicism in its devotion to
Mary. Living as a minority among Protestants, many of whom look askance at manifestations of
Marian piety, American Catholics have constantly been obliged to square their devotion with
theological science. The result is that there have been few excesses in devotion to Mary. A recent
critic of American Catholicism has apparently found very little on this point. True, he goes to
Quebec to show us nuns kneeling as floats carry statues of Mary through the streets. He crosses
the ocean to Portugal and Poland in order to sharpen his barbs. He even launches an attack on the
definition of the Assumption by Pope Pius XII — an attack, incidentally, in which he betrays his
ignorance of the point at issue, the Catholic doctrine of tradition. But the only specifically
American fact he produces is an Imprimatur given to a circular on the Brown Scapular.
995

If we ask, on the contrary, whether American devotion to Mary has not been blanched by the
chilling atmosphere in which American Catholics live, and by the fear of the assaults of carping
critics, the answer is not difficult. Veneration of Our Lady in the United States, as this Chapter will
show, has taken on countless forms with none of the time-honored practices of the Catholic past
omitted. While it is possible that isolated ecclesiastics may have avoided certain popular
manifestations of Marian piety so that our Protestant friends might feel at ease about her, it must
be affirmed that no Catholics anywhere have surpassed American Catholics in the frankness of
their devotion to Mary. Moreover, the atmosphere has not been too chilly since not a few
Protestants in all the denominations have a deep regard for the Mother of Jesus.

I. MARY’S PRIVILEGES

Because of the divine maternity, Mary has numerous privileges. She was prepared in body and
soul for a mystery which affected not only herself but the whole Church. This preparation is
expressed principally in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, viz., that from the first moment
of her existence she was free from all taint of original sin. Her freedom from any venial sin is also
a teaching of faith. Sinful concupiscence never stirred in her.
996

The fact that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was proclaimed during the nineteenth
century when the American Church was developing was not without its effect on American
veneration of Mary. A century ago Orestes Brownson spoke of the marked growth of devotion to
her among Catholics in Great Britain and in the United States, and of the general desire for the
definition of the Immaculate Conception as a dogma of faith. In his eyes this was a response to the
action of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the faithful. At a time when the Incarnation was widely
rejected, the Spirit of God inspired special devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

Brownson drew another lesson from the sinlessness of Mary which illustrates the power of the
Marian ideal and still has force. For him this devotion was the best preservative against the moral
dangers of the times. Mary, as the Mother of chaste love, has a lesson for epochs in which true
love is rather rare. “The predominate sin of our times,” Brownson wrote in 1853, “is that of
impurity, at once the cause and effect of modern sentimental philosophy. All the popular literature
of the day is unchaste and impure, and it boldly denounces marriage as slavery, and demands that
loose reins be given to the passions. Catholic morality is scouted as impracticable and absurd; law
is regarded as fallen into desuetude; intellect is derided; reason is looked upon as superfluous, if
not tyrannical; and the heart is extolled as the representative of God on earth. Feeling is honored
as the voice of the Most High, and whatever tends to restrain or control it is held to be a direct
violation of the will of the Creator. Hence passion is deified, and nothing is held sacred but
transitory feelings. In the non-Catholic world, and even in nominally Catholic countries, impurity
has gained a powerful ascendancy, and seeks to proclaim itself as law, and to denounce whatever
is hostile to it as repugnant to the rights both of God and man.”
997

Brownson thought that the love of Mary would save the world from moral corruption by
sustaining the Catholic family and securing the fruits of sacramental marriage. Imitation of Mary
would influence the hearts of those devoted to her and tend to unite them to her by a virtue
kindred to her own. “We cannot love her, dwell constantly on her merits, on her excellencies, her
glories, without being constantly led to imitate her virtues, to love and strive after her perfect
purity, her deep humility, her profound submission and her unreserved obedience. Her love checks
all lawlessness of the affections, all turbulence of the passions, all perturbation of the senses, fills
the heart with sweet peace and serene joy, restores to the soul its self-command and maintains
perfect order and tranquillity within.”
998

Brownson’s words, which describe what some might term the process of sex sublimation, are
as true today as they were a century ago, but with this difference. Devotion to Mary has not been
able to halt the flood of vice and impurity, but it has kept the spirit of resistance alive in Catholic
hearts in this country where the struggle has been intense. A great deal has been salvaged and
resistance continues and is on the increase. Even before Brownson wrote, Archbishop Kenrick had
pointed out how profitable it would be for Catholic young people, and especially for girls, to take
Mary as an exemplar and patroness to be imitated, as well as venerated and invoked. He also
stressed the power of Mary’s intercession to inspire sinners to turn their backs on their vices.
999

The late Father Daniel A. Lord, S.J., an outstanding promoter of Marian devotion among the
young, wrote of the Catholic high regard for purity and the American attitude which Europeans
at times regard as prudery. “In Catholic education it is insisted that the young men hold the same
high standards of purity that are expected of women. The system of the double standard is
regarded as traitorous to Mary.” We also hear of a countermove against the low type of pin-up girl
by the introduction of the picture of the Madonna into barracks and between decks, and of drives
for modesty in dress, inspired by Marian piety. Father Lord in his apostolate did not hesitate to
bring devotion to Our Lady into Junior Proms and other dances sponsored by Catholic schools.
1000

The perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin is another of her privileges. In the United States
the struggle within Protestantism between the Fundamentalists and the Liberals (1909-1925)
centered on the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. The real issue was, of course, the whole supernatural
structure of Christianity, but the corollary of the Virgin Birth was the point about which the
acrimonious conflict raged, and it soon became clear that those who were not sure about the
Virgin Birth were not sure about the Incarnation either. Catholics were not much impressed. They
pointed out that the new truths of the Liberals were merely old denials, and that really there was
no essential difference between the contending parties as long as both held to the principle of
private judgment and free interpretation of the Bible. The fundamentalists would never be able
to defend the Virgin Birth by appealing merely to the Bible. No human interpretation of the
Gospels would ever be divinely infallible. Recourse must be had to an infallible Church. In refuting
the critical animadversions of the Liberals, Catholics stressed the chaotic character and changing
principles of their positions.
1001

The Protestant defenders of the dogma, for the most part, thought it necessary to explain their
position in such a way as to escape the suspicion of being Romanizers. One of their leaders wrote:
“We are, indeed, as far as possible from accepting the Roman Catholic picture of the Queen of
Heaven.” He then went on to contradict the Catholic teaching on Mary’s virginity after the birth
of Christ, holding that she bore other children to Joseph.
1002

The controversy on the Virgin Birth bulks larger in the history of Christianity in the United
States than it does in that of Catholic devotion to Mary. It gave Catholic apologists an occasion
for reaffirming the traditional positions but, except in isolated instances, led to no rapprochement
with the Protestants who came out in defense of supernaturalism in Christianity. Although these
latter defended the article of the Apostles’ Creed affirming that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary,
their view of Our Lady was so far from Catholic that they received little encouragement from the
Catholic camp.

II. MEDIATRIX OF ALL GRACES

Devotion to Mary comprises not only the veneration of her excellence, but also an appeal to
her intercession. This supposes that God carries on His works of providence and grace by the
agency of ministers. He could, of course, accomplish His ends immediately without the
employment of any intermediate agency. But He does not so choose. In His works, especially in
the supernatural order, He admits His creatures to a share. He does this, not because He would
impose a task on them. Rather, since He delights in honoring them, He permits them to be agents
for obtaining and communicating His favors and graces to others. God, obviously, does not need
the intercession of anyone to render Him disposed to confer graces on mankind. The charity that
leads to intercession comes from Him as its fountain. But God desires it for the honor and reward
of the saints.

It is in accord with this plan of His providence that God puts Mary first, and gives her the
privilege of interceding in all cases, and of always having her intercession effectual. Her will,
always one with God’s will because moved by divine charity, is even in heaven regarded by Jesus
as the will of His Mother, and has that weight which the right will of a mother must always have
with a good son. We see, then, the reasonableness of the teaching that Mary is the channel
through which Our Lord dispenses His graces, and that He dispenses none save through her
intercession. While not of faith, this is the general belief of the faithful and the common opinion
of Catholic theologians; so much so that in the judgment of many it could be defined as an article
of faith.
1003 Mary, on her part, as the spiritual Mother of the faithful and universal queen, delights,
according to Catholic teaching, in using her prerogative of efficacious intercession. As refuge of
sinners, she intercedes for her erring children particularly at the hour of death. As cause of
Christian joy, she watches over the just with maternal solicitude. Mary loves her children with an
invincible and effectual love, desiring, willing, and procuring their greatest spiritual and temporal
good.
1004

That American Catholics have not been behind Catholics of other countries in invoking the
intercession of Mary is certain and will be clearly demonstrated throughout the rest of this
Chapter. While certain democratic and Anglo-Saxon principles concerning the equality of man,
rugged individualism, and the advisability of going directly to headquarters might seem to militate
against the principle of intercession, in practice things have not worked out that way.

III. MARIOLOGY IN AMERICA

The century and a half which has seen the rise and development of the American Church has
been most fruitful in the development of Marian theology. Devotion to Mary had long been at a
high level throughout the Church, and the practices of this Marian piety had for centuries been
numerous and varied. The American Church naturally entered into this Catholic heritage and
borrowed its practices and manifestations of devotion for the most part from other lands and
peoples. What is perhaps more surprising is that its theological thought, or the greater part of it,
has been borrowed also. The American Church in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
was not prepared to take any great part in the contemporary development of doctrine concerning
Mary. The contributions of American theologians have been noted for fidelity to tradition rather
than for originality or profundity.
1005

The solemn definition of the Immaculate Conception by Pius IX in 1854 caused a revival of
Marian theology. This was echoed in the United States in a few doctrinal works which served to
put at the disposition of American Catholics the results of the advances which had been made in
Europe.
1006

The preparation for the definition of the dogma of the Assumption saw an increase in
American contributions to Marian theology. Much of this appeared in magazines. As a rule the
American theologians held that the doctrine of the Assumption is a doctrine of faith and definable,
while maintaining that only the Pope could judge of the opportuneness of a dogmatic
pronouncement. In one case, at least, attempts to influence the decision of the Sovereign Pontiff
were looked upon with disfavor and as manifesting a lack of regard for the prerogatives of the
Holy See.
1007

When in 1946 Pius XII in his Encyclical Deiparae Virginis Mariae asked the bishops of the
Catholic world to inform him about devotion to Our Lady’s Assumption among their people, and
about their judgment as to the opportuneness of a definition, numerous articles appeared in
Catholic reviews in favor of the action. When in 1950 the solemn definition was proclaimed by
Pius XII a flood of articles, some of them theological in character appeared in Catholic
periodicals.
1008

A subject which has occupied the attention of Marian theologians in recent years is that of
Mary’s co-operation in the Redemption. As early as 1878 a remarkable book by Father J. de
Concilio taught that in consenting to the Incarnation, the Blessed Virgin accepted not only the
maternity of the Redeemer, but also a coredemptive share in His sufferings.
1009 Since that time, and
especially of late, Mary’s role in the Redemption has been brought to the fore. Not only has it been
the subject of discussion at a meeting of the Mariological Society of America, but it has also been
the object of an exhaustive study by the leading American Mariologist. This work is not only an
outstanding contribution to Mariology, but has been called “the most important single contribution
to the literature of sacred theology ever made by an American writer.”
1010

Summing up, we may say that in the domain of theological Mariology, America has only just
begun. With few exceptions, the works produced so far have not been distinguished. Weighed
down by apostolic labors, American thinkers have had too little time for theological problems. The
future promises better things. The more thorough training which existing faculties have received
and the creation of new ones furnishes more workers in the field. In addition, the foundation and
success of the Mariological Society and of its organ Marian Studies mean that the necessary
stimulus and direction are at hand.
1011

IV. OFFICIAL DEVOTION

The official attitude of the American Church is the most authoritative manifestation of Marian
piety. From the beginning American bishops and synods have been outspoken on this point and,
taken together, their pronouncements are quite impressive.

On November 10, 1791, at the First National Synod, John Carroll, founder of the American
hierarchy, recalled that on the feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1790, he had been consecrated
first Bishop of Baltimore and that he had chosen the Blessed Virgin Mary as the principal
patroness of his diocese, which embraced the original thirteen States and practically all the
country east of the Mississippi, except Florida. He did so in order that by her intercession, the
faith, piety, and good morals of his flock might flourish and increase. He considered, therefore,
that she should be honored in a special way (singulari cultu) and he urged his priests to venerate
her and frequently and earnestly to recommend the devotion to their people. The feast of the
Assumption was made the principal feast of the diocese and all were urged to confess and
communicate on that day. Carroll proposed to ask Rome for the grant of special indulgences to
encourage these practices.
1012

The Fathers of the Fourth Provincial Council of Baltimore (1840) asked permission to celebrate
the feasts of the Espousals of the Blessed Virgin (January 23), of Our Lady, Help of Christians (May
24), and of the Expectation of Our Lady (December 18). These petitions do not appear to have been
granted, but the privilege of saying the Office and Mass of the Immaculate Conception on
Saturdays throughout the year by priests traveling to care for souls was confirmed. The Fathers
of the Council of 1840 recalled that this had been customary in the Diocese of Baltimore, following
a grant of Pius VI.
1013

Mary, under the title of the Immaculate Conception, was unanimously chosen by the Sixth
Provincial Council of Baltimore (1846) as Patroness of the United States. The Fathers also asked
permission to introduce the word “immaculate” before “conception” in the Office and Mass of the
feast. Pius IX confirmed the choice and sanctioned the changes.
1014

Replying to an inquiry of Pius IX about the devotion of the American people and clergy to Our
Lady under the title of her Immaculate Conception, the Fathers of the Seventh Provincial Council
of Baltimore (1849) asserted that it was great and fervent. They went on to request the Pope to
define the doctrine, if he thought it opportune, as a dogma of faith. One of the acclamations recited
at the end of this Council reads, “To the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, conceived without original sin,
patroness of these provinces, eternal honor.”
1015

The Fathers of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore (1866) willingly and reverently
accepted the definition of the Immaculate Conception which had been proclaimed by Pius IX in
the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of December 8, 1854.
1016 Among the six holy days of obligation
retained with the sanction of the Holy See by the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884) were
those of the Immaculate Conception (December 8) and the Assumption (August 15). The Fathers
of this synod also recommended special devotion to the Blessed Virgin to minor seminarians.
1017

The national pastorals of the American hierarchy follow the pattern created by Bishop John
Carroll in his letter of May, 1792, six months after the close of the First National Synod. Carroll
urged the faithful to cherish “a fervent and well-regulated devotion to the Holy Mother of Our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” He expressed the hope that they would “place great confidence
in her intercession and have recourse to her in all necessities.” He concludes that “having chosen
her as the special patroness of this diocese, you are placed, of course, under her powerful
protection: and it becomes your duty to be careful to deserve its continuance by a zealous
imitation of her virtues, and reliance on her motherly superintendence.”
1018

In the pastoral of 1846, the prelates of the Sixth Provincial Council notified the faithful that
they had unanimously determined “to place ourselves and all entrusted to our charge throughout
the United States under the especial patronage of the Mother of God whose Immaculate
Conception is venerated by the faithful throughout the Catholic Church.” The Fathers go on to
say, “By the aid of her prayers, we entertain the confident hope that we will be strengthened to
perform the arduous duties of our ministry, and that you will be enabled to practice the sublime
virtues of which her life presents a most perfect example. The Holy Ghost by her own lips has
foretold that all generations shall call her blessed; and we cannot doubt that a blessing is attached
to those who take care to fulfil this prediction. To her then we commend you, in the confidence
that, through the one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a
redemption for all, she will obtain for us grace and salvation.”
1019

The Seventh Provincial Council of Baltimore had, as we have seen, spoken of the fervent belief
of Americans in Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception, and requested the Pope to define it as of faith.
The Fathers of this Council devoted a part of their pastoral to the belief and practice of the Church
regarding the Immaculate Conception. Disclaiming any intent to anticipate the solemn judgment
of Pius IX, they urged their people “to cherish a tender devotion to the Mother of Our Lord, since
the honor given to her is founded on the relation which she bears to Him and is a homage
rendered to the mystery of the Incarnation. The more highly you venerate her, as the purest and
holiest of creatures, the deeper sense you manifest of His divinity. Wherefore her devout clients
in ancient and later times have always been distinguished by zeal to maintain the great mysteries
of faith and by the purity of their lives and their zeal for the attainment of Christian perfection.
On the contrary, those who have assailed the veneration of the Virgin have easily fallen into the
denial of the divinity of her Son. Devotion to her is an outwork of the Church protecting the belief
of the divine mystery.” The Fathers of the Council also spoke of their confidence in the
intercession of Mary, “When we raise our thoughts on high to the kingdom of light and love,
where Mary stands near the throne of her divine Son, we are inspired with confidence that she,
who, at the foot of the Cross, received us all as her children in the person of the beloved disciple,
will effectually plead our cause. Through her we have received all grace, since she brought forth
Him who has redeemed us by His blood and through Him she has crushed the head of the infernal
serpent. Let us, then, go with confidence to the throne of mercy, relying on the infinite merits of
Jesus Christ, our only Saviour, and commending ourselves to the prayers of His holy Mother, who
is always heard on account of her intimate relation to Him, and her tender love of Him.”
1020

The pastoral letter of 1919 sums up the official exhortations of the hierarchy to the faithful in
America in the following words: “What grace can accomplish in His creatures, God has shown in
the person of her whom He chose to be his Mother, preserving her from all stain and endowing
her with such pureness of heart that she is truly ‘full of grace’ and ‘blessed among women.’ The
unique privilege of Mary, as cooperating in the Incarnation, entitles her to reverence and honor;
but in the Catholic mind it is love that prompts veneration for the Mother of Christ. It is indeed
beyond comprehension that any who sincerely love Jesus should be cold or indifferent in regard
to His Mother. No honor that we may pay her can ever equal that which God Himself has
conferred, and much less can it detract from the honor that is due to Him.”
1021

V. MARIAN CHURCHES AND INSTITUTIONS

Another official manifestation of devotion to Mary, and an important one, is the dedication of
churches to God under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, and the bestowal of the name of Mary,
or of one of the events of her life, or of one of her privileges, on a Catholic school, convent, or
other institution. The use of Mary’s name or titles for such purposes is very ancient, and in
America goes back to the days of the explorers. The flagship of Columbus was the Santa María.
Chesapeake Bay was called St. Mary’s Bay by its Spanish discoverers. Father Jacques Marquette
named the Mississippi “the River of the Immaculate Conception.” Maryland was named for a
princess, but the first colonists called their settlement St. Mary’s. Los Angeles was originally St.
Mary of the Angels.
1022 Despite her losses of the Chesapeake, the Mississippi, Los Angeles, and other
places, Our Lady still figures prominently among those after whom places are named in the United
States. There are over sixty localities called after her. In addition, her name is so widely used by
women that it is the most popular given name in our country. A great multitude of American
women are called Mary or one of the variants like Marie, Marian, May, Maureen, and Marilyn. All
this is the more amazing in view of the fact that so much of America was colonized and settled by
groups which disliked Catholic veneration of the Blessed Virgin.

More impressive still is the large number of Catholic churches dedicated to God under the
invocation of Our Lady. According to unofficial figures, there were in 1955 some 4379 churches,
including more than two score cathedrals, which bear the name of Mary, or one of her titles, in
the 50 United States and its possessions, Puerto Rico, Canal Zone, Caroline and Marshall Islands,
Guam and the Virgin Islands. Of these, 641 are mission churches and all but 150 of the 4379 are
located in the fifty States.
1023

Some 2260 convents also bear the name or a title of Mary, as well as 2048 elementary schools,
523 high schools and 77 colleges. In addition, the Catholic dead rest in at least 1203 cemeteries
bearing the name, or a title, of Our Lady. There are 283 hospitals, clinics, and convalescent homes
under her patronage. One hundred nineteen seminaries for the formation of the diocesan and
regular clergy are under the protection of her who bears the title of Seat of Wisdom. This custom
began in 1791 with St. Mary’s Seminary, Baltimore, which is not only the oldest but also the largest
seminary in the country. Miscellaneous institutions such as monasteries, homes, shrines, centers,
and nurseries add up to another 313 Marian dedications.
1024

The New York Archdiocese alone has 116 churches bearing our Lady’s name in some form;
Philadelphia 107; and Boston 85; while the Diocese of Brooklyn has 84, and Buffalo 77. Other
archdioceses with large numbers of Marian churches are Chicago with 77, Los Angeles with 69,
and Newark with 67. Among the dioceses, Scranton has 66 and Albany 60. These figures are,
without exception, paralleled by proportionately large numbers in all American sees. The Church
in the United States has literally enveloped the country in a finely meshed network of Marian
churches and institutions.

A glance at the titles of these Marian churches will prove of interest. No less than 1226
churches are dedicated to God under the invocation of Our Lady as St. Mary. This is a striking
indication of the traditional nature of this devotion in the United States. Practically no one speaks
of Mary nowadays as St. Mary. She is popularly either simply Mary, or Our Lady, or the Blessed
Virgin, or the Blessed Mother. The use of the title St. Mary, while it is probably due in part to the
use of Latin in official documents, recalls an earlier time when she was so styled. By contrast, the
popular names are practically nonexistent as the titles of churches — at least without some
combining form. Our Lady, even if we count foreign language forms, such as Notre Dame, can
muster only twenty-three churches. Of course, there would be many more if we counted all those
called Our Lady of Victory, Our Lady of Mercy, etc.

The second largest number of Marian churches in the United States are those dedicated to God
under the invocation of the Immaculate Conception.
1025 There are no less than 588 such churches.
If we add to them the 115 churches bearing the title of the Immaculate Heart, and the 149 under
the invocation of the Immaculate of Lourdes, we have a grand total of 852 which may be attributed
to Our Lady under the title of this mystery. This seems to prove the impact of the definition of the
Immaculate Conception in 1854 on the then rapidly expanding American Church. In a few dioceses
the churches of the Immaculate Conception are more numerous than those called St. Mary’s. The
Archdiocese of St. Louis, for example, has 17 Immaculate Conception churches and only nine St.
Mary’s. In the Diocese of St. Joseph, there are ten Immaculate Conception’s and nine St. Mary’s.

The events of Mary’s life are commemorated in hundreds of churches: her Nativity in 55, her
Presentation in 22, the Annunciation in 74, the Visitation in 45, the Divine Maternity in 23, the
Purification in nine, the Assumption in 273, the Crowning in Heaven in ten. There are 118
churches under the invocation of Our Lady of Sorrows, 203 with the title of the Rosary. And, of
course, in many of these instances, a church means a convent and a school with the same title.

Marian churches point at times to the various nations which have been united in the American
Church. There are in the United States 202 churches of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, many of them
dating from the time of the large Italian immigration. The influence of Italy is also discernible in
the fifteen churches of Our Lady of Pompeii, as also, undoubtedly, in the seventeen dedicated
under the invocation of Our Lady of Loreto. Poland is represented by 26 churches of Our Lady of
Czestochowa as well as by scattered churches under the invocation of Our Lady of Ostrabrama
and Our Lady of Poland.

Although natives of German-speaking lands and of Ireland have certainly played leading roles
in the development of the American Church, there is very little to indicate this in the litany of
Marian churches. The great German, Austrian, and Swiss titles — Altötting, Kevelaer, Absam,
Mariazell and Einsiedeln — are conspicuous by their absence. There is one instance each of the use
of Our Lady of Limerick and Our Lady of Melleray, but Our Lady of Knock is missing. A satisfying
explanation is not forthcoming. In the case of the Irish, devotion to St. Patrick is not a sufficient
reason. The fact that Irish priests had adopted English habits of speech before coming to this
country is probably a partial cause, while German love of the Rosary may have something to do
with the missing titles from German-speaking lands. Other churches betraying national
connections include those dedicated to Our Lady of Mt. Lebanon, to Our Lady of Hungary, Our
Lady of Vilna, and Our Lady of the Pillar.
1026

What is probably most significant in this catalogue is the fact that only one of the popular
titles is non-European, and even that is Mexican, i.e., Our Lady of Guadalupe with 134 churches.
1027
The vast majority of titles are imported. There are, it is true, a number of churches dedicated to
Our Lady of the Lake, or Lakes (58 according to this count), but there is scarcely need to say that
the lakes indicated are all but as numerous as the churches. There are 59 Star of the Sea churches,
some of them located on the Atlantic Ocean, some on the Pacific, others on the Gulf of Mexico,
others on the Great Lakes, and a few apparently near no large body of water. There is, however,
a small fraction of unmistakably American titles, among them: Our Lady of the Ozarks, Our Lady
of Cincinnati, and Our Lady of the Redwoods. Just what we are to say of Notre Dame de Chicago
is not clear.

Original titles have been used more frequently for convents and other institutions than for
churches. We find the attractive creations: Marygrove, Marylake, Maryfield, Maryvale, Marydale,
Maryview, Marywood, Marylawn, Maryridge, Maryvilla, Marycrest, Marydell, Marycliff, and even
Marynook. In addition, there are Ladycrest, Ladycliff, Ladywood, Glenmary, and many others. Our
Lady’s name has been given to newspapers as well as to places and institutions. There is at least
one diocesan paper which is named after her, El Correo de la Virgen (Diocese of Corpus Christi);
and to mention only one periodical, one of the oldest and most beloved Catholic magazines is the
Ave Maria, published at Notre Dame University, with contributions by leading Catholic authors.
1028

VI. MARIAN SHRINES

No American shrine, it seems, has as yet attained the fame of the great European pilgrimages
like Lourdes, Lisieux, Paray-le-Monial, or of the Canadian sanctuary of Our Lady’s mother, St.
Anne de Beaupré. Still there are many shrines in the States and some of the best known are
Marian. We can mention only a few. Most venerable is that of Our Lady of La Leche in St.
Augustine, Florida, the oldest city on the North American continent. In the early years of the
seventeenth century the Spanish settlers built a chapel and dedicated it under the title of Nuestra
Señora de La Leche y Buen Parto (Our Nursing Mother of Happy Delivery). Here they installed the
little statue of the Virgin holding the Child and offering Him her breasts. Today thousands of
mothers come annually to Our Lady of La Leche and in peaceful, prayerful surroundings ask
through her intercession for the blessings of motherhood.
1029

Scarcely less venerable is the shrine of La Conquistadora in the Lady Chapel of the Cathedral
of Santa Fé with a little statue which Fray Alonso de Benavides brought there in 1625. Every year
thousands of clients and tourists visit her. During the Marian Year she left her honored place in
the Cathedral to tour the Archdiocese of Santa Fé and bring joy to the villages and cities of the
New Mexicans.
1030

Our Lady of Martyrs Shrine at Auriesville, New York, rises on the site of the seventeenth
century martyrdom of St. Isaac Jogues, St. René Goupil, and St. John de la Lande. There also the
Venerable Kateri Tekakwitha, the “Lily of the Mohawks,” was born. Since 1885 Our Lady has been
venerated at the Shrine as Queen of Martyrs and also as Our Lady of Joy. In 1953 Paul Emile
Cardinal Léger, Archbishop of Montreal, presided at a large pilgrimage, and the same year other
pilgrimages were led by Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, Apostolic Delegate to the United
States, and by Auxiliary Bishop Henry Klonowski, of Scranton. During the Marian Year (1954)
more than 300,000 pilgrims visited Auriesville. The Martyrs Shrine, which is under the care of the
Jesuit Fathers, has established itself as one of the leading pilgrimage centers of the New World.
1031

The Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother founded in 1926 by the Servite Fathers in Portland,
Oregon, is conceived as a place of spiritual recreation. Vast in every respect, it serves many
thousands of people as a place of recollected prayer. The Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help at
Roxbury, near Boston, Massachusetts, is noted for instantaneous cures for which no merely natural
explanation can be given. The Miraculous Medal Shrine at Germantown in Philadelphia, and the
Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor in New Orleans are influential centers of Marian piety. A
peculiarly American Shrine is that of Our Lady of the Sioux, where a picture of Our Lady of
Lourdes painted by a Sioux Indian is venerated. At Pittsfield, New Hampshire, there is a Shrine
of Our Lady of the Smile; at Watertown, New York, the Shrine of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.
1032

A Shrine which is believed to owe its origin to a vision of Mary is that of Our Lady of Good
Help, at Robinsonville, Wisconsin. In 1858, the year of the apparitions at Lourdes, the Blessed
Virgin clothed in dazzling white, with long wavy, golden hair, with a yellow sash around her waist
and a crown of stars encircling her head, is said to have appeared to Adele Brisse (1831-1896), a
recent immigrant from Belgium, and to have instructed her to teach children catechism and to do
penance for sinners. Adele’s father built a log chapel on the spot shortly after the apparitions. A
second chapel, a frame structure, was constructed in 1861 and replaced by a substantial brick
chapel in 1880. In 1942 a beautiful Gothic shrine was constructed. Adele Brisse faithfully carried
out her mission till her death. Many striking cures have been attributed to the Robinsonville
Shrine which is becoming better known. Probably as striking as any Marian Shrine in the world
is the Basilica of Our Lady of Victory at Lackawanna, a suburb of Buffalo, New York, erected by
the Right Reverend Monsignor Nelson Baker (✝ 1936), distinguished apostle of charity. Mary’s
statue is enthroned in a baroque church made impressive by richness of ornamentation and
architectural design. Thousands of Catholics and not a few non-Catholics visit this costly Shrine
every year.
1033

The National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on the campus of Catholic University at
Washington, D. C., is also one of the great Marian centers of the world. The crypt has for years
been a magnet for tourists and pilgrims, and at present [1959] the superstructure of a great church
has been completed. Not far away, in Baltimore, stands the Basilica of the Assumption of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, begun by Archbishop John Carroll and now the site of his tomb. For dignity
and quiet beauty it takes a leading place among American Marian shrines. Although it will soon
be supplanted by another beautiful Marian church as the Cathedral of the Archbishops of
Baltimore, it can never be forgotten by American devotees of Mary since it is the symbol alike of
the beginnings of Marian devotion after the foundation of the Republic and of hierarchical
sanction for manifestations of that devotion.
1034

VII. NOVEL FORMS OF DEVOTION

In giving some account of the manifestations of Marian piety, it must frankly be stated that
they are so numerous as to defy listing. Some of the most important are treated on other pages of
this volume.

Here we limit ourselves to a few which cast light on American devotion to Mary. Necessarily
the selection will be somewhat arbitrary, but incomplete as it is, it should be illuminating.
1035

Most striking are the novel creations which center in the person of Father Patrick Peyton,
C.S.C., and his Family Rosary Crusade and Family Theatre. Father Peyton was born (1908) in
Ireland in a family whose religious spirit was fostered by the daily recitation of the Rosary. He
came to America in 1928 and after a year entered Holy Cross Seminary, Notre Dame, Indiana.
Some ten years later he was stricken with tuberculosis. He believes that Our Lady cured him, and
since his ordination in 1941 has promoted the Family Rosary Crusade throughout the world. In
America he has been able to secure the top talent in radio, movies, television, and advertising for
his Crusade. Most Americans, probably, have heard the leading entertainers recite the Rosary
under his leadership. Great cities in many parts of the world have seen his devout rallies.

These last are very well organized. When episcopal permission has been obtained, an
experienced staff, directed by Father Peyton, visits the diocese for a period of six weeks with the
object of promoting the Family Rosary. The clergy and key laymen are moulded into a compact
body to educate Catholics on the importance of family prayer. The slogan is, “The Family that
Prays Together Stays Together.” The campaign includes sermons in all churches, special editions
of the diocesan newspapers, articles in the secular press, radio and television programs, and
outdoor advertising. Central in the campaign is a general rally which never fails to bring together
tens of thousands. In New Orleans the gathering was estimated at 105,000; in Hyde Park, London,
at 100,000; in Malaga, Spain, at 150,000, with an equal number in Melbourne, Australia. In Bombay
200,000 turned out; in Rangoon 28,000. As a lasting result of these rallies and crusades, millions
of signed pledges bind families to recite the daily Rosary.

Certainly no Marian devotion launched anywhere has had such repercussions as the Family
Rosary Crusade. Father Peyton’s marshalling of the actors and actresses of Hollywood, and his
simple but effective pleas for the introduction of Our Lady into the family circle, have an actual
significance which is compelling. Nor can it be doubted that the pledging of so many families “to
pray together in order to stay together” will produce decisive and durable results. It is difficult to
see in the Crusade something of ephemeral importance. One thing the Family Rosary has already
effected. It has turned the current of American Marian piety outward. In the past the flow was
from overseas. This in itself gives the Crusade singular importance in the history of Marian piety
in the United States.
1036

Another manifestation of American devotion to Our Lady, which has already had international
results, is the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fátima, founded by the Right Reverend Monsignor Harold
Colgan, of Plainfield, New Jersey. Less than ten years ago, Father Colgan lay in a hospital, doomed,
it was thought, to an early death. After a promise to preach the message of Fátima, he recovered.
Leaving the hospital, he preached in fulfillment of his promise on ten successive Sundays, pleading
with his people to join in a “mighty army of prayer under the blue banner of Our Lady.” The
response was immediate. Not only has his Army spread far and wide, but Father Colgan has lived
at a killing pace to keep up with it. Since 1947 he is reported to have averaged some 300 lectures
yearly in some fifty cities. The Blue Army, which claims millions of members with some thousands
behind the Iron Curtain, is building an international headquarters at Fátima in Portugal. The
requirements for membership are: (a) proper recitation of a part of the Rosary daily; (b) wearing
of the Brown Scapular of Mt. Carmel as a sign of consecration; and (c) the offering up to God of
the sacrifices demanded by daily duty. Members are urged, besides, to make the five First
Saturdays and wear an outward sign of their consecration in the form of a blue ribbon, string, or
pin.
1037

If the claims of the Blue Army are even fifty per cent accurate, and there is no reason to
suspect them, it is a movement of considerable and lasting importance. The approbation of the
Fátima apparitions not only by the local ecclesiastical leaders but also, to a degree, by the Roman
authorities helps to accredit and propagate this form of Marian devotion.

Another form of American devotion to Our Lady is the Block Rosary. The movement started
in Detroit in 1945 and has spread to much of the world. Information and materials have gone out
from the headquarters to at least forty-five countries and have been translated into dozens of
languages. The success of the Block Rosary lends support to the claim that its origin goes back to
an apparition of Our Lady, dressed in black, to a Detroit housewife in 1944. It has been greatly
helped by a simple formula. The fundamental idea is an effort to meet the problems of the hour
by united prayer. Neighbors meet in their homes, progressing from house to house until each
home has been made a place of prayer for the group. Then the process begins over again. An act
of consecration to the Immaculate Heart and five decades of the Rosary are recited for: (a) peace
in the world; (b) the overthrow of atheism and communism; (c) the conversion of Russia; (d)
renewed fervor among Catholics; and (e) that there may be one flock and one shepherd. After the
Rosary, the neighbors immediately disband, emphasizing the nonrecreational character of the
gathering. Care is also taken to secure the approbation of the local authorities and to avoid any
conflict with parish services. Although the Block Rosary is aimed especially at urban areas, it has
been applied in the country and even, by missionaries, in the jungle.
1038

Another devotion associated with the apparitions at Fátima is the National Radio Rosary
Organization. In 1947, through the initiative of a layman in New Orleans, the Rosary was
broadcast in that city. The response was immediate and enthusiastic. Over 3500 post cards and 400
letters flooded the WJBW offices during the first twenty days of the program. Since that time, with
a short interruption, this form of devotion has been put on the air in New Orleans on weekdays
and Sundays. From New Orleans the Radio Rosary spread rapidly throughout the country. In San
Francisco, a five-station hook-up carries it. In Boston, Richard Cardinal Cushing personally leads
the recitation of the beads. The director of the Baltimore Radio Rosary estimates that the broadcast
has 100,000 listeners. This peculiarly American form of devotion to Our Lady has already crossed
the border into Canada and Cuba. At present (1955) efforts are being made to establish it in Ireland
and Belgium.
1039

Still another group connected with Fátima is The Reparation Society of the Immaculate Heart
of Mary founded at St. Ignatius Loyola Church in Baltimore. This association grew out of a
nocturnal adoration society and has retained the character of a crusade for prayer, reparation, the
daily Rosary, and acts of self-denial. A bulletin Fátima Findings is published for the members and
carries a monthly Rosary meditation for use on the First Saturday. Members live in all the States
of the American union as well as in fifty-one foreign countries. One of the distinctive features of
this movement has been the use of the pilgrimage, not a prominent feature as yet of American
Catholic life. Several were made during the Marian Year to nearby shrines and one to Auriesville,
New York. In these pilgrimages the penitential element was stressed.
1040

Among the most assiduous in promoting devotion to Our Lady in this country have been the
Congregation of the Mission of St. Vincent de Paul and the Daughters of Charity who look back
to Mother Elizabeth Seton as well as to St. Vincent. The Miraculous Medal devotion, given to St.
Catherine Labouré in 1830, has been popularized to a degree unknown by other symbols of the
Marian cult, with the exception of the Rosary and the Scapular. The Medal has been spread far and
wide in many ingenious forms. Tiny blue medals, for example, attract the eye on the wristwatches
of fashionably attired ladies. Medals are impressed on plastic Rosary cases. Some Christmas cards
carry a Miraculous Medal, while note paper and letter paper are also used as vehicles of
propaganda.
1041

Equally phenomenal has been the propaganda in recent years for the Green Scapular,
recommended in 1840, it is believed, by Our Lady to Sister Justine Bisqueyburu, who, like St.
Catherine Labouré, was a Daughter of Charity. During the Marian Year, the Marian Center at
Emmitsburg, Maryland, sent out about three quarters of a million manufactured Green Scapulars
with a covering leaflet. About 600,000 were also sent out in materials to be made up by the
recipient. Since the close of the Marian Year over 15,000 Green Scapulars have been sent out
weekly from this center. We have here an example of American mass production applied to an
object of devotion.
1042

In May, 1949 — to give but one example of an occurrence which is by no means uncommon
— a Congress of the Children of Mary was held in Emmitsburg, Maryland, to celebrate Our Lady’s
apparition to St. Catherine Labouré and the foundation of the Children of Mary. Over a thousand
delegates from twenty States assembled in this rather remote locality. The proceedings were
afterward published in an attractive volume which contains much that has an American flavor.
One sermon is entitled, “Be Ladylike,” and its theme is the obvious one that to be ladylike means
to be like Our Lady. In the various sections, talks given by the young women have such titles as,
“Does My Mirror Reflect Another Mary?” and “Fátima’s Beauty Hints,” to give two examples.
1043

An organization of importance is Our Lady of Fátima Rosary Making Club, founded in 1949
by the late Brother Sylvan, C.F.X., at Louisville, Kentucky. The purpose of the club is to furnish
handmade Rosaries free to the missions. Units were soon established throughout the United States
and during the first three years the annual output of Rosaries reached about 50,000. The Baltimore
Unit, organized in 1953, is now producing five to six hundred excellent Rosaries a month. They
go to the home and foreign missions.
1044

The United States is what might be called novena-conscious. In some places novenas seem to
be replacing the time-honored parish mission. It is significant that two of the most popular
novenas are the Novena of the Miraculous Medal and that of the Sorrowful Mother. The former
is a part of Vincentian devotion, which we mentioned above; the latter has been developed by the
Servite Fathers.

In no country in the world, probably, is a more sincere and spontaneous affection manifested
to Our Lady than that which marks the month of May in the United States. Many churches,
convents, and seminaries conduct May devotions daily with special prayers to the Queen of the
May. Almost every church has its solemn May procession with a formal crowning of the Blessed
Mother and a consecration of the parish to her. There are few Catholic high schools or colleges
in which the May Day celebration is not one of the events of the scholastic year. May Day, which
may be any day of the month, approximates in America the solemnity of a liturgical feast of high
rank.

Working among Americans are scores of religious congregations of men and women who are
under the direct patronage of the Blessed Virgin and use her name or one of her titles as their own.
Some of these congregations were founded in the United States as, for example, the Sisters of
Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Sisters of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross, and the Sisters
of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. An American missionary order also bears Our Lady’s name. The
Fathers, Brothers, and Sisters are known throughout this country, where they were founded, and
in many foreign lands, by the name of Maryknoll.
1045

Societies for laymen and women dedicated to Our Lady are enormously popular. The Sodality
works through some 14,000 units in the parishes, schools, and other Catholic institutions of the
country. Its Summer Schools of Catholic Action now train 15,000 Catholics in the Marian
apostolate each year. The Legion of Mary has steadily grown in membership. The Altar and Rosary
Society for married women has been established in hundreds of parishes. Second only to the
practice of the First Fridays in honor of the Sacred Heart are the First Saturdays in honor of
Mary.
1046

The amount of Marian devotional literature appearing in the United States is considerable and
ever increasing in volume. Its vehicles are periodicals, pamphlets, and books. The periodical output
is so extensive that for the last ten years it has had, like other branches of periodical literature, a
flourishing digest under the title of Our Lady’s Digest. Pamphlet literature scarcely less popular
pours out from many centers. Books promoting devotion to Mary in some way or other are
becoming more numerous. As in the field of Mariology, so in that of devotional literature, in so
far, at least, as books are concerned, the past has witnessed much borrowing from abroad; in this
instance, particularly in the form of translations from the French and German. Books from other
English-speaking lands are also widely circulated here. Of late, however, there has been a marked
increase of devotional works by American writers. How many of these are destined to stand the
test of time and become Marian classics it is difficult to say. In one instance this seems assured.
A Woman Wrapped In Silence, a book-length poem in blank verse, by Father John W. Lynch, a
priest of the diocese of Syracuse, New York, has been hailed by competent judges as an artistic
production of permanent value. It typifies all that is best in American devotion to Mary.
1047

Conclusion

In a book published in 1866 an early historian of Marian devotion in America wrote, “that there
never has been a country in which reverent love and earnest, heartfelt devotion for the Blessed
Mother of God was more deeply rooted, more ardently cherished, or more fervently and fruitfully
practised, than in North America.”
1048 In 1953 another well-informed priest wrote that “Mary is very
much at the heart and center of American Catholic devotion.”
1049 Our study certainly proves the
second of these judgments. There is, indeed, a sense in which the American Catholic Church
might even say to Our Lady, “What is there which I could have done to honor you which I have
not done?”

Nevertheless, a problem remains. Writing in 1949, a leading German Protestant church
historian makes much of the Heiligenpolitik (saint-policy) of the Catholic Church under the
pontiffs of the twentieth century, and he finds that devotion to Our Lady is the center of these
celestial politics.
1050 Is then all the outpouring of love and devotion of American Catholics for the
Virgin Mary merely a result of the clever manipulations of the Vatican? Or worse still, when we
speak of it in a post-Freudian world, must the sex drive in human nature be called upon as the
hidden reason for its success?

The description of Marian piety as a sublimation of the sex drive has already been touched
upon in these pages and need not be reconsidered here. We should point out, perhaps, that those
who have never practiced devotion to Mary, as it is taught in the Catholic Church, must labor
under serious handicaps when they endeavor to apply to it the yet uncertain principles of modern
psychology.

The objection that Marian piety is Vatican-inspired reveals a lack of knowledge of the life of
devotion in the Catholic Church. It is true that there is an official liturgy emanating from Rome
that must be followed, but our study has shown that this is only one element among many in the
massive totality of American devotion to Mary. Catholic authorities, far from launching devotional
practices, are traditionally unfavorable, or at best indifferent, to them. New devotions have to
prove themselves before they are sanctioned. American Marian devotion is, as we have seen, no
more tributary to Rome and Italy than to Lourdes and France. It is part of a Catholic tradition
whose origins lie in the distant past and whose developments betray the ideas and practices of
many peoples. Since American devotion to Mary is traditional, it cannot be said to be entirely
spontaneous. Still its manifestations have nothing forced or artificial about them. And in our study
we have not come across the slightest indication of Rome-generated enthusiasm.

As we remarked at the beginning of this chapter, those who deny the truth of the Incarnation
can never give the credit to Mary which to the Catholic mind she deserves. Those who do not
believe that Jesus Christ is true God of true God must always find Marian devotion an empty
show masking reality. But to those who believe that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity
became incarnate in the chaste womb of Mary, the exhortation of Orestes Brownson, leading
American Catholic layman of the nineteenth century, a thinker and a convert from Protestantism,
is the only answer: “We must feel that nothing is more important than the cultivation of the love
and worship of Mary. She is our life, our sweetness, our hope, and we must suffer no sneers of
those without, no profane babblings about ‘Mariolatry’ to move us, or in the least to deter us from
giving our hearts to Mary. We must fly to her protection as the child flies to its mother, and seek
our safety and our consolation in her love, in her maternal embrace.”
1051 The action of Mary which
Brownson describes in such concrete terms is for the most part hidden. It is true, as we have had
occasion to note, that miraculous occurrences have taken place in America as they have abroad.
But Catholics everywhere look for Mary’s help especially in the order of grace. And they are
convinced, in the words of a much loved prayer, “that never was it known that any one who
sought her intercession was left unaided.” The vitality of Marian devotion in this country is, in the
eyes of Catholics, an outward response to the inward solicitude of a loving Mother.

This chapter should not be brought to a close without mention of one who was, in some ways,
the greatest of Mary’s American clients. He fits into none of the categories we have used, for, if
a Christian, he was certainly not a Catholic. Henry Adams was the author of perhaps the greatest
books any American has written. A genius, he sought to understand the universe and discover,
otherwise than on his knees, the secret of peace. But the rise of the machine and the clear vision
he had of the coming of thermonuclear power, brought him to the feet of Our Lady as the greatest
force the Western world had ever felt. Writing of himself, he confesses, “He never doubted her
[the Virgin’s] force since he felt it to the last fibre of his being, and could no more dispute its
mastery than he could dispute the force of gravitation of which he knew nothing but the
formula.”
1052

It was impossible for the head of Henry Adams not to make reservations, to turn Our Lady into
a symbol or into energy. But he gave his heart to her. Scores of times he visited her shrines
scattered over rural France. Despite his insistence that religion had nothing to do with this, he
could not exclude from his books hints of his deepest convictions. We have besides the testimony
of the niece who knew him best that Our Lady had enthroned herself in his mind not merely as
mankind’s grandest and loveliest dream but as the most satisfying of realities.

Henry Adams is then the symbol of the effect the spiritual Morning Star has on the hearts of
those who love her without knowing her. He was a great American and a great client of Our Lady.
In these pages he represents her children whom the mysteries of history have separated from a
loving mother but whom she cherishes nonetheless.

The Blessed Virgin in Literature

by HAROLD C. GARDINER, S.J.

IN MANY a tome and treatise, the influence of Our Lady on old and modern literature has been
traced. To those who believe that she is what she is, and who also realize that literature is, in some
way or other, a record of man’s quest for a happiness that is ultimate, it is not surprising that her
influence is there to reveal itself to the investigator. For if she is the Mediatrix of all graces, surely
it is not strange that she should have mediated in the literature of the world, revealing herself —
and therefore her Son, to whom she is the way — in the sweet and unobtrusive fashion that is her
wont whenever she looks upon our thirst and turns to say to Him: “They have no wine.” If
literature is one draft that is destined, in its degree, to satisfy that thirst, Our Lady, we instinctively
feel, must be at hand somewhere, holding forth our empty cup to be filled by Him, even in the
lesser realms of literature.

But most of the treatises that have sought out her influence on our literature have, it seems
to me, set their sights too low. They have generally been content to compile the instances in which
Our Lady has been written about, in which she has been merely the subject matter of poems, of
plays. Many of these compilations are impressive, indeed, and the better of them come as a
revelation of the extent to which Our Lady’s praises have been sung even by those outside the
household of the faith and — even more astonishingly — in an age and a civilization in which
Mariology is too often looked upon as Mariolatry. In Sister Marie Thérèse’s beautifully
discriminating yet complete anthology, I Sing of a Maiden,
1053 one cannot help but note with joy the
great number of modern and current poets who have added their contemporary voices to the age-old canticle.

If I seem to suggest that Our Lady’s influence on literature goes a little deeper than these
anthologies would give us at first glance to suspect, it is not because I feel that these compilations
do not frequently add up to more than a mere catalog of names and poems. Such rosters do indeed
suggest more than they actually state, though frequently the compilers do not lead us on to more
than the mere fact of the listings. Is not the further thought inescapable that the fact that poets
and artists down the ages have thought of the Mother of God and been impelled to sing her praises
— has not this mere fact, I say, been enough to win from her hands graces that have preserved the
world from who knows what catastrophe, or at least somehow brought civilizations and cultures
that seem almost alienated from God, by God’s mysterious grace, closer to Christ? The fact — the
“mere” fact — that Our Lady’s name shines beautiful and all-glorious on the pages of countless
books in myriads of bookshops and libraries over the civilized world is an external grace for men.
Must not God’s eye lighten with ineffable joy when He sees that lovely name so spread abroad
among the sons of man who, all unwittingly perhaps, are fulfilling through their poets and their
dramatists her own prophecy that “all generations shall call me blessed”?

But this is a spiritual and devotional suggestion rather than a fact of literary history. Is there
a way in which Our Lady’s influence on literature can be traced other than by lining up the
individual poets and dramatists who have spoken of her? Is there any large way in which her
presence in a culture can be shown to have influenced thinking, attitudes, customs, in such a
manner that the literature that mirrors these things became quite different from what it would
have been, had she not been present, so to speak, at the source? It is indubitable, I take it, that the
whole literature of the Western world is now what it is (apart from its excesses and abuses)
because of the Incarnation. Jesus Christ, Christianity, have so gotten into the blood-stream of
Western man that he cannot write now (though many may try to for a time) as though the Son
of God had never become man. Has Our Lady, as well, so got into that bloodstream? Has she co-operated with her Son in this, as in all His other salvific works?

Such thoughts in connection with this chapter were first given an impetus by Daniel Sargent’s
excellent essay on Our Lady and Our Civilization wherein the author states:

It is always a religious cult that gives pattern to a civilization and it could hardly be expected that the
cult of our Lady would not leavenits mark on medieval civilization, and it did.
1054

Mr. Sargent then goes on to discuss how medieval English poetry was influenced by the
Blessed Virgin. This began with Latin poetry, which, if it did not always sing directly of her, yet
found in singing of her “its supreme chiseling. The surprise of its rhythms was developed in
expressing an enduring surprise that Our Lady could have been both a Maid and a Mother.” This,
in turn, influenced vernacular poetry, first when Anglo-Saxon poetry, “time-honored and in its
way highly developed, put itself to school in singing to our Lady, and little by little became ... one
of the languages that praised her best.” Then came the Norman invasion, with its softening
influences, so that “by the time that Anglo-Saxon had become so little insular that it was almost
modern English, her bards could sing of her as if their skill were made for nothing else.” Finally,
by 1400, “no English poet could count himself a poet unless he could sing of the Mother of God.
Like a medieval craftsman he was no more than an apprentice till he had presented his proper
masterpiece, and that had to be in praise of her.” Mr. Sargent then goes into a most stimulating
discussion why the greatest poem of the Middle Ages, the Divine Comedy, “is the poem that was
most our Lady’s”; but I have quoted enough of his thought already to indicate on what lines I
would like to expand this chapter.

It must first of all be said that many scholars do not agree with the specific instance that Mr.
Sargent adduces of Our Lady’s influence in the sphere of medieval poetry. The pendulum in this
matter has gone through many arcs. It had long been thought that the secular love-lyrics in
England held the field first, and that the religious love-poem was adapted by the Church as a
means of lessening the popularity of the too-frequently suggestive verses of the jongleurs. Then
came an interpretation that reversed the process. One authority
1055 holds explicitly that “divine love,
in the medieval sense, became a new theme in English literature, before secular love-poetry ...
could take root there.” More recently, however, Ten Brink’s theory is being adandoned. Such an
authority as C. S. Lewis rejects it completely in stating that “there is no evidence that the religious
... tone of medieval love poetry had been transferred from the worship of the Blessed Virgin; it is
just as likely — it is even more likely — that the coloring of certain hymns to the Virgin had been
borrowed from the love poetry.”
1056 Lewis makes an even more sweeping denial when he states: “Nor
is it true in any unequivocal sense that the medieval Church encouraged reverence for women at
all.”
1057

I do not care to labor this particular point. It must be obvious, however, that there is no clean
line of demarcation between the religious and the secular love-poem. There was an overlapping
down the decades, and we find both types of love-poems flourishing at the same time, sometimes
complementing one another, sometimes in rivalry. But without specific reference to the love-poetry of the Middle Ages, it is possible, I believe, to trace a wider influence of Our Lady on
English literature. That will be the burden of the rest of this chapter.

An important fact of cultural and religious history that is not too well known, especially
among American Catholics, is the great change that took place in the features of Christianity
toward the end of the thirteenth century. I say “in the features,” because the essence of the faith,
of course, remained unchanged. The historian of religious culture who has delved most originally
and deeply into this transformation of the character of Christianity is M. Emile Mâle, to whose
monumental three-volume work the following outline is in large part indebted.
1058

Religious art up to the middle, say, of the thirteen century revealed unfailingly the more serene
aspects of the faith, one might almost say the more intellectual aspects. The great portals of the
French cathedrals, for instance, show forth a spirit of peace, of serenity, of majesty. Even
representations of the Passion of Our Lord rarely appealed to any emotions of sorrow; Christ is
normally represented as reigning from His Cross or as teaching from it; He is rarely shown as
suffering on it. One of the standard depictions of Christ on the Cross during this period shows
Him erect and majestic, vested as the High Priest, crowned not with thorns but with the diadem
of His Kingship, and the Cross itself is not infrequently adorned with jewels. And, just as Christ’s
death is portrayed as a triumph, so the death of His members, the saints, is a victory. Much of the
statuary and iconography that M. Mâle uses to illustrate this point consists of the decoration of
tombs and funerary monuments and it is striking how often the reclining figure reflects serenity,
peace, and majesty. But by the fifteenth century much of this had changed. A sudden and not too
subtle change had come over the external character of Christianity — at least as far as it reveals
itself in art. “The greater part of the works we possess from this epoch,” says M. Mâle,
1059 “are
somber and tragic; art offers us little, save the face of grief and of death. Jesus does not now teach
any more; He suffers; or rather He seems to show forth to us His wounds and His blood as the
supreme teaching.”

What has happened to the visage of Christianity? Whence this change? What was its effect
on the whole culture (not, mark, on the dogmatic bases) of Christianity?

Many currents, of course, joined to swell the stream of this change, and it would be impossible
to trace the runnels of them all in the course of this short chapter. M. Mâle, however, believes —
and I believe that he is the first historian of culture to point out his belief in full detail — that the
main stream was what he calls the new Franciscan emphasis on human sensibility, on the
humanity of Christ, His mother, the saints; on, in a word, the human element implicit in the whole
structure of dogma and devotion. “I believe,” he states,
1060 “that if one wished to mount to the source
whence so much pity has flowed out over the world, one must go straight to Assisi. In the
presence of a Christ painted on a Cross, Francis received a revelation of the Passion, and he
suffered so profoundly from it that he finally bore in his body the marks of that Passion: that was
the miracle of love that astonished Europe and gave birth to new forms of sensibility.”

Now obviously this arousing of a new spirit through St. Francis was going to be in turn the
same thing that would affect the talent of the artists, whose work in those times was so
predominantly religious. In his work M. Mâle dwells at length on the Passion and how it was
consistently treated in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries under these new aspects of
tenderness, of compassion for the suffering, of sensibility.
1061 But there was another element that was
working with almost equal vigor — and this will finally bring us to the real point of this chapter.
The “Passion of Our Lady” began to be treated almost as frequently as the Passion of her Son. This
is the period, for instance, when we begin to get the first representations of Our Lady as the
Mother of Sorrows, her heart pierced by the seven swords, whereas “the thirteenth century,
always captured by light, had been attracted uniquely to the happy aspects of the life of the
Virgin.”
1062

The same thing was at the same time happening to the representations of the saints. They are
now no longer portrayed primarily as mere victors; now all the aspects of their lives — some
authentic, some legendary — begin to attract the talent of the artists. It seems that in these two
centuries the whole hierarchy of heaven is being more and more — how shall we put it? —
domesticated, more and more closely linked to the hopes and fears, the trials and triumphs, of the
ordinary people. This development carried with it, of course, a concomitant danger, for this
interest in sensibility can all too easily degenerate into a passion for sentimentality. Perhaps the
present state of religious art in the United States, so often lamented for its fatal attraction to the
sweet and the feminine, can be traced back precisely to a misinterpretation of this Franciscan
tenderness. (It may be of tangent interest to note that the Eastern Church has never been touched
with this sensibility in its art: icons are still largely serene and majestic, rarely humanized in
aspects of the ordinariness of daily Christian life.)

Whatever be the roots of present-day sentimentality, there is apparently no denying the fact
that this new approach of the Middle Ages had vast results, not merely on the art which so early
represented it, but on the literature of the times as well. This will be the key to the rest of our
consideration.

While the artists were portraying this new aspect of Christian culture in their statues and their
stained glass, the Christian plebs at large had been touched by it earlier. The great masses of them
could not, indeed, read for themselves some of the sources from which the new sensibility sprang,
such as the Meditations of St. Anselm, but they were hearing the new approach from their
preachers and seeing it on the stages of their mystery and miracle plays.

And so it was that Our Lord and Our Lady, presented to the vast body of Christians more and
more in art and in the preaching and entertainment of the age under the guise of tenderness, of
close human intimacy, acted as a leaven on popular taste. The emotional content of Christianity
became more glowing, warmer, more down-to-earth, if we may put it that way; pari passu, the
emotional content of literature followed suit.

This influence of religious instruction and popular devotion on literature is the main thesis of
an epoch-making book, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England, by G. R. Owst,
1063 and though the
author does not devote much space to examining the specific influence of the Blessed Virgin, that
influence is nevertheless there. What Mr. Owst is at great pains to prove is that English literary
history makes no sense unless one is willing and able to allow for and estimate the influence of
the humble preacher, the little devotional book, the popular literature of the Middle Ages in
shaping the literature of the Elizabethan period and so of our own age. He asks, for instance:

Where ... in our modern literary historian’s digest are the hundreds of religious works in prose
and verse fairly represented and discussed, outnumbering, as they do, every other species of
contemporary writing? Even if for earlier centuries they receive due recognition, there is little to
suggest in his pages that the output multiplies a hundredfold as later generations succeed, much
less that their contents have any significance for his theme.
1064

My point here is that the contents of this vast body of literature deal time and time again with
Our Lady, and that her presence has, therefore, helped incalculably in shaping our present
literature, which, as R. W. Chambers shows conclusively in his On the Continuity of English Prose
from Alfred to More and His School,
1065 did not “develop miraculously” into a new Tudor prose, but
grew, mainly through the work of St. Thomas More and his followers, by “means of the living
tradition of the English pulpit and a mass of religious and homiletic literature.”
1066

Dr. Owst’s books abound with examples of how the Blessed Virgin collaborated with her Son
in the work of cultural transformation we have been discussing mainly in terms of art. The
fourteenth century Speculum Laicorum “in setting forth her mercy, speaks of Our Lady as ‘Star of
the Sea,’ she is the ‘Lady of Tribulation,’ rescuing the sinners and the straitened, and the ‘Glorious
Lady.’ She is to be honored first for her ‘admirable beauty,’ second for her ‘incomparable
sweetness,’ thirdly for her ‘inconsumable plenitude.’ ” As time goes on, she is referred to more and
more as “a lady more lovely and gentle than the loveliest dame in Camelot, a queen more potent
alike in her conquests and in her miracles than the wisest of earthly kings and magicians.” She is
the moon “among the sterres of heaven” and “the sonne, the wiche is chosen the cheff of all the
seven planetys,” in the words of the famous fourteenth-century preacher, John Bromyard.
1067 The
tenderness and the intimacy with which she was referred to by the popular preachers of the day
comes through well in this brief extract from a sermon on the Assumption by the same preacher:

The goyne of this maide was measured with-oute dissolucion, hur eyen declaryng all chastitie,
hur face full of delites and amyabull to angels. The wordes that she spake was full swete and full
esye, ever sowndyne to the thankynge of God.

She is compared to the Paradise of Genesis, and “she was wondurly faire, fayer than I may tell,
and she was luffing and gracious in every mans sight.”
1068

Instances could be multiplied, in which the preachers’ or the authors’ quaint (to us) words
breathe forth the sweet influence of the Maid and Mother. In all the instances, she is seen
exercising her power to soften the rude manners of the age, to deepen sensitivity to religious
truth, and to broaden refinement in social intercourse, and so to prepare the way for a literature
that would mirror some of these characteristics, even if on a plane that is not consciously
supernatural and not at all conscious that it owes her a great debt.

But if the pulpit and manuscript bore testimony to the influence of Our Lady, the medieval
stage did so even more vividly and in a fashion to impress the people more profoundly. Our Lady
trod the boards, as it were, in the England of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and in her
various roles carried on her — and her Son’s — work of touching and humanizing (and by that I
mean making both more human and divine) the hearts of the people. It is needless to mention here
in detail many of the mystery and miracle plays that have come down to us. In all the great
English cycles, those of York, Coventry, Townley (Wakefield), and Chester, Our Lady is
prominently dramatized in all the episodes in which she appears in the Gospel narratives — and
in some apocryphal accounts, as well.
1069

In the lovely — and, it must be admitted, the somewhat slapstick (to modern tastes) — Second
Shepherd’s Play in the Townley cycle, for example, here she is, all gracious and lovable in the
scene in which the shepherds offer their gifts to the newborn Infant. She has only a few “lines,”
to be sure, but her influence is brooding over the scene like a sweet blessing, especially if we
compare the rowdiness of the shepherds in the earlier part of the play with their gentleness and
“good manners” when they are in her presence:

First Shepherd:

Hail, pure and sweet one; hail, thou holy Child!

Maker of all, born of a maiden mild.

Thou hast o’ercome the Devil, fierce and wild.

That wily Trickster now has been beguiled.

And so the salutations go on until a more intimate note enters. Face to face with the Child on
His mother’s lap, the First Shepherd says:

Look, how he laughs, sweet thing!

As my poor offering

A cherry bunch I bring.

The Second Shepherd counters:

Hail, Saviour King, our ransom Thou has brought!

Hail, mighty Babe, Thou madest all of nought.

Hail, God of mercy, Thou the Fiend has fought.

I kneel and bow before Thee. Look, I’ve brought

A bird, my tiny one!

Other faith I have none,

Our day star and God’s Son.

The Third Shepherd is not to be outdone:

Hail, pretty darling, Thou art God indeed.

I pray to Thee, be near when I have need.

Sweet is Thy look, although my heart does bleed

To see Thee here, and in such poor weed.

Hail, Babe, on Thee I call.

I bring a tennis ball;

Take it and play withal.

To that, Mary responds:

The Lord of Heaven, God omnipotent,

Who made all things aright, His Son has sent.

My name He named and blessed me ere He went.

Him I conceived through grace, as God had ment.

And now I pray Him so

To keep you from all woe.

Tell this where’er you go.

The “family note,” so to speak, comes through in the final scene. First Shepherd:

Fair well, Lady, thou fairest to behold,

With Christ Child on thy knee.

Second Shepherd:

He lies full cold,

But well it is for me

That Him you hold.

Third Shepherd:

Already this does seem a thing oft told.

First Shepherd:

Let’s spread the tidings round!

Second Shepherd:

Come; our salvation’s found.

Third Shepherd:

To sing it we are bound.

(Exeunt Shepherds singing)
1070

We find the same tone in the Coventry Plays, in which no less than “thirteen scenes from
the life of the Virgin are handled with great tenderness and reverence.”
1071 A delightful sample
might be this farewell of Our Lady to the Angel Gabriel, after the Virgin had said her fiat:

With all meekness I cling to this accord,

Bowing my face with all benignity,

See here the handmaiden of the Lord —

After thy word be it done to me.

And the angel responds:

Gramercy, my lady ffre (noble),

Gramercy of your answer on hight

Gramercy of your great humility,

Gramercy, thou Lantern of Light,

Farewell, turtle, God’s mother dear,

Farewell, God’s mother, I honor thee,

Farewell, God’s sister and pleynge frere (playmate),

Farewell, God’s chamber and His bower.

Our Lady, in seemly courtesy, responds:

Farewell, Gabriel especially,

Farewell, God’s messenger express,

I thank you for your travel here

Gramercy of your great goodness.
1072

Now it is worth remembering that the age of the mystery plays’ popularity was the age of
Chaucer (1340c.-1400). There can be little doubt that young Geoffrey stood with the audience
before the pageants in London or other centers, and heard, perhaps from his earliest days, these
accents of courtesy, of graciousness, of human kindness — we might say, of domesticity — from
the characters who represented Our Lady. The “homely” touch is everywhere in evidence, as
when, in the Annunciation scene in the Wakefield cycle, we encounter this dialog between Mary
and Joseph after his doubts over her conception have been resolved:

Joseph:

Ah, Mary, wife, what cheer?

Mary:

The better, sir, that ye are here;

How long ‘tis since ye went!

Joseph:

In truth I’ve talked here like a fool,

Because I was both wrong and cruel,

I knew not what I meant.

But I know well, dear wife and free,

I’ve trespassed against God and thee;

Forgive me now, I pray.

Mary:

If ever ye did me belie,

May God forgive you; so do I,

With all the might I may.

Joseph:

Gramercy, Mary, thy good will

Sweetly forgives that I said ill,

When I did thee upbraid.

‘Tis good for him who has for wife

One meek as thou; for all his life

He may hold him well paid.

Now light as linden leaf am I!

He that both release and tie

And every wrong amend

Give me the grace and power and might

My wife and her sweet child of light

To keep to my life’s end.
1073

These few instances are to be taken merely as samples. A thing we find difficult to realize
today, especially here in the United States where the center of dramatic activity is focused almost
exclusively on New York’s Broadway, is that these representations of the Blessed Virgin were seen
and savored all over the country.

Our Lady was a popular “star,” if we may so say. According to Alfred W. Pollard, “throughout
the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, we have continued evidence of the popularity
and frequent production of Miracle Plays in nearly every part of England. During this period we
have record of the performance of plays in nearly a hundred English towns and villages, some of
them quite small places.”
1074 What has been said of the influence of Our Lady on the mores of the
times with respect to France (and especially in so far as her influence was exercised through her
presence in the cathedral of Chartres) can certainly be multiplied a hundredfold and brought even
closer to the lives of the people when we stop to consider the manifold presence of our Lady in
the villages and towns of England through these plays. Here is what Henry Adams says of the
nearness of Mary to the people of France in the statuary and glass of the superb cathedral:

Then the reality was the Queen of Heaven on her throne in the sanctuary, and her court in the glass;
not the queens or princes who were prostrating themselves, with the crowd, at her feet. These people
knew the Virgin as well as they knew their own mothers; every jewel in her crown, every stitch of
gold-embroidery in her many robes; every colour, every fold; every expression of the perfectly familiar
features of her grave, imperial face; every care that lurked in the silent sadness of her power; repeated
over and over again, in stone, glass, ivory, enamel, wood; in every room, at the head of every bed,
hanging on every neck, standing at every street-corner, the Virgin was as familiar to every one of them
as the sun or the seasons; far more familiar than their own earthly queen or countess, although these
were no strangers in their daily life; familiar from the earliest childhood to the last agony; in every joy
and every sorrow and every danger; in every act and almost in every thought of life, the Virgin was
present with a reality that never belonged to her Son or to the Trinity, and hardly to any earthly being,
prelate, king, or kaiser; her daily life was as real to them as their own loyalty which bound to her the
best they had to offer as the return for her boundless sympathy ... they knew the Virgin as though she
were one of themselves. ...
1075

Later on, the same author dwells on the same thought:

The Virgin was a real person [to the people of the Middle Ages] whose tastes, instincts, wishes,
passions, were intimately known. Enough of the Virgin’s literature survives to show her character, and
of course her daily life. We know [and how much more the people of the Middle Ages] more about her
habits and thoughts than about those of earthly queens.
1076

Adams has been criticized as being extremely romantic in his approach to the Middle Ages,
and quite obviously, some of his remarks about the worship of the Virgin Mary and her role in
displacing her Son and the Trinity in the minds of the faithful must be somewhat discounted
(though there is actually evidence enough that the Church had constantly to recall the Christian
people to recognize the proper role of Our Lady in the scheme of redemption). Taking account of
the reservations that dry-as-dust scholars may lay upon Adams’ enthusiasm, we must admit,
however, that the spirit of the Middle Ages comes through more unmistakably in a work such as
Adams’ than in the analytical study of many an historian.

And here we are at the crux of the matter of Our Lady’s influence on literature. It is not a
matter of defining with precision whether the religious lyric preceded the secular song; it is not
a matter of tracing the exact degree to which the Blessed Virgin features in the actual literature
of any period. It is a matter of trying to discern how her familiar and frequent presence may have
shaped the attitudes, the responses to daily life, the whole framework of thought and impression
that in turn shaped the writers who have given us English literature as we now know it. I cannot,
obviously, go into this vast field in this small space; but it would be greatly interesting and
instructive, I think, if some eager candidate for a doctorate would take up such a theme as, for
instance, the lineaments of the Blessed Virgin as mirrored in the women characters in
Shakespeare. The Bard must have met Our Lady on the stage of his day — if indeed he did not
meet her in the circle of his own family — and it would be a most fruitful study of the influence
of popular taste on the stream of literature to try to trace just how Our Lady got into the stream
of English literature as we now know it. This chapter can do no more than suggest that such an
influence does exist. How else can we account for the presence of Our Lady in modern poetry, to
take one instance? These poets are not, as far as we may judge, impelled to speak of her from any
sense of personal devotion, from any agreement on doctrinal grounds; but speak of her they feel
they must, just as often as they have to speak of womanhood, its destiny, its glory. The same
impulse may be seen in modern sociological authors who must inevitably refer to the Virgin Mary
when they deal with the problems of womanhood; all too often their references are all askew, are
posited on the supposition that Mary was like all other women — but, for all that, it is impossible
to talk about womanhood without referring to the paragon of womanhood, Our Lady.

It is time, I suppose, to try to gather together all the loose ends of this rather rambling
treatment. It has tried no more than to suggest that Our Lady in English literature means more
than the fact that she has been written about. It has tried to suggest that her presence in the hearts
and minds of the medieval people spilled over, as it were, into the hearts and minds of the writers,
and that, just as Christ, by coming nearer and nearer to the lives of the people, became more and
more a focus of realism to the authors, so she, in consort with her Son, made life more real to the
medieval world and so to the writers who emerged from that world to shape the literature of our
day.

It may sound strange to refer all this to a trend toward “realism” in literature. That horrid word
means to our modern ears “suggestive” in the bad sense; it connotes sex and naturalism. But in its
primitive sense it means only what it says: that the writer is bent on seeing what he sees in the
framework of the real — what actually happened, what the facts were, what real life disclosed. In
this sense — and it is the fundamental sense — we may say that Our Lady helped to inject realism
into English literature. Her life was, to the people of the Middle Ages, a real life, as Adams was at
great pains to point out. The reality of her life and of all the episodes which the medieval world
knew so well served to shake literature loose from the romantic world of courtliness, jousts, and
knights pursuing dragons that held fair maidens in thrall. Our Lady brought a breath of reality into
the world — because she brought the Real Presence into the world — and, in so doing, wakened
literature to the fact that it deals with the reality of man and his relations with fellow man and
God, her Son.

If we end this chapter with this thought alone, we shall have made a point, we hope. Go
through the history of Christian art, whether that art be architecture, painting, sculpture, or letters
— and you will find that Our Lady emerges progressively as the Lady of Reality. Legends did and
do still cluster about her, but even these legends have a base in the impulses, the needs and
aspirations of the common people. And as literature draws away from the pure myth, from the
saga and the heroic epic, it draws nearer and nearer to a realism that first appealed to the
Christian world through the cathedrals and their windows and statuary and then got caught in
the homely tones of the mystery and miracle plays. From them, in turn, rose the secular literature
of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance in “popular” language, and to that development Our
Lady contributed. This is a thought that has not thus far engaged the attention of scholars, but it
is a thought with which, without being able to defend it in all its ramifications, I would like to
conclude this chapter on Our Lady in literature.

Our Lady in Music

by JOHN C. SELNER, S.S.

WHILE we realize with joy that the Marian year, 1954, successfully called the attention of the
world to the glories of Our Blessed Lady, and that, as a result, she has received from men the most
concerted and co-ordinated praise that has ever been given her, we cannot forget that the Church
is only giving voice to essentially the same sentiments which were expressed toward her almost
from the first attempts at organized Christian worship.

I. OUR LADY IN EARLY LITURGY

The era of persecution left little opportunity for the embellishment of ritual; then it was a
question of survival and dogged apostolic efforts to make the faith known. The stories of the
Annunciation, Birth of our Lord, His public life, the fulfillment of ancient prophecies, the
Crucifixion, Resurrection, and the Coming of the Holy Spirit, were used as data to back up the
doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Redemption which were the main preoccupations
in the instructions given during the apostolic age. But in connection with all these events the place
of the Mother of Our Savior was often alluded to, and very early begot a devotion towards her
which sprang into metrical poem and song. Our effort therefore, will be to indicate, as specifically
as may be, the idealistic expressions of praise which have been offered to Our Lady throughout
the centuries by means of texts which were put to music.

Speculations about the music to which these texts or poems may have been set would only lead
us off into a rather clumsy repetition of the little that is known about the singing in the early
Church. There is only questionable validity in going beyond the commonly accepted belief that
divine services in the first two or three centuries of the Christian era were solemnized mainly by
psalmodic recitations based on scales and tonalities of Greek and Jewish origin. Modern treatises
of music history have given us as scientific a development of this probability as the scarcity of
ancient data and the non-existence of a system of musical notation would presently allow.
1077
However, it may be legitimate to infer that with the gradual co-ordination of the liturgy some of
the music for divine services took on a more ornate form, likely in the manner of embellishments
at increasingly frequent junctures in the straight recitatives. Perhaps by the time of St. Ambrose,
fourth-century Bishop of Milan, the iambic dimeters which he composed for devotional purposes
fell more or less naturally into melodic formulae not unlike the Gregorian hymnody with which
we are familiar today. Some efforts, not entirely convincing, have been made to recast such tunes
from the substrata of the more ancient Gregorian repertoire.
1078 It was many centuries before
metrical hymns found their way into formal Christian worship. The Mass, of itself, was not
liturgically organized to admit of the versification of texts; tropes and sequences were gradually
added to the discursive texts more or less as medieval amplifications and excrescences, most of
which were wisely abolished by St. Pius V in the sixteenth century.
1079

The Canonical Hours which lend themselves easily to the use of metrical poems did not
become a part of the Roman liturgy until probably the twelfth or thirteenth centuries,
1080 so that
much of the poetry which accumulated in the early ages was relegated to private use or informal
religious gatherings. The solemn liturgical worship in both the East and the West was
accompanied mostly by non-metrical texts and passages from Scripture or by a series of
invocations and responses. In all of these latter forms there is evidence enough that Our Lady was
mentioned and honored from the beginning.

II. DOGMATIC THEMES

Doctrinally, the first of Mary’s glories in the early days of Christianity was her virginity
coupled with her maternity. The Council of Ephesus (a.d. 431) would have given considerable
impetus to devotion for the divine motherhood and, in fact, the suppression of the Nestorian
heresy gave occasion to sermons and panegyrics on the Annunciation.
1081 Hilary of Poitiers (✝ 367),
considered by Gerbert
1082 as the first writer of a hymn in the Latin language, tells us of Gabriel’s
message and reminds us of a “marvel never seen before, a virgin mother.”
1083 The hymns of St.
Ambrose (✝ 397) and those of his era give constant emphasis to the same doctrine and glorify the
Virgin who alone was Mother and Maid.
1084 Many ascetical sentiments expressed about the Blessed
Virgin in the hymns of this time may have had their inspiration from St. Ambrose’s treatise De
virginibus. Sedulius (fifth century) is author of a Christmas hymn, A solis ortus cardine, which
seems to represent an expansion of the tributes offered to Our Lady. He opens with a greeting to
Christ the Lord, born of the Virgin Mary, in whose chaste, maternal bosom a heavenly grace had
entered, and whose virginal womb bore secrets undreamed of. The mansion of her modest breast
suddenly becomes the temple of God; unsullied and not knowing man, she conceived in her womb
a Son as Gabriel had predicted, and the Baptist, still unborn, recognized from the womb of his own
mother.

III. FIRST COMPOSITIONS AND FEASTS

Venantius Fortunatus (530-601) seems to have been the first to write a hymn devoted
exclusively to the Blessed Virgin, Quem terra, pontus, sidera. It is panegyrical in spirit and the
author uses expressions which indicate a transition from the more factual, narrative style of hymn
to the openly devotional, picturesque, and even emotive manner of expression; the latter spirit
seems to have become, from this time on, the accepted purpose for writing in rhyme and meter.
We now encounter terms such as beata, gloriosa, benedicta, etc. Encomiums such as regis alti janua,
aula lucis fulgida, are suggestive of the future Litany of Loretto. Fortunatus, whose style seems to
have set the standard for devotional poetry in honor of the Blessed Virgin, is the author of the
famous Passiontide hymn, Vexilla Regis prodeunt. He seems to have composed a great number of
religious verses, most of which have been lost.
1085

Feasts of Our Lady were not numerous in Rome until after the seventh century.
1086 At first they
were importations from the Eastern Church, which after being established in Rome were finally
accepted by the Gallican Church when it adopted the Roman Liturgy. Rome kept the octave day
of the Nativity with special attention to the Blessed Virgin; the feast of the Circumcision, as we
now know it, was not of Roman origin, but on January 1, the stational church being St. Mary ad
Martyres, the liturgical texts indicated and emphasized the inevitable connection of Our Blessed
Lady with the birth of Christ. The feast of the Purification seems to be the first which was
specifically dedicated to the Mother of Our Saviour. One of the texts for that feast may have been
an Eastern form of the Ave Maria which dates back to a.d. 600. There is a translation of it which
reads like this: “Hail Mary, endued with grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst
women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, because thou didst conceive Christ, the Son of God,
the Redeemer of our souls.”

The Annunciation is also mentioned by the first half of the seventh century as an established
feast, and the festival may have been observed in Ephesus as early as the fifth century, and even
then it may have come thither from certain monastic churches in Palestine. So that while the
Purification is the oldest of the Marian feasts observed at Rome, the Annunciation may have been
the earliest of such observances in the Eastern Church.

By the time of the Council of Trullo (692) four festivals are mentioned, namely, the
Purification, the Annunciation, and two commemorations which celebrated the Nativity of Our
Lady and her Assumption (Dormitio).
1087 The Mass texts had by this time much the same order we
are familiar with today: introit, gradual, offertory, and communion verse. For the original feast of
January 1, the Introit was Vultum tuum deprecabuntur omnes divites plebis, which is verse 13 of
Psalm 44. At a very early date this psalm was used in an accommodated sense for the Blessed
Virgin, and while a number of its verses have been shifted to the Common of Virgins, several of
them are still reserved for the feasts from the Common of the Blessed Virgin. It is an interesting
fact that the inspiration for the use of Vultum tuum may have come from a picture in the catacomb
of St. Callistus which represents Our Lady with the Child Jesus in her arms receiving homage from
richly dressed people offering presents.
1088

IV. GREGORIAN MUSIC

A considerable library of Gregorian music has grown up around the Mass and Office texts used
in honor of Our Lady. The actual age of the music itself will always be a matter of conjecture, no
doubt. But by the time of St. Gregory the Great (590-604) the work of compiling existing chants
had so far progressed that the music sung on later Marian feasts was in the general modal
character of all the music used in the liturgy. It is quite possible that we still sing excerpts of music
which was used on the original festivals in honor of the Blessed Virgin.

Here and there through Advent we come upon texts and music celebrating Our Lady’s part
in the Nativity. One of the finest pieces of Gregorian repertory is the Ave Maria which is used as
an offertory verse for the Fourth Sunday of Advent and also for the feast of the Annunciation. The
communion verse for the same Sunday reminds us that a Virgin shall conceive and bring forth a
Son. These melodies as we now have them are likely twelfth century adaptations of more ancient
tunes.
1089

The feasts of Our Lady throughout the year have brought into being many excellent chant
melodies which are described in detail by Dom Joseph Gajard, choirmaster of Solesmes.
1090 Other
melodies fall into the modal channels more or less regularly and are, for the most part, admirably
adapted to the Marian texts. As the form of the canonical hours gradually became set, the greater
volume of Gregorian music was applied to responsoria in Matins of the Divine Office and, above
all, in the antiphons for the psalms. The latter serve as elegant little vignettes in praise of Our
Lady’s many glorious prerogatives and titles. The Salve, Sancta Parens which is used as the introit
in the seasonal Common of the Blessed Virgin and on certain specific feasts, is a text from the
Carmen Paschale of Sedulius, fifth century poet,
1091 and like many other such texts still in use for
festivals of the Blessed Virgin, it represents an ancient cult of which our modern devotion to the
Mother of God is the logical development and the faithful reflection.

With the introduction of metrical hymns as part of the Divine Office, the Western Church was
given a large store of religious poetry in honor of Our Lady. Among the most popular is the ninth
century hymn, Ave maris stella, used in the vespers for the Common of the Blessed Virgin. No
doubt the sentiments expressed in the hymn are a contonization of similar ideas in previous texts
honoring Mary as our patroness and protectress. Some authors attribute it to Fortunatus (sixth
century) and all seem to agree that it antedates the tenth century.
1092 The Vatican edition of chant
assigns five different melodies to it, dating variously from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries,
with most of the manuscripts of those centuries still extant.
1093

V. THE MAJOR ANTIPHONS

Deserving of special attention are the antiphons to the Blessed Virgin which are sung after
compline in the Divine Office. These are the Alma Redemptoris for the season of Advent until the
Feast of the Purification; the Ave Regina caelorum, from Purification until Holy Thursday; the
Regina caeli for Eastertide until Trinity; and the Salve Regina for the rest of the year.

Hermanus Contractus, a monk of Reichenau who died in 1054, is beyond doubt the author of
the text of the Alma Redemptoris. It was very popular in England before and after Chaucer’s
mention of it in his Prioress’ Tale of the famed Canterbury pilgrims:

This little child, his little lesson learning,

Sat at his primer in the school, and there,

While boys were taught the antiphons, kept turning,

And heard the Alma Redemptoris fair,

And drew as near as ever he did dare,

Making the words, remembering every note

Until the first verse he could sing by rote.
1094

Two melodies are assigned in the Vatican Edition for each of these antiphons, the simple and
the solemn tone. Their origins are hard to trace, though it is possible that the solemn tone for the
Alma Redemptoris goes back to the twelfth century. The simple tones are all clearly a syllabic
reduction of the solemn tones, likely having a much later date of composition.

The Ave Regina caelorum is surely a twelfth century composition, though its author is
unknown.
1095 It was introduced into the Divine Office, so we are told, by Pope Clement VI (1342-1352). Its general sentiment reflects expressions of such Eastern Doctors as Athanasius, Ephraem,
and Ildephonsus. The antiphon is used during Lent and Passiontide to remind the faithful of Our
Lady’s part in reopening heaven and reigning gloriously there herself.

The Regina caeli, a joyous antiphon for Eastertide, is traced by most to the twelfth century also.
It was used by the Franciscans in the thirteenth century and was put into the Divine Office by
command of Pope Nicholas III (c. 1280). The solemn melody for it is found in manuscripts of the
thirteenth century.
1096

Various authors have been named for the most popular of the four antiphons, the Salve Regina,
among them Hermanus Contractus, author of the Alma Redemptoris. It is generally agreed,
however, that the Salve is of eleventh century origin and it is most commonly ascribed to
Adhémar, Bishop of Le Puy (1087-1098), who is said to have composed it as the official hymn of
the crusade under Pope Urban II. The solemn melody for this antiphon is among the choicest in
the whole Gregorian repertoire. It is sung in some monasteries, notably the Carthusians and the
Carmelites, many times a day. Other religious orders use it each night before retiring. It may
actually be the origin of our present service of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament which grew
out of the custom of singing these antiphons, especially the Salve, before the Blessed Virgin’s
statue every evening. At times the Blessed Sacrament was exposed to give the “Salut,” as it was
called, greater solemnity. Martin Luther complained that the Salve was sung everywhere and great
church bells were rung in its honor. It was especially dear to all who went to sea: Christopher
Columbus and his men are said to have gathered each evening to entrust their venture to the
guidance of the Mother of Mercy. The Dominicans have had the custom of singing it at the
deathbed of a confrere when possible. It has been translated into almost every language of the
Western Church and sung in various forms at almost any service in which the Blessed Virgin is
to be invoked. Wherever Marian music is mentioned, the Salve Regina, both in its solemn and its
simple melodic form, is entwined in the loftiest sentiments of praise and petition that men have
ever expressed to the Virgin Mother in this vale of tears.

Much more could be said about the glories of Mary as expressed in Gregorian chant, but we
have reviewed the chief points of history regarding it. We might add that the Gregorian Kyriale
dedicates two Masses to the honor of the Blessed Virgin, namely Masses IX and X, called Missa
cum jubilo and Missa alme Pater respectively, both of them among the most elegant music of the
ordinarium.

As devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows began to spread we find an important poem, the Stabat
Mater, which has been variously ascribed to Jacopone da Todi, O.F.M. (✝ 1306), St. Bonaventure
(✝ 1274), and others. Fifteenth century English missals reflect its use, but it was not added to the
Roman liturgy until 1727, when it took its place among the five sequences currently used in the
Latin Church. The syllabic chant to which it is set cannot be dated with any certainty. It is rather
broken melodically and represents little ingenuity from a musical standpoint. A more popular
melody in the sixth mode has been set to the twenty stanzas of the poem and it is now better
recognized by that melody than by the combination of second mode tunes to which it is set as a
sequence on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (September 15).
1097

The first hymnal in honor of Our Lady appeared in the thirteenth century under the title Les
miracles de Notre-Dame. It contained about thirty pieces in all which were sung and copied for
nearly two centuries. The author was a monk of Soissons, Gautier de Coincy.
1098 While we are still
in the age of chant, so to speak, it may be well to call attention to a fairly large collection of
Marian hymns by the renowned Dom Joseph Pothier, monk of Solesmes, which is entitled Cantus
mariales.
1099 A rather considerable number of older chants will be found in this collection with
references to the sources of the existing manuscripts. There are, however, many chants of recent
origin. No doubt the vast labors of the Solesmes monks in the atelier of the monastery have
brought to light many corrections for the out-of-print edition of Cantus mariales, and one might
wish a new edition could be published for both academic and practical purposes.

VI. POLYPHONIC ERA

The history of Marian music changes with the polyphonic era. Guillaume de Machaut, born
about 1300, is said to have written the first complete Mass in polyphonic style. It was called the
Messe Notre-Dame. While its various parts depend for thematic inspiration on chants from the
Kyriale, the very impressive treatment of the words ex Maria Virgine in the Credo give clearly the
Marian emphasis he wished the Mass to maintain. This work was still being performed in the
sixteenth century, and no doubt proved a worthy ancestor to the monumental achievements of
the later polyphonists, including Palestrina.
1100

The beginnings of polyphonic efforts in the Netherlands are linked with the names of John
Dunstable (✝ 1453) and his younger contemporary William Dufay (✝ 1474). The former, an
Englishman, was a typical representative of the growing art of polyphony both in England and on
the continent; the latter was a connecting link between the Flemish School and that of the
Netherlands. All of the polyphonic composers of this era, as well as those of the second
Netherlands School, headed by Joannes Ockeghem,
1101 and illumined by his pupil, Josquin de Prés
(✝ 1521), took a great deal of thematic material for their Masses and motets from the chants in
honor of the Blessed Virgin, and perhaps it may be safely said that their efforts at composing
church music in the new style depended in large measure on liturgical texts from the Masses and
Office for feasts of Our Lady. The four great Marian antiphons, sung at the end of the Divine
Office, were apparently very popular as a source of inspiration for new compositions.

Palestrina (✝ 1594) with his contemporaries, Orlando di Lasso (✝ 1594) and Victoria, the
Spaniard (✝ 1613) who had formed an intimate friendship with Palestrina, and was the first
musician to set to music all the hymns of the liturgical year
1102 — these are the three great names
among a host of lesser composers in the golden age of polyphony.

Joannes Petrus Aloysius Praenestinus, “Musicae Princeps,” as Palestrina was designated on his
epitaph in St. Peter’s, composed ninety-three Masses, and one hundred and thirty-nine motets,
Lamentations, Offertories, Magnificats, and Vesper-psalms. Of this enormous output of
masterpieces, there are at least fifteen Masses specifically dedicated to the Blessed Virgin under
various titles, probably the finest and the most famous of which was the Missa Assumpta est Maria
for six voices. About thirty-five of his motets are composed in honor of Our Lady, and he seemed
to have a special predilection for the Salve Regina for which there are three or four different
settings.
1103 Besides, there are several hymns, Offertories, Litanies of the Blessed Virgin, and thirty-five Magnificats, each based on one of the Gregorian modes.

Orlando di Lasso (✝ 1594) was composer of more than two thousand works, of which about two
thirds were sacred music, including about one hundred Magnificats. What Orlando was for the
Netherlands School, Tomás de Victoria was for the Spaniards. The glorious Ave Maria, based on
the Gregorian intonation, will carry his name all through time.

VII. THE CHANGE IN MUSICAL ART

Musicians will argue endlessly whether or not compositions for the choral art reached their
greatest sublimity during the golden age of polyphony or since. But with Monteverdi (✝ 1643) we
witness the most important shift in the art of music that history will ever record: it changed from
an ecclesiastical art with imitations in secular uses to a secular art with more and more
ecclesiastical uses. One of the reasons was that while the choral concepts of the great polyphonists
reached the noblest and most ecstatic heights, they were, nevertheless, cool and emotively
unexpressive; they had an oratorical appeal and were perfect from the point of view of sheer
vocality, but they made no attempt, nor were the masters quite aware that they could make any
attempt, to be representative of feeling, as such. This device Monteverdi discovered; and it made
him father to the opera and the symphony; it brought about a change in the general concept of
musical function. Now the interest began to develop in a union between music and words (stile
espressivo) which was to become in succeeding generations one of the chief preoccupations of
musical composers. In the drama, music was brought in to enhance the imitative effort (stile
rappresentativo), and both of these notions of the function of music mightily affected the music
destined for religious use.

At any rate, Claudio Monteverdi, the illustrious Venetian musician, chapel-master of St.
Mark’s, was also a polyphonist and wrote much of his music for the Church on the basic principles
of polyphony, being still aware, perhaps, that the style he espoused for secular music had a
character distinct from the music of worship.

Nevertheless, there were vast embellishments even in his music for the Church. His Vespers
of the Blessed Virgin is written for six voices and six instruments which contribute something of
a dramatic, if not profane, character. His Magnificat for seven voices and six instruments offers
an astounding variety in which solos alternate with the choir. The Salve Regina for two voices,
admittedly beautiful, gives the effect of a love duet, and another Salve for one voice approaches
the operatic aria. Here we must begin to recognize the definite break between medieval music and
the age of baroque styles which developed in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries.
1104
Representative names in this transition are those of the Roman masters, Carissimi (✝ 1674) and
Rossi (✝ 1653), who brought a great deal of flexibility and tenderness into their music, and
hastened, through their oratorios and cantatas, the use of the stile rappresentativo in compositions
for the Church. As long as the liturgy of the Protestant churches remained in many respects like
ours, Marian hymns continued to be in popular use, and music of the contemporary composers
was often dedicated to texts in her honor, particularly the Magnificat.

VIII. MODERN TIMES

The divided choirs which gave so much delight to the Venetians fostered the acoustical idea
of repetition and close musical development. The echo-form came to be known as the concerto
style, whether it applied to instruments or to choral offerings.
1105 This greatly involved and
brilliantly developed form found its true master in Johannes Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), though
he was not recognized as such in his own time.

While he was choirmaster at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, there came from his pen a
Magnificat for voices, organ, and instruments, which was destined for Vespers of Christmas in
1723 at St. Thomas. Though unsuited for liturgical use in the Catholic Church, it represents well
the seriousness of its composer and the artistic inspiration which could come to him from the
contemplation of the Mother of Our Savior. Pergolesi, who died in 1736 at the age of twenty-six,
is the composer of a Stabat Mater which, for grandeur of style and dramatic power, is typical of
the best music of the period.
1106

By the time of Mozart’s death in 1791, the secular style had so completely claimed the genius
of the great composers that it was rare to find any of them preparing music of an essentially
religious character. Though Mozart composed four litanies to the Blessed Virgin, a Mass in her
honor, several motets, among them a Regina caeli and a Magnificat, he seemed far more
preoccupied with the effect of the music than with the communication of the text as such. The
same tradition was carried on by Joseph Haydn (✝ 1809) whose Stabat Mater exhibits a flowery,
orchestral concept with only a dramatic relation to the words.
1107

The Stabat Mater reached a typical climax in the profane treatment of sacred texts by the time
of Gioacchino Rossini, the operatic composer (1792-1868). Produced during a long period of
musical inactivity, Rossini’s Stabat Mater will always serve as paradigm of the elimination of
textual latencies in favor of entertainment music of a rather indolent and frivolous pattern.
1108

As a matter of fact, serious church musicians have sometimes questioned whether the musical
delineation of the text of the Stabat Mater by Rossini should not be classified as “comic opera,”
1109
so disparate is the music from the poem it was supposed to serve.

Probably the most popular Marian piece among English-speaking people, particularly in this
country, is the Ave Maria of Charles Gounod (1818-1893). Based on the first prelude of Bach, and
not originally conceived as an Ave Maria at all, it is a hybrid both as regards music and text. The
story persists that it was written as a setting for a Lamartine love poem and dedicated, with that
text, to a lady in whom Gounod had at least a passing interest. At any rate, the lady is supposed
to have returned the piece to Gounod after substituting the text of the Ave Maria, which was in
effect a disavowal of his amorous advance. Likewise, the celebrated Ave Maria of Franz Schubert
(1797-1828) exhibits some disparity between text and music which indicates that it may have been
written either for a vernacular paraphrase of the Angelic Salutation, or perhaps with no idea of
a Marian hymn at all. The composer’s extraordinary talent for song writing makes it very unlikely
that he would have approved the present setting of the Latin words to his music. Nevertheless, his
melodious style is too fascinating for many church musicians, and they would be strongly tempted
to include this piece in their repertoire, no matter what the text might have been originally.
Among Schubert’s genuinely Marian compositions there are five Salve Reginas and two Stabat
Maters which are seldom heard any more.

Johannes Brahms too (1833-1897) carries something of the same musical tradition into his Ave
Maria for female voices, orchestra, and organ.
1110 But in general, the romantic period offered little
from composers in the way of genuine church music in honor of Our Lady or for any other truly
devotional purpose. However, a reaction to this type of music began in Germany with the
formation of the Cecilian Society under Franz Witt at Bamberg in 1868.

Franz Witt (1834-1888) was an eminent priest-musician, choirmaster of the cathedral of
Ratisbon, who became convinced that something had to be done to restore church music to its
functional place in the liturgy. The Society he founded for this end was given papal approval in
1870, and as a result, many sincere church musicians devoted themselves to the composition of
Masses and motets worthy of divine worship. Their music while it attained a rather conventional
style, was nevertheless respectful and, in some instances, reached a laudable standard of artistic
achievement. Names such as Ebner, Goller, Griesbacher, Wiltberger, Singenberger, and Stehle are
very highly respected still in choirlofts where appropriate church music is the rule. All of these
men composed very impressive motets in honor of the Blessed Virgin, chiefly based on the vesper
antiphons for the four seasons and the offertories of the Masses in her honor. Gradually, societies
comparable to the Cecilian Verein, were founded in Italy, England, Ireland, Holland, and the
United States, and musicians of these schools of composition have, for more than fifty years, set
the better standards of church music.
1111

IX. CONTEMPORARY COMPOSITIONS

Contemporary musicians in this era of experimentation with the art of sounds have produced
nothing noteworthy thus far in Marian music. But English hymnody used commonly in our
American churches has been a mixture of good, fair, and very poor material. Regrettably, the
better hymns are to a great extent unknown, and the worst achieve amazing popularity. The usual
novena hymns currently used in this country are, for the most part, in the latter classification. The
texts are generally poetic translations of the Salve Regina and the Ave maris stella. A few popular
hymns come to us from Father Frederick W. Faber (✝ 1863), but perhaps the most frequently sung
Marian hymns are very poor from the literary and textual standpoint, most of them being very
sentimental or aimlessly repetitious.
1112

However, as the result of ages of inspiration, the Church has an impressive repertoire of songs
to Our Lady, and there is little doubt that the ever increasing devotion to the Blessed Mother of
God in all her titles will serve as a strong incentive to the best musicians and poets to produce a
music in our modern times which will not be too unworthy of her glorious dignity and of the love
she deserves from us.

Our Lady in Art

by LAWRENCE A. BURKE, O.F.M.

OUR LADY is represented so often in the art of the past twenty centuries that her image alone
would comprise almost a complete history of art. She is depicted in every age; on the walls of the
Catacombs, in the mosaics of the Byzantine basilicas, in the sculptured portals of Romanesque and
Gothic churches, on Renaissance and Baroque canvases, and in the painting and sculpture of the
Moderns. It is not at all remarkable to a Catholic that Mary’s influence was so profound and far-reaching. Concerning the Middle Ages when her influence reached its peak, Emile Mâle says: “Of
all holy men and women the Virgin was the most honored and the most loved. Art exalted her
above all creatures, and conceived her as an eternal thought of God. And the men of the Middle
Ages loved the Virgin with a disinterested love — they did not beseech her incessantly for
miracles. They conceived of her as a sublime idea, in which the soul and the heart may forever
discover new wonders. Her purity in particular was the eternal subject of the solitary’s
conversation with himself. Womankind, fallen, fragile, and dangerous, stood forth perfect and
spotless in the celestial essence of womanhood, worthy of infinite love.”
1113 The artist, in marble or
mosaic, in pigment or in stained glass, always sought new ways to express that love.

Space permits only a general presentation of the principal images to indicate the influence that
devotion to Mary had in each period.

I. CATACOMBS

The Catacomb of Priscilla, the oldest Christian cemetery of Rome, contains what is probably
the earliest picture of Mary. The painting, an adoration of the Magi, dates to about the first half
of the second century. This subject is represented no less than eighty-five times in early Christian
paintings and sculptures; it is one of the most important scenes of the art of Christian antiquity.
In the same place is another picture of Our Lady which is considered to be artistically one of the
best pictures found in the catacombs. Before Mary seated with the Christ Child at her breast
stands a man dressed as a philosopher who points to a star above her head. The man probably
represents the prophet Balaam. In other representations Mary is pictured as an Orant with her
hands lifted in the ancient attitude of prayer and is sometimes found with the Good Shepherd or
saints. These old and sometimes crude images began the iconography of the Virgin Mary.
1114

II. BYZANTINE

After the persecutions and when official recognition of the new religion was given by Emperor
Constantine, Christian art came out of the catacombs. The invading barbarians threatened the
Western Empire, and the emperor transferred his capital from Rome to the shores of the
Bosphorus and renamed it Constantinople. The Byzantine Empire endured for a thousand years,
and succeeding emperors built their great basilicas and adorned them with the mosaics that
became the glory of Christian art.

Reaction to the heretic Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople, who denied the Divine
Maternity, was evident in the art of the period. The Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus (431)
condemned the heresy. Following this, a multitude of icons or holy images were produced under
the title Theotokos, Mother of God.

The Golden Age of Byzantine art began in the fifth century and lasted for three-hundred years.
One of its greatest achievements was the church of Haghia Sophia or Divine Wisdom, begun by
Constantine and rebuilt by Justinian. The great dome was described by a contemporary historian
as “at once marvelous and terrifying. ... It is as if hung by a golden chain from heaven.”
1115 Working
with tiny stones of marble, porphyry, and glass, the Byzantine artists adorned the walls with
mosaics, so characteristic of Eastern art, on a gigantic scale. These mosaics, among the finest
works of art ever produced, show Mary in a prominent place in many scenes from the New
Testament.

Precedent determined the procedure followed in the decoration of Byzantine churches.
Treatises on art specified not only the manner in which biblical scenes were to be depicted but also
their location in the church. In the apse the most important figure was Christ represented as the
Pantocrator, the All Powerful One. Sometimes the image of the Virgin seated upon a throne
holding her Divine Child occupied this place in the apse. Scenes from the Old and New Testaments
were set in chronological order in the church. The life of the Virgin was frequently portrayed. To
the New Testament scenes of the Annunciation, Visitation, etc., the mosaic artists added many
from the apocryphal gospels which allowed a more imaginative treatment. Frequently found in
Eastern iconography is the “Dormition” or death of the Virgin, one of the twelve great Byzantine
feastdays.

The Golden Age of Byzantine art ended in the year 726 when Leo the Isaurian ordered the
destruction of all icons to discourage idolatry. In 787, however, the Second Council of Nicea
formally decreed that images of God, His Blessed Mother, and the saints were to be venerated.
This impetus resulted in a new flowering of Byzantine art, less formal and more naturalistic in
treatment. Eastern Christendom remained the creator and custodian of great religious art until the
capture of Constantinople by the Moslems in 1453.
1116

III. GOTHIC

In the West, the centuries that followed the destruction of the Roman Empire were not without
high artistic achievement. The monasteries preserved the treasures of Western learning. Patient
monks copied by hand the Bible and liturgical books, and decorated them with exquisite miniature
paintings. These books gave the artists of the Middle Ages the models for the decoration of their
great cathedrals.

The age of the cathedrals represents the triumph of the Christian faith in the West. Their
soaring towers rose first in France, the center of medieval culture, and later in all of Western
Europe. The entire populace took part in their construction. Robert de Mont-Saint-Michel tells us,
“Men and women were seen carrying heavy loads through bogs, singing and praising the wonders
of God which were happening before their very eyes.”
1117 France had its masterpieces in Chartres,
Rheims, Amiens, and Paris.

The high degree of perfection which sculpture in France achieved is seen in the portals of the
cathedrals where the story of Mary’s life is told with scenes of the Annunciation, Visitation,
Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Passion. Traditional scenes such as the death of the
Virgin in the midst of the Apostles and her triumphal ascent into Heaven were added to the scenes
from the Gospels. The frequency of the images of the Virgin attests to the high place she had in
that culture.

All the medieval cathedrals honor Mary, but Notre Dame of Paris in particular is her church.
Four of the six portals are dedicated to her. In the two great rose windows she occupies the center.
“In one the holy men of the Old Testament, in the other, the labors of the months are given their
order in relation to her. She is the center towards which all things turn. Nowhere was the Virgin
more devoutly loved; the twelfth century in the Saint Anne portal, the thirteenth in the Virgin
portal, the fourteenth in the bas reliefs of the north side, glorify her unceasingly from age to age.”
1118

What the cathedral with its sculpture and stained glass was to France, painting in the
thirteenth century was to Italy. The genesis sprang from two great figures, St. Francis of Assisi and
Giotto. The gentle Poverello, inflamed with the love of Christ and all His creation, prompted a new
warmth and feeling in painting. The Florentine master, Giotto, who painted in Assisi the famous
murals of the life of St. Francis, reflected the spirit of the saint in all his work. Paul Gay says,
“Giotto discovered the life-value of a smile, the eloquence of a look, the weight of a tear.”
1119 The best
preserved of his frescoes are in the Arena Chapel in Padua, where he painted many tender scenes
from the childhood and betrothal of the Virgin, subjects so popular with Byzantine artists.

A great influence on the artists of the day was a popular book, the Meditations on the Life of
Jesus Christ, attributed to St. Bonaventure but actually written by an unknown Franciscan of the
thirteenth century. The imaginative scenes are designed to touch the heart rather than the
intellect. It gave artists new material for the familiar scenes of the Annunciation, the Nativity, the
Adoration of the Magi and the Passion. For the first time the Nativity is depicted with Mary
kneeling before her Son.

The Virgin predominated in the thought of the sculptors of the French cathedrals and she
occupied no less an honored place in Italian painting. Reverent and skilled portrayals of her are
to be found in abundance. One painter in particular who expressed the praise of Mary with
exceptional feeling is the Dominican friar, Giovanni di Fiesole, better known as Fra Angelico.
Looking on the radiant and mystical world he painted, one may agree with Vasari that Fra
Angelico “never took up his brush without first making a prayer.”
1120 With tenderness and majesty
he tells again the glories of the life of the Virgin Mother. His fame spread beyond the walls of the
monastery and he was eventually called to Rome by the Pope to decorate the Vatican. But it was
for his brother friars in the convents of Fiesole and Florence and in the church of Cortona that he
did his greatest works. Fra Angelico is of the full flowering of the Middle Ages, but he anticipates
the glory of the Renaissance.

Contemporaneously with Fra Angelico and the Italian artists, a remarkable group of painters
headed by the Van Eyck brothers flourished in the Netherlands. They painted on wooden panels
in glowing colors and with great precision. The charming Madonnas by these Nordic masters,
seated on a Gothic throne in a great cathedral or praying in the stillness of an immaculate room,
are among the most exquisite of any age. They clearly resemble the miniatures of the illuminated
manuscripts which inspired them. The fame of the Van Eyck brothers and their contemporaries
Robert Campin and Roger van der Weyden reached Italy, where they were greatly admired. Two
centuries later the styles of the Nordic and Italian schools were wonderfully fused in the
Madonnas of the Flemish master, Peter Paul Rubens.
1121

IV. THE RENAISSANCE

The Renaissance began in Italy in the fifteenth century with the great revival of interest in the
learning of ancient Greece and Rome. Man began to displace God as the center of the intellectual
and artistic universe. The new spirit was reflected in the arts by an increasing emphasis on secular
and pagan themes, a trend perhaps best exemplified in the work of Botticelli. But even though the
fervor of the Middle Ages was beginning to ebb, Mary still claimed the foremost attention of the
artists. Everyone is familiar with the frequently reproduced Madonnas of the period, and the
names of three of their great creators, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo, are known
to every schoolboy.

Michelangelo was the master of the High Renaissance and one of the greatest artists of all
time. Painter of the magnificent frescoes in the Sistine Chapel and designer of the dome of St.
Peter’s Basilica, he nevertheless claimed to be primarily a sculptor and made several superb images
of the Madonna and Child. His famous “Pietà” was so novel in its day that many of his
contemporaries considered it heretical. He carved it when he was only twenty-three years old.

Raphael, probably the best known of all painters of the Madonna, was the creator of the
“Sistine Madonna” and the “Madonna of the Chair.” Of him it has been said: “Hardly any other
artist has been so loved and cherished over the centuries. In him the connoisseur has found a
degree of artistic perfection such as has seldom been attained; while the pious have found in his
work an expression of divine gentleness and beauty.”
1122

Only half a dozen paintings by Leonardo da Vinci have come down to us. Besides the well-known “Last Supper,” he painted the “Madonna of the Rocks” and the even more beautiful “St.
Anne, Virgin and Child.”

In the sixteenth century, Venice, the romantic and wealthy city that linked the East and West,
became as important as Rome as a center of painters. Its art, productive of sacred and profane
works in equal abundance, is one of opulence and splendid color. Its greatest painters, Giorgione,
Titian, and later Tintoretto, executed several masterful works that honor the Mother of God.

When the Reformation erupted in Germany and began to spread through the Continent, the
forces of iconoclasm were brought to bear on sacred art. Luther and Calvin opposed the veneration
of religious pictures. The Council of Trent declared in 1564, however, that “the images of the
Virgin Mother are to be kept, especially in churches, and due honor and veneration are to be given
them.”
1123 The Reformers retaliated violently. Thomas Bodkin relates: “In 1566, the memorable revolt
of the Image Breakers devastated the Netherlands. On the day following the great feast of the
Assumption the mob invaded the cathedral of Antwerp and began an orgy of desecration by
smashing to atoms the statue of the Blessed Virgin which a few hours earlier had been carried in
solemn procession through the streets of the city. Before they left they had destroyed every one
of the hundreds of pictures and statues in the building, with the single exception of the statue of
the Impenitent Thief. Within six weeks they had swept like a tornado through every church in the
country, burning, breaking and tearing up those works of art that had constituted their country’s
greatest claim to glory.

“The English Iconoclasts proceeded in more orderly, but even more efficient fashion. Under
Edward VI, Elizabeth and Cromwell, official commissions sought out and systematically destroyed
every object of religious veneration in ecclesiastical or private possession upon which they could
lay hands. In our own days, a few things that they failed to discover, usually because they had
been hidden away under coats of whitewash, have reappeared to testify to the wealth and
wonderful quality of the religious art which embellished England during the centuries in which
the nation took pride in England’s title ‘The Dowry of Mary.’ ”
1124

V. BAROQUE

It was inevitable that the Reformation should leave its mark upon religious art. But the
Counter-Reformation, led chiefly by the Society of Jesus, resulted in a revival. Art, reflecting the
feelings of the times, was no longer serene and unperturbed as it was in the Middle Ages but
became ecstatic and charged with emotion.

Catholic Spain met the challenge with the towering genius of Domingo Theotocopulos, better
known as El Greco. In 1577 he painted his famous “Assumption of the Virgin,” one of many works
in which he paid homage to the Mother of God. He was so generally admired in Spain that almost
every church sought and obtained his work. His flame-like figures glowing in phosphorescent
colors have a strange and mysterious quality that belongs to another world.

This was the golden age for the art of Spain. Francisco Pacheco summed up its spirit with the
statement: “Art has no other task than that of showing mankind the way to faith and to God.”
1125
It produced a Ribera and a Zurbarán, a Velázquez and a Murillo. The latter is well known as the
painter of several notable versions of Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception.
1126 More and more this
doctrine was occupying the mind of the Church, and Spain more than any other country defended
this singular privilege of Mary which was declared a dogma of the Church two centuries later.

After the golden age of Spanish painting, the Virgin became less and less the favorite subject
of the great artists. This was due to the increasing secularization of society as well as to the effects
of the Reformation. Aristocratic society rather than the Church assumed the role of patron of the
arts. Even that patronage died with the French Revolution.
1127

VI. MODERN PERIOD

Modern art began as a revolt against the Classicism and Romanticism of the nineteenth
century. Its direction was determined mainly by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and especially
Paul Cezanne, whose work opened up a whole new world of seeing and eventually led to the
emergence of Expressionism, Surrealism, Abstractionism, etc. Although these three painters rarely
turned to religious subjects, Paul Gauguin created a notable Madonna and Child entitled “Ia Orana
Maria” in a South Seas setting.

Among the moderns of the twentieth century the exceptional Georges Rouault developed a
highly personal religious art. Outstanding contemporary artists who have attempted the ancient
theme of the Madonna in modern form are Henry Moore, Jacob Epstein, and Jacques Lipchitz. Ivan
Mestrovic, more of a traditionalist, has created several notable religious works.

Regarding the expectation of future religious art, Jacques Maritain has written: “If amid the
indescribable catastrophies which the modern world invites there should occur a moment,
however brief, of pure Christian springtime ... the reflowering of a truly Christian art, the
resurrection to active life of mind and spirit may then be reasonably expected for the joy of angels
and men. There is already some indication of such an art in the individual efforts of a few artists
during the last fifty years, some of whom are to be reckoned among the greatest. But we must
above all be careful not to elicit or isolate it prematurely, by an academic effort, from the main
movement of contemporary art. It will emerge and impose itself only if it springs spontaneously
from a common renewal of art and sanctity in the world.”
1128

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Basquin, O.S.B., Les peintres de Marie. Essai sur l’art marial (Bruxelles, 1912); Birchler-Karrer, Maria.
Die Madonna in der Kunst (Zürich, 1941); T. Bodkin, The Virgin and Child (New York, 1949); P. de Bouchaud,
Mosaiques de Notre-Dame (Paris, 1954); J. Bruyère, S.J., Marie dans la peinture chinoise, in Marie, Vol. 6, No.
2, 1952, pp. 52-55; D. S. Cary, Our Lady in Art, in The Marianist, Vol. 49, November, 1958, pp. 26-31; Cassiano
da Langasco, O.F.M.Cap., La Madonna nell’arte, in Enciclopedia Mariana, ed. R. Spiazzi, O.P., 2nd ed.
(Milano, 1958), pp. 731-743; C. Cecchelli, Archeologia e iconografia mariana primitiva, ibid., pp. 67-75; Card.
C. Costantini, Marie, la sainte muse de l’art chrétien, in Marie, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1949, pp. 16-24; A. M. Dal Pino,
La Vergine nell’arte francese, in Marianum, Vol. 14, 1952, pp. 276-282; R. de Fleury, La Sainte Vierge. Etudes
archéologiques et iconographiques, 2 vols. (Paris, 1878); A. L. Delattre, Le culte de la Sainte Vierge en Afrique
d’après les monuments archéologiques (Paris, 1907); G. Fallani, Le interpretazioni artistiche del dogma
mariano, in Enciclopedia Mariana, ed. R. Spiazzi (Milano, 1958), pp. 751-758; J. Gajard, O.S.B., Notre Dame
et l’art grégorien, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 2 (Paris, 1952), pp. 343-382;
R. Garrucci, Storia dell’arte cristiana nei primi otto secoli della Chiesa, 6 vols. (Prato, 1872- 1881); Ghéon-Zeller, Mary the Mother of God (Chicago, n.d.); B. Guegan, Le livre de la Vierge (Paris, 1943); E. M. Hurll, The
Madonna in Art (Boston, 1898); La Madonna e la donna nell’arte orientale (Venezia, 1954); E. Mâle, Religious
Art from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1949); C. P. Maus, The World’s Greatest Madonnas
(New York, 1947); D. T. O’Dwyer, Our Lady in Art (Washington, D. C., 1934); P. Pérez-Dolz, Las Madonas
de la pintura alemana (Barcelona, 1940); L. Schreyer, Bildnis der Mutter Gottes (Freiburg, 1951); E. Tea, La
Vergine nell’arte (Brescia, 1953); M. Vloberg, Les types iconographiques de la Vierge dans l’art occidental, in
Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 2 (Paris, 1952), pp. 485-540; E. Vogt, S.J., O
nome de Maria a luz de recentes descobertas arquelógicas, in Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira, Vol. 1, 1941, pp.
473-481. Cf. also Maria et Ecclesia, Vol. 15 (Romae, 1960), entirely devoted to Mary and art.

Our Lady and the Protestants

by KENNETH F. DOUGHERTY, S.A.

IN RECENT years a great deal of ecumenical communication has taken place between European
Catholics and Protestants on the subject of Our Lady, her mission, her privileges and titles. Among
non-Catholics who have been sympathetic toward the Marian cult we may mention particularly
the Anglican theologians E. L. Mascall and T. M. Parker, the German Lutheran H. Asmussen, and
the French Reformed M. Thurian.
1129 The work of these revivalists has been the object of serious
study on the part of several Catholic theologians within the past decade.
1130

The preparations in connection with the forthcoming Ecumenical Council on the subject of
Christian Unity promise to enrich our Marian literature in the field of ecumenism, for Mariology
occupies an important place in contemporary ecumenical dialogue. This was evidenced especially
on the occasion of the solemn definition of the Assumption, and also during the Lourdes
centennial.

In 1951 the report of the Theological Commission on Faith and Order discussed devotion to
Mary in preparation for the World Conference at Lund. Representatives of Orthodox Christians,
Anglo-Catholics, and Reformed Christians presented papers on Ways of Worship.
1131 The Reverend
T. M. Parker of University College, Oxford, England, regretted the Anglican break from the
popular Marian tradition of the West. Echoing Newman, Parker observed that “... absence of
devotion to Mary commonly goes with lukewarmness to her son.”
1132 Brother Max Thurian of the
Reformed Church of France spoke of Catholic Mariology as “the most agonizing problem for
ecumenical thought.”
1133 He criticized Catholic Mariology for putting Mary above the Church. He
affirmed that “Reformed Theology wishes to keep Mary in the Church ...”
1134 Thurian desires to
introduce Mary into Protestant worship. He asks Protestants to honor the Mother of the Lord and
invoke her aid in the communion of the saints.
1135

The pro-Marian character of these papers is indeed an exception to the general trend of
Protestant doctrine and worship. The great majority of Protestants possess no interest in Mary;
they are adverse to any veneration of Our Lady which they often regard as “mariolatry.” Although
many twentieth century Protestants no longer profess the confessional beliefs of the Reformers,
they have retained certain protests against Catholicism, such as the refusal to invoke Mary’s aid
and to attribute any mission to her in the divine economy of salvation.

I. OUR LADY AND THE REFORMATION

Unlike the heresies of the East which were basically Trinitarian or Christological, the errors
of the reformers center on grace and the Church. It is from these cardinal errors that the
reformation assumed its anti-Marian character. Previous to the reformation the West had
experienced the denial of Mary as the Mother of Jesus.

Gnostics in the second century, Manichaeans in the third century, and Albigensians in the
Middle Ages contended that Jesus could not have Mary as His mother because Jesus could not
have real flesh. The flesh is evil.
1136 The Gnostic, Marcion of Pontus, quotes the Scripture in proof
of this fantastic thesis: that Jesus had no real mother because he said: “Who is my mother and who
are my brethren?”
1137

Protestant reformers never denied that Mary was the mother of Jesus. Although they denied
the role of Mary as a subsidiary mediator, they never held the Gnostic principle that Christ had
no real body and consequently no real mother. This docetism was to rise in some of the sects allied
to the Protestant heritage such as Christian Science, which affirms the Virgin birth but regards all
matter as illusory and associated with evil. This would logically imply a denial of Mary, the mother
of Jesus. The Mennonites also deny that Mary is Jesus’ mother.

On the contrary, the sixteenth century reformers speak of Our Lady as the mother of Our Lord,
truly Theotokos, Mother of God. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and Cranmer did not hesitate to give her
special praise as the Mother of God. The Protestant Dr. Reintraud Schimmelpfennig has shown
that there is Marian doctrine in Luther’s Works. There is not the complete Mariology held by the
once Catholic Luther, but certain elements of it remain after his separation from the Church. It is
important, in evaluating Luther, to observe that he is not a systematic thinker.
1138

It is sometimes argued that the Protestant Luther had no devotion to Mary because the
sovereignty of God so dominated his thinking that he had no room for Mary and the saints. An
objective evaluation of Luther, however, demands that his positive as well as negative judgments
about Mary be assembled from his writings.

Luther denied the title “Himmelskönigin” (“Queen of Heaven”) to Mary because he thought
that it derogated from Christ as our only mediator between God and men. Yet he never denied to
Mary the title “Mother of God” which has for the most part disappeared from Protestant belief and
worship in our times. At Wartburg the Protestant Luther eloquently proclaimed in his
interpretation of the Magnificat:

... her dignity is summed up in one phrase when we call her the Mother of God; no one can say greater
things of her or to her, even if he had as many tongues as leaves and blades of grass, as stars in heaven
and sands on the seashore. It should also be meditated in the heart what that means: to be the Mother
of God.
1139

Luther’s reformed prayer book which appeared in 1522 retained the Hail Mary side by side
with the Our Father. In the same year, however, in his sermon on the Nativity of the Blessed
Virgin Luther admitted that Mary prays for him, but he said that she is not his consolation and
life.
1140 In 1527 he preached that no one should put all trust in Mary and give all service to her since
this belongs to God alone. Mary, he said, belongs to the rank of the saints. The distinction between
hyperdulia and dulia was for him a matter of words.
1141 He claimed that it is not to be found in the
Sacred Scriptures.

With great anger Luther rejected the role of Mary as mediator. At Cana, he said, it is shown
that not Mary but Christ is the mediator.
1142 He harshly observed that Peter is no better than the bad
thief and that the Mother of God is no more than the sinner Magdalen.
1143 Luther wrongly feared
that the veneration of Our Lady would lead one away from devotion to God. He conceded that the
Christian must honor the Mother of God, but in the right way.

Schimmelpfennig observes that Luther did pay honor to Mary until his death. He always
preached on the Feast of Our Lady’s Nativity.
1144 He condemned those who would not call her the
Mother of God. He always defended Our Lady’s virginity before, during, and after the birth of Our
Lord. He denied that she had other children, and condemned Helvidius who taught otherwise.
1145
He affirmed the Immaculate Conception and in this he showed the influence of the Franciscan
School.
1146 It is not clear whether he held the bodily assumption of Our Lady, but he did not reject
it in his works.
1147

The first of the Lutheran confessional writings, the Augsburg Confession (1530), professed the
teachings of the Council of Ephesus:

... the Word, that is, the Son of God assumed a human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary, with
the result that there are two natures, the human and the divine, inseparably united in the unity of the
person, one Christ, truly God and truly man, born of the Virgin Mary.
1148

The Formula of Concord (1579), the last of the Lutheran confessional writings, gave the
accurate profession of faith in Mary: “Hence she is truly Theotokos, Mother of God, and yet
remaining a virgin.”
1149 Luther, the Protestant, thus retained certain Catholic beliefs concerning Our
Lady: that she was the Mother of God, Ever-Virgin, that she was immaculately conceived, and he
may have held the bodily assumption of Our Lady into heaven. However, he rejected any
mediation on the part of Mary along with his denial of the Catholic doctrine of the communion
of saints in heaven. He honored Mary but not in the sense of hyperdulia.

Calvin spoke of the Blessed Virgin as “the Mother of God.”
1150 Zwingli also spoke in this way.
He explained that “it was necessary that Christ be born of a virgin, chaste, most pure. ...”
1151 The
English reformers, who were greatly influenced by Luther and Calvin, continued in the
reformation tradition. In Article II of the Thirty-Nine Articles we read: “The Son ... took man’s
nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, of her substance.”
1152 Mary was still given the titles
“Mother of God” and “Blessed Virgin” but the land once called “the Dowry of Mary” despoiled the
Marian shrines in the time of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Elizabeth, and afterward in the iconoclasm
of the Puritans.

The theology of the principal reformers, i.e., Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Cranmer, retained the
traditional teaching concerning Our Lady in her divine maternity and virginity. All the reformers
were against ascribing any mediatorial role to Mary in the divine economy of salvation. They
claim that they recaptured the scriptural meaning of the sovereignty of God and brought back the
Church to the purity of the worship of the first Christians.
1153 They all regarded hyperdulia, the cult
of the Blessed Virgin, as unscriptural.

II. CONTEMPORARY PROTESTANTS AND OUR LADY

The reformers established the foundations of the Protestant tradition which continued more
or less in their denominations and in post-reformation denominations such as the Baptists,
Methodists, Congregationalists, Adventists, and many others. Many Protestant denominations still
retain the Apostles’ Creed, but it cannot be judged from this fact that they believe that Jesus was
“born of the Virgin Mary.” There is an alleged democratic spirit in present day Protestantism,
which in most of the denominations allows liberal interpretations of the Creed.

Some sects, such as the Unitarians, explicitly deny the divinity of Our Lord and the whole
supernatural order. The divine maternity, the perpetual virginity of Our Lady, and all her
supernatural titles and privileges are denied by Liberal Protestants, who are found in most of the
denominations. In many of the contemporary denominations there are some conservative
Protestants who, although they have no cult to Our Lady, affirm that she was the Mother of God
and Ever-Virgin. For the most part, however, present-day Protestants (both Conservative and
Liberal) deny that Mary is the Mother of God and that she was Ever-Virgin. They have wandered
far from the teaching of the reformers on these truths.

Our study of Contemporary American Protestant Attitudes toward the Divine Maternity shows
that out of one hundred ministers of seventeen denominations responding to the survey, sixty-three ministers denied the divine maternity of Our Lady.
1154 Fifteen ministers did not make their
replies clear. Twenty-two professed belief in Mary as the Mother of God. More than half of these
ministers affirming belief in the divine maternity were Episcopalians.

The present day denial of the divine maternity arises from a denial of the divinity of Our Lord.
Frequently it is difficult to obtain from ministers a clear reply to the question: “Is Christ divine in
the same sense as the Father is divine?” Our survey showed a neo-Nestorianism current among
many of the ministers contacted.
1155 Luther, on the contrary, was bitterly anti-Nestorian.

Protestant difficulties arise either from a rejection of tradition or at least from a
misunderstanding of the meaning of tradition and the development of dogma in the Church. If a
truth is not found explicitly in the Scripture, there is skepticism as to its religious value. This
attitude is sometimes called “Fundamentalist.”
1156 Many Protestants still use the sixteenth century
term “mariolatry” in describing the Protestant attitude to Catholic Marian cult.

A recent book by a professor of the Waldensian Seminary at Rome reflects these attitudes.
1157
The English translation of this Italian work received wide coverage in the popular press as well
as comments by scholars in America and England. It is a direct attack on Catholic Mariology
viewed by a twentieth century Protestant scholar. Miegge is a Waldensian, which sect is nowadays
largely imbued with Calvinism. He may be classified as an Orthodox Protestant with some
Barthian sympathies. It is from this background that Miegge launches his attack on Catholic
Mariology as Pelagian: the belief that man can save himself.

What is important — and it is impossible to exaggerate the importance — is that the heart of the
Catholic masses is orientated not toward an authentic manifestation of the divine but toward the “pure
humanity” of the Virgin Mary. It must be said that by all the traditional religious canons this is the
essence of idolatry. The worship of Mary is a comprehensive transfer in the psychological sense from
the person of Jesus to that of his mother, taking over to her the sentiments of affection, trust and
dependence.
1158

Miegge then addresses himself to the Catholic explanation that veneration of Mary redounds
to the glory of her Son. He observes: “A burning devotion like the Marian has all the
characteristics of a cult that is exclusive and jealous.”
1159 There are, of course, instances of excessive
devotion to Our Lady among Catholics, but the Church condemns such exaggerations. The total
rejection by Miegge of Mary’s secondary role as a mediatress interceding with God for men,
because she is a creature, is inconsistent with the truth that Our Lord in His sacred human nature
is the Redeemer, the Word Incarnate, who saved us by His passion and death.

Miegge’s attempt to explain the rise of Marian beliefs and practices from a Mediterranean cult,
which remained foreign to the Northern countries, evoked the disagreement of an Episcopalian
reviewer:

I suspect the wistfulness of an Italian Protestant in the observation that “the Mediterranean cult of
Mary remained foreign” to the northern countries which followed slowly and without enthusiasm and
were decidedly freed from it at the Reformation (Miegge, p. 82). Whatever may be true of the last
clause the rest of the statement is very doubtful. One thinks of northern France, which is not a
Mediterranean country, covered with churches of Notre Dame, or the Feast of the Conception, which
though of Eastern origin owed its popularity in the Western Church to the piety of Anglo-Saxon
monks. ...
1160

There was much disagreement among Protestant scholars as to the validity of some of
Miegge’s criticisms. The Abbot of Downside, England, in an article in The Tablet records a
Protestant scholar’s reaction to Miegge’s evaluation of St. Irenaeus’ famous parallel between Mary
and Eve. Miegge called the parallel an ingenious literary construction rather than a considered
theological doctrine. The English Methodist scholar, John Lawson, the Abbot relates, says that we
find in Irenaeus the idea of atonement as a victory achieved by Christ through obedience. Mary,
he says, in her obedience makes a subsidiary recapitulating action analogous to Christ’s obedience.
Lawson calls St. Irenaeus, “the first theologian of the Virgin Mary.”
1161 There are many
mistranslations in the English edition of Miegge’s Virgin Mary which show further
misunderstandings of Catholic doctrine and cult of Our Lady. Monsignor George W. Shea has
presented a detailed study of these errors.
1162 The foreword to The Virgin Mary was written by the
former moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. and president of Princeton
Theological Seminary, John A. Mackay. His charges that Our Lady, according to the Catholic
Church, is “the fulfillment of the Trinity” and that she is “Christ’s substitute in the world”
1163 are
figments of a most imaginative antagonist.

These misstatements of the Church’s position on true devotion to Mary are reminders to the
Catholic apologist of the immense misunderstanding still current among many Protestants in
America and Europe. There is a need for communication between Catholics and Protestants that
Protestants may be informed of the true role of Mary in the Church. Many Anglicans, who have
made such contact, disdain the imaginative attacks made on Our Blessed Mother by present day
antagonists. There is a great deal of ecumenical work required in this area. The opportunities for
such a confrontation are perhaps better now than at any time in the past.

Many contemporary Protestants are far removed from the Catholic tradition. They have
departed from the vestiges of Catholic thought retained by the reformers. Paul Tillich of Harvard,
for example, denies not only that Mary is the Mother of God but also that she is the Mother of
Christ. In his system Jesus is only a man, who reveals God to man. In his opinion, Mary has no
place in Protestantism. She is for him a symbol which has lost meaning in the concrete
circumstances of Protestantism generally taken.
1164

III. THE CONTEMPORARY PROTESTANT MARIAN
REVIVAL

It is possible to speak of a Marian “revival” in the beliefs of some Protestants of our times. This
is especially true of Anglo-Catholics. Ever since the Oxford Movement there has been a growing
interest in the Mother of God and her role in the divine economy of salvation among many
prominent Anglican divines who have influenced ways of worship in some Anglican
congregations. This trend was championed by the contemporary of Newman, Edward Pusey (1800-1882), who was well read in the Fathers of the Church. He accepted the Catholic doctrine on the
divine maternity, Mary’s perpetual virginity and sanctity, and found no difficulty in the
Immaculate Conception. Pusey, however, believed that Rome put Mary on a level with Our Lord
and made her office of intercession co-extensive with her Son’s. In his Letter to Pusey, Newman
shows that devotion to Mary is a consequence of her dignity, her grandeurs, her sanctity.
1165
Gradually Anglo-Catholics have come to a devotion to Our Lady, which is still developing in their
congregations.

Mascall, of Christ Church, Oxford, observes that devotion to Mary was not always
characteristic of Anglicans and that today it only occurs in a small portion of the Anglican Church.

In actual fact, such references [to Marian devotion], while they exist, are lamentably rare, and are in
quantity overbalanced by polemics which denounce devotion to Mary as popish, superstitious and even
idolatrous. Only since the Oxford Movement have we realized that Christianity without Mary is a
monstrosity and even so this recovery has as yet affected only a tiny portion of the Anglican Church
and has received neither encouragement nor understanding from the ecclesiastical authorities in these
islands. ...
1166

Mascall then relates some of the devotions to Mary that are practiced by some Anglicans:

... we have now in an increasing number of churches our Aves and Salves, our statues and candles, and
our May processions in honor of the Lord’s mother. The ringing of the Angelus has become a
widespread custom and has even penetrated to some of our cathedrals, though it may be doubted that
the authorities in question always encourage or indeed themselves know the forms of prayer which
traditionally accompany it. The use of the rosary has become a normal part of the devotional life of
countless Anglicans, and pilgrims flock in their thousands to our Lady’s shrine at Walsingham as they
did in the days before the Reformation. And what is most significant is that all of this has taken place
... simply because ordinary parish priests and their people have discovered in their own religious
experience that devotion to Mary is the natural outcome and accompaniment of adoration of her Son.
1167

In a study conducted at Oxford, England, in 1957, the author surveyed the principal superiors
of fifty-two Anglican communities.
1168 These are part of the center of Marian devotion in the
Anglican Church. Twenty-five replies were received. All the questions were not answered by
every respondent. There were no denials that Mary is the Mother of God. Twenty-two explicit
affirmations were received. Sixteen affirmed that Mary was immaculately conceived. Fifteen
affirmed that Mary was ever Virgin. Fourteen believed in the assumption. Eight held that Mary
is co-redemptrix and dispenser of all graces. Seven affirmed that Mary is Queen of Heaven. The
survey observed a widespread devotion to Our Lady among the Anglican Religious. This devotion
is in a state of development. The American Protestant Episcopal Church, although it is for the
most part Low Church, also has an Anglo-Catholic trend, which is sponsoring a Marian revival
in its congregations.

In Germany a Marian cult raised its voice in the Hoch-Kirche. Within the Evangelical
Churches there is a High Church movement. In 1917, the Jubilee year of the Reformation, Pastor
Löwentraut of Lausitz published an irenicon “One, Holy, Catholic (allgemeine) Church” in which
he minimized the difference between classic Lutheran doctrine and Catholic dogma. The
Protestant authorities at Berlin ordered it suppressed. In the same year Pastor Hansen of Schleswig
drew up a new version of Luther’s ninety-five theses setting forth conservative Lutheran views.
Hansen’s manifesto called for a return to the Catholic Church. He distinguished between
“Catholic” and “Roman Catholic,” and launched a “High Church Union,” which published a
periodical, Die Hochkirche, edited by Heiler. The restoration of the episcopacy was demanded on
the basis of the apostolic succession. There was a plea for the elevation of the Eucharist in
Lutheran celebrations of the Lord’s Supper and the establishment of religious brotherhoods. In
1924 the movement divided. One wing professed an orthodox Lutheran position. The other sought
contact with the Anglicans, Greek Orthodox, and Roman Catholics. This latter group issued Una
Sancta which took the name Religiöse Besinnung. The High Church movement did not make great
headway in the Evangelical Churches of Germany.
1169

Friedrich Heiler, who left the Catholic Church because of modernism at the turn of the
century, is a leading figure in the High Church movement. Heiler observes: “One cannot stand in
adoration before the Son of God without looking up in honor to His earthly mother.”
1170 Another
High Churchman, G. Glinz writes: “Is Jesus the man who is God? If you take His divinity earnestly,
then likewise His Mother in all her humanity is the Mother of God, as Ephesus calls her.”
1171
However, Glinz objects to Mary represented with a golden crown as Queen of Heaven. He says
she should be praised as a humble maiden. For him dogma is unimportant. He holds for what he
calls religious-biblical truth.

A far more important trend (Die Sammlung) in the Evangelical Churches is represented by
Hans Asmussen, who endeavors to revive an Orthodox Protestantism against the spirit of the
Liberal theologians. Asmussen is widely known for his celebrated little book entided The Mother
of God.
1172 The publication of this work was undoubtedly responsible for his loss of the office of
Executive President of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Asmussen has done much to make his
Lutheran brethren think about Our Lady. Against the charge that Catholics pay too much homage
to her, he has asked whether this is worse than paying her too little. He has pointed out that too
often his fellow Evangelicals became aroused against the pope and yet remained silent when
Harnack’s works were recently reedited. Harnack does not believe in the divinity of Our Lord.
Asmussen’s wife, his son and daughter have become Catholics. He is still an Evangelical.

Asmussen labors to make Mary better known among German Protestants. He asserts that she
must be given a greater role in Evangelical thought. He says: “One does not have Jesus Christ
without Mary.”
1173 He admits that Mary is the Mother of God, and that in the world God and the
saints form a certain unity. We see this unity in the Church. He accepts the mediatorial role of
Mary, but rejects what he considers to be the Catholic doctrine of Mary’s mediation, which he
believes compromises the mediation of Christ. Mary is the first among the witnesses of grace. As
Mother of God, she takes part in the divine economy of salvation. But she does not stand between
Christ and us, as Asmussen believes the Catholic Church teaches. All Christian life, he says, has
a sacerdotal element which includes the idea of mediation.

Asmussen points out that, although Mary is no longer among the living on earth, she lives in
heaven and can intercede for us. It is not “human idolatry” to honor Our Lady. Elizabeth honors
her in the Scripture.
1174 What is more, the name of Luther occurs in the Feast of the Reformation,
while greater saints of the early Church are passed over. Asmussen says that it would appear that
between Christ and Luther nothing happened. This is indeed an unchristian attitude.
1175

In general, Evangelical devotees of Mary are not so advanced in Marian belief and practices
as the Anglo-Catholic groups, particularly the Anglo-Catholic religious. There is a development
of Marian devotion taking place in the new religious communities of the Lutherans: the
Ecumenical Sisterhood of Mary in Darmstadt, Germany; the Sisterhood of Mary, the Mother of
Jesus, in Sweden; the Little Ecumenical Sisters, and the Daughters of Mary, in Denmark; and the
Congregation of the Servants of Christ at Oxford, Michigan.

In the Reformed (Calvinistic) Churches the name of Karl Barth ranks among their important
international leaders. The Swiss theologian defends the Incarnation of the Son of God and the
virgin birth against Liberal Protestant thought.
1176 Barth has what he terms only a “Christological
interest” in Mary and not what he labels “a mariological interest.”
1177 He writes: “The expression
‘mother of God’ applied to Mary is good, just, legitimate, and necessary in christology, on the
condition that one reserves for it an auxiliary role.”
1178

Yet Barth rigorously condemns any ministerial role of Mary in our salvation.

Precisely in the doctrine and cult of Mary there resides par excellence the heresy of the Roman Catholic
Church ... the human creature collaborates (ministerialiter) in his salvation, on the basis of a prevenient
grace, consequently she [Mary] constitutes also very exactly the principle, the prototype and the sum
of the Church Itself.
1179

Although one can find certain positive Marian beliefs in Barth, he himself disdains Mariology
as “a diseased construct of theological thought.”
1180 A Mariological dogma in the Barthian point of
view distracts from Christ. Mary is to be considered only from the Christological aspect, as
pertaining to Christ. Barth falsely believes that Catholics have developed Mariology as an
independent system. He would especially object to the Marian title “Mediatrix of all graces” as if
it were a challenge to the one mediator between God and man, the Lord. Barth shows a
remarkable knowledge of Catholic Mariology.
1181 He rejects the Liberal Protestant interpretation
that Mariology developed from pagan sources.

It is not to be recommended that we should base our repudiation on the assertion that there has taken
place here an irruption from the heathen sphere, an adoption of the idea, current in many non-Christian religions, of a more or less central and original female or mother deity. In dogmatics you can
establish everything and nothing from parallels from the history of religions.
1182

Barth rejects Mariology “... because it is an arbitrary innovation in the face of Scripture and
the early church.”
1183 He contends that orthodox Protestantism will not allow creaturely co-operation in God’s revelation and reconciliation; they are exclusively God’s work.
1184 Yet he believes
in the Incarnation in which the created humanity of Our Lord shares in His revelation and
reconciliation.

Among the Reformed Christians (Calvinists) the name of Max Thurian, founder of a religious
community at Taizé lès Cluny in France, is important. Although critical of the extent of Roman
Mariology, Thurian, unlike Barth, strongly favors the introduction of Mary into Protestant
worship. He affirms that Christian theology is a theology of mediation. The Church is the minister
of the Word and of the sacraments, the witness and intercession of the faithful. There is not an
authentic mediation without the prolongation of Christ and His work in space and time. “The
mediation of Mary and the saints is in Christ.”
1185

It is important to recall the distinction between the Catholic and Protestant doctrines on grace.
For the Catholic, grace transforms the interior man. For the Protestant, grace coexists with sin.
Justification is a merciful decision of God to man the sinner. For the Protestant Mary was not
immaculately conceived. Thurian says that Mary is “... a personage unique in history but she
remains a sinful woman who has need of the pardon of her son.”
1186

Thurian rejects what he believes to be the Catholic doctrine of Mary’s mediation.

Mary has taken the place of the humanity of Christ, she enjoys the role that the humanity of Christ
ought to enjoy for our salvation.
1187

He speaks of Catholic teaching as “mario-christologie.”

Thurian opposes the opinion of Barth and so many of his Protestant brethren that devotion
to Mary derogates from the adoration of the Lord.

Recourse to the intercession of Mary by no means takes away from the unique intercession of Christ.
All true intercession is made in Christ Jesus.
1188

In a reformed prayer book, The Divine Office for Each Day, used at the Taizé Community of
Thurian, the Feast of the Purification receives the name of “The Presentation of Our Lord Jesus
Christ in the Temple”; the fifteenth of August is the Feast of Mary, Mother of the Lord; and the
Annunciation is kept on the Tuesday of the third week of Advent.
1189 Thurian is most careful to
maintain the dependency of Mary on Our Lord. This is a sound principle of Catholic Mariology,
which the Reformed churchman has yet to discover in the Catholic Church.

Especially critical of the dogma of the Assumption, he writes:

The new dogma of the Assumption, now promulgated as being de fide, completes the removal of Mary
from the conditions of the Church. There, indeed, Mary passes from the conditions of the Church and
enters the level of eschatology. Her body has undergone glorification, has not known corruption, and
has nothing more to wait for. She has passed through all the stages of the transformation “from glory
to glory.”
1190

One wonders whether Thurian realized that this line of reasoning might very well question
also the bodily resurrection of Our Lord as

the removal of His sacred humanity from the Church. If no creature can stand between the
Church which awaits the end and the Blessed Trinity, why should the created human nature of
Our Lord be excepted? This is a difficulty in Thurian’s reasoning. It is more or less characteristic
of all reasoning about Mary by Protestant theologians. For a Catholic there is no problem because
Christ and Mary are glorified and are members of the Church, Christ the Head and Mary the most
eminent member of the Church after Our Lord.

Conclusion

This introductory study of Mary and the Protestant indicates three trends among
contemporary Protestants in respect to Our Lady: Marian Revivalists, Anti-Marian Protestant
Conservatives, and Liberals. They may be classified in a descending order as they depart from the
Catholic tradition.

The first is the Marian Revivalists of the High Church movements of Orthodox Protestantism.
They are represented by E. Mascall, T. M. Parker of Anglo-Catholicism, F. Heiler, R.
Schimmelpfennig of the Evangelical High Church, H. Asmussen, the Evangelical, and M. Thurian,
the Reformed, of the Orthodox Protestants. Karl Barth, inasmuch as he defends the Incarnation
of Our Lord, the divine maternity, and virginal conception against the Liberal Protestants, has a
place among the Protestant defenders of Our Saviour and Our Lady. He departs from them in his
denial that Mary plays any mediatorial role in our salvation.

The second trend is the Low Church, or Protestant Conservatives, to which the great majority
of American Protestants belong. The advocates of this position affirm the Incarnation but they are
not clear as to what they mean by the divinity of Our Lord. They deny Mary the title of Mother
of God and mediatress of all graces because they reject any creature sharing in the divine work
of revelation and reconciliation.

The third trend is Broad Church or Liberal. These neo-Gnostics deny the supernatural and,
therefore, reject Mary’s titles and privileges in the order of supernatural grace. The Unitarians as
a sect represent this trend and it is also present in most of the Protestant denominations.

Protestant defenders of Our Lady very often use the same arguments as Catholic Mariologists:
from the scripture, tradition, and sometimes the magisterium, which is especially quoted by
Anglican papalists. The Council of Ephesus is often cited. These sources are sometimes possessed
as vestiges of the Church that have remained in a denomination from reformation times or they
are discovered anew by the Marian revivalist. Asmussen and Thurian are aware that they are
going beyond the reformation tradition in their particular concern for liturgical progress in their
denominations. Theological arguments which reflect a philosophical background appear to be
generally lacking except in Mascall, who is an excellent Thomist philosopher.

The antagonists in contemporary Protestantism cannot be united by a common principle in
their rejection of Our Lady. This is apparent from the inner contradiction of Conservative
Protestantism as opposed to Liberal Protestantism. Conservative Protestants have certain common
principles in their antitheses. They reject Our Lady in her titles and privileges because they say
that worship is due only to the Sovereign Lord. In this respect they have an exaggerated
Christocentric profession of faith, which allows for no subsidiary mediators. They claim to base
their position on the Scriptures and the tradition of the early Church.

The Liberals commonly reject Our Lady because they reject Christ, the God-Man. He is for
them the model man par excellence, but no more. Consequently, they must reject Mary, the Mother
of God, and her other subsidiary titles and privileges, which are in subordination to the divine
maternity in the order of grace. The belief that the Marian cult evolved in Mediterranean lands
from earlier worship of goddesses is largely due to the Liberal interpretation of the evolution of
cults in comparative religion.

Catholic apologists of Our Lady can learn much from the Marian Revivalists in their defense
of Our Lady against the attacks of Conservative Protestants and Liberals. Very often the Catholic
apologist finds himself in terra aliena with people who speak with strange tongues, when he enters
the lists with Protestant critics of Our Lady. Our dogma texts equip us with ready answers for the
novatores, Lutherans of Martin Luther’s age, and Calvinists of Calvin’s times, or the Anglicanism
of the Elizabethan period. These novatores are about as novel today as the cross-bow.

Protestantism has come a long way since the time of the reformers. Luther, who defended the
Mother of God, Mary Ever-Virgin, would find himself in strange company among many
contemporary Lutherans. The twentieth century denominations must be studied as living
phenomena in our age.
1191 The Marian revivalists, who are themselves Protestants, are valuable
sources of study in the approach to present-day Protestant criticisms of Our Lady. They are not,
of course, to be imitated in their shortcomings as regards Catholic doctrine, but their ability to
understand their fellow Protestant objectors is well worth studying, for it helps us to formulate
adequate Catholic answers to them.

The XXIst Ecumenical Council called by Pope John XXIII will undoubtedly arouse many of the
Protestant Marian revivalists to re-examine their positions. It is our hope that this will mean more
than an increase in the Marian revival in Protestant ways of worship. A true, complete, genuine
Marian revival is only possible in the revival of the faith of their forefathers.

Footnotes

1

St. Bernard, In festo Pentec., sermo 2; PL, 183, 430.

2

The bibliography on Marian cult, in general, is vast. Some of the standard references are: E. Campana, Maria
nel culto cattolico, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Torino, 1944); E. Dublanchy, S.M., art. Marie, in D.T.C., Vol. 9, coll. 2439-2474; A. Haine, De hyperdulia ejusque fundamento (Lovanii, 1864); F. A. von Lehner, Die Marienverehrung
in den ersten Jahrhunderten (Stuttgart, 1881); A. Noyon, S.J., art. Mariolatrie, in D.A.F.C., Vol. 3, coll. 326-331; G. M. Roschini, O.S.M., Mariologia, 2nd ed., Vol. 2, part 3 (Romae, 1948); H. Thurston, S.J., art. Virgin
Mary, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 15 (New York, 1912), pp. 459-464.

3

Cf. E. May, O.F.M.Cap., Mary in the Old Testament, in Mariology, ed. J. B. Carol, O.F.M., Vol. I (Mediatrix
Press, 2018), p. 57 ff.; A. Robert, La Sainte Vierge dans l’Ancien Testament, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte
Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), p. 23 ff.; F. Ceuppens, O.P., De Mariologia Biblica (Torino,
1948), pp. 1-61; J. Arendzen, Our Lady in the Old Testament, in Our Blessed Lady, Cambridge Summer
School Lectures, 1933 (London, 1934), pp. 1-17; M. Burbach, O.S.B., Mary in the Old Testament, in Mary in
the Liturgy (Elsberry, Mo., 1955), pp. 17-41.

4

Cf. M. Gruenthaner, S.J., Mary in the New Testament, in Mariology, ed. J. B. Carol, O.F.M., Vol. 1
(Mediatrix Press, 2018), p. 89 ff.; G. Hilion, La Sainte Vierge dans le Nouveau Testament, in Maria. Études
sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), p. 43 ff.; R. Knox, Our Lady in the New Testament,
in Our Blessed Lady, Cambridge Summer School Lectures, 1933 (London, 1934), pp. 48-67.

5

A. Agius, The Beginnings of Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, in The Downside Review, Vol. 58, 1940, p. 41
ff.; H. St. John, O.P., The Authority of Doctrinal Development, in Blackfriars, Vol. 36, 1955, p. 483 ff.; E.
Campana, Maria nel culto cattolico, Vol. 1 (Torino, 1933), pp. 41-42.

6

Cf. P. Pourrat, Christian Spirituality, Vol. 1 (Westminster, Md., 1953), p. 57.

7

G. Jouassard, Marie à travers la Patristique, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol.
1 (Paris, 1949), p. 69 ff.; Agius, art. cit., p. 48.

8

Cf. A. Rush, C.Ss.R., Mary in the Apocrypha, in Mariology, ed. J. B. Carol, O.F.M., Vol. 1 (Mediatrix Press,
2018), p. 249 ff.

9

M. Armellini, Antichità del culto di Maria Vergine (Roma, 1888), p. 9 ff.; J. Garvin, Devotion and Devotions
to Our Lady, in Our Blessed Lady, Cambridge Summer School Lectures, 1933 (London, 1934), p. 229: “This
lack of [earlier] documentary evidence in an age when documents were uniformly rare, and when there was
no peculiar necessity to defend such a practice either from the attacks of pagans or the abuses of such sects
as the fourth century Collyridians, does not necessarily point to the non-existence of the cultus . . . this was
an age when Christians felt it their first duty to commemorate the God-Man. … It is also reasonable to suppose
that the same reasons of prudence which prohibited any open worship of the Cross and resorted to the
symbols of the Anchor and the Ixthus, also counselled certain strictures on the free cultus to Our Lady in a
people not yet weaned from the myths and genealogies of the pagan goddesses.” See also O. Marucchi, The
Evidence of the Catacombs (London, 1929), pp. 69-70.

10

Cf. Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, ed. Smith & Cheetham (London, 1880), pp. 1148-1149.

11

Cf. H. Liell, Marien-Darstellungen in den Katakomben (Freiburg, 1887), p. 199 ff.; J. Ferretto, Vestiges du
culte de la Sainte Vierge dans certaines fresques des Catacombes, in Marie, Jan.-Feb., 1950, p. 10 ff.; A.
Weber, Die Römischen Katakomben (Regensburg, 1906), p. 137; Northcotoe and Brownlow, Roma
Sotterranea, Vol. 2 (London, 1879), pp. 138-141; Marucchi, op. cit., p. 72, in comparing this figure of Mary
with the frescoes in the house of Livia on the Palatine and those in the houses of Pompei, indicates it may date
even from the end of the first century!

12

Liell, op. cit., p. 225; Marucchi, op. cit., p. 73.

13

Cf. G. Kirsch, The Catacombs of Rome (Rome, 1946), p. 82; Weber, op. cit., p. 138.

14

Weber, op. cit., p. 139; Northcote and Brownlow, op. cit., p. 312.

15

M. Armellini, Antichi cimiteri cristiani (Roma, 1884), p. 149; Marucchi, op. cit., p. 74; Garvin, art. cit., p.
231; C. Hergenroether, Primitive Christianity and the Catholic Church (New York, 1885), p. 140 ff.; F. Kraus,
Real-Encyklopädie der Christlichen Alterthümer (Freiburg, 1886), p. 361 ff.

16

Justin, Dialogus cum Tryphone, cap. 100; PG 6, 709 ff.

17

Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3. cap. 32; PG 7, 958-959.

18

Tertullian, De carne Christi, cap. 17; PL 2, 823-824.

19

Origen alludes to it. Cf. In Lucam hom. 6; 7: G.C.S. 35, 40 & 48. For a complete survey of the Mary-Eve
concept see W. J. Burghardt, S.J., Mary in Western Patristic Thought, in Mariology, ed. J. B. Carol, O.F.M.,
Vol. 1 (Mediatrix Press, 2018), p. 121 ff.; and Mary in Eastern Patristic Thought, op. cit., Vol. 1, p.175 ff.; T.
Livius, The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries (London, 1893), pp. 35-59; Agius, art. cit.,
p. 45; G. Montague, Mary and the Church in the Fathers, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 123,
1950, p. 331 ff.

20

A. Rush, C.SS.R., art. cit., p. 156.

21

PG 35, 1181.

22

Cf. Ambrose, De virginibus, lib. 2, cap. 2; PL 16, 221 ff.; De instit. virginis, nn. 86-88; PL 16, 339-340;
Epiphanius, Adv. haer., 3, t. 2; PG 42, 735, 742; Cf. E. Neubert, Marie dans l’Église anténicéenne (Paris,
1908), p. 275.

23

Cf. Cabrol-Leclercq, Dictionnaire d’Archeologie et de Liturgie, Vol. 10 (Paris, 1932), col. 2035; Agius, art.
cit., p. 50.

24

Cf. F. Holweck, Calendarium Liturgicum festorum Dei et Dei Matris Mariae (Philadelphia, 1925), p. 88;
C. Gumbinger, O.F.M.Cap., Mary in the Eastern Liturgies, in Mariology, ed. J. B. Carol, O.F.M., Vol. 1, p. 281.
M. Doumith, Marie dans la liturgie syro-maronite, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir,
Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), p. 329, holds that this feast antedates the Council of Ephesus.

25

The Greek papyrus containing fragments of this prayer was discovered by C. H. Roberts. Cf. the Catalogue
of Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, edited by Roberts, Vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1939), n. 470.
The date of the prayer is disputed. Roberts himself believes that it was not composed before the second half
of the fourth century. G. Vannucci, in his La più antica preghiera alla Madre di Dio, in Marianum, Vol. 3,
1941, pp. 97-101, dates the document not later than the third century. O. Stegmüller thinks that it should not
be dated before the end of the fourth century. Cf. his article Sub tuum praesidium: Bemerkungen zur ältesten
Überlieferung, in Zeitshrift für katholische Theologie, Vol. 74, 1952, pp. 76-82. For further literature cf. W.
J. Burghardt, S.J., Mary in Western Patristic Thought, in Mariology, ed. by J. B. Carol, O.F.M., Vol. 1
(Mediatrix Press, 2018), pp. 147, n. 108.

26

Cf. G. Roschini, O.S.M., Mariologia, Vol. 2, part 3 (Romae, 1947), p. 175 ff.; E. Campana, op. cit., Vol. 1, p.
768 ff.

27

Cf. F. Grossi Gondi, I monumenti cristiani (Roma, 1923), pp. 406-409. According to tradition Pope Liberius
founded the Basilica in 366. It was dedicated to Our Lady by Sixtus III (d. 490).

28

As an early example, note St. Epiphanius’ rebuke of the Collyridians. PG 42, 739-755; cf. J. Danielou, S.J.,
Le culte marial et le paganisme, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), p. 161 ff.; H. Johnson, The
Cultus of Our Lady and the Graeco-Roman World, in The Clergy Review, Vol. 25, 1945, p. 199 ff.; J. Garvin,
art. cit., p. 232; G. Roschini, O.S.M., op. cit., Vol. 2, part 3, p. 234.

29

G. Roschini, O.S.M., op. cit., Vol. 2, part 3, p. 235; Danielou, S.J., art. cit., p. 174.

30

Cf. Pius XII, Mediator Dei, Official Vatican English translation, 1948, p. 54; Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, in
Acta et Decreta Sacrorum Conciliorum recentiorum, Collectio Lacensis, Vol. 6 (Friburgi, 1882), p. 836 ff.

31

II-II, q. 81, a. 1; cf. B. Merkelbach, O.P., Summa Theologiae Moralis, Vol. 2 (Parisiis, 1947), p. 681.

32

II-II, q. 82.

33

II-II, q. 81, a. 1, a 4um et 5um; a. 3, ad 2um; a. 5.

34

St. John Damascene, Orat. de imaginibus; PG, 94, 1347.

35

More properly, dulia communiter sumpta. Cf. II-II, q. 103, a. 4.

36

Cf. II-II, q. 103, a. 4; III, q. 25, a. 5.

37

II-II, q. 83, a. 3, 1um; cf. J. Curran, O.P., The Thomistic Concept of Devotion (River Forest, 1941), p. 35; D.
Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis, Vol. 2 (Barcelona, 1945), p. 278.

38

In ordinary parlance these terms are employed in a wider meaning than theological writers often attribute
to them. They are in common language frequently used interchangeably. Even by theologians, cult is
sometimes identified with honor (cf. J. Keuppens, Mariologiae Compendium [Antverpiae, 1947], p. 146), or
a species of honor (cf. A. Lépicier, O.S.M., Tractatus de B.V.M. Mater Dei [Romae, 1926], p. 547; P. Parente,
De Verbo Incarnato [Romae, 1939], p. 93). Though cult and honor are often used as synonyms, it must be
noted that St. Thomas indicates cult to imply not only honor and reverence, but further, a certain subjection
or servitude (cf. II-II, q. 81, a. 3, ad 2um; q. 102, a. 2; q. 103, a. 3, ad 4um), and devotion to add the note of
promptitude in realizing this excellence of another (II-II, q. 82, a. 1).

39

Cf. Difficulty 3 and its answer in II-II, q. 82. a. 2.

40

Cf. Suárez, III, q. 27, disp. 1, sect. 2; M. Nicolas, L’appartenence de la Mère de Dieu à l’Ordre Hypostatique,
in Bulletin de la Société Française d’Études Mariales, 1937, p. 163 ff.; G. Rozo, C.M.F., Sancta Maria Mater
Dei (Mediolani, 1943), p. 75 ff.; B. Merkelbach, Mariologia (Paris, 1939), p. 59.

41

St. Thomas and practically all contemporary theologians regard hyperdulia as differing from the dulia we
offer the angels and saints not simply in degree, but in kind. Cf. II-II, q. 103, a. 4; Lépicier, op. cit., p. 564; P.
Lumbreras, O.P. De justitia (Romae, 1938), p. 352.

42

Pius XII, Mediator Dei, ed. cit., p. 54.

43

Several authors have tried to attribute to the Blessed Virgin, in virtue of her divine Maternity, the relative
cult of latria, reasoning that inasmuch as we attribute the cult of relative latria to the Holy Cross as having
supported the body of Christ, so, a fortiori, we ought to attribute this type of honor to the Blessed Mother, who
not only supported but actually formed His body. They further posit the argument that, because of Mary’s pre-eminence of sanctifying grace she bore a most perfect image of the Trinity in her soul. Although perhaps
possible in the abstract and speculative order, this type of cult is not extended to the Blessed Mother, for
relative cult is not ordinarily rendered to rational creatures. If a creature has excellence proper to himself there
is ordinarily rendered absolute cult. Disregard for this common appropriation can easily lead to error. Cf. III,
q. 25, a. 3, ad 3um; a. 5; Keuppens, op. cit., p. 147; Lépicier, op. cit., pp. 572-573; Merkelbach, Mariologia, p.
395; Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 2, part 3, p. 18.

44

Pius XI, Lux veritatis, in A.A.S., Vol. 23, 1931, p. 513: “From this dogma of the divine maternity . . . flows
the singular grace of Mary and, after God, her great dignity. Indeed, as Aquinas writes, ‘The Blessed Virgin,
by the fact that she is the Mother of God, has a certain infinite dignity from the Infinite Goodness that is God.’
“ I, q. 25, a. 6, ad 4um. The English translation, and the ensuing, when indicated, are taken with some
adaptations from Papal Documents on Mary, compiled by Doheny and Kelly (Milwaukee, 1954). Cf. p. 175;
Leo XIII, Quamquam pluries, in A.S.S., Vol. 22, 1889, p. 66; St. Thomas, IV Sent., lib. 1, dist. 44, q. 1, a. 3; II-II,
q. 103, a. 4.

45

In any particular devotion or special veneration there is in common the same “obiectum materiale
adaequatum seu mediatum.” Cf. III, q. 25, a. 1.

46

Cf. Pius X, Ad diem illum, in A.S.S., Vol. 36, 1904, p. 449; G. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 2, part 3, pp. 21-41; G.
Alastruey, Mariologia (Vallisoleti, 1934), p. 441 ff.; J. Trombelli, Liturgia Mariana, in Summa Aurea, ed. J.
Bourassé, Vol. 4 (Paris, 1866), p. 23 ff.

47

Cf. Leo XIII, Octobri mense, in A.S.S., Vol. 24, 1891, p. 193 ff.

48

D.B., 302, 984; III, q. 25, a. 6; G. Roschini, O.S.M., op. cit., Vol. 2, part 3, pp. 54-56.

49

Pius XII, Mediator Dei, ed. cit., p. 54.

50

II-II, q. 82, a. 2, ad 3um; III, q. 25, a. 1.

51

W. Orchard, The Cult of Our Lady (London, 1937), pp. 9-10; J. H. Newman, Difficulties of Anglicans, Vol.
2 (London, 1882), pp. 89-118; B. Grimley, Protestantism and Our Lady, in Our Blessed Lady, Cambridge
Summer School Lectures of 1933 (London, 1934), p. 251 ff.

52

Orchard, ibid., pp. 16-31; cf. Pius XII, Fulgens corona, in A.A.S., Vol. 45, 1935, p. 581

53

Pius XII, Mediator Dei, ed. cit., p. 54.

54

Leo XIII, Jucunda semper, in A.S.S., Vol. 27, 1894, p. 180. Cf. Leo XIII, Magnae Dei Matris, in A.S.S., Vol.
25, 1892, p. 142: “Nobody knows and comprehends so well as she everything that concerns us: what helps we
need in life; what dangers, public or private, threaten our welfare; what difficulties and evils surround us;
above all, how fierce is the fight we wage with the ruthless enemies of our salvation. In these and in all other
troubles of life her power is most far-reaching. Her desire to use it is most ardent to bring consolation,
strength, and help of every kind” (Doheny-Kelly, pp. 70-71).

55

Pius XII, Superiore anno, in A.A.S., Vol. 32, r940, p. 145: “Let everyone hasten to have recourse to Mary
. . . and . . . confidently following the example of our forefathers, let us not fail to do that which, as history
testifies, they did with such gratifying results” (Doheny-Kelly, p. 193).

56

Pius XII, Mediator Dei, ed. cit., p. 54; Leo XIII, Magnae Dei Matris, in A.S.S., Vol. 25, 1892, p. 145.

57

D.B., 805.

58

I, q. 23, a. 8.

59

Pius XII, Mediator Dei, ed. cit., p. 56: Leo XIII, ibid., p. 141: “Whatever the necessity that presses upon us,
especially in attaining eternal life, she is instantly at our side. ... She dispenses grace with a generous hand.
... It is a great thing in any saint to have grace sufficient for the salvation of many souls; but to have enough
to suffice for the salvation of everybody in the world, is the greatest of all; and this is found in Christ and in
the Blessed Virgin!” (St. Thomas’ Super Salut. Ang.) (Doheny-Kelly, p. 69.)

60

St. Ephraem, Hymni et sermones, ed. Th. J. Lamy, Vol. 2, pp. 526 and 528; also opera omnia, ed. Assemani,
Vol. 3, p. 607. For further references cf. J. M. Bover, S.J., S. Ephraem, Doctoris Syri, testimonia de universali
B.M.V. mediatione, in Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, Vol. 4, 1927, pp. 161-179.

61

St. Germain of Constantinople, Oratio 2 in dormitionem Deiparae; PG, 98, 350; cf. also PG, 98, 377.

62

St. John Damascene, Hom. 2 in dormitionem Deiparae; PG, 96, 746. Further references in V. A. Mitchel,
S.M., The Mariology of St. John Damascene (Kirkwood, Mo., 1930), pp. 154-215.

63

St. Anselm, Or. 52; PL, 158, 957.

64

Alastruey, op. cit., p. 476; Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 2, part 3, p. 60 ff.

65

Benedict XV, Inter sodalicia, in A.A.S., Vol. 10, 1918, p. 182.

66

Cf. St. Jerome, Ep. 22, PL, 22, 424. V. Sedlmayr, O.S.B., Theologia Mariana, in Summa Aurea, ed.
Bourassé, Vol. 8, cols. 253-255, refers to Mary as personally present at the time of judgment to intercede for
those devoted to her.

67

Cf. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Mother of the Saviour and Our Interior Life (St. Louis, 1948), p. 274;
Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 2, part 3, p. 66.

68

Cf. I, q. 21, a. 4 ad 1um; Garrigou-Lagrange, ibid., p. 275.

69

Cf. Lépicier, op. cit., p. 431; Roschini, ibid.., p. 70 ff.

70

Cf. Pius XII, On Women’s Duties in Social and Political Life (Ad mulieres a societatibus christianis Italiae
delegatas), Oct. 21, 1945, in A.A.S., Vol. 37, p. 248.

71

Pius XII, ibid.; Address to the 14th Congress of the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations, Sept.
29, 1927. Cf. L’Osservatore Romano, 30-9-57. Leo XIII, Laetitiae sanctae, in A.S.S., Vol. 26, 1893, p. 194 ff.,
indicates that three evil influences in society can be remedied by devotion to Mary, especially through the
recitation of the Rosary.

72

Leo XIII, Adiutricem populi, in A.S.S., Vol. 28, 1895, p. 152.

73

Cf. Pius XI, Lux veritatis, in A.A.S., Vol. 23, 1931, p. 514.

74

Cf. E. Campana, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 133; J. B. Terrien, S.J., Le Mère de Dieu et la Mère des hommes, 2nd part:
Le Mère des hommes, 5th ed., Vol. 2 (Paris, 1902), pp. 253-268.

75

Pius XII, Superiore anno, in A.A.S., Vol. 32, 1940, p. 145 (Doheny-Kelly, p. 193). These same words were
employed by Leo XIII, Augustissimae Virginis, in A.S.S., Vol. 30, 1897, p. 133.

76

Canon 1276: “. . . all the faithful                             shall especially cultivate a filial devotion for the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

77

Cf. J. Bittremieux, Doctrina Mariana Leonis XIII (Brugis, 1928), p. 78.

78

Pius X, Ad diem illum, in A.S.S., Vol. 36, 1904, p. 451.

79

General bibliography: J. Alvarez, C.M.F., Conspectus festorum B. Mariae Virginis in Missali Romano, in
Marianum, Vol. 4, 1942, pp. 128-130; A. Arrighini, Le feste cristiane nella teologia, storia, liturgia, arte,
folklore, 2 vols. (Torino-Roma, 1936); Benedictus XIV, De festis Beatae Mariae Virginis, in Summa Aurea,
ed. J. Bourassé, Vol. 3, coll. 1399-1526; B. Botte, O.S.B., La première fête mariale de la liturgie romaine, in
Ephemerides Liturgicae, Vol. 47, 1933, pp. 425-430; B. Capelle, O.S.B., La liturgie mariale en Occident, in
Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), pp. 217-245; G. Cavalleri, Le
feste mariane nella liturgia di rito romano, in Enciclopedia Mariana, ed. R. Spiazzi, O.P. (Milano, 1954), pp.
427-432; C. Feckes, So feiert dich die Kirche. Maria im kranz ihrer Feste (Steyl, 1954); J. Hennig, Feasts of
the Blessed Virgin in the Ancient Irish Church, in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Vol. 81, 1954, pp. 161-171;
F. G. Holweck, Calendarium liturgicum festorum Dei et Dei Matris Mariae (Philadelphia, 1925); B. Manuel,
O.S.B., Fiestas de la Sma. Virgen en la iglesia griega y eslava, in Liturgia, Vol. 12, 1957, pp. 201-211; Mary
in the Liturgy. National Liturgical Week, Milwaukee, Wis., 1954 (Elsberry, Mo., 1955); H. R. Philippeau, Le
cycle liturgique des fêtes mariales, in Marie, salut du monde (Paris, 1954), pp. 53-62; F. Sarandrea, Le feste
di una grande Regina (Rovigo, 1954); A. Tonne, O.F.M., Feasts of Our Lady (Emporia, Kansas, 1951); J. C.
Trombelli, De cultu publico B. Mariae ab Ecclesia exhibito, in Summa Aurea, ed. J. Bourassé, Vol. 4, coll. 9-425; S.J.P. Van Dijk, O.F.M., Feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Thirteenth-Century Roman Liturgy,
in Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, Vol. 48, 1956, pp. 450-456; E. Campana, Maria nel culto cattolico,
2 vols. (Torino, 1933); G. M. Roschini, O.S.M., Mariologia, 2nd ed., Vol. 4 (Romae, 1948), pp. 128-173.

80

Summa theol., 2-2, 81, 7.

81

F. G. Holweck, op. cit., enumerates some six hundred Marian feasts. A few more could now be added to the
already impressive list.

82

Cf. M. Jugie, A.A., L’Immaculée Conception dans l’Ecriture sainte et dans la tradition orientale (Rome,
1952), pp. 135-136.

83

Jugie, op. cit., p. 141. Cf. also E. Vacandard, Les origines de la fête et du dogme de l’Immaculée Conception,
in Revue du Clergé Français, Vol. 42, 1910, pp. 5-41; 257-278; 681-701.

84

Cf. Capelle, art. cit., p. 226; H. Thurston, S.J., The Irish Origins of Our Lady’s Conception Feast, in The
Month, Vol. 103, 1904, pp. 449-465; Fr. Grosjean, Le prétendue fête de la Conception de la Sainte Vierge dans
les eglises celtiques, in Analecta Bollandiana, Vol. 61, 1943, pp. 91-95.

85

Roschini, op. cit., p. 131. Cf. M. Cecchin, O.S.M., L’Immacolata nella liturgia occidentale anteriore al secolo
XIII (Roma, 1943).

86

M. J. Sheeben, Mariology, Vol. 2, (St. Louis, Mo., 1953), p. 87.

87

Roschini, op. cit., p. 133.

88

D.B. No. 735.

89

D.B. No. 1100. On the attitude of the Holy See toward the feast of the Immaculate Conception, cf. R.
Laurentin’s interesting and well-documented article, Role du Saint-Siège dans le développement du dogme
de l’Immaculée Conception, in Virgo Immaculata, Vol. 2 (Romae, 1956), esp. pp. 14-56.

90

For further details on the history of the feast, cf. Capelle, Le fête de la Conception de Marie en Occident,
in L’Immaculée Conception; VIIe Congrès Marial National (Lyon, 1954), pp. 147-161.

91

Cf. Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, Vol. 1, p. 376.

92

Cf. Jugie, La mort et l’Assomption de la Sainte Vierge. Etude historico-doctrinale(Città del Vaticano, 1944),
p. 82.

93

Cf. St. Augustine, De Trinitate, lib. 4, cap. 5; PL 42, 894.

94

Cf. Duchesne, Origines du culte chrétien. Etude sur la liturgie latine avant Charlemagne, 5th ed. (Paris,
1909), pp. 265-269. Cf. also S. Vailhè, Origines de la fête de l’Annonciation, in Echos d’Orient, Vol. 9, 1906,
pp. 138-145.

95

Ed. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 371, 376, 381.

96

Cf. Aug. M. Lépicier, O.S.M., Mater Dolorosa. Notes d’histoire, de liturgie et d’iconographie sur le culte
de Notre-Dame des Douleurs (Spa, 1948), esp. pp. 44-47.

97

Pius XII, Ad caeli Reginam, N.C.W.C. trans., pp. 8-10. Cf. A. Rivera, C.M.F., De liturgia festi B.M.V.
Reginae, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 6, 1956, pp. 193-196.

98

Ad caeli Reginam, ed. cit., p. 12.

99

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., p. 144.

100

Cf. A. Forcadell, O.Carm., Le scapulaire du Carmel et sa fête liturgique, in Marie, Vol. 6, Nov.-Dec., 1952,
p. 22.

101

B. Zimmerman, Monumenta historica carmelitana, Vol. 1 (Lirinae, 1907), pp. 323-363. Cf. Roschini, La
Madonna secondo la fede e la teologia, Vol. 4 (Roma, 1954), p. 374.

102

Forcadell, art. cit., p. 24.

103

Ed. cit., pp. 232, 235.

104

Referred to by Roschini, op. cit., p. 375.

105

Cf. Holweck, op. cit., p. 258.

106

Cf. A. Amore, O.F.M., La festa della morte e dell’Assunzione della B. Vergine nella liturgia orientale, in
Atti del Congresso Nazionale Mariano dei Frati Minori d’Italia (Roma, 1948), pp. 197-222; F. Antonelli,
O.F.M., La festa dell’Assunzione nella liturgia romana, ibid., pp. 225-239; P. Gassó, O.S.B., La Asunción en
la liturgia. Sobre los origenes de la fiesta, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 6, 1947, pp. 137-146; M. Gavriloff, The
Assumption in the Liturgy of the Eastern Church, in Life of the Spirit, Vol. 5, 1950, pp. 231-238; A. King, The
Assumption of Our Lady in the Oriental Liturgies, in The Eastern Churches Quarterly, Vol. 8, 1949, pp. 198-205, 225-231; W. O’Shea, S.S., The History of the Feast of the Assumption, in The Thomist, Vol. 14, 1951, pp.
118-132; A. Raes, S.J., Aux origines de la fête de l’Assomption en Orient, in Orientalia Christiana Periodica,
Vol. 12, 1946, pp. 262-274.

107

Cf. Jugie, op. cit., pp. 103-171.

108

Cf. Capelle, Le témoignage de la liturgie [sur l’Assomption], in Bulletin de la Société Française d’Études
Mariales [1949] (Paris, 1950), p. 36.

109

Art. cit., p. 42.

110

Capelle, art. cit., pp. 38-39.

111

Cf. Capelle, art. cit., p. 39.

112

Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 4, p. 151; Capelle, art. cit., p. 40.

113

Pp. 103-173.

114

Cf. Roschini, Op. cit., p. 152; O. Faller, S.J., De priorum saeculorum silentio circa Assumptionem B.
Mariae Virginis (Romae, 1946), p. 26; Jugie, op. cit., pp. 172-184; Raes, art. cit., p. 272.

115

Ed. cit., p. 376.

116

Capelle, art. cit., pp. 49-51.

117

For a more detailed account of the development of, and opposition to, the feast, cf. G. Geenen, O.P., Les
antécédents doctrinaux et historiques de la consécration du monde au Coeur Immaculé de Marie, in Maria.
Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), pp. 824-873.

118

Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 37, 1945, pp. 50-51. For further details, cf. E. Pujolrás, C.M.F., La festa liturgica del Cuore
Immacolato di Maria, in Il Cuore Immacolato di Maria (Roma, 1946), pp. 107-141.

119

St. Augustine, epp. 196, 287; PL 38, 1021 and 1301.

120

Op. cit., p. 174.

121

Ed. cit., p. 376.

122

Roschini, op. cit., p. 162.

123

Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 3, 1911, p. 644.

124

Cf. Campana, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 319-336.

125

Cf. Benedict XIV, op. cit., ed. Bourassé, Vol. 3, col. 1487.

126

Cf. Campana, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 407-413.

127

Cf. Jugie, La première fête mariale en Orient, in Echos d’Orient, Vol. 21, 1923, pp. 129-152.

128

Cf. Pius XI, enc. Lux veritatis, in A.A.S., Vol. 23, 1931, esp. p. 517. Cf. also N. Pérez, S.J., Historia de la
fiesta liturgica de la divina Maternidad, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 8, 1949, pp. 392-395.

129

Capelle, La liturgie mariale en Occident, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manior, Vol. 1
(Paris, 1949), p. 233.

130

Cf. S. Salaville, A.A., Marie dans la liturgie byzantine ou gréco-slave, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte
Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), p. 252.

131

Roschini, op. cit., p. 167.

132

Cf. E. Bouvy, Les origines de la fête de la Présentation, in Revue Augustinienne, Vol. 1, 1902, pp. 581-594;
Sr. M. J. Kishpaugh, O.P., The Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple. An Historical and
Literary Study (Washington, D. C., 1941); G. S. Sloyan, The Presentation of Our Lady, in The American
Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 129, Nov., 1953, pp. 314-316.

133

Cf. L. Càstano, S.D.B., Il culto liturgico del titolo Auxilium Christianorum, in L’Ausiliatrice nel domma
e nel culto (Torino, 1950), pp. 91-107.

134

Cf. J. Lebon, A propos des textes liturgiques de la fête de Marie Médiatrice, in Marianum, Vol. 14, 1952,
pp. 122-128. See also additional and interesting observations on the same subject in G. Geenen’s article
Monseigneur J. Lebon (1879-1957), in Marianum, Vol. 20, 1958, pp. 120-126.

135

When Pius XII ordered the new feast of Mary’s Queenship to be celebrated on May 31, some religious
orders dropped the feast of Mary’s Mediation; others have transferred it to a different day. The Franciscans
now observe it on May 23.

136

On the dedication of Saturday to Our Blessed Lady, see the following: Abbé Baudhuin, Les fêtes de la Sainte
Vierge, les jours et les mois qui lui sont consacrés, in Les Fêtes Mariales et le Congrès Marial de Namur, 1904
(Namur, 1905), pp. 92-105; J. J. Bourassé, Conciliorum decreta mariana, in Summa Aurea de laudibus B.
V. Mariae, ed. J. J. Bourassé, Vol. 7 (Parisiis, 1862), col. 740; E. Campana, Maria nel culto cattolico, Vol. 1
(Torino-Roma, 1933), pp. 439-464; G. Colvenerius, Kalendarium Marianum, in Summa Aurea de laudibus
B. V. Mariae, ed. cit., Vol. 3, coll. 638-651; [J. M. Keane, O.S.M.], Saturday Is Our Lady’s Day, in The Age
of Mary, Vol. 3, June-July, 1956, pp. 37-41; H. J. M. Polman, S.M.M., Zaterdag-Mariadag, in De Standaard
van Maria, Vol. 25, 1949, pp. 48-51, 95-102, 184-187, 240-247; G. M. Roschini, O.S.M., La Madonna secondo
la fede e la teologia, Vol. 4 (Roma, 1954), pp. 337-341; J. C. Trombelli, De cultu publico ab Ecclesia Beatae
Mariae exhibito ... , in Summa Aurea de laudibus B. V. Mariae, ed. cit., Vol. 4, coll. 367-402; A. Wichmans,
O.Praem., Sabbatismus Marianus ... , [Antverpiae, 1628], in Bibliotheca Virginalis ... , ed. P. Alva et Astorga,
O.F.M., Vol. 3 (Matriti, 1648), pp. 381-445; G. M. Zinkl, O.S.M., Die goldenen Samstage, in Theologisch-praktische Quartalschrift, Vol. 63, 1910, pp. 754-770; L. Gougaud, O.S.B., Pourquoi le samedi a-t-il eté
consacré à la Sainte Vierge? in Dévotions et pratiques ascétiques du Moyen Age (Paris, 1925), pp. 64-73.

137

Cf. Campana, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 440.

138

Innocent I, Ep. ad Decentium, in PL 20, 555.

139

St. Augustine, Ep. ad Casulanum, in PL 33, 136; Cassian, De institutis coenobiorum et de octo principalium
vitiorum remediis, lib. 3, cap. 10, in PL 49, 147-149.

140

Cf. Wichmans, op. cit., pp. 394-396; also Keane, art. cit., 37-41.

141

St. Peter Damian, Opusc. 33, de bono suffragiorum, in PL 145, 566.

142

Bernold of Constance, Micrologus, in PL 151, 1029. Cf. Trombelli, op. cit., coll. 367-368; Colvenerius, op. cit.,
col. 646.

143

Cf. S. Beissel, S.J., Geschichte der Verehrung Marias in Deutschland während des Mittelalters (Freiburg
i.B., 1909), p. 310.

144

Cf. Campana, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 454. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 4, p. 339, notes that the decree is not found in the
acts of the council probably because it was not a command but a suggestion.

145

Cf. Definitiones generalis capituli 1269, in Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, Vol. 5, 1912, p. 708.

146

Cf. C. R. Montalembert, Histoire de Sainte Elisabeth de Hongrie (Paris, 1861), p. 43; Roschini, op. cit., Vol.
4, p. 339.

147

Cf. Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis, Vol. 1 (1599), pp. 9 and 422; Campana, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 458-459.

148

Cf. F. Beringer, Die Ablässe. Ihr Wesen und Gebrauch, Vol. 1 (Paderborn, 1915), p. 272.

149

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 4, pp. 342-343; Canon Bourchat, Les premiers samedis du mois (Namur, 1943);
J. Henry, La dévotion du premier samedi du mois, in Le Messager de la Très-Sainte Vierge, Vol. 41, 1947,
pp. 13-15, 25-27.

150

On the month of May, see Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 4 (Roma, 1954), pp. 345-352; Campana, op. cit., 2nd ed.,
Vol. 1 (Torino-Roma, 1946), pp. 404-446; F. G. Holweck, Months, Special Devotions for, in Catholic
Encyclopedia, Vol. 10, pp. 542-543; D. Attwater, Month of Mary, in A Dictionary of Mary (New York, 1955),
pp. 191-192.

151

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., pp. 351-352; S. Salaville, Marie dans la liturgie Byzantine ou Gréco-Slave, in Maria,
Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), pp. 285-288.

152

J. H. Newman, Meditations and Devotions. Part I. The Month of May (London and New York, 1920).
Gerald Manley Hopkins wrote a poem, The May Magnificat.

153

The first four of these letters are to be found in English in the compilation, Papal Documents on Mary, by
W. J. Doheny, C.S.C., and J. P. Kelly (Milwaukee, 1954), pp. 188-201: Quandoquidem in gubernanda, April 20,
1939; Superiore anno, April 15, 1940; Quamvis plane, April 20, 1941; Dum saeculum, April 15, 1942.

154

Le concours international, May, 10, 1955, in A.A.S., Vol. 47, 1955, pp. 495-496; English in The Pope Speaks,
Vol. 2, 1955, pp. 134-135.

155

Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947, in A.A.S., Vol. 39, 1947, pp. 521-595. See J. Hofinger, S.J., Mary in
Popular Devotions, in Mary in the Liturgy. National Liturgical Week, 1954 (Elsberry, Missouri, 1955), pp.
142-143, for a discussion on conducting May devotions in the spirit of Eastertide, as Hofinger suggests has
been done by J. A. Jungmann in Die Frohbotschaft unseres Verkündigung.

156

Augustissimae Virginis, September 12, 1897, in Leonis XIII Pontificis Maximi Acta (abbreviated: AL), Vol.
17, pp. 285-295.

157

Reginaldo G. M. Adazzi, O.P., Il Rosario nei documenti ufficiali della chiesa, in Alma Socia Christi, Vol.
9 (Romae, 1953), pp. 198-201.

158

Supremi apostolatus, September 1, 1883, in AL, Vol. 3, pp. 280-289; Superiore anno, August 30, 1884, in
AL, Vol. 4, pp. 123-127.

159

Cf. Adazzi, art. cit., p. 201; also Campana, op. cit., pp. 450-451.

160

Adazzi, loc. cit.

161

This permission is found in Superiore anno.

162

Cf. AL, Vol. 14, pp. 305-316.

163

In A.A.S., Vol. 43, 1951, pp. 577-582.

164

In A.A.S., Vol. 29, 1937, pp. 373-380.

165

Grata recordatio, September 26, 1959, in L’Osservatore Romano, September 30, 1959.

166

Cf. Monumenta Ecclesiae Liturgica, ed. Cabrol-Leclercq, Vol. 1, sectio altera (Parisiis, 1913), p. ccxxxii,
ostrakon No. 10952 in the National Museum of Brussels; cited by A. Hamman, O.F.M., Prières des premiers
chrétiens (Paris, 1952), pp. 120-121.

167

Cf. Monumenta Ecclesiae Liturgica, p. ccxxxi, ostrakon No. 8156, Cairo Museum; cited by Hamman, op.
cit., p. 124.

168

C. H. Roberts, Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Vol. 3 (Manchester,
1938), pp. 46-47. Cf. F. Mercenier, O.S.B., L’Antienne mariale grecque la plus ancienne, in Le Muséon, Vol.
52, 1939, pp. 229-233; J. Delamare, P.S.S., La plus ancienne prière à la Sainte Vierge: Sub tuum praesidium,
in La Vie Spirituelle, Vol. 95, 1956, pp. 149-159.

169

The constructed Greek text (as done by Mercenier; Roberts’ reconstruction is quite different) reads: (1)
[hy]pò [ten sképēn tēs] (2) euspl[agchías sou] (3) kat aphe[ýgomen, ō] (4) theotóke t[às hēmōn] (5) hikesías
mē pa[r-] (6) eídēs em peristás[ei] or peristás[esi] (7) all’ ek kindýnou (8) hrýsai hēmâs [sú hē] (9) mónē
[hagnē kaí] or [semnē kaí] (10) hē eulog[ēménē].

170

Roberts, op. cit., p. 46.

171

Cf. An Early Euchologium, ed. Roberts-Capelle (Louvain, 1949), p. 14; cited by I. Cecchetti, art. Sub tuum
praesidium, in Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. 11 (Città del Vaticano, 1953), col. 1470. An abridgment of this
article is contained in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 140, January, 1959, pp. 1-5.

172

Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, 7, 32; PG 67, 812B.

173

Cf. E. Dublanchy, S.M., art. Marie, in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, Vol. 9, col. 2443.

174

Cf. Mercenier, art. cit., p. 231 (Hōrologion tò mega [ed. Roma, 1938], p. 232).

175

Mercenier, loc. cit., citing the Missale ambrosianum (Mediolani, 1831).

176

Mercenier, loc. cit.

177

The prayer occurs in Vespers, at least in Catholic editions. Mercenier points out that since the fifth-century
separation of the Monophysites, the latter follow the custom of the Byzantine Hōrologion of putting other
tropes in this place. Cf. John, Marquis of Bute (tr.), The Coptic Morning Service of the Lord’s Day (London,
1908), p. 155; Hōrologion [in Slav: Ciasoslov] (Roma, 1879), p. 105.

178

Mercenier, p. 229. Cecchetti observes that it is the only prayer recited in common each day by the Jesuits;
it is also of daily obligation for the Salesians of Don Bosco.

179

This additional word is given in The Raccolta, ed. Christopher-Spence-Rowan (New York, 1952), p. 235, No.
333, where the indulgences attached are also listed.

180

Cf. ibid., p. 233.

181

PL 78, 799; cf. Capelle, La liturgie mariale en Occident, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du
Manoir, S.J., Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), p. 239; S. Salaville, A.A., Marie dans la liturgie byzantine ou gréco-slave,
ibid., p. 295.

182

H. Thurston, S.J., Familiar Prayers (Westminster, Md., 1953), p. 92, following W. L. Crum, Coptic Ostraca
(London, 1902), p. 3; cf. H. Leclercq, art. Marie (Je vous salue), in Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et
Liturgie, Vol. 10, coll. 2043-2062; J. Jungmann, art. Ave Maria, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Vol.
1 (Freiburg, 1957), p. 1141.

183

So natural was it, in fact, that the phrase “Blessed art thou among women” worked its way into v. 28 in many
mss. from v. 42.

184

Cf. Leclercq, art. cit., col. 2044; F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western (Oxford, 1896), pp. 56, 128,
328. At Vespers the prayer is recited even today in the form given above, prefixed by “O Virgin Theotokos ...”

185

Capelle, op. cit., p. 238. P. Wiertz (H. Dünninger) cites the study of W. de Grüneisen (Rome, 1911) on the
church of Santa Maria Antiqua, which carries the two Lucan phrases joined in Greek in a seventh-century
fresco of the Annunciation; cf. Das A. M. in der Frömmigkeitsgeschichte, in Lexikon der Marienkunde, fasc.
3/4 (Regensburg, 1959), p. 482. W. Lipphardt, Das Ave Maria in der Liturgie (ibid.., p. 487), asks whether
the Syrian Pope Sergius (687-701) may not have brought it from East to West.

186

Cf. the biographer of the Norbertine canon, Blessed Herman Joseph, in Acta Sanctorum, April, Vol. 1
(Parisiis, 1866), p. 690B; also Hildebert of Tours (c. 1130), in PL 171, 631.

187

Opusculum 33, PL 145, 564. The three foregoing references are provided by Thurston (op. cit., pp. 98 f.),
who also gives full documentation on the 19th century studies of A. Mussafi on the Mary-legends, published
by the Vienna Academy.

188

E.g., Franco, Abbot of Afflighem, De gratia Dei, in PL 166, 745; Meditationes (ascribed to St. Anselm), in
PL 158, 785; Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, Vol. 14, pp. 298 f., which contains the story of
Countess Ada of Avennes who prayed the Ave Maria sixty times daily. Thurston identifies her (c. 1090) and
the Tournai region with the “longer form.”

189

Cf. R. Laurentin, Structure et théologie de Luc I-II (Paris, 1957), pp. 64-68, for a careful exegesis of the
verses in question, complete with OT parallels; cf. especially S. Lyonnet, Chaîre kekaritōménē, in Biblica, Vol.
20, 1939, pp. 131-141.

190

PL 204, 477. The synod held under Odo, Bishop of Paris (1198) requires knowledge of the Salutatio Beatae
Virginis (Mansi, 22, 681); that under Alexander, Bishop of Coventry (ca. 1237), requires the Ave Maria to be
prayed seven times daily (Mansi, 23, 432).

191

Cf. S. Beissel, S.J., Geschichte der Verehrung Marias in Deutschland während des Mittelalters (Freiburg,
1909), pp. 228 f.; Acta Sanctorum, April, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1866), p. 674E (life of St. Aybert, before 1140); Dreves-Blume, Analecta hymnica medii aevi, Vol. 30 (Leipzig, 1886-1922), p. 278; Vol. 35, pp. 254-262.

192

Dreves-Blume, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 363; Vol. 40, p. 115.

193

“O blessed Virgin, pray for us always to God that He may pardon us and give us grace so to live here below
that He will give us heaven at the end.”

194

Manuscript documentation given by Dünninger, op. cit., p. 480, includes Quodlibetum de veritate
fraternitatis rosarii (Coloniae, 1497), c. 5; Henry of Langenstein, ms. 35 of the Dominican Monastery in
Vienna.

195

Werke, Vol. 1, p. 407; in Dünninger, loc. cit.

196

Cf. Opera omnia, Vol. 4 (ed. Venetiis, 1845), pp. 94 and 226 f.: “Holy Mary, pray for us sinners.”

197

K. Walter, Glockenkunde (Regensburg, 1913), p. 282.

198

Similar versions are given in Pelbart of Temervar, Stellarium Beatae Mariae Virginis (Hagenau, 1515), lib.
1, pars 4, art. 3, c. 4; lib. 12, pars ult., c. 12, mirac. 2.

199

H. Thurston, The Angelus. I. The Hail Mary, in The Month, Vol. 98 (Nov., 1901), pp. 496 f. The Kalender
of Shepardys of about the same time regularly adds: “Holy Mary, mother of God, praye for us synners, amen.”
Cf. ibid., p. 499. The edition was that of R. Pynson of London, “MCCCCC and VI,” though the French original
had been published in 1493.

200

Cf. Dünninger, op. cit., p. 481.

201

Catechismus Romanus Venetiis, 1566), 4, c. 5, q. 8.

202

Peter de Bollo, Le rosaire de la Mère de Dieu (Lyon, 1613); cited by Dünninger, op. cit., p. 482.

203

S. Petri Canisii ... Catechismi, ed. F. Streicher, S.J., Vol. 1 (Romae, 1936), p. 42.

204

Ibid., p. 130.

205

Scriptores rerum suevicorum medii aevi (Uppsala, 1818), and Busch, Chronic. Windesheim, Vol. 1, p. 70
[ed. Grube, p. 215]; both cited by U. Berlière, art. Angélique (Salutation), in D.T.C., Vol. 1, col. 1276.

206

A.A.S., Vol. 47 (1955), p. 222.

207

Cf. Leclercq, art. Salve Regina, in Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et Liturgie, Vol. 15, col. 714; A.
Manser, Salve Regina, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Vol. 9, p. 137 f.

208

Cod. Augiensis LV, fol. 42 vo, according to Leclercq.

209

Sermones 7 et 8; PL 188, 1342 and 1346.

210

British Museum (Additional 18 302, fol. 130), where it is given as the antiphon at tierce on the feast of the
Assumption; ms. 230 of Einsiedeln is also referred to as containing it without notation (ca. 1200).

211

Cf. PL 143 for the works of Hermannus Contractus, especially his Opuscula musica, coll. 413-458.

212

Jacobus Bergamensis, Supplementum chronicarum orbis ab initio mundi usque ad annum 1482, 2nd ed.
(Brescia, 1485), lib. 15.

213

“... quo musicus peritior non erat ... De S. Georgio ... mira suavitate et elegantia euphonicos, praeter alia
hujusmodi perplura, neumatizavit et composuit.” Cf. PL 143, 28. Berthold did not know of his master’s
familiarity with Hebrew and Arabic, as a chronicler of four centuries later seemed to, but then neither did he
know that his Reichenau colleague was a monk of St. Gall.

214

PL 185, 544.

215

Cf. Thurston, Familiar Prayers, p. 119. The work referred to is Jean de Valois, En marge d’une antienne:
le Salve Regina (Paris, 1912).

216

Valois, op. cit., p. 23. P. Wagner, Ursprung und Entwicklung der liturgischen Gesangsformen, cited in Pius
Parsch, The Breviary Explained (St. Louis, 1952), p. 182, is of this opinion.

217

Cf. Dreves-Blume, Analecta hymnica medii aevi, Vol. 1, p. 319. Four mss. of Seckau or Graz are cited.

218

PL 189, 1048. The document is dated around 1135.

219

Parsch, loc. cit. Valois states that it was used as an antiphon at lauds or vespers on the four great feasts of
Our Lady from the mid-twelfth century.

220

Hardouin, Concilia, Vol. 7, col. 1156; cited by Thurston, Familiar Prayers, p. 129.

221

G. Mercati, Appunti per la storia del Breviario romano nei secoli XIV-XV, tratti dalle ‘Rubricae Novae’
(Roma, 1903). Peter Amelius (✝ 1401) is the probable author.

222

C. Batiffol, Histoire du Bréviaire, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1911), pp. 244 and 261.

223

“Thursday, 11 October. ... When they said the Salve, which all the sailors were accustomed to sing in their
way, the Admiral asked and admonished the men to keep a good lookout on the forecastle and to watch well
for land.” Quoted in H. S. Commager and Allen Nevins, The Heritage of America, a book of documents and
selections (Boston, 1951), p. 6. Mention is also made of it in Columbus’ logbook, under 16 February, 1493, on
the return journey.

224

Thurston, op. cit., pp. 133-145. Cf. also his article Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, in The Month, Vol.
98 (Sept., 1901), pp. 268 f. and 275.

225

St. Thomas More in describing the wretchedness of Oxford fare during his student days says that the only
step conceivably lower in the economic scale is, “with bags and wallets, [to] go a begging together, and hoping
that for pity some good folk will give us their charity, at every man’s door to sing Salve Regina. ...” Cf. W.
Roper, The Life of Sir Thomas More, ed. E. V. Hitchcock (London, 1935), p. 54.

226

The text is given in A.S.S., Vol. 16, 1883, p. 239 f. The revision of the prayers to their modern form was
achieved in 1886, but Jungmann points out that A.S.S. does not record this. Cf. The Mass of the Roman Rite,
Vol. 2 (New York, 1955), P- 456, n. 7; R. Brennan, The Leonine Prayers, in The American Ecclesiastical
Review, Vol. 125, 1951, pp. 85-94. In an allocution of June 30, 1930, Pope Pius XI specified that the Leonine
prayers should be said for the conversion of Russia. Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 22, 1930, p. 301.

227

Jungmann, op. cit., p. 457.

228

Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 267 f.

229

C. Blume, art. Regina caeli, in Kirchliches Handlexikon, Vol. 2, p. 1706.

230

“O Queen of heaven, rejoice now, / Rejoice, for He whom meetly thou bearest, / He is risen as He foretold.
/ Pray for us to the Father. . Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, / . For the Lord is truly risen.”

231

PL 143, 9, ex Joanne Egone, Liber de viris illustribus Augiae Divitis (1630); cf. H. Lausberg, s.v., in Lexikon
für Theologie und Kirche, Vol. 1, 1957, p. 358 f.; Analecta hymnica medii aevi, Vol. 50, p. 317.

232

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, tr. Nevill Coghill (Harmondsworth, Essex, 1951), pp. 199 f. For
a view on the position of Jews in Chaucerian England, cf. R. J. Schoeck, Chaucer’s Prioress: Mercy and Tender
Heart, in The Bridge, Vol. 2 (New York, 1956), pp. 239-255.

233

Cf. P. Wagner, Einführung in die gregorianischen Melodien, Vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1911), p. 157.

234

St. Bernard, Sermo 4 in Assumptione B. V. Mariae; PL 183, 428.

235

Translated as The Raccolta (New York, 1952), No. 339, p. 247.

236

A. Lanz, art. Memorare, in Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. 8, p. 661. The Latin text of the modern version is:
“Memorare, o piissima Virgo Maria, non esse auditum a saeculo, quemquam ad tua currentem praesidia, tua
implorantem auxilia, tua petentem suffragia esse derelictum. Ego tali animatus confidentia ad te, Virgo
virginum, Mater curro; ad te venio; coram te gemens peccator assisto. Noli, Mater Verbi, verba mea despicere,
sed audi propitia et exaudi. Amen.” Pope Pius IX first attached an indulgence to it for the whole Church in
1846.

237

Cf. Le Commandeur de Broqua, Claude Bernard, 2nd. ed. (Paris, 1913), the frontispiece of which is one of
the many engraved portraits of the man beneath which is inscribed the Memorare and “Oraison du R. P.
Bernard.”

238

N. Paulus, Das Alter des Gebetes Memorare, in Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie, Vol. 26, 1902, p. 605.

239

The text reads: V. Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae. R. Et concepit de Spiritu Sancto. Ave, etc. V. Ecce
ancilla Domini. R. Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum. Ave, etc. V. Et Verbum caro factum est. R. Et habitavit
in nobis. Ave, etc. V. Ora pro nobis sancta Dei Genitrix. R. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi. Oremus:
Gratiam tuam, quaesumus, Domine, mentibus nostris infunde: ut qui Angelo nuntiante, Christi Filii tui
Incarnationem cognovimus, per passionem ejus et crucem ad resurrectionis gloriam perducamur. Per eundem
Christum Dominum nostrum. R. Amen.

240

Thurston, The Angelus. II. The Curfew Bell, in The Month, Vol. 98, December, 1901, pp. 609-616.

241

Martène, De antiquis Ecclesiae ritibus, Vol. 4 (Rotomagi, 1738), p. 39.

242

Analecta Franciscana, Vol. 3, p. 329; cited by Thurston, The Angelus. III. Compline or Curfew Bell —
Which? in The Month, Vol. 99, January, 1902, p. 61.

243

Le Couteulx, Annales Ordinis Carthusiensis; cited by Thurston, art. cit., p. 62.

244

Regularis Concordia, in Anglia, Vol. 16, p. 394; cited by Thurston, art. cit., p. 63.

245

Raynaldi, ad annum 1318, 58; ad annum 1327, 54.

246

Thurston again provides the citation: Tractatus tractatuum, XIV (Venetiis, 1584), fol. 330, vo. St. Antoninus
follows Calderini in this view.

247

C. A. Kneller, Zur Geschichte des Angelus-Läutens, in Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie, Vol. 25, 1901,
p. 353.

248

Th. Schnitzler, Angelusläuten, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Vol. 1, 1957, p. 542.

249

Much of the foregoing material is found in H. Schauerte, art. Angelus, in Lexikon der Marienkunde, fasc.
2, p. 218.

250

The Latin text reads: Ave, Regina caelorum, / Ave, Domina angelorum: / Salve, radix, salve, porta / Ex qua
mundo lux est orta: / Gaude, Virgo gloriosa, / super omnes speciosa, / Vale, o valde decora, / Et pro nobis
Christum exora.

251

Hence the Vale. Cf. M. Steinheimer, art. Ave Regina caelorum, in Lexikon der Marienkunde, fasc. 3/4, p.
502 f.

252

Cf. Uffizio dell’Inno Akathistos in onore della SS. Madre di Dio [text in Greek and Italian] (Grottaferrata,
1949). Cf. also Carlo del Grande, L’Inno Acatisto in onore della Madre di Dio (Firenze, 1948); G. G.
Meerseman, O.P., Der Hymnus Akathistos im Abendland (Freiburg [Schweiz], 1958); H. Barré, C.S.Sp.,
L’Hymne Acathiste en Occident, in Marianum, Vol. 21, 1959, pp. 291-297.

253

Cf. T. Jacuboski, O.S.M., Le ‘Laudes Virginis’, in Studi Storici sull’Ordine dei Servi di Maria, Vol. 1 (Roma,
1933), pp. 66-77.

254

G. M. Roschini, O.S.M., La Madonna secondo la fede e la teologia, Vol. 4 (Roma, 1954), p. 310.

255

Ibid., p. 312. For various pre-Loretan litanies taken from German manuscript sources, cf. W. Schleussner,
Zur Entstehung der lauretanischen Litanei, in Theologische Quartalschrift, Vol. 107, 1926, pp. 254-267; N.
Paulus, Die Einführung der lauretanischen Litanei in Deutschland durch den seligen Canisius, in Zeitschrift
für Katholische Theologie, Vol. 26, 1902, pp. 574-583. On the general subject, cf. M. Boval, O.S.B., Les Litanies
de Lorette, histoire, symbolisme, richesses doctrinales (Paris, 1946); R. Klaver, O.S.C., The Litany of Loreto
(St. Louis, Mo., 1954); and G. G. Meerseman, O.P., “Virgo a doctoribus praetitulata.” Die marianischen
Litaneien als dogmengeschichtliche Quellen, in Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie, Vol.
1, 1954, pp. 129-178.

256
G. Vann, O.P., Notes on Our Lady’s Litany, in Worship, Vol. 30, July-August, 1956, pp. 437-441. —
Additional literature on some of the prayers discussed in this chapter: C. Boyer, S.J., Le “Salve Regina,” in
Marianum, Vol. 14, 1952, pp. 270-275; J. M. Canal, C.M.F., En torno a Ademaro, obispo de Le-Puy-en-Velay
[on the authorship of the Salve Regina], in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 8, 1958, pp. 488-493; J. P. de
Castro, O.F.M., Salve Regina, in Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira, Vol. 1, 1941, pp. 796-802; E. Flicoteaux,
O.S.B., Le Salve Regina, in Marie, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1949, pp. 104-107; P. Hermenegildo, O.F.M., Estudio sobre
el Ave Maria, in Actas del Quarto Congreso Mariano Internacional celebrado en Zaragoza, 1908 (Madrid,
1909), pp. 943-945; G. Lefebvre, O.S.B., L’Ave Marie; son origine historique, son interprétation, in Marie,
Vol. 8, No. 3, 1954, pp. 168-175; D. G. Maeso, Exégesis lingüística del Avemaría, in Cultura Bíblica, Vol. 11,
1954, pp. 302-319; J. E. Martins Terra, S.J., Ave Maria, in Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira, Vol. 17, 1957, pp.
624-649; F. Mercenier, O.S.B., La plus ancienne prière à la Sainte Vierge: le Sub tuum praesidium, in
Questions Liturgiques et Paroissiales, Vol. 25, 1940, pp. 33-36; S. Navarro, C.M.F., El autor de la Salve, in
Estudios Marianos, Vol. 7, 1948, pp. 425-442; I. Rodríguez, O.F.M., Consideración literario-musical sobre
la “Salve Regina,” ibid., Vol. 18, 1957, pp. 381-401; O. Stegmüller, Sub tuum praesidium. Bemerkungen zur
ältesten Uberlieferung, in Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie, Vol. 74, 1952, pp. 76-82; D. J. Unger,
O.F.M.Cap., The Angelus (Chicago, 1956); G. Vannucci, O.S.M., La più antica preghiera alla Madre di Dio,
in Marianum, Vol. 3, 1941, pp. 97-101; M. Vidal Rodríguez, La Salve explicada, 2nd ed. (Santiago, 1923); A.
M. Vincentini, O.S.M., Le quattro antifone finali del Breviario Romano (Treviglio, 1915).

257

Buddhist, Mohammedan, Hindu, etc.; cf. H. Thurston, S.J., The Rosary, in The Month, Vol. 96, 1900/II, pp.
405-406; Vol. 97, 1901/I, pp. 383, 395, note 2; idem, art. Rosary in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 13 (New
York, 1912), p. 185; idem, art. Chapelet in D.A.C.L. (Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et de Liturgie), Vol.
3 (Paris, reprinted 1946), col. 400-401; J. Volz, art. Beads in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 2 (New York,
1907), p. 362; J. Shaw, The Story of the Rosary (Milwaukee, 1954), pp. 4-6, 143 158.

258

Cf. D. Attwater, A Dictionary of Mary (New York, 1956), articles Rosary; Rosary, Bridgettine; Rosary of
Our Lady of Consolation; Rosary of the Immaculate Conception; Rosary of the Immaculate Heart; Rosary
of the Seven Joys; Rosary of the Seven Sorrows. Cf. also E. Campana, Maria nel culto cattolico, ed. 2, edited
by G. Roschini, Vol. 1 (Torino, 1946), pp. 524-527; Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 433-451. On the
“Rosary of Tears,” cf. T. Henry, The Rosary, in The Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Vol. 39, Oct., 1938, p. 7.

259

On “rosaries” in honor of Christ, cf. F. Willam, The Rosary: Its History and Meaning (New York, 1953), pp.
31-32, 41, 42; J. Shaw, op. cit., p. 60; F. Beringer, S.J., Die Ablässe, ihr Wesen und Gebrauch, ed. 15, edited
by P. Steinen, S.J. (two volumes, Paderborn, 1921-1922), Vol. 1, nn. 396, 865-867; T. Henry, The October
Devotions, in The Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Vol. 38, Oct., 1937, p. 15: “The Rosary of the Five Wounds
of Our Lord, and the Rosary of the Precious Blood.” On the “Angelic Rosary,” in honor of the angels, cf.
Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 833.

260

For example, the bull of Clement VIII, Cum sicut, Feb. 2, 1598, speaks of the “Rosarium SS. Nominis Dei”;
cf. J. Larroca, O.P., Acta Sanctae Sedis necnon Magistrorum et Capitulorum generalium sacri Ordinis
Praedicatorum pro Societate SS. Rosarii, Confraternitatibus SS. Rosarii, etc. (two volumes, Lugduni, 1890-1891), Vol. 2, Part 3, p. 703, note 2. We shall cite this work as Larroca, after the Dominican Master General
who ordered its compilation (by P. Nothon, O.P.) and publication.

261

See the decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, Nov. 24, 1663, and Dec. 3, 1663 (both in Larroca, op.
cit., Vol. 2, Part 3, nn. 273, 274), also Mar. 15, 1664, and Nov. 22, 1664, in Decreta authentica Congregationis
Sacrorum Rituum, ab anno 1588 ad. a. 1946 (Romae), Vol. 1, nn. 1289, 1306; see also Alexander VII, Brief
In supremo, May 28, 1664, in Bullarium Romanum, Vol. 17 (Augustae Taurinorum, 1869), pp. 274-275;
Clement XI, Brief In supremo, Mar. 8, 1712 (in Larroca, op. cit., Vol. 2, Part 1, p. 338); Benedict XIII, Apost.
Const. Pretiosus, May 26, 1727, in Bullarium Romanum, Vol. 22 (Augustae Taurinorum, 1871), p. 525. Pope
Leo XIII, Apost. Const. Ubi primum, Oct. 2, 1898, decreed that beads (coronae) not composed of either five,
ten, or fifteen decades should not be given the name “rosary”; A.S.S. (= Acta Sanctae Sedis), Vol. 31 (Romae,
1898-1899), p. 261; W. Lawler, O.P., ed., The Rosary of Mary: Translations of the Encyclical and Apostolic
Letters of Pope Leo XIII (Paterson, 1944), p. 186. Cf. J. Proctor, O.P., The Rosary Guide (New York, 1901),
pp. 2-3.

262
“Coronae” is a general term for all longer prayers, or repetitions of prayers, whether accompanied by
meditations or not, and be they recited with the aid of prayer-beads or not; the beads sometimes used in such
devotions are likewise called corona, chaplet, crown (on occasion, “material crown,” to distinguish the beads
from the devotion they serve); cf. Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 611-612, index, s.v. “Korone,” and p. 397, note
3. Official publications of the Holy See use this generic term also for the rosary, both the recitation thereof (as
Corona in honorem B.V.M. a SS. Rosario, in the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum: Preces et Pia Opera, ed. 2
[Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1952], index), and its beads (cf. Benedictio Coronarum Sacratissimi Rosarii
B.V.M., in the Rituale Romanum, editio typica [Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1952]; also, Codex Iuris Canonici,
can. 239, 1., 5o: “benedicendi . . . rosaria, aliasque coronas precatorias”). These and other official publications
of the Holy See know several coronae, but only one that is a “rosary” — the Corona SS. Rosarii B. V. M.

263

Cf. W. Kent, art. Indulgences, Apostolic, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 7 (New York, 1910), pp. 78-79;
T. Bouscaren, S.J., A. Ellis, S.J., Canon Law, ed. 2 (Milwaukee, 1951), pp. 401-405; S. De Angelis, De
Indulgentiis, ed. 2 (Città del Vaticano, 1950), nn. 229-242. Some Apostolic indulgences will he listed later.

264

Cf. De Angelis, op. cit., nn. 269-272.

265

“The Dominican Order, which from its very beginning has been most devoted in honoring the Blessed Virgin,
and by which the institution and propagation of the Confraternity of the Rosary was accomplished, holds as
its inheritance all that belongs to this devotion” — Pope Leo XIII, Apost. Const. Ubi primum, Oct. 2, 1898;
A.S.S., Vol. 31, p. 258; Lawler, op. cit., p. 179. Whence the Dominicans have a special right (praecipuo quodam
iure) in stimulating and maintaining the Rosary devotion; idem, Apost. Letter Salutaris ille, Dec. 24, 1883;
E. Tondini, ed., Le Encicliche Mariane, ed. 2 (Roma, 1954), p. 82; Lawler, op. cit., p. 16.

266

Cf. Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 125, 2o and 592; M. Castellano, O.P., Riflessi legislativi del culto mariano,
in Enciclopedia Mariana, ed. R. Spiazzi, O.P. (Genova, 1954), pp. 445-446.

267

Salutaris ille; Tondini, op. cit., p. 82; Lawler, op. cit., pp. 15-16.

268

A. Duval, O.P., La dévotion marial dans l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte
Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir S.J., Vol. 2 (Paris, 1952), p. 781; cf. W. Bonniwell, O.P., A History of the Dominican
Liturgy (New York, 1944), pp. 252-253, and H. Thurston, S.J., art. Rosary, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol.
13, p. 187.

269

A priest with the requisite faculties can give the specially indulgenced Bridgettine blessing not only to the
six-decade Bridgettine prayer beads hut also to the five-decade rosary beads. To gain the Bridgettine
indulgences in reciting the five decades of the rosary, one must add the Apostles’ Creed after each decade, but
does not have to conclude the five decades with the extra Our Father and three Hail Marys that come at the
end of the Bridgettine chaplet. All the Bridgettine indulgences can be gained by this shorter form of recitation,
save one (cf. Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 437, note 5).

270

Cf. A.S.S., Vol. 32 (Romae, 1900), pp. 228-241.

271

Cf. Breviarum Romanum, Feast of the Most Holy Rosary of the Bl. Virgin Mary (Oct. 7), Matins, fourth
lesson; the latter was authorized on Mar. 26, 1725, on Sept. 1, 1756, and again on Aug. 5, 1888; cf. Larroca, op.
cit., Vol. 2, Part 3, pp. 793-795, 828-834, 995-997, 1000; Bonniwel, op. cit., pp. 333-334. The formula for the
Dominican blessing of rosary beads, in the Rituale Romanum, makes reference to meditation as part of the
rosary (“divina contemplando mysteria devote oraverit”). So too the Collect in the Mass of the Feast of the
Most Holy Rosary (Oct. 7), which begs God to grant “that, meditating on these mysteries . . . , we may both
imitate what they contain, and obtain what they promise.”

272

Bullarium Romanum, Vol. 7 (Augustae Taurinorum, 1862), p. 775: “modum . . . orandi et precandi Deum,
Rosarium seu Psalterium eiusdem B. Mariae Virginis nuncupatum, quo eadem beatissima Virgo, Salutatione
Angelica centies et quinquagies ad numerum Davidici Psalterii repetita, et Oratione Dominica ad quamlibet
decimam, cum certis meditationibus, totam eiusdem Domini N. Iesu Christi vitam demonstrantibus,
interposita, veneratur.”

273

Cf. Larroca, op. cit., Vol. 2, Part 3, pp. 588-589; J. Schütz, Die Geschichte des Rosenkranzes (Paderborn,
1909), p. 33, with note 1. The above grant of an indulgence for “reading the rosary” was referred to and
confirmed by Pope Leo X, Apost. Const. Pastoris Aeterni, Oct. 6, 1520; Bullarium Romanum, Vol. 5 (Augustae
Taurinorum, 1860), p. 758. “To read the rosary” occurs frequently in the 15th century monuments on the
rosary; cf. Larroca, op. cit., Vol. 2, Part 3, p. 588, note 3; and p. 591, for a document of Francis de Claromonte,
Cardinal Legate, Apr. 9, 1514.

274

Cf. Y. Gourdel, O.Cart., Le culte de la Très Sainte Vierge dans l’Ordre des Chartreux, in Maria. Études sur
la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 2 (Paris, 1952), p. 653; A. Duval, art. cit., p. 773, note 186; J.
Schütz, op. cit., pp. 39-41; Larroca, op. cit., Vol. 2, Part 4, p. 1219. The Apostolic Constitution of Pope Leo X,
Pastoris Aeterni, Oct. 6, 1520, gives the first certain indication from a Pope that the Psalter of Mary is
commonly called “rosary”: “et modum orandi huiusmodi Psalterium sive Rosarium eiusdem Beatae Virginis
vulgariter appellatum;” Bullarium Romanum, Vol. 5, p. 758.

275

Cf. Thurston, art. Rosary, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 13, p. 188; M. Ward, The Splendor of the
Rosary (New York, 1945), p. 7. On the way in which the vocal prayers facilitate meditation, cf. Ward, op. cit.,
pp. 11-12; A. Herring, The Rosary, in The Month, Vol. 146, 1925/II, pp. 289-302; F. Willam, The Rosary: Its
History and Meaning (New York, 1953), pp. 182-184, 212; G. Vann, O.P., Our Lady and her Rosary, in The
Life of the Spirit, Vol. 12, 1958, pp. 491-494.

276

Ency. Iucunda semper, Sept. 8, 1894; Tondini, op. cit., p. 210; Lawler, op. cit., p. 120. According to Leo XIII,
Ency. Diuturni temporis, Sept. 5, 1898, the rosary is “an admirable garland woven from the Angelic Salutation,
together with the Lord’s Prayer, conjoined with the obligation (officio) of meditation”; Tondini, op. cit., p. 274;
Lawler, op. cit., p. 173. This passage was repeated by Pius XI, Ency. Ingravescentibus malis, Sept. 29, 1937;
Tondini, op. cit., p. 416; W. Doheny, J. Kelly, editors, Papal Documents on Mary (Milwaukee, 1954), p. 192.
Also by Pius XII, Epistle Novimus libenter (to the Master General of the Dominicans), July 11, 1957; A.A.S.,
Vol. 49, 1957, p. 726.

277

Ency. Ingravescentibus malis; Tondini, op. cit., p. 418; Doheny-Kelly, op. cit., p. 183.

278

Cf. Pius XI, Ingravescentibus malis, ubi supra; Pius XII, Ency. Ingruentium malorum, Sept. 15, 1951;
Tondini, op. cit., p. 664; Doheny-Kelly, op. cit., p. 245. See B. Thierry D’Argenlieu, O.P., La théologie du
Rosaire, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 5 (Paris, 1958), pp. 748-751. The above
reflections will have further application when it is learned that meditation is not absolutely required of
everyone for gaining the Rosary indulgences, and is not required at all for the Apostolic, Bridgettine, or Crosier
indulgences.

279

See the Encyclicals of Leo XIII, Magnae Dei Matris (Sept. 8, 1892), Adiutricem populi (Sept. 5, 1895),
Octobri mense (Sept. 22, 1891); Tondini, op. cit., pp. 138, 160, 162, 230; Doheny-Kelly, op. cit., pp. 58, 71, 72,
109. Also Pius XI, Ency. Ingravescentibus malis, Sept. 29, 1937; Tondini, op. cit., p. 418; Doheny-Kelly, op.
cit., p. 183.

280

On the fifteen mysteries of the rosary, see the Rosary Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII, passim, e.g., Iucunda
semper, Sept. 8, 1894; Tondini, op. cit., pp. 204-206; Doheny-Kelly, op. cit., pp. 91-93.

281

Meditation is not a condition for the Apostolic, Bridgettine, or Crosier indulgences. On the Apostolic
indulgences, see S. C. Indul. (= Sacred Congregation of Indulgences), July 1, 1839, in Decr. auth. (= Decreta
authentica Sacrae Congregationis Indulgentiis Sacrisque Reliquiis praepositae ab anno 1668 ad annum
1882 edita iussu et auctoritate SSi D. N. Leonis PP. XIII, Ratisbonae, 1883), n. 273, ad 2m; Beringer-Steinen,
op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 414, note 4; De Angelis, op. cit., n. 227, b. As to the Bridgettine indulgences, see S. C. Indulg.,
July 1, 1839, in Decr. auth., n. 273, ad 1m; De Angelis, op. cit., n. 246; Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 882.
Regarding the Crosier indulgence, see A.S.S., Vol. 40, 1907, p. 442, note 1; De Angelis, op. cit., n. 227, c. and
n. 272, a; Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 885.

282

Cf. R. Addazi, O.P., Il Rosario nei documenti ufficiali della Chiesa, in Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 9 (Romae,
1953), p. 196.

283

Cf. Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 444-445; Willam, op. cit., pp. 78, 200.

284

Decr. auth., n. 92. Benedict XIII confirmed this anew in the Apost. Const. Pretiosus, May 26, 1727;
Bullarium Romanum, Vol. 22 (Augustae Taurinorum, 1871), p. 525. Leo XIII reconfirmed it in his Apost.
Const. Ubi primum, Oct. 2, 1898; A.S.S., Vol. 31, p. 261; Lawler, op. cit., pp. 186-187. Relevant also are the
decrees of the S. C. Indulg., July 1, 1839 (Decr. auth., n. 273, ad 2m, ad 4m), and Jan. 28, 1842 (in A.
Prinzivalli, Resolutiones seu decreta authentica Sacrae Congregationis Indulgentiis . . . praepositae ab anno
1668 ad annum 1861, Romae, 1862, n. 528, ad 3m, ad 4m).

285

Cf. Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, ed. 2 (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1952), nn. 395, 397; De Angelis, op. cit.,
nn. 263-264.

286

Benedict XIII, Apost. Const. Pretiosus, May 26, 1727; Bullarium Romanum, Vol. 22, p. 525. See also S. C.
Indulg., Jan. 28, 1842, in Prinzivalli, op. cit., n. 528; and the official Raccolta di orazioni e pie opere per le
quali sono state concesse dai Sommi Pontefici le SS. Indulgenze (Roma, Tipografia Poliglotta della S. C. de
Propaganda Fide, 1898), pp. 350-351. This concession is still in force; cf. Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, p.
449, note 3; De Angelis, op. cit., n. 263.

287

Cf. the Bull of Clement VII, Etsi temporalium, May 8, 1534; Bullarium Romanum, Vol. 6 (Augustae
Taurinorum, 1860), pp. 168-169; Addazi, art. cit., pp. 510-511. Pope St. Pius X (S. C. Indulg., June 12, 1907)
granted a plenary indulgence, once a day, to Rosary Confraternity members for reciting the entire rosary
within a day, dividing the decades at will, for the triumph of Holy Mother Church, on condition of Confession,
Communion, and a visit to a church or public oratory; A.S.S., Vol. 40, pp. 510-511.

288

Cf. F. Leather, O.P., The Rosary: Its Power and Its Use (London, 1932), p. 32.

289

See S. C. Indulg., July 1, 1839, in Decr. auth., n. 273, ad 5m; Leo XIII, Ubi primum, in A.S.S., Vol. 31, p. 262.
Cf. De Angelis, op. cit., n. 267, b; Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 905.

290

Cf. The Rosary: The Crown of Mary, new and revised edition, by A Dominican Father (New York, 1947),
pp. 24, 37.

291

Cf. ibid., p. 23. Public religious exercises are those held in common in churches or in public or semi-public
oratories (in the case of those who may lawfully use the latter); in all other cases they are private; Enchiridion
Indulgentiarum, praenotanda, n. 7.

292

Cf. A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, prepared and enjoined by order of the Third
Plenary Council of Baltimore, new ed. (New York, 1930), pp. 397-403.

293

Cf. S. C. Indulg., July 8, 1908 (Acta Pontificia et decreta SS. Romanorum Congregationum, Vol. 7 [Romae,
1909], p. 57); Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, n. 395, note 1; De Angelis, op. cit., n. 267, c; Beringer-Steinen, op.
cit., Vol. 1, n. 905. However, in fulfilling their obligation of a weekly recitation of the entire rosary, Rosary
Confraternity members may spread the fifteen decades throughout the week; they are not held to complete
five decades within a day; S. C. Indulg., Jan. 22, 1858 (Decr. auth., n. 385, ad 2m); cf. Beringer-Steinen, op. cit.,
Vol. 2, p. 163.

294

Cf. Bouscaren-Ellis, Canon Law, ed. 2, pp. 401-402. De Angelis does not discuss the matter. F. Cappello,
S.J., De Sacramentis, Vol. 2; De Poenitentia, ed. 4 (Taurini, 1944), n. 685, considers it more probable that
neither the Apostolic nor the Bridgettine indulgences are lost by separation of the decades. Silent as to the
Bridgettine indulgences, Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 414, note 4, says separation of the decades does
not affect the Apostolic indulgences.

295

Cf. S. C. Indulg., Mar. 15, 1884, ad 3m; A.S.S., Vol. 16, 1906, p. 405; cf. De Angelis, op. cit., n. 272, b;
Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 885.

296

S. C. Indulg., July 1, 1839; Decr. auth., n. 273, ad 4m: “(Non requiritur mentio specialis mysterii in
recitatione Salutationis Angelicae, dicendo, v. gr., post haec verba: ventris tui Jesus haec alia: quem concepisti,
vel quem visitando Elisabeth portasti, etc. vel quem peperisti, etc.) quia quando requiritur meditatio
mysteriorum pro acquirendis indulgentiis, sufficit meditatio mentalis eodem tempore, quo recitantur Oratio
Dominicalis et Angelicae Salutationes. ...”

297

Cf. Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 904; Larroca, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 135. In some devotional works, such
as The Reign of Jesus Through Mary, rev. ed., by G. Denis, S.M.M. (Bay Shore, 1944), pp. 153-164, and
manuals of prayer, such as that prepared and enjoined for the Catholic laity by the Third Plenary Council of
Baltimore, one finds a short meditation to be read immediately before each decade. One may, of course,
combine this with free meditation on the relevant mystery during the recitation of the decade.

298

Cf. S. C. Indulg., July 1, 1839; supra, footnote 40.

299

Cf. W. Most, Mary in Our Life (New York, 1954), pp. 231-233; L’Ami du Clergé, Vol. 26, 1904, pp. 583-584.

300

Cf. The Rosary: The Crown of Mary, new and rev. ed., by A Dominican Father (New York, 1947), p. 41, and,
for suggestions as to these 150 “sub-mysteries,” pp. 49-78. The antecedents of this method reach back to the
fifteenth century; cf. supra, footnote 17, on “reading” the rosary.

301

For some suggestions by Père Monsabré, O.P., cf. Leather, op. cit., pp. 32-33; cf. also St. Louis Mary de
Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, transl. by M. Barbour (Bay Shore, 1954), pp. 173-178.

302

Cf. Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 934, 2, understood in the light of can. 934, 1, and confirmed (as the exception
confirms the rule) by can. 936 on mutes, and by the decree of the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary, Dec. 7, 1933,
(A.A.S., Vol. 26, 1934, p. 35), which conceded that indulgences attached to invocations and so-called
ejaculations can be gained even by reciting them merely mentally; cf. De Angelis, op. cit., n. 89. a. Even apart
from this general legislation, the very fact that indulgences are granted for “recitation” of the rosary (cf.
Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, nn. 395-398) supposes vocal praying of the Our Fathers and Hail Marys which
are of the rosary’s essence — “recitation,” unless qualified by “mental” (as in the Dec. 7, 1933 decree of the S.
Ap. Penitentiary, and in Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, p. xvi, note 2), means vocal prayer.

303

Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 936, which is often given the restrictive but erroneous translation “deaf-mutes.”
Cf. Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, nn. 136-137.

304

Commencement of the rosary with the Creed, the Our Father, and the three Hail Marys became the custom
in many parts of Germany near the end of the 16th century; cf. S. Beissel, Geschichte der Verehrung Marias
im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Freiburg im Br., 1910), p. 78. St. Louis de Montfort (d. 1716) popularized this
practice in France. On the history of the association of the Creed with recitation of the rosary, cf. Thurston,
The Rosary, in The Month, Vol. 96, 1900/II, p. 522, with note 2, and pp. 632-633; S. Beissel, Geschichte der
Verehrung Marias in Deutschland während des Mittelalters (Freiburg im Br., 1909), p. 518.

305

Cf. A. Ellis, S.J., Our Lady’s Rosary, in Review for Religious, Vol. 5, 1946, p. 328.

306

Cf. Beissel, Gesch. d. Verehrung Marias im 16. und 17. Jhdt., p. 78; E. Campana, Maria nel culto cattolico,
ed. 2, edited by G. Roschini, Vol. 1 (Torino, 1946), p. 518; L. Andrianopoli, Il Rosario, in Enciclopedia
Mariana, ed. R. Spiazzi, p. 408.

307

Cf. The Rosary: The Crown of Mary, pp. 36-37; Proctor, op. cit., pp. 240-241; Shaw, op. cit., pp. 107-108.
A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, p. 397, begins the rosary in this manner, but then goes
on to the usual prelude of Apostles’ Creed, etc.

308

Cf. Beissel, Gesch. d. Verehrung Marias im 16. und 17. Jhdt., p. 79. For the puzzlement often caused by
these three Hail Marys, and for various views and practices in their regard, cf. T. Henry, in The Homiletic and
Pastoral Review, Vol. 36, Sept., 1936, pp. 1244-1247; Vol. 38, Oct., 1937, pp. 10-14; Vol. 39, Oct. 1938, pp. 3-7.

309

Cf. Thurston, art. cit., pp. 633, 635. Perhaps this practice of contemplating Mary in relation to the three
Divine Persons has its roots in the “Three Hail Marys Devotion” inaugurated by St. Mechthilde, around 1270.
On this devotion, cf. P. Régamey, O.P., Les plus beaux textes sur la Vierge Marie, nouvelle éd. (Paris, 1946),
pp. 164-165; C. Chamberlain, Three Hail Mary Devotion, in Marian Helpers Bulletin, Oct.-Dec., 1959, p. 8.

310

See, e.g., A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, p. 397; G. Denis, The Reign of Jesus
through Mary, pp. 151-153. St. Louis de Montfort recited the one Our Father in honor of the unity of the
Divine Essence, the three Hail Marys to honor the Trinity of Persons, and to ask a lively faith, a firm hope, and
an ardent charity; cf. his The Secret of the Rosary, p. 172, together with Denis, op. cit., p. 266.

311

See, e.g., the new Katholischer Katechismus der Bistümer Deutschlands (Freiburg im Br., 1956), pp. 280-281. Gourdel, art. cit., pp. 674-675; Beissel, Gesch. d. Verehrung Marias im 16. und 17. Jhdt., p. 15; Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, nn. 899, 904. France, too, has known this practice; J. Bouvier, Traité dogmatique et
pratique des Indulgences, ed. 10 (Paris, 1855), p. 145, taught it as a matter of course, and issues of L’Ami du
Clergé early in this century still refer to it. The insertions were recommended to American Catholics by J.
Heaney, O.P., A Short Treatise on the Rosary (New York, 1863), pp. 23-24, were incorporated in the Holy
Trinity Manual (Boston, 1923), p. 17, and have found advocates in F. Weiser, S.J., Hail Mary and Mystery
in the Rosary Prayer, in Worship, Vol. 32, Jan., 1959, pp. 101-104, and C. Callan, O.P., J. McConnell, M.M.,
Spiritual Riches of the Rosary (New York, 1958), according to the review by T. Sparks, O.P., Cross and Crown,
Vol. 10, 1958, p. 367, who frowns on the proposed innovation.

312

Cf. The Secret of the Rosary, p. 179. The method was featured in an English Rosary booklet, published
around 1750, which added after “Jesus” in, for example, the sorrowful mysteries: “agonizing in the garden,”
“whipped at a post,” “crowned with thorns,” “portering the Cross,” “crucified to death”; cf. Thurston, in The
Month, Vol. 97, 1901/I, p. 217.

313

Cf. D. Attwater, A Dictionary of Mary, s.v. Hail Mary, and s.v. Rosary. For some other types of insertions
and additions to the Hail Marys of the rosary, among Latin rite Catholics, cf. Schütz, op. cit., pp. 19, 239, 240-241; Beissel, Gesch. d. Verehrung Marias in Deutschland während des Mittelalters, p. 524.

314

The custom of adding a Glory be to the Father to each decade — inspired perhaps by a desire to assimilate
the recitation of the rosary to that of the Divine Office, whose psalms each end with the doxology — first
appears in the 17th century, was still somewhat unusual in the France of St. Louis de Montfort, who helped
popularize it, and is not even mentioned in several 18th and early 19th century books on the rosary; cf.
Thurston, The Rosary, in The Month, Vol. 96, 1900/II, pp. 636-637; Beissel, Gesch. d. Verehrung Marias im
16. und 17. Jhdt., p. 78; Shaw, op. cit., pp. 103-108, 114.

315

Cf. Larroca, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 116; Leather, op. cit., p. 30.

316

Cf. Campana, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 518. According to W. Barry, The Sacramentals (Cincinnati, 1858), p. 155,
in this country a century ago the Glory be to the Father was said before each decade. Doubtless this is a
survival of the ancient and once widespread custom of concluding the Our Father with a doxology. In contrast
with Barry, another work published around the same time, that of J. Heaney, pp. 21, 26, puts the doxology at
the end of the decade.

317

Cf. Campana, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 518; Beissel, Gesch. d. Verehrung Marias im 16. und 17. Jhdt., p. 78. As to
private recitation, we may note that Pope Pius IX used to say the Glory be to the Father, or, when praying the
rosary for the dead, “Eternal rest,” etc.; cf. The Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Vol. 39, Feb., 1939, pp. 512-513.

318

Cf. C. Barthas and G. Da Fonseca. S.J., Our Lady of Light (Milwaukee, 1947), p. 32, with note 2; W. Walsh,
Our Lady of Fatima (New York, 1948), p. 225; there are other versions of Mary’s words — some inaccurate,
as that in The Rosarian’s Handbook (New York, 1953), pp. 75, 132. For other ejaculations, see F. Mutch,
Indulgence Aid (pamphlet, Our Sunday Visitor Press, 1947), p. 22, and Campana, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 518.
Sometimes the Glory be to the Father at the end of the decade is followed by prayers to the Blessed Mother,
such as those in A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, pp. 398-406.

319

Cf. Leather, op. cit., pp. 31-32. The Salve Regina, dear to the Order of Preachers from the beginning (cf.
Duval, art. cit., p. 745; Bonniwell, op. cit., pp. 148-154, 356-357), came to be linked with recitation of the
rosary through the Dominican-directed Rosary confraternities, whose custom it was to sing the anthem on
Saturdays and feasts of Our Lady. We find Lamsheim declaring, in 1495, that it is an optional conclusion of
the rosary; cf. Thurston, The Rosary, in The Month, Vol. 96, 1900/II, pp. 636-637. On the singing of the litany
of the Blessed Virgin by early Rosary confraternities, cf. Bonniwell, op. cit., p. 312, note 9.

320

Cf. Proctor, op. cit., pp. 240-248. The Salve Regina, etc., follow the introductory versicles and responses
referred to supra, footnote 51, and the choral recitation of the rosary is modeled after that of the Little Office
of the Blessed Virgin. For descriptions of this attractive service (which has come to compensate for dwindling
opportunities to recite the Little Office — cf. Duval, art. cit., p. 744, note 22), see Thurston, art. cit., p. 637;
Shaw, op. cit., pp. 107-108.

321

Cf. Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 901; Larroca, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 416; and, with regard to mention of
the mystery in the course of the Hail Mary, cf. Decr. auth., n. 273, ad 4m, quoted above in footnote 40. Recall
from footnote 13 that those wishing to gain Bridgettine indulgences must add the Apostles’ Creed after each
decade. J. Heaney, op. cit., p. 25, erred in making the doxology a prescribed part of the decades of the rosary.

322

S. Ap. Penit., Nov. 26, 1934, in A.A.S., Vol. 26, 1934, p. 643; cf. T. Bouscaren, S.J., Canon Law Digest, Vol.
2 (Milwaukee, 1943), p. 236. This applies also to the “Fátima ejaculation”; cf. C. Parres, C.M., in The Homiletic
and Pastoral Review, Vol. 58, May, 1958, p. 809; G. Montague, in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Vol. 85,
1956, pp. 284-285. The aforesaid decree also removed any uncertainty which, despite a series of earlier
responses from the Holy See, may have remained as to the legitimacy of mentioning the mystery in the course
of the Hail Mary; cf. De Angelis, op. cit., nn. 91, 268; T. Sparks, O.P., in Cross and Crown, Vol. 10, 1958, p.
367. The practice of the Ruthenian, Byzantine-Slavic, and other Eastern rites was endorsed by decrees of the
S. Ap. Penit., Apr. 29, 1930, and Jan. 31, 1931, and of the S. Congregation for the Oriental Church, Apr. 22,
1944; A.A.S., Vol. 22, 1930, p. 292; Vol. 23, 1931, p. 88; Vol. 36, 1944, p. 245; cf. Bouscaren, Canon Law
Digest, Vol. 1 (1934), pp. 456, 457, and Vol. 3 (1954), pp. 386-387.

323

Cf. J. Donovan, C.M., in The Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Vol. 51, June, 1951, pp. 852-853.

324

Cf. supra, footnotes 37 and 38.

325

Cf. Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 1259, 1; G. Montague, in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Vol. 85, 1956, pp.
285-286.

326

Cf. S. C. Indulg., Feb. 29, 1820, in Decr. auth., n. 249, ad 4m; Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 934, 3.: “To gain
the indulgences it is sufficient to recite the prayer alternately with a companion.” The canon adds: “or to follow
it in one’s mind while it is being recited by another,” but this general legislation, permitting a mental following
of vocal prayers recited by others, would seem applicable to the rosary only if some provision be made for
meditation on the mysteries, e.g., by meditating before or after the vocal prayers. Note that, according to a
decree of the S. C. Indulg., Nov. 13, 1893 (A.S.S., Vol. 26, 1893-1894, pp. 310-311), those who are engaged in
exterior occupations which do not prevent interior recollection, e.g., arranging the altar, folding vestments,
etc., can validly take part in the recitation of the rosary in common; cf. De Angelis, op. cit., n. 266, c; Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 903; G. Montague, in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Vol. 71, 1949, p. 78.

327

Cf. S. Ap. Penit., Oct. 8, 1958, in A.A.S., Vol. 50, 1958, p. 973.

328

See the three decrees for these rites cited in footnote 66; the Holy See warns however, against change in the
public recitation of the rosary (S. C. for the Oriental Church, Apr. 22, 1944, ad 3m).

329

On the archaeology of the rosary beads, see H. Thurston, The Rosary, in The Month, Vol. 96, 1900/II, pp.
403-418; 513-527; 620-637; Vol. 97, 1901/I, pp. 383-404; idem, The so-called Bridgettine Rosary, in The Month,
Vol. 100, 1902/II, pp. 189-203; idem, The Rosary in the Western Church, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol.
13, pp. 184-187; idem, Chapelet, in D.A.C.L., Vol. 3, Part 1 (Paris, reprint 1948), col. 399-406; T. Esser, O.P.,
Zur Archäologie der Pater-noster-Schnur, in Compte rendu du quatrième congrès scientifique international
des Catholiques tenu à Fribourg (Suisse) du 16 au 20 août 1897, première section: Sciences religieuses
(Fribourg, 1898), pp. 329-381; L. Gougaud, O.S.B., Chapelet, in Dictionnaire de spiritualité, ascetique et
mystique, ed. M. Viller, S.J., etc., fasc. 8 (Paris, 1938) col. 478-479; J. Volz, Beads, Use of, at Prayers, in The
Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, pp. 361-362; J. Beissel, Gesch. d. Verehrung Marias im Deutschland während
d. Mittelalters, pp. 238-241, 426, 549-552; idem, Gesch. d. Verehrung Marias im 16. u. 17. Jhdt., pp. 36, 39,
42, 44, 45, 72, 73, 91, 95, 98; T. Bridgett, Our Lady’s Dowry (London, 1875), pp. 201-215.

330

On the psychological advantages of using rosary-beads, cf. M. Ward, The Splendor of the Rosary, pp. 8-9,
12-13; G. Vann, art. cit., p. 493; F. Willam, op. cit., pp. 182-183.

331

Thurston, The Rosary, in The Month, Vol. 96, 1900/II, pp. 633-635, believes these three Hail Mary beads
of the pendant are a remnant from the Bridgettine chaplet which added three beads after the six decades in
order to bring the number up to 63, the supposed number of years of Our Lady’s life. At one time, the theory
runs, people used this six decade chaplet with added pendant for both the Bridgettine crown and the rosary.
When the latter’s beads came to be fixed at five decades, the pendant was retained and the prayers of the
pendant came to be said at the beginning, for the intentions spoken of in our earlier discussion of these three
Hail Marys.

332

Cf. De Angelis, op. cit., nn. 263-266; Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, nn. 902-903 and Vol. 2, p. 162; R.
Addazi, art. cit., pp. 194-195; Larroca, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 77, and Vol. 2, Part 3, pp. 592-604. The official
Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, praenotanda, 1, and n. 395, note 2, makes it perfectly clear that, the two
exceptions aside, the use of rosary beads is not required for gaining the general Rosary indulgences granted
for recitation of the rosary.

333

Cf. S. C. Indulg., Apr. 13, 1726, in J. Schneider, S.J., Rescripta authentica Sacrae Congregationis
Indulgentiis Sacrisque Reliquiis praepositae (Ratisbonae, 1885), n. 51; De Angelis, ubi supra; Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, nn. 902- 903. The first known mention of a blessing of rosaries occurs in 1519; cf.
Larroca, op. cit., Vol. 2, Part 3, pp. 592-604. One exception aside (cf. Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 448,
note 3), the Dominican blessing can be given only to beads of five, ten, or fifteen decades; cf. Pope Leo XIII,
Apost. Const. Ubi primum, Oct. 2, 1898, in A.S.S., Vol. 31, p. 261. Moreover, according to various decisions
of the Holy See, to be eligible for this indulgenced blessing the beads must be made of durable material;
excluded are rosary rings, rosary bracelets, and similar innovations; cf. De Angelis, op. cit., n. 266, b.

334

That normally the beads should be held and even passed through the fingers is implicit in the decree of the
S. C. Indulg., Apr. 13, 1726 (in Schneider, op. cit., n. 51), is presupposed by concessions of the Holy See to be
mentioned in footnotes 79, 80, 81, and is expressly stated in the 1898 Raccolta (cf. supra, footnote 30), p. 350,
which is still in force so far as the present matter is concerned; cf. Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 903; De
Angelis, op. cit., n. 266, c; F. Cappello, S.J., Tractatus Canonico-Moralis De Sacramentis, Vol. 2: De
Poenitentia, ed. 2 (Taurini-Romae, 1944), n. 671.

335

S. C. Indulg., Jan. 22, 1858, in Decr. auth., n. 384. The same decree makes it clear that the person having
the rosary does not have to be the leader of the recitation.

336

S. C. Indulg., Nov. 13, 1893, in A.S.S., Vol. 26, 1893-1894, pp. 310-311; cf. supra, footnote 70.

337

Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary, Nov. 9, 1933, in A.A.S., Vol. 25, 1933, p. 502; cf. De Angelis, op. cit., n. 266,
c; G. Montague, in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Vol. 67, 1946, p. 268. Obviously, religious who wear
rosaries on their cinctures satisfy this condition of having the beads on their person.

338

Since the concession of Pope Benedict XV (S. Apost. Penitentiary, Oct. 22, 1917), mutilated persons unable
to perform some bodily act that is prescribed, along with the recital of prayers, for gaining an indulgence, can
gain the latter without the act, provided they recite the prayers; A.A.S., Vol. 9, 1917, p. 539.

339

An object can be enriched with more than one indulgence on various titles; cf. Codex Iuris Canonici, can.
933. Contrary to the assertion in Larroca, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 95, which has misled many (e.g., F. Mutch, The
Dominican and Brigittine Indulgences, in The Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Vol. 43, May, 1943, pp. 741-742, who later retracted, ibid., July, 1943, p. 938), the indulgenced Dominican blessing does not impart at the
same time the Bridgettine indulgences. For light on this point, cf. Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 447, note
3; see also, in Larroca himself, Vol. 2, Part 3, p. 798, note 1, a consultor’s votum regarding the April 13, 1726,
decree of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences.

340

De Angelis, op. cit., n. 227, b, and L. Fanfani, O.P., Manuale theorico-practicum theologiae moralis, Vol.
4 (Romae, 1951), p. 989, assert that one must tell the beads; Cappello, op. cit., Vol. 2: De Poenitentia, n. 685,
is content to say the beads must be held. That for the Crosier indulgences normally the beads must at least
be held is certain, e.g., from the formula giving the faculty of imparting these indulgences (De Angelis, op. cit.,
p. 473; cf. n. 269). As to the Brigettine indulgences, Pope Leo X, Ex Clementis, July 10, 1515, granted them to
those “qui per et super Rosaria seu Coronas S. Birgittae devote oraverint” (cf. Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol.
1, n. 846); that normally the beads must be held and even passed through the fingers seems implicit in the
decree of the S. C. Indulg., May 29, 1841 (Decr. auth., n. 291, ad 8m).

341

Cf. supra, footnote 82.

342

This seems to be Cappello’s view, op. cit., Vol. 2, n. 685, 2, coll. n. 671, 2. De Angelis, op. cit., n. 248, and
Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 585-586 (“Nachtrag” to n. 884), invoke the Codex Iuris Canonici, can.
934, 3, for the Bridgettine indulgences, while G. Montague, in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Vol. 71, 1949,
p. 78, invokes the same canon also for the Crosier indulgences. See also Montague, ibid., Vol. 67, 1946, pp.
267-268.

343

Although the S. Apost. Penitentiary’s decree of Nov. 9, 1933 (A.A.S., Vol. 25, 1933, p. 502) spoke expressly
only of the “indulgences of the Rosary” (and of the Way of the Cross), G. Montague, ibid., Vol. 67, p. 268, and
Vol. 71, pp. 78-79, judges it to apply also to the Bridgettine and the Crosier indulgences. Similarly, Cappello,
op. cit., Vol. 2, n. 671, 2; also F. Hecht, P.S.M., in Periodica, Vol. 27, 1938, p. 251, explicitly as to the Crosier,
implicitly as to the Bridgettine indulgences.

344

Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 51, 1959, pp. 48-50; Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 851; De Angelis, op. cit., nn. 227,
230, 233.

345

Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 933.

346

Cf. Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, n. 395, note 2.

347

Similarly, the same recitation can gain the Apostolic and the Bridgettine indulgences, if the beads have the
Apostolic and the Bridgettine blessings; or the Apostolic and the Crosier indulgences, if the beads have the
Apostolic and the Crosier blessings. Indeed, for cumulation of Apostolic indulgences with the Dominican and
the other Rosary indulgences, or with the Bridgettine, or with the Crosier indulgences, the beads themselves
do not have to have the Apostolic blessing if the person possesses some other religious object with the latter
blessing; cf. A.A.S., Vol. 51, 1959, pp. 48-50; De Angelis, op. cit., nn. 67, e; 227, a; 232; 267, d; 272, d.

348

S. C. Indulg., June 12, 1907, in A.S.S., Vol. 40, 1907, pp. 442-443. For the correct understanding of this
concession, cf. F. Hecht, P.S.M., in Periodica, Vol. 27, 1938, p. 251.

349

Cf. De Angelis, ubi supra; Bouscaren-Ellis, op. cit., p. 402.

350

For authors (Larroca, Mutch, and others cited by him) holding the contrary view, and for the erroneous
supposition on which it is based, see supra, footnote 83.

351

See supra, footnote 91.

352

Cf. De Angelis, op. cit., n. 94; Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, n. 134, and Vol. 2, p. 163.

353

Except, of course, the indulgence granted by Pope Pius XI for reciting the rosary before the Blessed
Sacrament; cf. Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, n. 395, c.

354

Can one drive a car safely and truly meditate at the same time? It does not seem possible.

355

This is clear from Pope Pius XII, Ency. Mediator Dei, Nov. 20, 1947; A.A.S., Vol. 39, 1947, p. 560; N.C.W.C.,
Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius XII on the Sacred Liturgy (Vatican Library Translation), n. 108. Cf. W. Most,
Mary in Our Life (New York, 1954), pp. 169-170.

356

Since the foregoing was written, the Sacred Congregation of Rites, in a private reply to the Archbishop of
Liverpool, Feb. 6, 1960, has indicated that henceforth, in conformity with paragraph 12 of the Congregation’s
Decree on Sacred Music and Sacred Liturgy (Sept. 3, 1958), public recitation of the rosary during Mass is
forbidden, even in October; cf. The Clergy Review, Vol. 45, 1960, p. 306.

357

This, too, must now be revised, in accordance with the preceding footnote.

358

See, e.g., Pope Leo XIII, Ency. Fidentem piumque, Sept. 20, 1896; Pope Pius XI, Ency. Ingravescentibus
malis, Sept. 29, 1937; Pope Pius XII, Ency. Ingruentium malorum, Sept. 15, 1951; A. Tondini, ed., Le
Encicliche Mariane, ed. 2 (Roma, 1954), pp. 246-248, 424, 666; W. Doheny, J. Kelly, editors, Papal
Documents on Mary (Milwaukee, 1954), pp. 116, 186-187, 245-246. Initiated in Belgium in 1939, the Family
Rosary Crusade has spread throughout the world; Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C., has been its indefatigable
director in the U.S.A. Cf. P. Peyton, The Family Rosary Crusade, in The Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Vol.
43, May, 1943, pp. 713-717. The indulgences for family recitation of the rosary will be indicated later. For
various ways of reciting the family rosary, see The Rosarian’s Handbook (New York, 1953), pp. 94-96.

359

Cf. supra, footnote 16.

360

On Alan, and the movement launched by him, cf. A. Walz, O.P., Compendium Historiae Ordinis
Praedicatorum, ed. 2 (Romae, 1948), pp. 196-199; H. Thurston, S.J., in The Month, Vol. 96, 1900/II, pp. 620-632; Vol. 97, 1901/I, pp. 286-304; Vol. 100, 1902/II, pp. 281-299; S. Beissel, S.J., Geschichte der Verehrung
Marias in Deutschland während des Mittelalters (Freiburg im Br., 1909), pp. 535-549; A. Duval, O.P., La
dévotion mariale dans l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 2 (Paris, 1952),
pp. 768-781. For the later history of the Rosary devotion, cf. Walz, op. cit., pp. 417-420, 586-593; Beissel, op.
cit., pp. 511-567; idem, Geschichte der Verehrung Marias im 16. und 17. Jhdt. (Freiburg im Br., 1910), pp. 35-99; J. Shaw, op. cit., pp. 69-129. J. Schütz, Die Geschichte des Rosenkranzes (Paderborn, 1909), reproduces
many valuable documents bearing on the history of the devotion in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

361

For an excellent, if not altogether perfect and complete, presentation of the problems and opinions
regarding the origin of the rosary, cf. J. Shaw, op. cit.; see the appreciation of this work by R.-M. Masson, O.P.,
L’Histoire du Rosaire, in Marie, Vol. 11, March-April, 1958, pp. 463-465. Also useful, more for its information
than for its judgments, is F. Willam’s work, The Rosary: Its History and Meaning (New York, 1953).

362

The trustworthiness of these editions has been questioned by many, e.g., A. Duval, art. cit., p. 768, note
166; on the other hand, H. Thurston, in The Month, Vol. 97, 1901/I, pp. 288-292, considers them substantially
reliable. None of Alan’s writings and discourses seems to have been printed during his lifetime, and little of
his has survived in manuscript.

363

For Alan’s version of rosary origins, see Thurston and Duval, cited above in footnote 104. Of Alan’s claim
to rely on a tradition of the Dominican Order we shall speak later. His appeals to special revelations and
visions do not deserve to be taken seriously; cf., e.g., A. Duval, O.P., art. Alain de la Roche (Bienheureux), in
Catholicisme, hier, aujourd’hui, demain, ed. G. Jacquemet, fasc. 1 (Paris, 1947), col. 259-260. Dominican
historians deny that St. Dominic’s companions numbered a John de Monte or a Thomas de Templo; for
speculations on the identity of these “authorities” of Alan, cf. Y. Gourdel, O.Cart., Le culte de la Très Sainte
Vierge dans l’Ordre des Chartreux, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2, pp. 667-669, and Duval’s article in the
same volume, p. 771, note 181. The Dominican Breviary accords Alan the title of “Blessed,” but he has never
been beatified by the Church.

364

Cf. H. Thurston in The Month, Vol. 97, 1901/I, pp. 67-69, 302-303; Vol. 144, 1924/II, pp. 331-335.

365

Cf. ibid., Vol. 96, 1900/II, p. 404.

366

For example, the fourth lesson of Matins for the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary (Oct. 7), after mentioning
St. Dominic’s prayer to the Blessed Mother for assistance, states that he was “advised” (cum monitus esset)
to preach the rosary. According to Pope Pius XI, Ency. Ingravescentibus malis, Sept. 29, 1937, the practice
of the rosary was “admirably diffused by St. Dominic, not without the heavenly suggestion and inspiration of
the Virgin Mother of God” (quem S. Dominicus mirabiliter provexit, non sine Deiparae Virginis instinctu
supernoque admonitu); Doheny-Kelly, Papal Documents on Mary (Milwaukee, 1954), p. 183; A.A.S., Vol. 29,
1937, p. 376.

367

Cf. Cuyper’s discussion of the origins of the rosary in Acta Sanctorum, Aug., Vol. 1, pp. 422-437.

368

Most of Thurston’s many articles bearing on the origin of the rosary were published in The Month, as
follows: Vol. 96, 1900/II, pp. 403-418, 513-527, 620-637; Vol. 97, 1901/I, pp. 67-79, 172-188, 217-218, 286-304, 383-404; Vol. 98, 1901/II, pp. 482-499; Vol. 100, 1902/II, pp. 189-203, 281-299; Vol. 102, 1903/II, pp.
95-97; Vol. 111, 1908/I, pp. 518-529, 610-623; Vol. 121, 1913/I, pp. 162-176, 379-388; Vol. 127, 1916/I, pp. 276-278, 441-452, 546-559; Vol. 139, 1922/I, pp. 65-68, 346-356; Vol. 144, 1924/II, pp. 330-342. For a summary
of Thurston’s views, see his articles Rosary, The, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 13, pp. 184-187; Chapelet,
in D.A.C.L., Vol. 3, col. 399-406.

369

Y. Gourdel, art. cit., in Maria, Vol. 2, pp. 652-657, provides valuable information on Henry Egher and his
insertion of the fifteen Our Fathers into the Psalter of Mary, which insertion is said to have been prompted
by a vision of the Blessed Mother between 1365 and 1367.

370

On Dominic of Treves one must again consult Y. Gourdel, art. cit., pp. 657-667. The first Hail Mary with
its clausula or addition read: “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus Christ, whom thou didst conceive by the Holy Spirit, through the
message of the angel. Amen.” Other examples of Dominic’s clausulae may be seen in Shaw, op. cit., p. 43, and
Willam, op. cit., p. 37.

371

Alan spoke of “articles’’ (articuli) rather than of “mysteries.” Thurston, in The Month, Vol. 96, 1900/II, pp.
629-630, says that the first to use the latter term in connection with the rosary may have been Alberto da
Castello, O.P., in his Rosario della gloriosa Vergine of 1521 or 1522. But T. Esser, O.P., in an article published
in 1905 and quoted at length by Schütz, noted that in 1481 the famous printing press at the Dominican
monastery of St. Jacopo di Ripoli, in Florence, printed a “Carta dei Misteri” which seems to have been a
pictorial representation of various rosary-mysteries (cf. Schütz, op. cit., pp. 95-97). Indeed, the term may have
been used much earlier, in the Constitutions of the Beguines of Ghent which will be discussed below.

372

Thurston’s findings, and the similar but independent conclusions of H. Holzapfel, O.F.M., St. Dominikus
und der Rosenkranz (München, 1903), were heartily endorsed, for example, by L. Gougaud, O.S.B., Les
dernières investigations sur les origines du Rosaire, in La vie et les arts liturgiques, Vol. 8, 1921-1922, pp.
538-548; cf. idem, La question des origines du Rosaire mise au point, ibid., Vol. 10, 1923-1924, pp. 402-411.

373

Among the historians of the rosary who differ from Thurston either substantially, or on important points
of detail, we may mention: F. Willam, op. cit., reviewed approvingly by H. Lechner, C.PP.S., The Rosary:
Rooted in the Liturgy, in Worship, Vol. 27, May, 1953, pp. 307-311; M. Gorce, Le Rosaire et ses antécédents
historiques (Paris, 1931); idem, art. Rosaire, in DTC, Vol. 13, col. 2902-2911; M. Mahé, S.M., Aux sources de
notre Rosaire, in Supplément de la Vie spirituelle, Vol. 4, Feb., 1951, pp. 100-120; idem, Aux sources de notre
Rosaire, in Cahiers Marials, Vol. 1, Sept.-Oct., 1957, pp. 303-314 and Nov.-Dec., 1957, pp. 369-378; C.
Cecchelli, Mater Christi, Vol. 4 (Roma, 1954), pp. 391-401; Y. Gourdel, art. cit., in Maria, Vol. 2, pp. 652-675,
and, in the same volume, A. Duval, art. cit., pp. 768-781.

374

Cf. Duval, art. cit., in Maria, Vol. 2, p. 781; R. Masson, O.P., art. cit., in Marie, Vol. 11, Mar.-Apr., 1958, p.
464.

375

Thurston, in The Month, Vol. 97, 1901/I, p. 298: “Never once, so far as I am aware, in Alan’s numerous
references to St. Dominic and the Rosary, does he profess to have acquired his knowledge from any tradition
of the Order.” In reply, D. Mézard, O.P., Étude sur les origines du Rosaire (Rhône, 1912), p. 296, quoted this
passage from Alan’s Apology: “Idem tum ex traditione accepimus, tum ex relictis scriptorum monumentis,
ut legi.” Cf. W. Most, Mary in Our Life (New York, 1954), p. 282.

376

Cf. Cecchelli, op. cit., Vol. 4, p. 396.

377

Cf. Thurston, in The Month, Vol. 96, 1900/II, pp. 514-515; Vol. 97, 1901/I, pp. 183-185, 188.

378

Cf. M. Mahé, S.M., Aux sources de notre Rosaire, in Cahiers Marials, Vol. 1, 1957, p. 304; see also M.
Quinlan, S.J., The Rosary in the Middle Ages — II, in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Vol. 72, Aug., 1949, pp.
129-130.

379

Cf. M. Gorce, Le Rosaire et ses antécédents historiques (Paris, 1931), pp. 51, 53, 61, 63-65; idem, art.
Rosaire, in D.T.C., Vol. 13, col. 2903, 2904, 2906, 2907; P. Régamey, O.P., Les plus beaux textes sur la Vierge
Marie, nouvelle édition (Paris, 1946), pp. 157-158; Most, op. cit., p. 283. Duval, art. cit., in Maria, Vol. 2, p.
772, note 183, and p. 782, questions Gorce’s interpretation of the Rosarius. So far as the present writer recalls,
Thurston did not discuss the document.

380

Thurston did not, if memory serves, mention this woodcut. Esser’s description of it, published in 1905, is
reproduced in Schütz, op. cit., pp. 104-107; see also the detailed description in the unsigned article Rosario,
in Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo-Americana, ed. Espasa, Vol. 52 (Bilbao, 1926), p. 357.

381

See the art. Rosario, in Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada, Vol. 52, p. 352.

382

Cf., e.g., the art. Rosario, ibid., p. 350. Shaw, op. cit., pp. 38-39, is in sympathy with this view. N. Pérez,
S.J., Piété mariale du peuple espagnol, in Maria, Vol. 4 (Paris, 1956), p. 608, holds that the rosary, at least
in substance, and also the diffusion of the Hail Mary are due to St. Dominic.

383

Thus A. Mortier, O.P., Histoire des Maîtres généraux de l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1903),
pp. 15-16; Thurston quotes the main passage, in The Month, Vol. 144, 1924/II, p. 336. Similarly, Schütz, op.
cit., p. xix; R. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., La teologia del Rosario, in Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 9 (Romae, 1953),
pp. 179-184; idem, The Mother of the Saviour (Dublin, 1948), pp. 296-297; cf. Shaw, op. cit., pp. 137-138. To
recognize the affinity of this alleged practice of St. Dominic with our rosary devotion, it is enough to recall that
essentially the same thing is often done today, when in group recitation a leader reads a meditation aloud to
the rest before or after the common praying of the decade.

384

See the documents cited supra, footnotes 15 and 16.

385

Cf. Willam, op. cit., p. 39.

386

Cf. ibid.., pp. 46-48.

387

On the version of rosary origins given in the Fourth Lesson of Matins for the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary,
see Beissel, Gesch. d. Verehrung Marias in Deutschland während des Mittelalters, p. 237.

388

Thurston hesitated to admit even that the Hail Mary had any part at all in St. Dominic’s devotional life.
This reluctance is hard to reconcile with the scholar’s thesis that the prayer was already widely popular by
Dominic’s time.

389

These pages have been able to notice but a small fraction of the vast literature on the history of the rosary.
For other important books and articles, see the bibliographies in Shaw, op. cit., pp. 167-170; the art. Rosario
in the Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada, Vol. 52, pp. 358-359; G. Roschini, O.S.M., Mariologia, Vol. 2, Part
3 (Romae, 1948), p. 105; idem, La Madonna secondo la fede e la teologia, Vol. 4 (Roma, 1954), pp. 313-314.

390

Ency. Mediator Dei, Nov. 20, 1947; N.C.W.C. (Vatican Library Translation), n. 174.

391

On the rosary and the “Roman Question,” cf. Orate Fratres, Vol. 4, May 18, 1930, pp. 327-329.

392

Of the voluminous literature on the excellence of the rosary it must suffice to mention the following: W.
Lawler, O.P., ed., The Rosary of Mary: Translation of the Encyclical and Apostolic Letters of Pope Leo XIII
(Paterson, 1944); the Encyclicals Ingravescentibus malis, of Pius XI (Sept. 29, 1937), and Ingruentium
malorum, of Pius XII (Sept. 15, 1951), in W. Doheny, J. Kelly, edd., Papal Documents on Mary (Milwaukee,
1954), pp. 180-187, 242-248; St. Louis Mary de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary (Bay Shore, N. Y., 1954);
C. Callan, O.P., J. McConnell, M.M., Spiritual Riches of the Rosary (New York, 1958); M. Ward, The Splendor
of the Rosary (New York, 1945); F. Willam, op. cit.; R. Guardini, The Rosary of Our Lady (New York, 1955);
M. Tremeau, O.P., Le Rosaire. Sa richesse doctrinale et spirituelle, in L’Ami du Clergé, Vol. 67, Sept. 26, 1957,
pp. 561-573.

393

Cf. Leo XIII, Encyclicals Octobri mense (Sept. 22, 1891), Magnae Dei Matris (Sept. 8, 1892), Iucunda
semper (Sept. 8, 1894), and Apostolic Letter Parta humano generi (Sept. 8, 1901), in Lawler, op. cit., pp. 62,
79-80, 116, 119, 193-194; Pius XI, Ingravescentibus malis, in Doheny-Kelly, op. cit., pp. 182-183.

394

Cf. Leo XIII, Encyclicals Iucunda semper and Augustissimae Virginis Mariae (Sept. 12, 1897), in Lawler,
op. cit., pp. 116-117, 165-166.

395

Cf. Leo XIII, Ency. Fidentem piumque (Sept. 20, 1896), in Lawler, op. cit., pp. 147-148.

396

Cf. the fourth lesson of Matins, Feast of the Most Holy Rosary, Oct. 7, and the documents cited supra,
footnote 28; Pius V, Consueverunt Romani Pontifices, quoted supra, footnote 16; also, the short form of the
Dominican blessing of rosary-heads (Rituale Romanum), and the Collect and Secret of the Mass for the Feast
of the Most Holy Rosary. See R. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Mother of the Saviour (Dublin, 1948), pp. 292-293.

397

Mediator Dei; N.C.W.C. (Vatican Library Translation), n. 151.

398

Ibid., n. 169.

399

Octobri mense, in Lawler, op. cit., p. 61.

400

Pius XI, Ingravescentibus malis, in Doheny-Kelly, op. cit., p. 182.

401

Cf. Mediator Dei, N.C.W.C. (Vatican Library Translation) nn. 163, 165.

402

Leo XIII, Iucunda semper, in Lawler, op. cit., p. 120.

403

Leo XIII, Magnae Dei Matris, in Lawler, op. cit., pp. 83-84. The rosary, then, is easy for all, even the
untutored; Leo XIII, Iucunda semper, in Lawler, op. cit., p. 120. And hence it is well adapted to prayer in
common, a circumstance heightening its efficacy, since prayer derives its chief efficacy from perseverance (as
we noted earlier), and from the union of many for one end; Leo XIII, Fidentem piumque and Augustissimae
Virginis Mariae, in Lawler, op. cit., pp. 147-148, 163-164.

404

Pope John XXIII, Ency. Grata recordatio, Sept. 26, 1959.

405

Leo XIII, Iucunda semper, in Lawler, op. cit., pp. 120-121.

406

Cf. Leo XIII, Octobri mense and Magnae Dei Matris, in Lawler, op. cit., pp. 62, 81-84, 85. On this exercise
and increase of the theological virtues through the rosary, see also Leo XIII, Fidentem piumque, in Lawler,
op. cit., pp. 152-153; Pius XI, Ingravescentibus malis, in Doheny-Kelly, op. cit., pp. 185-186; and confer M.
Tremeau, art. cit., pp. 565-566, and B. T. d’Argenlieu, O.P., La théologie du Rosaire, in Maria, ed. H. du
Manoir, Vol. 5 (Paris, 1958), pp. 729-732. Not without reason, then, do we recite the three preliminary Hail
Marys for an increase of faith, hope, and charity.

407

Cf. Leo XIII, Magnae Dei Matris, Diuturni temporis (Sept. 5, 1898), in Lawler, op. cit., pp. 77-78, 90, 173;
Pius XI, Ingravescentibus malis, and Pius XII, Ingruentium malorum, in Doheny-Kelly, op. cit., pp. 185, 244-245.

408

On the way the Liturgical Year, in proposing the life of Christ for our meditation, “gives us examples to
imitate, points out treasures of sanctity to make our own,” cf. Mediator Dei, N.C.W.C. (Vatican Library
Translation), nn. 153-165; on the way it proposes the examples of Mary, cf. ibid., nn. 166-170.

409

Leo XIII, Magnae Dei Matris, in Lawler, op. cit., pp. 85-87.

410

Cf. L. Lercher, S.J., Institutiones Theologiae Dogmaticae, ed. 3, Vol. 3 (Oeniponte, 1942), nn. 231-234, on
“Christus Exemplar.” In particular, as to St. Thomas, who attached transcendent importance to the ethical and
moral worth of Christ as our Model, cf. G. Ermecke, Vorbildnachfolge und Beispielbefolgung in der
christlichen Sittlichkeit, in Theologie und Glaube, 1948, Heft 4, pp. 313-323.

411

Leo XIII, Magnae Dei Matris, in Lawler, op. cit., pp. 87-88; cf. pp. 88-89.

412

Mediator Dei, N.C.W.C. (Vatican Library Translation), n. 169.

413

Pope St. Pius X, Ency. Ad diem illum, Feb. 2, 1904, in Doheny-Kelly, op. cit., p. 138.

414

Cf. B. d’Argenlieu, art. cit., in Maria, Vol. 5, pp. 732-735.

415

Cf. Lercher, op. cit., Vol. 3, n. 355. Relevant here is Ermecke’s distinction, in the above-mentioned article,
between “Vorbild” or archetypal model and “Beispiel,” patterned after the “Vorbild,” and his insistence that
there is but one “Vorbild” – Christ.

416

Pius XI, Ingravescentibus malis, in Doheny-Kelly, op. cit., p. 183.

417

Cf. Leo XIII, Magnae Dei Matris, and Diuturni temporis, in Lawler, op. cit., pp. 90, 173; Pius XII,
Ingruentium malorum, in Doheny-Kelly, op. cit., pp. 245-246.

418

Cf. Leo XIII, Ency. Laetitiae sanctae (Sept. 8, 1893), in Lawler, op. cit., pp. 97-108; T. Schwertner, O.P.,
The Rosary: A Social Remedy (Milwaukee, 1934); A. Fuerst, This Rosary (Milwaukee, 1954), pp. 101-106.

419

Mediator Dei, N.C.W.C. (Vatican Library Translation), n. 165; on some of the special graces brought by the
various mysteries of Christ, cf. ibid., nn. 154-159.

420

For this teaching, cf. J. Lécuyer, C.S.Sp., La causalité efficiente des mystères du Christ selon Saint Thomas,
in Doctor Communis, Vol. 6, 1953, pp. 91-120.

421

Cf. ibid., pp. 108-109.

422

Cf. ibid., p. 109.

423

Cf. ibid., pp. 112-113.

424

Compare B. d’Argenlieu, art. cit., in Maria, Vol. 5, pp. 728-729.

425

Collect of the Mass for Feast of the Most Holy Rosary.

426

Pius XII, Apost. Exhortation Menti nostrae, Sept. 23, 1950; N.C.W.C. translation, n. 49.

427

As quoted in Willam, op. cit., p. 39. Was Alan, a doctor and professor of theology — and therefore
presumably familiar with his fellow Dominican, the great St. Thomas, led to this esteem for meditation on the
life, passion, and glory of Christ by the Angelic Doctor’s teaching, sketched above, on the ethical and moral
value of Christ as our Model, and on His mysteries as instrumental causes of our sanctification? And was St.
Thomas himself perhaps influenced by St. Dominic’s well-known devotion to and concrete preaching of the
mysteries of Christ?

428

Leo XIII, Octobri mense, in Lawler, op. cit., p. 64.

429

For the special Rosary indulgences, see The Rosary: The Crown of Mary, new and rev. ed., by A Dominican
Father (New York, 1947), pp. 128-142. Except for a few changes or additions made by the successors of Pope
Leo XIII, they are those contained in the list published by the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences on Aug. 29,
1899; cf. A.S.S., Vol. 32, pp. 228-241.

430

Unless otherwise indicated, our source for these indulgences is the official Enchiridion Indulgentiarum,
ed. 2 (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1952), nn. 395, 397, 398.

431

“Under the usual conditions” means: confession, Communion, a visit to a church or public oratory (or even
a semi-public oratory in certain cases), and prayer for the intentions of the Pope. The confession which may
be required for gaining an indulgence can be made within the eight days which precede the day to which the
indulgence is appointed; and the Communion may be received on the day before; or both conditions may be
satisfied on the day itself or within the following eight days.

432

The last-mentioned plenary indulgence was granted by Pius XII in the decree of the Sacred Apostolic
Penitentiary, Oct. 11, 1954; cf. A.A.S., Vol. 46, 1954, p. 522. The Feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the revised
universal calendar are: the Immaculate Conception, the Purification, the Apparition of Our Bl. Lady at
Lourdes, the Annunciation, the Queenship of Mary, the Visitation, Our Lady of the Snows, the Assumption,
the Immaculate Heart of the Bl. Virgin Mary, the Nativity of the Bl. Virgin Mary, the Most Holy Name of Mary,
the Seven Dolors (Sept. 15), the Bl. Virgin Mary of the Rosary, the Maternity of the Bl. Virgin Mary, and the
Presentation of the B. Virgin Mary; see the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites on the rubrics of the
Roman Breviary and Missal, July 26, 1960, in A.A.S., Vol. 52, 1960, pp. 593-740.

433

See the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, n. 395, note 2.

434

See the petitio ad obtinendam facultatem together with the formula concessionis of the faculty to impart
the Dominican blessing, in De Angelis, op. cit., pp. 471-472. Hence, strictly speaking, the Dominican
indulgences should not be equated with the Rosary indulgences. One may, perhaps, with E. Long, in The Irish
Ecclesiastical Record, Vol. 57, 1941/I, p. 86, also call “Dominican” the special Rosary indulgences, but only
in a wide sense. And only in a very wide sense may one so label all the indulgences for reciting the rosary —
insofar as their acquisition depends on recitation in the manner evolved under Dominican auspices.

435

For the full elenchus of Apostolic indulgences granted by Pope John XXIII, Nov. 22, 1958, see A.A.S., Vol.
51, 1959, pp. 48-50.

436

See De Angelis, op. cit., nn. 242-248; Beringer-Steinen, op. cit., Vol. 1, nn. 880-884 (and “Nachtrag,” pp.
585-586); cf. supra, footnote 13.

437

The feast spread rapidly in the seventeenth century. For its liturgical history, cf. Augustine M. Forcadell,
O.Carm., Commemoratio Solemnis Beatae Mariae Virginis de Monte Carmelo (Romae, 1951). The rank of
the feast has been reduced to a Commemoration by the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites concerning
the new calendar for the breviary and the Mass. Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 52, 1960, p. 706. The retention of the feast as
a Commemoration in the new calendar preserves the memory of the liturgical intent of thanksgiving for which
the feast was originally instituted, as Benedict XIV observed: “Since through the intercession of the Blessed
Virgin God worked numerous miracles in favor of those who practised this devotion, it must be conceded that
the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was not instituted without serious judgment, and celebrated in the
universal Church with proper Office and Mass.” De festis D. N. Jesu Christi et B. Mariae Virginis (Patavii,
1745), p. 479.

438

As will be noted below, the third condition may be commuted.

439

The historical documentation pertaining to the apparition of Our Lady to St. Simon Stock has been collected
and evaluated by Bartholomew F. M. Xiberta, O.Carm., De Visione Sancti Simonis Stock (Romae, 1950).

440

The implication of fifteenth-century authors that the Scapular came directly from Mary as a new piece of the
Carmelite habit is an elaboration of the fourteenth-century narrative of the apparition. The fourteenth-century
account, which simply states that Mary appeared holding the Scapular, will be provided below. As the Scapular
devotion developed, it was natural that the details of the apparition would be magnified.

441

For these details in fifteenth century Carmelite authors, cf. Xiberta, De Visione, pp. 91-93; 107-111.

442

An analysis of Bostius’ thought, based on his manuscript work, has been made by Eamon R. Carroll, O.Carm.,
Arnold Bostius and the Scapular, in The Sword, Vol. 14, 1950, pp. 342-355.

443

John Launoy wrote against the historicity of the Scapular tradition in Dissertatio Duplex (Paris [?], 1642)
and De Simonis Stockii Viso, De Sabbatinae Bullae Privilegio (Paris, 1653). For a discussion of his position,
cf. Xiberta, De Visione, pp. 31-48.

444

Our knowledge of medieval Carmelite literature has improved since the studies of Benedict Zimmerman,
O.C.D., The Origin of the Scapular, in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Series 4, Vol. 9; 1901, pp. 385-408; Vol.
15, 1904, 142-153; 206-234; 331-351; and Herbert Thurston, S.J., The Origin of the Scapular: A Criticism, in
the same periodical, Vol. 16, 1904, pp. 59-75; id., Scapulars, in The Month, Vol. 150, 1927. Xiberta, De Visione,
has collected and analyzed the documents of the medieval Scapular tradition.

445

For a discussion of the Sanctoral and its origin, cf. Xiberta, De Visione, pp. 198-211.

446

The Latin text of the Flos Carmeli is as follows: Flos Carmeli, vitis florigera, splendor caeli, Virgo puerpera
singularis, Mater mitis sed viri nescia, Carmelitis da privilegia, stella maris. The English translation is that of
Joachim Smet, O.Carm. The poem incorporates traditional medieval allusions from the Bible that were applied
to Mary.

447

We have omitted the concluding paragraph of the hagiographical notice, which simply states the death of
St. Simon Stock at the Bordeaux Carmel. For the complete text, cf. Xiberta, De Visione, p. 283.

448

In an appendix, Xiberta, De Visione, pp. 281-313, has published the principal manuscript texts of the
Sanctoral. There are noticeable in them gradual additions and changes, the most evident being a notice on the
wearing of the Scapular by the laity in the later manuscript copies of the fifteenth century.

449

Benedict Zimmerman, O.C.D., The Carmelite Scapular, in The Month, Vol. 150, 1927, pp. 323-327, dated
the earliest written account soon after 1361. Xiberta, De Visione, p. 205, dates it about the middle of the
fourteenth century, perhaps in the early decades of the fourteenth century.

450

Evidence has been discovered that the apparition to St. Simon Stock was alluded to in the principal Marian
feast of the English Province of Carmelites, the Solemn Commemoration of Holy Mary. Margaret Rickert,
reconstructing a Carmelite Missal of 1390, found fragments of the Mass for the feast on which were the words
of the Flos Carmeli. Cf. Vinculum Ordinis Carmelitarum, Vol. 3 (1952-1953), pp. 205-206.

451

The earliest account of the apparition to St. Simon Stock contains no allusion to the Scapular devotion
among the laity. The fact that the devotion did not arise until sometime after the acceptance of the apparition
within the Carmelite Order is one of the more important discoveries of recent research into the tradition of
the Scapular. Scholars in the past have sought historical evidence in the thirteenth and early fourteenth
centuries in the belief that the devotion among the laity would have been in vogue. Thus Thurston was inclined
to reject the historicity of the apparition because of the absence of evidence in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries revealing the existence of the Scapular devotion. Cf. Scapulars, in The Month, Vol. 150, 1927, p. 45.
The belief that the devotion was practiced by the laity in the thirteenth century came from the Swanyngton
fragments, published by John Cheron, O.Carm., in 1642. The fragments are now recognized as unauthentic.

452

A clear illustration is the failure of the medieval Carmelites to use the Scapular promise in connection with
their title, “Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel.” John Homeby, who defended
the title at the University of Cambridge in 1374, made no appeal to the apparition to St. Simon Stock, although
by his time it was long in writing in the Carmelite Sanctoral. Cf. Xiberta, De Visione, p. 150.

453

This point was pressed in the works of John Launoy. Cf. note 7.

454

This objection was urged by Benedict Zimmerman, O.C.D., Monumenta Historica Carmelitana (Lirinae,
1907), pp. 343-344.

455

Ibid., p. 343.

456

P. Rudolf Hendriks, O.Carm., Le succession héréditaire, in Elie le prophète, Vol. 2 (Bruges, 1956), pp. 34-75.

457

The fourteenth century account of the Scapular vision appears to be a literary production. It is a stylized,
partly poetic, narrative. The story is not told as St. Simon Stock might have told it. It is related with a greater
insight, born only with the passage of time, into the Order’s mendicant difficulties in the thirteenth century.
The Flos Carmeli was more probably not composed by St. Simon Stock, but was induced by the tradition of
the Marian apparition. The narrative would have passed through an oral stage, and perhaps an initial written
stage, before being incorporated into the Sanctoral in its fourteenth century form. Some indication of the
initial written form may exist in a fifteenth century Brussels manuscript, which describes the apparition in
these simple lines: “St Simon ... always besought the Virgin in his prayers that she would endow her Order
with a special privilege. The glorious Virgin appeared to him, holding the Scapular and saying, ‘This will be
for you and yours a privilege: he who dies in this will be saved.’ ” For the Latin text, cf. Xiberta, De Visione,
p. 311.

458

The Constitutions of 1294, 1324, and 1357 call the Scapular the habit. For the Acts of the Chapter of
Montpellier, which made an explicit identification between “habit” and “scapular,” cf. Antoine Marie de la
Présentation, O.C.D., Constitutions des Frères de Notre Dame du Mont-Carmel faites l’année 1357 (Marche,
1915), pp. 158-160. Xiberta, De Visione, p. 236, who interprets “habit” to mean “tunic” in the Acts of the
Chapter of Montpellier, should be corrected. For the Constitutions of 1294 cf. Ludovicus Saggi, O.Carm.,
Constitutiones Capituli Burdigalensis anni 1294, in Analecta Ord. Carm., Vol. 18, 1953, 152-153. For the
Constitutions of 1324 cf. Zimmerman, Monumenta, pp. 49-52.

459

The explanation of Lancelot C. Sheppard, The English Carmelites (London, 1943), pp. 13 ff., suggesting a
legendary origin for the Scapular tradition, is an oversimplification. The author’s statement that the early
lessons of the breviary for the feast of St. Simon Stock are silent on the Scapular vision is unfounded. Cf.
Xiberta, De Visione, pp. 127-130.

460

Henry M. Esteve, O.Carm., De valore spirituali devotionis S. Scapularis (Romae, 1953), p. 61.

461

Ibid., pp. 59 ff.

462

Papenbroeck, S.J., wrote a firm case against the authenticity of the Bull in his Responsio ... ad Exhibitionem
Errorum (Antwerpiae, 1696), p. 124 ff. The question was reviewed by Benedict Zimmerman, O.C.D., in The Irish
Ecclesiastical Record, Series 4, Vol. 15, 1904, pp. 331-351.

463

Elias Magennis, O.Carm., The Sabbatine Privilege of the Scapular (New York, 1923), p. 47.

464

Zimmerman, The Origin of the Scapular, in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Series 4, Vol. 15, 1904, p. 347.

465

Esteve, op. cit., p. 309.

466

Cf. C. X. J. M. Friethoff, O.P., A Complete Mariology (London, 1958), pp. 277-278. The author derives
Mary’s power to intercede for the souls in purgatory from her Queenship.

467

The Latin text may be found in Esteve, op. cit., p. 72. The word “piously” in the opening statement of the
decree does not mean “with a fond hope,” but out of proper interior dispositions. Cf. Esteve, op. cit., p. 74.

468

For a more extended discussion of the necessity of interior devotion, see Esteve, op. cit., pp. 80-99, 276-315.

469

According to the well-known definition of the Council of Trent (D.B. 805), absolute and infallible certainty
of one’s eternal salvation is not possible without a personal divine revelation. Theologians, however, admit
certain “signs” that one will be saved, among which is special devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

470

Cf. Benedict XV, Inter sodalicia, in A.A.S., Vol. 10, 1918, p. 120; Pius XI, Explorata res est in A.A.S., Vol.
15, 1923, p. 104.

471

This point was forcefully stated by Pius XII: “... How many souls even in circumstances which, humanly
speaking, were beyond hope, have owed their final conversion and their eternal salvation to the scapular which
they were wearing! How many more, thanks to it, have experienced the motherly protection of Mary in
dangers to body and soul...” Discorsi e radiomessaggi di Sua Santità Pio XII, Vol. 12 (1950-1951), p. 165. The
pope’s allusion to the miraculous tradition of the Scapular is based on fact, admitted by all authorities on the
devotion. Numerous books were written on this subject alone from the seventeenth to the nineteenth
centuries, e.g., Guardius, O.Carm., Thesaurus coelestis (Brixiae, 1611); Michael de la Fuente, O.Carm.,
Compendium historiale ... gratiarum B. V. Mariae de Monte Carmelo (Toleti, 1619); Hugust, S.M., Vertu
miraculeuse du Scapulaire (Paris, 1879).

472

The Scapular Medal entitles the wearer to all the benefits of the Scapular devotion, including the promise
of eternal salvation and the Sabbatine Privilege. Objection on theological grounds that the Scapular Medal
does not entitle the wearer to the benefit of the promise of eternal salvation is unfounded. Cf. The Decree on
the Scapular Medal in The Sword, Vol. 16, 1953, pp. 343-360; and in popular form, The Great Debate: Scapular
or Medal, in The Scapular, Vol. 16, July-August, 1957, pp. 15-20; reprinted in Vol. 17, July-August, 1958, pp. 15-20.

473

For more detailed information, cf. Magennis, The Scapular Devotion (Dublin, 1923), pp. 99-160. The Green
“Scapular” of the Immaculate Conception, approved by Pius IX in 1870, is a cloth badge rather than a
Scapular, since it consists of a single panel.

474

Apostolic Letter, Petis tu quidem, in A.A.S., Vol. 14, 1922, p. 274.

475

Apostolic Letter Neminem profecto latet, in A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, pp. 390-391. This letter marks a change
in the manner of explaining the Sabbatine Privilege. It does not refer to the release from purgatory in the older
terminology, “especially on Saturday,” but in the words “as soon as possible.” The traditional description in
terms of “Saturday” alluded to the liturgical practice of dedicating this day to Mary.

476

Ibid. For a detailed discussion of the papal encouragement of the Scapular devotion, cf. Eamon R. Carroll,
O.Carm., The Pope Speaks on the Scapular, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 11, 1956, pp. 63-71. Recent writings in
English on the Scapular include: Take This Scapular, by Carmelite Fathers and Tertiaries (Chicago, 1949);
Kilian Lynch, O.Carm., Your Brown Scapular (Westminster, Md., 1950); William G. Most, Mary in Our Life
(New York, 1954), pp. 233-240; Henry M. Esteve, O.Carm., The Brown Scapular of Carmel (Marian reprint
No. 32. University of Dayton, 1955).

477

It may be well to point out from the start that the word slave or “slavery” is not to be taken in any servile,
pejorative sense. Basing themselves upon the frequent appellation “slave of Jesus Christ” in the New
Testament (cf. Rom. 1, 1; Phil. 1, 1; Tit. 1, 1 etc.), authors have transcribed the term to devotion to Our Lady
in order to express total dependence. Although explained in somewhat different manners throughout the
centuries, the expression is, in general, synonymous with “total consecration,” “total surrender,” “total
abandonment” to the Mother of God. The precise meaning Saint Louis de Montfort gives to this term will be
seen in the second part of the text.

478

For a study of the history of “Holy Slavery,” the following authors may be consulted: Salvador Gutiérrez
Alonso, O.E.S.A., La Esclavitud Mariana en sus fundamentos teológicos y forma ascético-místico e histórica
según el Beato Montfort y según el P. Rios (Madrid, 1945), pp. 325-436; L. Aquatias, O. de M., Piedad
Mariana en la Orden de Nuestra Señora de la Merced, in Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 7 (Roma, 1952), pp. 509-582; J. Dayet, S.M.M., Notre Consécration; Le mot de la tradition, in La Revue des Prêtres de Marie Reine
des Coeurs, Vol. 26, 1939, pp. 33-44, 65-72, 97-105, 162-169, 193-198, 226-230, 257-263, 290-296, 321-329;
Vol. 27, 1940, pp. 2-6, 33-38, 65-71; Vol. 28, 1941, pp. 2-8, 33-37, 65-72, 97-104, 132-142; Vol. 29, 1942, pp.
40-52; Tomas de Echevarría, C.M.F., La Esclavitud Mariana en los autores místicos y clásicos españoles, in
Crónica del Congreso Mariano-Montfortano celebrado en Barcelona el Año 1918 (Totana, 1919), pp. 148-188;
J. B. Gomis, O.F.M., Esclavitud Mariana, Fr. Juan de los Angeles y su Cofradía de Esclavas y Esclavos, in
Verdad y Vida, Vol. 4, 1946, pp. 259-286; cf. also his Introducción to Juan de los Angeles, Cofradía y
devoción de las esclavas y esclavos de Nuestra Señora la Virgen Santísima, in Místicos Franciscanos
Españoles, Vol. 3 (Madrid, 1949), pp. 685-689, and in the same volume, his Introducción to Melchor de
Cetina, Exhortación a la devoción de la Virgen Madre de Dios, pp. 711-720; Leo Gommenginger,
Theologische und geschichtliche Anmerkungen, appended to Grignion von Montfort, Abhandlung über die
volkommene Andacht zu Maria (Freiburg, Schweiz, 1925), pp. 269-290; B. Hughes, O.F.M., The Queen’s Own,
in Priestly Studies, Vol. 20, 1952, pp. 53-58; N. Pérez, S.J., La Esclavitud de Nuestra Señora según los
antiguos ascetas españoles (Madrid, 1929); La Esclavitud de amor, perfectísima devoción a la Santísima
Virgen, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 8, 1949, pp. 397-400; G. Roschini, O.S.M., Mariologia, Tom. 2, Pars 3,
De Singulari Cultu B.V.M. (Romae, 1948), pp. 34-39; La Servitude Mariale (Nicolet, 1952); La Madonna
secondo la fede e la teologia, Vol. 4, Il Singolare Culto di Maria (Roma, 1954), pp. 95-113.

479

True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary (Bay Shore, 1958), No. 163.

480

Ibid., No. 159. Cf. Henri Boudon, Dieu seul; Le Saint Esclavage de l’admirable Mère de Dieu (Paris, 1769),
p. 14.

481

Cf. e.g., Origen, Fragmenta in Lucam, in PG 13, 1901.

482

Cf. N. Pérez, S.J., La Esclavitud de amor, perfectísima devoción a la Santísima Virgen, p. 398; J. Dayet,
S.M.M., art. cit., in Revue des Prêtres de Marie, Vol. 26, 1939, p. 69; G. Roschini, O.S.M., La Madonna
secondo la fede e la teologia, p. 96.

483

Cf. S.P.N. Ephraem Syri opera omnia quae extant, graece, syriace, latine, edita a Mobarek-Assemani, 6
vols. (Romae, 1742-1746). The texts cited are from the Opera graeca, Vol. 3, pp. 532-533, 536. Of the Greek
collection of St. Ephraem’s writings in Assemani, J. Bover declares: “graeca plura aut non genuina aut liberius
retractata” (S. Ephraem Doctoris Syri testimonia de universali B.V.M. Mediatione, in Ephemerides
Theologicae Lovanienses, Vol. 4, 1927, p. 161). Roschini himself declares: “authentiam horum locorum extra
omnem dubitationem non esse” (Mariologia, Tom. 2, Pars 3, p. 35, note 2).

484

Cf. De virginitate perpetua S. Mariae, in PL 96, 107: “quam prompte servus hujus dominae effici
concupisco”; ibid., PL 96, 108: “servus fieri appeto Genetricis.”

485

Cf. Homilia prima in nativitate B.V. Mariae, in PG 96, 679: “O Joachim et Annae filia et domina, orationem
suscipe servi peccatoris.”

486

Cf. Sermo de zona SS. Deiparae, in PG 131, 1249: “... ut qui simus servi et debitores, o optima, respice servos
tuos, respice.” This work was attributed to Euthymius Zigabenus (beginning of the twelfth century), but it is
now recognized as the work of Euthymius of Constantinople. Cf. R. Laurentin, Table rectificative des pièces
mariales inauthentiques ou discutées contenues dans les deux Patrologies de Migne, appended to Court
Traité de théologie mariale (Paris, 1953), p. 173.

487

Cf. Peter Damian, Opusculum 33, de bono suffragiorum et variis miraculis, praesertim B. Virginis, cap.
4, in PL 145, 566, where the saint relates that his brother, Marinus, “altari se beatae Dei Genetricis, velut
servile mancipium, traddit: mox se quasi servum malum coram domina sua fecit verberibus effici. ...”

488

Cf. Jotsaldus Monachus, Vita S. Odilonis, in PL 142, 916, where these words are put on the lips of St. Odilo:
“Post Deum enim a modo nihil tibi [i.e. B.M. Virgini] praepono et ultroneus in aeternum meipsum tamquam
proprium servum, tuo mancipatui trado.”

489

Cf. Oratio 52 (51), in PL 158, 954: “usque in finem servus tuus sub tua protectione custodiatur”; Oratio 51
(50), in PL 158, 951: “Pie Domine, parce servo matris tuae.”

490

Cf. In Assumptione B.V.M., Sermo IV, in PL 183, 428: “nos quidem servuli tui.”

491

Cf. In Assumptione B.V., in PL 196, 1504: “Jesu Verbum Summi Patris: Serva Servos Tuae Matris.” There
are some who claim that this text is of an even more ancient author; cf. R. Laurentin, op. cit., p. 155. For a
more detailed listing of the Fathers of the Church who use the expression “slave of the Mother of God,” cf.
Roschini, La Madonna . . . , Vol. 4, pp. 95 ff.

492

Cf. A. L. Delattre, Le culte de la Sainte Vierge en Afrique (Paris-Lille, 1907), pp. 109 ff.; Découvertes
mariales à Carthage 1907-1908, in Actas del Cuarto Congreso Mariano Internacional celebrado en Zaragoza
1908 (Madrid, 1909), pp. 502-508.

493

Four ancient inscriptions attest to this fact: one in the ancient Vatican Basilica, another in Pope John’s
private oratory and two in the church of Santa Maria Antica. Cf. H. Leclercq, art. Forum chrétien, in
Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et Liturgie, col. 2016-2017; Dayet, art. cit., Vol. 26, 1939, pp. 161-169;
Roschini, Mariologia, Tom. 2, Pars 3, pp. 36-37.

494

Nicholas IV inscribed this title in the church of Saint John Lateran, and Paul V in the church of Saint Mary
Major. Cf. Roschini, La Madonna ..., Vol. 4, p. 100, note 1.

495

Cf. Dayet, art. cit., Vol. 26, 1939, p. 101; I. Kronenburg, C.Ss.R., Maria’s Heerlijkheid in Nederland, Vol. 1
(Amsterdam, 1904), p. 96 ff.; J. Carbó, Orientación del Congreso, in Actas del Congreso Mariano-Montfortano de Barcelona (1918) (Totana, 1919), p. 98.

496

Cf. E. Watertown, Pietas mariana britannica (London, 1879), p. 20 ff.

497

Cf. Sermones ad novicios; Sermo 23, in Thomae Hermerken a Kempis opera omnia, Vol. 6 (Friburgi Br.,
1910), pp. 218-223. This chapter is found in De imitatione Mariae (Romae, 1955), pp. 47-57.

498

Cf. Gutiérrez Alonso, op. cit., p. 339; Gomis, art. cit., in Verdad y Vida, p. 271; Dayet, art. cit., Vol. 26, 1939,
p. 328. Sister Agnes entered the convent in 1575 at about the age of ten; sometime after her entrance and the
official organization of the association in 1595 the devotion of “Holy Slavery” is said to have been divinely
revealed to her.

499

Cf. Juan de los Angeles, Cofradía y devoción de las esclavas y esclavos de Nuestra Señora la Virgen
Santísima, in Místicos Franciscanos Españoles, ed. J. B. Gomis, O.F.M., Vol. 3 (Madrid, 1949), pp. 691-701.

500

Cf. Melchor de Cetina, Exhortación a la devoción de la Virgen Madre de Dios, also found in Místicos
Franciscanos Españoles, Vol. 3, pp. 721-817.

501

The text of the Papal Bull is found in Gomis, art. cit., pp. 285-286.

502

Cf. Gutiérrez Alonso, op. cit., pp. 340-341; Echevarría, art. cit., p. 162.

503

Cf. Aquatias, art. cit., p. 509 ff.; Gutiérrez Alonso, op. cit., p. 341, note 4.

504

Cf. Gomis, art. cit., p. 276 ff.; also in his Introducción to Juan de los Angeles, Cofradía y devoción ... , ed.
cit. p. 688. The Spanish translation of the Papal Bull is found in the same volume, pp. 700-701.

505

Cf. Gutiérrez Alonso, op. cit., pp. 341-344; Echevarría, art. cit., pp. 159-162; Dayet, art. cit., Vol. 27, 1940,
p. 4. It is interesting to note that Simon de Rojas was one of the censors of de la Serna’s work on the statutes
of the Seville confraternity (1614). Cf. Aquatias, art. cit., p. 517.

506

Cf. Gutiérrez Alonso, op. cit., pp. 343-344. The ultimate source for these facts is the Hierarchia Mariana
of Bartholomew de los Rios (Antverpiae, 1641). A résumé of the constitutions composed by Simon de Rojas
for his confraternity can be found in Revue des Prêtres de Marie, Vol. 27, 1940, p. 6, and in Echevarría, art.
cit., pp. 180-181.

507

The Papal Bull is found in Gutiérrez Alonso, op. cit., pp. 427-428.

508

The most famous of the writings of Bartholomew de los Rios is his Hierarchia Mariana; he is very probably
also the author of Mancipium Virginis (Coloniae, 1634), which is a translation of an earlier work, El Esclavo
de María. Cf. A. Musters, O.E.S.A., La souveraineté de la Vierge d’après les écrits mariologiques de
Barthélemy de los Rios, O.E.S.A. (Bruges, 1946), p. 30. Saint Louis de Montfort explicitly refers to the
Hierarchia Mariana (cf. True Devotion, No. 160), and alludes to the Mancipium Virginis (ibid., No. 161). Cf.
Florentino Agudelo, S.M.M., Naturaleza de la Esclavitud Mariana según el Padre Bartolomé de los Rios y
San Luis María de Montfort (Bogotá, 1958). The Constitutions and Act of Consecration composed by
Bartholomew de los Rios can be found in Gutiérrez Alonso, op. cit., pp. 437-445, and in Dayet, art. cit., Vol.
28, 1941, pp. 35-37, 65-71. They are taken from the Hierarchia Mariana, Book IV, pp. 290-294.

509

Cf. Dayet, art. cit., Vol. 28, 1941, pp. 4-6. When he became King, Wladislaus asked the Jesuits to preach this
devotion throughout Poland. Father Stanislaus Phalacius, S.J., appears to have been its principal promoter.

510

Cf. Roschini, La Madonna ... , Vol. 4, p. 110; St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion, No. 161.

511

Dayet, art. cit., Vol. 28, 1941, p. 37.

512

Cf. A. Molien, art. Bérulle, in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, col. 1547.

513

Dayet, art. cit., Vol. 29, 1942, p. 40.

514

Cf. Cardinal de Bérulle, Voeux à Jesus et à Marie, in Oeuvres complètes (Paris, 1856), col. 614-617.

515

True Devotion, Nos. 126-130.

516

For a study of the development of the devotion of “Holy Slavery” in the French School of Spirituality, and
for the differences on this point between St. Louis de Montfort and his immediate predecessors, cf. M. T.
Poupon, O.P., Le poème de la parfaite consécration à Marie (Lyon, 1947), pp. 336-374.

517

Cf. Mariologie de S. Alphonse de Liguori, Vol. 1 (Fribourg, Suisse, 1931), p. 229.

518

By a decree of the Holy Office of July 5, 1673, and by the Apostolic Brief, Pastoralis Officii, of December 15,
1675, Clement X abolished certain confraternities of the Blessed Sacrament, of the Blessed Mother, of St.
Joseph, and of the Flock of the Good Shepherd, in which “little chains” were used. Benedict XIV confirmed
the condemnation in 1758. The condemnations concerned the abuses which had crept in, and not the devotion
itself. Cf. A. Plessis, S.M.M., Commentaire du Traité de la vraie dévotion à la Sainte Vierge (Pontchateau,
1942), p. 376; P. Pourrat, La Spiritualité chrétienne, Vol. 4 (Paris, 1928), p. 152; Roschini, La Madonna ... ,
p. 112, note 1.

519

True Devotion, No. 163.

520

True Devotion, No. 118.

521

The best known of St. Louis’ writings are The True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin (Bay Shore, 1958), and
The Secret of Mary (Bay Shore, 1947). It should he noted that when the manuscript of the True Devotion was
found in 1842, it bore no title. The actual one, an obvious misnomer, since there are many forms of “true”
devotion to Our Lady, was coined by the first publishers.

Montfort’s other works which have been published in English are: The Love of the Eternal Wisdom
(Philadelphia, 1949), which summarizes St. Louis’ spirituality, insisting that devotion to Mary is but a means
to union with the Incarnate Wisdom, Jesus Christ; The Secret of the Rosary (Bay Shore, 1954); A Circular
Letter to the Friends of the Cross (Bay Shore, 1950); An Urgent Plea for Marian Apostles [De Montfort’s Prayer
asking God to send him missionaries for his Company of Mary] (Bay Shore, 1958). Some of his works have not
yet been published in English: his book of Hymns, comprising 23,418 verses (Les Oeuvres du Bx. de Montfort;
Ses Cantiques avec étude critique et notes, ed. F. Fradet, S.M.M., Pontchateau, 1929); his Letters (Lettres du
Bienheureux de Montfort, St. Laurent-sur-Sèvre, 1928); a pamphlet on preparation for death (Dispositions pour
bien mourir, St. Laurent-sur-Sèvre, 1927); the rule of the Daughters of Wisdom (Règle des Filles de la Sagesse,
Poitiers, 1818); the Rule of the Company of Mary and his allocution to the members of the Company of Mary
(Règle de la Compagnie de Marie et Allocution aux associés de la Compagnie de Marie, found in Vade
Mecum du Montfortain, Tours, 1932, pp. 23-64). Two of his personal writings have never been published: a
notebook of texts from the Fathers of the Church and theologians, especially concerning Mariology; a book
of Sermon Outlines. Both these manuscripts are in the Archives of the Generalate of the Montfort Fathers,
Rome.

522

he following is only a partial list of the works that may be consulted concerning the doctrine of St. Louis de
Montfort: J. Dayet, S.M.M., Total Consecration to Mary (Bay Shore, 1956); La Maternité Spirituelle,
fondement de la parfaite dévotion, in Revue des Prêtres de Marie, Reine des Coeurs, Vol. 21, 1934, pp. 129-151; V. Devy, S.M.M., La Royauté Universelle de Marie, Reine des Coeurs, in Nouvelle Revue Mariale, Vol.
8, 1956, pp. 18-36; H. M. Gebhard, S.M.M., Commentaire du Traité de la vraie dévotion à la Sainte Vierge,
in Revue des Prêtres de Marie, Reine des Coeurs, Vol. 9, 1922-Vol. 28, 1941; J. M. Hermans, S.M.M., Maria’s
Middelaarschap volgens de leer van de Heilige Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (Eindhoven, 1947); J. M.
Hupperts, S.M.M., Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort et sa spiritualité mariale, in Marie, Études sur la Sainte
Vierge, ed. Hubert du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 3 (Paris, 1954), pp. 251-274; A. Lhoumeau, S.M.M., La vie spirituelle
à l’école de Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (Bruges, 1954): this work will soon be published in
English; A. Plessis, S.M.M., Commentaire du Traité de la vraie dévotion à la Sainte Vierge du Bienheureux
Grignion de Montfort (Pontchateau, 1943); M. Poupon, O.P., Le Poème de la parfaite consécration à Marie
suivant Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort et les spirituels de son temps; Sources et doctrine (Lyon,
1947); À Jesus par Marie; La parfaite consécration à Marie selon Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort
(Lyon, 1948); F. Setzer, S.M.M., The Spiritual Maternity and Saint Louis Mary de Montfort, in Marian
Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, pp. 197-207; De singulari missione B.V. Mariae cultuque ei debito juxta doctrinam S.
Ludovici-M. de Montfort, in Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 8 (Romae, 1953). The entire September-October 1952
number of the review Marie (Nicolet, Canada) is dedicated to the doctrine of St. Louis, as is the Spanish review
Miriam of September-October, 1958 (Seville, Spain).

523

True Devotion, Nos. 14-15.

524

Ibid., No. 74; cf. ibid., No. 247: “They are so intimately united that one is altogether in the other, Jesus is
altogether in Mary and Mary is altogether in Jesus; or rather, she exists no more, but Jesus alone is in her, and
it were easier to separate the light from the sun than Mary from Jesus; so that we might call Our Lord, Jesus
of Mary, and Our Blessed Lady, Mary of Jesus.”

525

Ibid., No. 32; cf. Secret of Mary, No. 12; Love of Eternal Wisdom, No. 213.

526

Cf. S. Pius X, Ad diem illum, in A.S.S., Vol. 36 (1904-1905), p. 452. St. Pius X himself declared his
dependence on St. Louis in composing this encyclical. Cf. L. Locatelli, S.M.M., Pie X et Montfort, in Marie,
Vol. 6, Sept.-Oct., 1952, p. 94.

527

Love of the Eternal Wisdom, No. 104.

528

True Devotion, No. 16. Cf. J. Hermans, S.M.M., La corédemption de Marie selon la doctrine du Père de
Montfort, in Nouvelle Revue Mariale, Vol. 6, 1955, pp. 181-182.

529

Love of the Eternal Wisdom, No. 107.

530

Cantiques, p. 154, stanza 6.

531

True Devotion, No. 248.

532

Secret of the Rosary, p. 73.

533

Cf. Cantiques, p. 152, stanzas 4-5.

534

Cf. True Devotion, No. 18; Letter to the Friends of the Cross, No. 4, where Montfort calls us “the glorious
conquest of Jesus Christ crucified on Calvary in union with His Blessed Mother”; Cantiques, p. 40, stanza 2:
“You give us life, because you break our chains.”

535

Many authors have declared the immediate proximate co-operation of Our Lady in the objective redemption
to be the teaching of St. Louis. Cf. G. Roschini, O.S.M., La correndentrice degli uomini secondo il beato di
Montfort, in Regina dei Cuori, Vol. 28, 1940, p. 24; Mariologia, Tom. 2, Pars 1 (Romae, 1947), p. 333; J.
Hermans, S.M.M., La corédemption de Marie, p. 250; L. Giuliani, La cooperazione di Maria SS. alla nostra
Redenzione e S. Luigi Maria Grignion de Montfort, in Marianum, Vol. 10, 1948, pp. 31-64. J. B. Carol,
O.F.M., is a little more cautious. In his opinion, the doctrine of Mary’s immediate co-operation in the objective
Redemption is probably taught by Montfort. Cf. J. B. Carol, O.F.M., De Corredemptione Beatae Virginis
Mariae (Civitas Vaticana, 1950), pp. 348-349.

536

Cf. True Devotion, No. 74; Benedict XV, Inter sodalicia, in A.A.S., Vol. 10, 1918, p. 182; J. McMillan,
S.M.M., We Belong to Jesus and Mary, in Queen of All Hearts, Vol. 3, Nov.-Dec., 1952, pp. 3-4.

537

It would appear that St. Louis’ principal proof for the spiritual maternity is Mary’s Motherhood of the Head
of the Mystical Body; however, he also deduces it from her consent to the Incarnation, and implicitly from her
co-operation on Calvary.

538

True Devotion, No. 33. Cf. Love of the Eternal Wisdom, No. 213; Secret of Mary, No. 14. St. Louis attributes
this statement to St. Augustine. However, it appears that it cannot be said to be the statement of the Bishop
of Hippo, for it is found nowhere in his writings. St. Louis has apparently based himself upon F. Poiré, who
declared this text to be of Augustine (cf. La Triple Couronne de la Bienheureuse Vierge Mère de Dieu, Vol.
3 [Tournai, 1849], p. 385). In reality, the text appears to be an adaptation of De Sancta Virginitate (PL 40,
399), and the apocryphal, De Symbolo ad catechumenos sermo alius (PL 40, 659).

539

True Devotion, No. 201.

540

Ibid., No. 37. Cf. V. Devy, S.M.M., art. cit., p. 23.

541

Cf True Devotion, Nos. 183-212.

542

Cf. Cantiques, p. 167, stanza 14; p. 168, stanza 19.

543

Cf. Act of Consecration, in True Devotion, pp. 227-229.

544

Devy, art. cit., p. 23; cf. J. Ghidotti, S.M.M., Fundamentos dogmáticos de la verdadera devoción, in
Miriam, Vol. 10, Sept.-Oct. 1958, p. 191.

545

Cf. Act of Consecration, in True Devotion, pp. 227-229.

546

True Devotion, No. 121.

547

Ibid., No. 122.

548

Ibid., No. 123.

549

Ibid., No. 126. Cf. Joseph Cuppen, S.M.M., La consécration à la Très Sainte Vierge selon Saint Louis-Marie de
Montfort et les derniers Papes, in Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 8 (Romae, 1953), pp. 173-191; J. McMillan, S.M.M., Perfect
Renewal, in Queen of All Hearts, Vol. 5, July-August, 1954, pp. 3-4; J. Hemery, S.M.M., Dans le perspective
baptismale: consécration totale à Marie, in Cahiers Marials, Vol. 3, 1959, pp. 131-143.

550

True Devotion, No. 126.

551

Secret of Mary, No. 44.

552

True Devotion, No. 257. This fourfold formula “through, with, in, and for Mary” was not invented by St.
Louis; it is of a much more ancient origin. Nicholas of Clairvaux (✝ after 1176) used somewhat the same
expression (cf. Sermo de Annuntiatione), as did the Carmelites Arnold Bostius (✝ 1499) and the Venerable
Michael of St. Augustine (✝ 1684). However, it does not appear that any of these authors had any influence
on St. Louis. Cf. P. Boundonno, S.M.M., Le pratiche interiori della vera devozione, in Alma Socia Christi, Vol.
8, pp. 205-209. Montfort’s source for this expression appears to be the liturgy of the Mass where the formula
“per ipsum, cum ipso et in ipso” is used, and the French School of Spirituality, especially John Olier and Saint
John Eudes.

553

True Devotion, No. 259.

554

Ibid., No. 260.

555

Secret of Mary, No. 47.

556

True Devotion, No. 265. For a detailed study of these interior practices, cf. J. M. Hupperts, S.M.M., La vie
mariale d’après Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort, in Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 8, pp. 225-254.

557

True Devotion, No. 114. Although the manuscript of True Devotion was not found until 1842, the devotion
or “Holy Slavery” was continually practiced and preached by the congregations founded by St. Louis. Cf. T.
Ronsin, S.M.M., Historique du “Traité de la Vraie Dévotion,” in Marie, Vol. 6, Sept.-Oct., 1952, pp. 28-31.

558

Positio super scriptis beatificationis et canonizationis Ven. Servi Ludovici Mariae Grignon de Montfort
(Romae, 1851), p. 23.

559

Cf. Ibid. (Romae, 1853), p. 30.

560

Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 39, 1947, p. 113; the text of the address is found in Queen of All Hearts, Vol. 8, July-August,
1957, pp. 6-9.

561

Cf. note 50 above.

562

Cf. Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, preces et opera (Civitas Vaticana, 1950), No. 96. Leo XIII had granted the
indulgence for seven years.

563

Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 2, 1910, p. 185.

564

Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 5, 1913, p. 485.

565

Autograph copy of the concession is preserved at the Generalate of the Montfort Fathers, Rome.

566

Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 8, 1916, p. 172.

567

Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 37, 1945, p. 328.

568

Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 39, 1947, p. 331.

569

Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 39, 1947, pp. 410-411.

570

Ibid.; cf. also Litterae decretales, in A.A.S., Vol. 41, 1949, p. 267.

571

Compte-rendu du Congrès Marial de Fribourg, Vol. 2 (Blois, 1903), p. 538.

572

Atti del Congresso Mariano mondiale tenuto in Roma l’anno 1904 (Roma, 1905), p. 282.

573

Compte-rendu du Congrès Marial International tenu à Einsiedeln en Suisse (Lyon, 1907), pp. 214-352, 599-658, 722-749.

574

Compte-rendu du Congrès Marial International tenu à Trèves en Allemagne (Lyon, 1913), pp. 68-70.

575

Crónica del Congreso Mariano-Montfortano, celebrado en Barcelona el año 1918 (Totana, 1919), passim.

576

F. W. Faber, “Preface to the True Devotion,” found in True Devotion, p. xiii. Well known theologians like
R. Garrigou-Lagrange, C. Dillenschneider, A. H. Lépicier, A. Paquet, and many others have voiced their esteem
for the Marian doctrine of St. Louis. Cf. G. Ghidotti, S.M.M., Influence mariale de Montfort: concert des
théologiens, in Marie, Vol. 6, Sept.-Oct., 1952, pp. 62-66.

577

Spirit of Our Foundation, Vol. 1 (Dayton, Ohio, 1911), p. 598.

578

Cf. E. Neubert, S.M., Notre don de Dieu (Tours, 1954), p. 159.

579

Manuel du serviteur de Marie (Bordeaux, 1804), p. 13.

580

L’Esprit de notre fondation, Vol. 1 (Nivelles, 1910), p. 142.

581

Cf. E. Neubert, S.M., Queen of Militants (St. Meinrad, Ind., 1947).

582

St. Anselm, Orat. 52; PL 158, 959. Cf. J. S. Bruder, S.M., The Mariology of St. Anselm, of Canterbury
(Dayton, Ohio, 1939), pp. 139-140. Further literature on Chaminade and Filial Piety: J. Artadi, S.M.,
Naturaleza de la piedad filial, in Memoria del Congreso Mariano Nacional de Zaragoza (Zaragoza, 1956),
pp. 875-896; E. Baumeister, S.M., The Soul of Marian Devotion, Marian Reprint No. 12 (Dayton, Ohio, 1953);
W. J. Cole, S.M., The Spiritual Maternity of Mary according to the Writings of Father William Joseph
Chaminade. A Study of His Spiritual Doctrine (Dayton, Ohio, 1958); J. A. Elbert, S.M., Filial Piety, The Ideal
Devotion to Mary (Dayton, Ohio, 1952); Id., The Perfect Devotion, in The Marianist, Vol. 46, March, 1955,
pp. 14-15; F. Fernández, S.M., De la esclavitud a la Piedad Filial, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 10, 1950, pp. 33-60; William J. Chaminade, Petit traité de la connaissance de Marie (Paris, 1927); the same translated: Our
Knowledge of Mary (Milwaukee, 1930); F. J. Friedel, S.M., Mother of Jesus, My Mother, Meditations on Filial
Piety to Mary (Dayton, 1958); E. Neubert, S.M., My Ideal, Jesus, Son of Mary (Kirkwood, Mo., 1952); Id., La
doctrine mariale de M. Chaminade (Juvisy, 1937); J. J. Panzer, S.M., Christ’s Devotion to Mary, Marian
Reprint No. 43 (Dayton, Ohio, 1956); P. A. Resch, S.M., The Marianist Consecration, in Queen of All Hearts,
July-August, 1951, pp. 10-11; G. J. Schnepp, S.M., Filial Piety — Marian and Family, Marian Reprint No. 47
(Dayton, Ohio, 1956); T. A. Stanley, S.M., The Mystical Body of Christ according to the Writings of Father
William Joseph Chaminade (Fribourg, 1952); Id., Mary and the Mystical Body (Dayton, Ohio, 1953).

583

Pius XII, A.A.S., Vol. 37, 1945, p. 51.

584

Pius XII, A.A.S., Vol. 39, 1947, p. 543.

585

Pius XII, A.A.S., Vol. 37, 1945, p. 50.

586

St. John Eudes, Le Coeur admirable de la très Sacrée Mère de Dieu, in Oeuvres Completes, Vol. 7 (Paris,
1908), p. 234.

587

Cf. G. Geenen, O.P., Maria Koningin der Wereld (Antwerp, 1944), pp. 32-33; C. Olmi, S.M., La dévotion au
Coeur Immaculé de Marie (Paris, 1945), p. 28.

588

A number of private revelations were instrumental in furthering the devotion. Most notable were those
described by SS. Mechtilde, Gertrude the Great, and Brigid of Sweden. The A.A.S., Vol. 37, 1945, p. 50, itself
mentions the “mulieres” who were instrumental in the spread of the devotion. Cf. St. Mechtilde, Revelationes;
Liber specialis gratiae, Part 1 (Parisiis, 1877), c. 2 and 39; St. Gertrude, Revelationes; Legatus divinae pietatis
(Parisiis, 1875); St. Brigid, Revelationes (Romae, 1606), Lib. 1, c. 35, p. 56.

589

Leo XIII, Pulchrum sane, in A.S.S., Vol. 35, 1903, p. 380; Pius X, Divinus Magister, in A.A.S., Vol. 1, 1909,
p. 480; Pius XI, A.A.S., Vol. 17, 1925, pp. 222, 482.

590

Cf. G. Postius, C.M.F., Il culto del Cuore Immacolato di Maria attraverso i secoli, in Il Cuore Immacolato
di Maria (Roma, 1946), p. 31 ff.; H. Pujolrás, C.M.F., La festa liturgica del Cuore Immacolato di Maria, in
Il Cuore Immacolato di Maria (Roma, 1946), p. 107 ff.; Geenen, O.P., op. cit., pp. 55-60.

591

In seeking papal approval the causes were separated in 1765 to insure the approbation of the Feast of the
Sacred Heart.

592

Geenen, O.P., op. cit., pp. 61-78; Id., Les antécédents doctrinaux et historiques de la consécration du monde
au Coeur Immaculé de Marie, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949),
p. 825 ff.; G. Roschini, O.S.M., La consacrazione al Cuore Immacolato di Maria, in Il Cuore Immacolato di
Maria (Roma, 1946), pp. 55-59.

593

Cf. Pius XII, A.A.S., Vol. 37, 1945, p. 51. The solemn consecration of December 8, 1942, was preceded by an
earlier consecration on October 31 of the same year, but this consecration is not mentioned in the decree of
1944 establishing the universal feast. Cf. Pius XII, A.A.S., Vol. 34, 1942, p. 317 ff.

594

Cf. Pius XII, A.A.S., Vol. 37, 1945, pp. 50-51.

595

Cf. III, q. 25, a. 1; II-II, q. 82, a. 2, ad 3um.

596

CF. II-II, q. 162, a. 3 ad 4um.

597

Gregorio de Jesús Crucificado, O.C.D., Objeto del culto al Corazón de María, in Estudios Marianos, Vol.
4 (Madrid, 1945), pp. 288-291; H. Pujolrás, C.M.F., Cultus purissimi Cordis B. Mariae Virginis (Mediolani,
1943), p. 15 ff.; H. Nix, S.J., Cultus SS. Cordis Jesu cum additamento de cultu purissimi Cordis B. V. Mariae
(Friburgi, 1889), p. 54.

598

John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus thomisticus; Phil. nat., IV P, q. 2, a. 3, ed. Reiser, Vol. 3, p. 76;
Ars logica, II P, q. 21, a. 4, ed. Reiser, Vol. 1, p. 670 ff.

599

Cf. P. Parente, Oggeto e legittimità del culto del Cuore Immacolato di Maria, in Il Cuore Immacolato di
Maria (Roma, 1946), p. 17; G. Puerto, C.M.F., Objeto del culto al Corazón de María, in Estudios Marianos,
Vol. 3 (Madrid, 1944), p. 325 ff.; K. J. Healy, O.Carm., Theology of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Heart of
Mary, in Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America
(Cincinnati, 1949), p. 102 ff.

600

Parente, art. cit., p. 27; cf. T. M. Sparks, O.P., The Immaculate Heart of Mary, in Cross and Crown, Vol.
1, 1949, p. 375 ff.

601

Special consideration is due the words Immaculate Heart. They designate the heart of Mary as it actually
exists now along with its particular symbolism. Cf. T. M. Sparks, O.P., The Immaculate Conception and the
Immaculate Heart of Mary, in The Thomist, Vol. 19, 1956, p. 240 ff.

602

N. Nilles, S.J., De rationibus festorum SS. Cordium, Vol. 1 (Oeniponte, 1885), p. 340; G. Puerto, C.M.F.,
art. cit., p. 340: “In the devotion to the Immaculate Heart these notions are as two intimate realities,
compenetrated, offering a notable advantage to our spiritual life.” To be accurate, according to the mind of
the Church, the complete symbol in the devotion is the Immaculate Heart, for the Church says (cf. A.A.S., Vol.
37, 1945, p. 50): “Sub huius Cordis symbolo. ...” Immaculate here undoubtedly stresses the sanctity of the
Blessed Virgin.

603

Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 37, 1945, p. 50; J. Lintello, S.J., Le Saint Coeur de Marie (Paris, 1922), p. 34; M. Llamera,
O.P., La devoción al Corazón de María y el santísimo Rosario, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 4 (Madrid, 1945),
pp. 374-375.

604

II-II, q. 23, a. 8.

605

Parente, art. cit., p. 27; G. Sinibaldi, Il Cuore della Madre di amore (Roma, 1925), p. 84 ff.; E. Pichéry, Le
Coeur de Marie Mère du Dieu Sauveur (Paris, 1947), pp. 235-236.

606

E. Dublanchy, Coeur de Marie, in D.T.C., Vol. 3, cols. 351-354; J. Calveras, Objeto del culto al Corazón de
Maria, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 7 (Madrid, 1948), p. 373; T. M. Sparks, O.P., Summarium de cultu Cordis
Immaculati B.V.M. (Taurini, 1951), p. 30.

607

A.A.S., Vol. 37, 1945, p. 50.

608

Cf. J. Lebon, Les fondements dogmatiques de la consécration au Coeur Immaculé de Marie (Liège, 1946),
p. 12 ff.

609

Although it participates in the virtue of religion, consecration to Mary is elicited by the virtue of hyperdulia,
and at least when the devotion is more perfectly practised, pertains also to the Holy Spirit’s gift of piety.

610

Cf. J. Bittremieux, Consecratio mundi Immaculato Cordi B. Mariae Virginis, in Ephemerides Theologicae
Lovaniensis, Vol. 20, 1943, p. 100 ff.; G. Roschini, O.S.M., La consacrazione al Cuore Immacolate di Maria,
in Il Cuore Immacolato di Maria (Roma, 1946), pp. 59-64.

611

Lebon, op. cit., p. 9; Bittremieux, art. cit., p. 100; Roschini, O.S.M., La consacrazione della Chiesa e del
genere umano all’Immacolato Cuore di Maria, in Marianum, Vol. 5, 1943, p. 6.

612

Cf. Leo XIII, Annum sacrum, in A.S.S., Vol. 31, 1899, p. 648; Pius XI, Quas primas, in A.A.S., Vol. 17, 1925,
p. 599; A. Musters, O.E.S.A., La Souverainté de la Vierge (Paris, 1946), p. 98; J. B. Carol, O.F.M., Mary’s Co-Redemption in the Teaching of Pope Pius XII, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 121, 1949, p. 359;
E. Carroll, O.Carm., Our Lady’s Queenship in the Magisterium of the Church, in Marian Studies, Vol. 4, 1953,
p. 66 ff.; F. M. Schmidt, O.F.M., Cap., The Universal Queenship of Mary, in Mariology, ed. J. B. Carol, O.F.M.,
Vol. 2 (Mediatrix Press, 2019), p. 529.

613

Pius XII, A.A.S., Vol. 38, 1946, p. 266: “Mary is Queen by grace, by divine relationship, by right of conquest,
and by singular election.” Cf. W. Most, Mary in Our Life (New York, 1954), p. 49 ff.

614

Cf. L’Osservatore Romano, 24-10-54; A.A.S., Vol. 46, 1954, p. 638. The booklet Pius XII on Consecration
to Mary, ed. H. M. Pocock, S.M.M. (New York, 1955), contains 139 papal texts on the importance of consecration
to the Immaculate Heart.

615

According to some, an act of consecration to Mary exceeds in excellence all other acts of veneration even
regarded collectively. Cf. J. Bittremieux, art. cit., p. 102; Roschini, O.S.M., Mariologia, Vol. 2, part 3, p. 227;
L. Barbé, La consécration au Coeur de Marie, in Le Sainte Coeur de Marie (Paris, 1948), p. 105.

616

Pius XI, Miserentissimus Redemptor, in A.A.S., Vol. 20, 1928, p. 169.

617

Cf. W. Most, Reparation to the Immaculate Heart, in Cross and Crown, Vol. 8, 1956, p. 139 ff.

618

Cf. T. M. Sparks, O.P., Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in From an Abundant Spring (New
York, 1952), p. 39 ff; Roschini, O.S.M., La Riparazione Mariana (Rovigno, 1942), p. 13.

619

Pius XI, A.A.S., Vol. 20, 1928, p. 180.

620

G. M. Roschini, O.S.M., La Madonna secondo la fede e la teologia, Vol. 4 (Roma, 1954), pp. 403-404.

621

For further information cf. B. Barban, O.F.M., Consoliamo il Cuore Immacolato di Maria (Venezia, 1953).

622

Editor’s note: During the following essay, any place where the author gives the “present” status or number
of members, it should be borne in mind that this was published in 1961 and does not reflect the current
numbers or whether the order still exists.

623

Élisée de la Nativité, O.C.D., La vie mariale au Carmel, in Maria. Etudes sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. Du
Manoir, S.J., Vol. 2 (Paris, 1952), pp. 833-861 (subsequently abbreviated as: Maria).

624

On the history of the Brown Scapular, cf. Chapter VI of this same volume, The Scapular Devotion.

625

Information concerning the location of mother houses and present membership of religious orders and
congregations has been gathered from Annuario Pontifico per l’anno 1959 (Città del Vaticano, 1959), pp. 878-946. Other sources consulted are: E. Gambari, Ordini e congregazioni religiose di nome e di orientamento
mariani, in Encyclopedia mariana, ed. R. Spiazzi, O.P. (Milano, 1954), pp. 599-615; M. Heimbucher, Die
Orden und Kongregationen der katholischen Kirche, 3rd ed. 2 vols. (Paderborn, 1934).

626

Brief information concerning religious orders and congregations represented in the United States may be
found in The Catholic Directory (New York, 1959), pp. 824-839.

627

On the Carmelites, besides the article by Fr. Élisée, already referred to, cf. De vita mariologico-mariana
apud Ordinem Carmelitarum, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 5, 1955, pp. 111-114; Alberto de la Virgen
del Carmen, O.C.D., La Virgen María en la espiritualidad carmelitana, in Revista de Espiritualidad, Vol. 13,
1954, pp. 239-270; E. R. Carroll, O.Carm., Legendes mariales au Carmel, in Marie [Nicolet], Vol. 6, No. 4,
1952, pp. 13-16; Id., The Immaculate Conception and Carmelite Theologians, in The Sword, Vol. 17, 1954, pp.
120-141.

628

For further information, cf. D. Vásquez, O. de M., and J. M. Delgado Varela, O. de M., Le culte marial dans
l’Ordre de Notre Dame de la Merci, in Maria, Vol. 2, pp. 721-735. As of January, 1961, the feast of Our Lady
of Mercy (or Ransom) is reduced to a mere commemoration in the Roman calendar.

629

Cf. G. M. Roschini, O.S.M., Mariologia, 2nd ed., Vol. 4 (Romae, 1948), p. 184.

630

Roschini, op. cit., pp. 183-184.

631

Roschini, op. cit., p. 219.

632

On the Servites, cf. G. M. Besutti, O.S.M., I Servi di Maria ed il movimento mariano contemporaneo, in
Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 11, 1953, pp. 182-206; Roschini, L’Ordre des Servites de Marie, in Maria, Vol. 2, pp.
885-907; P. M. Soulier, O.S.M., Les traditions mariales des Servites, in Congrès Marial tenu à Lyon [1900],
Vol. 2 (Lyon, 1901), pp. 455-462.

633

This congregation became the Order of Clerics Regular of the Mother of God in 1619. Cf. F. Farraironi, Le
culte marial dans l’Ordre des Clercs Réguliers de la Mère de Dieu, in Maria, Vol. 2, pp. 917-924. It is No. 2
in the list of Marian congregations which have no establishment in the United States (cf. below).

634

On the Piarists, cf. L. Picanyol, Sch. P., Le culte marial dans l’Ordre des Clercs Réguliers Pauvres de la
Mère de Dieu, in Maria, Vol. 2, pp. 925-934. There is also a Congregation of St. Joseph of Calasanz for
Christian Workers (C.Op.), founded in 1889 by Fr. Anthony M. Schwartz in Vienna, who observe the rule of
the Piarists in an adapted form. Cf. Heimbucher, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 431-432.

635

Cf. F. Wandrille, SS.CC., Les traditions mariales de la Congrégation de Picpus, in Congrès Marial tenu à
Lyon [1900], Vol. 2 (Lyon, 1901), pp. 522-524; Ignatius a Cruce Baños, SS.CC., Devotio Immaculati Cordis
Mariae in Congregatione Sacrorum Cordium, in Virgo Immaculata, Vol. 12, 1956, pp. 186-195.

636

Cf. J. A. Lauritis, C.S.Sp., The Congregation of the Holy Ghost and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in The
Age of Mary, Vol. 4, Aug.-Sept., 1957, pp. 79-84; H. Barré, C.S.Sp., Spiritualité mariale du Venerable Père
Libermann, in Maria, Vol. 5 (Paris, 1954), pp. 381-401.

637

Cf. D. M. Huot, S.M.M., De vita mariologico-mariana apud religiosos S.M.M., in Ephemerides
Mariologicae, Vol. 4, 1954, pp. 469-479.

638

Cf. G. Cosentino, O.M.I., De vita mariologico-mariana apud religiosos O.M.I., in Ephemerides
Mariologicae, Vol. 4, 1954, pp. 375-381; Père Praet, La Vierge et les Oblats de Marie Immaculée, in Mémoires
et Rapports du Congrès Marial tenu à Bruxelles [1921], Vol. 2 (Bruxelles, 1922), pp. 333-342.

639

Cf. Heimbucher, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 634.

640

Cf. De vita mariologico-mariana apud Societatem Mariae, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 6, 1956, pp.
230-233.

641

Cf. E. Neubert, S.M., Raisons de la dévotion speciale envers le mystère de l’Immaculée Conception dans
la Société de Marie, in Virgo Immaculata, Vol. 8[3], 1956, pp. 216-228; also De vita mariologico-mariana
apud Societatem Mariae, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 5, 1955, pp. 457-465.

642

Concerning the Eudists, cf. L. Barbé, C.J.M., La Congrégation de Jesus et Marie, in Maria, Vol. 3, pp. 165-179; also, De vita mariologico-mariana apud Congregationem Jesu et Mariae, seu Eudistas, in Ephemerides
Mariologicae, Vol. 6, 1956, pp. 481-487.

643

On the Assumptionists cf. A. Sage, A.A., La doctrine et le culte de Marie dans la famille augustinienne, in
Maria, Vol. 2, pp. 707-712. On pp. 681-707 of this article the author discusses the Canons Regular of St.
Augustine, and the Augustinians or Hermits of St. Augustine.

644

Cf. J. M. Canal, C.M.F., Praecipua opera et ephemerides marialia a PP. Claretianis (C.M.F.) edita, in
Marianum, Vol. 12, 1950, pp. 476-478; N. García Garcés, C.M.F., La dévotion a la Très-Sainte Vierge dans
la Congrégation des Missionnaires Fils du Coeur Immaculé de Marie, in Maria, Vol. 3, pp. 405-428.

645

On the La Salette Fathers, cf. Père Liaud, M.S., Les traditions mariales des Missionnaires de la Salette, in
Congrès Marial tenu à Lyon [1900], Vol. 2 (Lyon, 1901), pp. 558-561; B. M. Morineau, S.M.M., Les
congrégations religieuses d’hommes du XVIIe siècle à nos jours, in Maria, Vol. 3, pp. 360-361. The entire
article, from p. 339 to p. 378, is very rich in bibliographical references concerning the various orders and
congregations.

646

Cf. Heimbucher, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 432.

647

Cf. A. Van Hoeydonck, C.I.C.M., La dévotion au Coeur Immaculé de Marie dans la Congrégation du Coeur
Immaculé de Marie, in Virgo Immaculata, Vol. 12, 1956, pp. 196-220; Anon., Immaculate Heart of Mary
Mission Society, C.I.C.M., in The Age of Mary, Vol. 4, Aug.-Sept., 1957, p. 93.

648

Cf. Heimbucher, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 609.

649

Cf. Heimbucher, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 129.

650

On the Marist Brothers, cf. Frère Théophane, Les traditions mariales des Petits Frères de Marie, in
Congrès Marial tenu à Lyon [1900], Vol. 2 (Lyon, 1901), pp. 582-584. There is another Marian Congregation
in the United States which is still in its initial stage and hence has not as yet received papal approval. They are
the “Sons of Mary, Health of the Sick” (Filii Mariae Salutis Infirmorum), founded in 1952 by Fr. Edward
Garesche, S.J. Their mother house is in Framingham, Mass. In Europe, too, there are some Marian
congregations of men which have only episcopal approval.

651

Wherever in our list the membership is given as “professed members,” the figures are taken from the
Annuario Pontificio, 1959; when the membership is indicated merely by the word “Members (R),” the total
is taken from Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 4, pp. 194-196.

652

Cf. M. Feroci, O.M.D., Scritti e opere mariane nell’Ordine della Madre di Dio, in Alma Socia Christi, Vol.
11, 1953, pp. 207-218.

653

Roschini, op. cit., pp. 189-196, lists only 34 orders and congregations of men which have a Marian name, and
gives details about four of them only (i.e., Servites, Carmelites, Mercedarians, and Montfort Fathers). Our
enumeration has a total of 38. The difference is due to the fact that Roschini does not discuss the Discalced
Carmelites as a separate order, and does not mention the Fathers of Mercy (No. 10 of those having houses in
the United States), nor Nos. 13 and 17 in the above list.

654

Roschini, op. cit., p. 196.

655

Roschini, op. cit., p. 91. M. Britt, Hymns of the Missal and Breviary (New York, 1924), p. 68, is of the
opinion that the Salve Regina was probably composed by Bishop Adhémar of Le Puy in the eleventh century.
Cf. Chapter IV on Marian Prayers, in this volume.

656

Cf. J. Leclercq, O.S.B., Dévotion et théologie mariales dans le monachisme bénédictin, in Maria, Vol. 2,
pp. 547-578; F. Curiel, O.S.B., Influencia de los Benedictinos en la propagación del culto de María en España,
in Actas del Cuarto Congreso Mariano Internacional celebrado en Zaragoza 1908 (Madrid, 1909), pp. 725-728.

657

Cf. J. B. Auniord and R. Thomas, Citeaux et Notre Dame, in Maria, Vol. 2, pp. 581-624; S. Lenssen,
O.C.S.O., L’âme mariale des cisterciens contemporains, in Marie [Nicolet], Vol. 7, No. 6, 1954, pp. 104-105.

658

Roschini, op. cit., p. 195. H. Thurston, S.J., The Rosary, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 13, pp. 184-187.

659

Cf. Y. Gourdel, Le culte de la Très-Sainte Vierge dans l’Ordre des Chartreux, in Maria, Vol. 2, pp. 627-678.
See also Chapter V of this book.

660

Quod Domina nostra ordinem fratrum praedicatorum impetravit a Filio. Cf. A. Duval, O.P., La dévotion
mariale dans l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs, in Maria, Vol. 2, p. 739, note 1.

661

These four psalms were: Ps. 119, Ad Dominum cum tribularer; Ps. 118, section 17, Retribue; Ps. 125, In
convertendo; Ps. 24, Ad te levavi. Cf. Roschini, op. cit., pp. 114-115.

662

Cf. I. Body, O.P., Les traditions mariales de l’Ordre de Saint-Dominique, in Congrès Marial tenu à Lyon
[1900], Vol. 2 (Lyon, 1901), pp. 446-454; also Chapter V of this book.

663

The Franciscan Third Order Regular includes the Third Order Regular of St. Francis (T.O.R.), established
as a regular order in 1447, with 736 members, priests and brothers; the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement
(Graymoor), founded in 1898, with 173 members, priests and brothers; the Franciscan Tertiary Brothers of
the Holy Cross of Waldbreitbach, Germany, founded in 1862, with 225 members; the Missionary Brothers of
St. Francis of Assisi of Bombay, India, founded in 1896, with 102 members; the Poor Brothers of the Seraphic
St. Francis of Aachen, Germany, founded in 1857, with 195 members; and the Brothers of the Third Order
Regular of St. Francis of Assisi of Mt. Bellew, Ireland, founded in 1818, with 110 members — all having papal
approval; also other Franciscan brotherhoods having only episcopal approval, e.g., those of Brooklyn, N. Y.,
and Eureka, Mo.; lastly, numerous sisterhoods, with papal or episcopal approval, of which there are seventy-six autonomous communities in the United States alone, several of them having more than one province.

664

Cf. Thomas of Celano, O.F.M., Vita II, cap. 150, in Analecta Franciscana, Vol. 10 (Quaracchi, 1904), p. 243.

665

Cf. Jean de Dieu, O.F.M.Cap., La Vierge et l’Ordre des Frères Mineurs Conventuels, Franciscains,
Capucins, in Maria, Vol. 2, pp. 785-831 (with copious bibliography); Anon., De vita mariologico-mariana
apud O.F.M.Cap., in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 6, 1956, pp. 478-480; C. Balić, O.F.M., Il contributo dei
Frati Minori al movimento mariologico moderno, in Marianum, Vol. 11, 1949, pp. 440-460; L. Craddock,
O.F.M., The Blessed Virgin in the Writings of Franciscans, in Mary in the Franciscan Order (St.
Bonaventure, N. Y., 1955), pp. 117-127; L. Di Fonzo, O.F.M.Conv., De vita mariologico-mariana apud
religiosos O.F.M.Conv., in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 4, 1954, pp. 480-487; A. Emmen, O.F.M., Die
Bedeutung der Franziskanerschule für Mariologie, in Franziskanische Studien, Vol. 36, 1954, pp. 385-419;
R. Lawler, O.F.M.Cap., Feasts of Mary in the Franciscan Order, in Mary in the Seraphic Order. Franciscan
Educational Conference [1954], Vol. 35 (Washington, D. C., 1956), pp. 323-347.

666

Cf. L. Bracaloni, O.F.M., Origine, evoluzione ed affermazione della Corona francescana mariana, in Studi
Francescani, Vol. 29, 1932, pp. 257-295.

667

Cf. Chapter XIII on Marian Associations in this volume.

668

Cf. A. Sage, A.A., La doctrine et le culte de Marie dans la famille Augustinienne, in Maria, Vol. 2, pp. 677-712.

669

Cf. J. Hilgers, S.J., art. Sodality, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 14, p. 128. See also Chapter XIV on The
Sodalities of Our Lady in this volume.

670

For further references on the Jesuits, cf. A. Drive, S.J., Marie et la Compagnie de Jésus (Paris, 1913); E.
Villaret, S.J., Marie et la Compagnie de Jésus, in Maria, Vol. 2, pp. 937-973.

671

Cf. E. Crapez, C.M., La dévotion mariale chez Saint Vincent de Paul et les Lazaristes ou Prêtres de la
Mission, in Maria, Vol. 3, pp. 79-118.

672

Cf. P. E. Vadeboncoeur, C.Ss.R., Le Redemptoriste et la Vierge Marie, in Marie [Nicolet], Vol. 3, No. 2, 1949,
pp. 51-53; M. de Meulemeester, C.Ss.R., La littérature mariale de la Congrégation des Redemptoristes, in
Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 11, 1953, pp. 171-181; P. Hitz, C.Ss.R., La culte marial chez les Redemptoristes, in
Maria, Vol. 3, pp. 277-305.

673

Cf. P. Brocardo, S.D.B., Culte marial dans la famille salesienne, in Maria, Vol. 3, pp. 449-463; R. Tiggiotti,
S.D.B., De vita mariologico-mariana apud Congregationem Salesianam, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol.
6, 1959, pp. 227-229.

674

Roschini, op. cit., p. 196.

675

Cf. The Catholic Directory (New York, 1959), pp. 843-872. For further details concerning these sisterhoods,
besides Heimbucher’s two-volume work, consult E. Tong Dehey, Religious Orders of Women in the United
States, Catholic, Accounts of their Origin, Works, and Most Important Institutions, Interwoven with Histories
of Many Foundresses, rev. ed. (Cleveland, 1930), xxxi-980 pp.; Ch. W. Currier, History of Religious Orders:
A Compendious and Popular Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Principal ... Orders and Congregations
... (New York, 1896), x-684 pp. On religious communities in the Anglican Church, cf. P. F. Anson, The Call of
the Cloister (New York, 1955), 655 pp.

676

Cf. Codex Juris Canonici, Can. 707; W. H. W. Fanning, art. Confraternity, in The Catholic Encyclopedia,
Vol. 4 (New York, 1908), p. 223; L. Di Fonzo, O.F.M.Conv., Associazioni, organizzazioni, opere mariane, in
Enciclopedia Mariana, ed. R. Spiazzi (Milano, 1954), pp. 615-628.

677

W. Juhasz, Mother of the Church of Silence, in Th. J. M. Burke, S.J. (Ed.), Mary and Modern Man (New
York, 1954), p. 221.

678

Joannes Moschus, Pratum spirituale, in PG 87, 2913; G. M. Roschini, O.S.M., La Madonna secondo la fede
e la teologia, Vol. 4 (Roma, 1954), p. 465.

679

Cf. H. Durand, art. Confrérie, in Dictionnaire de Droit Canonique, fasc. 19, col. 140.

680

Cf. M. Llamera, O.P., Efficacia attuale della confraternità del santissimo Rosario, in Alma Socia Christi,
Vol. 9 (Romae, 1953), pp. 204-223.

681

Cf. J. G. Shaw, The Story of the Rosary (Milwaukee, Wis., 1954), pp. 80-92, 163-164.

682

H. Thurston, S.J., art. Confraternity of the Holy Rosary, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 13 (New York,
1912), p. 188.

683

B. Zimmerman, O.C.D., art. Carmelite, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 3 (New York, 1908), p. 369.

684

Cf. Manual of the Archconfraternity of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (New York, 1926), pp. 16-28.

685

The first nucleus of this confraternity had already been formed three years earlier in Limerick, Ireland. Cf.
C. M. Henze, C.Ss.R., Mater de Perpetuo Succursu (Bonnae, 1926), p. 83.

686

Cf. Manual of the Archconfraternity ... , pp. 6-9.

687

P. Ricaldone, S.B.D., Our Devotion to Mary Help of Christians [Turin, 1948], in Acts of the Superior
Chapter of the Salesian Society, year 27, No. 149 (London, 1948), pp. 36-39.

688

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 2, part 3 (Romae, 1948), pp. 207-208.

689

Cf. P. Brocardo, S.B.D., San Giovanni Bosco, apostolo del titolo “Auxilium Christianorum,” in L’Ausiliatrice
nel domma e nel culto (Torino, 1950), p. 87.

690

Cf. Help of Christians Novena brochure (Boston, Mass., 1951), pp. 2-3, 16-18.

691

Cf. H. Richard, C.M. [= Compagnie de Marie = S.M.M.], La confrérie de Marie Reine des Coeurs, in Compte
rendu du Congrès Marial tenu à Fribourg, 1902, Vol. 1 (Blois, 1903), pp. 598-604.

692

Cf. E. Campana, Maria nel culto cattolico, Vol. 2 (Torino-Roma, 1933), pp. 276-278.

693

St. Louis M. Grignion De Montfort, The Secret of Mary (Bay Shore, N. Y., 1950), pp. 85-89.

694

P. J. Griffin, O.S.M., art. Servites, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 13 (New York, 1912), pp. 736-737.

695

Cf. Aug.-M. Lépicier, O.S.M., Mater Dolorosa; notes d’histoire, de liturgie et d’iconographie sur le culte
de Notre-Dame des Douleurs (Spa, 1948), pp. 48-52, 236-239; P. Soulier, O.S.M., La confrérie de N.-D. des
Sept Douleurs dans les Flandres (Bruxelles, 1913), p. 66, where a description is given of the now rare work
by John Van Coudenberghe, Ortus, progressus et impedimenta fraternitatis B. V. Mariae de Passione, quae
dicitur de Septem Doloribus (Antverpiae, 1519). Cf. also J. A. F. Kronenburg, C.Ss.R., Maria’s heerlijkheid in
Nederland, Vol. 2 (Amsterdam, 1904), p. 259 ff.

696

H. Pujolrás, C.M.F., Sodalitates Cordi B. Virginis Mariae dicatae, in Commentarium pro Religiosis et
Missionariis, Vol. 24, 1943, pp. 75-79; Roschini, La Madonna secondo la fede e la teologia, Vol. 4, pp. 466-467.

697

A.A.S., Vol. 14, 1922, p. 419. Cf. Roschini, op. cit., pp. 472-473.

698

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 2, part 3 (Romae, 1948), pp. 208-209.

699

Cf. Campana, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 428-431.

700

Cf. The Confraternity of The Immaculate Conception (Notre Dame, Ind., 1950); a 4-page leaflet without
pagination. Further information may be obtained by addressing the Director, Confraternity of the Immaculate
Conception, Notre Dame, Ind.

701

Actually, the first to use and promote the title of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament was Father Michael
of Cosenza, O.F.M.Cap., in his work Tractatus de gloriosa Virgine Deigenitrice Sanctissimi Sacramenti
nuncupata, written between 1638 and 1678, but never published. The manuscript is preserved in the
Municipal Library of Assisi. Its contents are described at length by J. Knox in his book De necessitudine
Deiparam inter et Eucharistiam (Romae, 1949), pp. 221-254.

702

Cf. H. Evers, S.S.S., La diffusion de la dévotion à Notre-Dame du Très Saint Sacrement, in the symposium
Marie et l’Eucharistie (Montreal, 1954), pp. 225-228.

703

The most recent papal approval of this devotion may be gathered from the Mass and Office granted by the
Holy See to the Blessed Sacrament Fathers on April 25, 1955. Cf. T. Urquiri, C.M.F., Festum Beatae Mariae
Virginis sub titulo Dominae Nostrae a SSmo. Sacramento, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 5, 1955, pp.
449-454.

704

Cf. G. M. Allegra, O.F.M., Little Manual for the Members of the Association of the Guard of Honor of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary (Hong Kong, 1958), pp. 3-13.

705

Figures of present enrollment were graciously furnished by Father Irenaeus Schönherr, O.F.M., National
Director of The Guard in the United States, and editor of Messenger of The Guard of Honor of The
Immaculate Heart of Mary, published twice a year in New York City.

706

Cf., for example, C. Berthet, C.R.S.P., Archiconfrérie de Notre-Dame de la Divine Providence, in Compte
rendu du Congrès Marial tenu à Fribourg, 1902, Vol. 1 (Blois, 1903), pp. 582-588; A. S. Montferrier,
L’archiconfrérie de Notre-Dame Consolatrice des Affligés, ibid., pp. 589-595; G. Breffy, L’archiconfrérie de
Notre-Dame de Victoires, in Actas del Cuarto Congreso Mariano Internacional celebrado en Zaragoza, 1908
(Madrid, 1909), pp. 461-468.

707

A.A.S., Vol. 34, 1947, p. 412.

708

Luke 1:48.

709

Cf. Bouscaren-Ellis, Canon Law. A Text and Commentary (Milwaukee, 1951), pp. 360, 367, 373.

710

Elsewhere in this volume the reader will find two separate chapters on other Marian associations: Chapter
XIV on Our Lady’s Sodality, and Chapter XV on The Legion of Mary.

711

Cf. G. M. Roschini, O.S.M., La Madonna secondo la fede e la teologia, Vol. 4 (Roma, 1954), p. 477.

712

Cf. G. Boero, Vita del B. Pietro Canisio (Roma, 1864), p. 379.

713

Cf. Die grosse lateinische Kongregation unter dem Titel von Unser Lieben Frauen Unbfleckter Empfängniss
in Luzern (Luzern, 1885), p. 23. Ref. from E. Campana, Maria nel culto cattolico, Vol. 2 (Torino-Roma, 1933),
p. 540.

714

Cf. Campana, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 541-543.

715

Ibid., pp. 543-544.

716

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 4, p. 478.

717

Cf. Manual of The Children of Mary (Emmitsburg, 1946), pp. 1-5; Manuel de la Congrégation des Enfants
de Marie (Quebec, 1917); N. Lardi, Association des Filles de Marie, in Congrès Marial tenu à Fribourg [1902],
Vol. 1 (Blois, 1903), pp. 500-507.

718

Cf. T. C. Middleton, art. Our Lady of Good Counsel, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 11 (New York, 1911),
p. 361.

719

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 4, pp. 478-479.

720

Cf. B. Hess, O.F.M.Conv., La Milizia di Maria Immacolata nel suo XXV anniversario di fondazione, 1917-1942 (Roma, 1942), pp. 42-46; Manual of The Militia of Mary Immaculate (Carey, Ohio, 1948), pp. 2-5; A.
Blasucci, O.F.M. Conv., La Milizia di Maria Immacolata, in Virgo Immaculata, Vol. 17, 1957, pp. 244-260.

721

Cf. Manual of The Reparation Society of Mary Immaculate (Baltimore, 1947), pp. 5-21.

722

Cf. J. Mowatt, God’s Blue Answer to the Reds, in Pastoral Life, Vol. 2, March-April, 1954, pp. 27-32.

723

Anon., Blue Against Red, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 10, Aug.-Sept., 1955, p. 119; A. Rivera, C.M.F., El
Ejército Azul de Nuestra Señora (The Blue Army), in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 7, 1957, p. 368. Further
references to Marian associations may be found in L. Di Fonzo, O.F.M.Conv., Associazioni, organizzazioni,
opere mariane, in Enciclopedia Mariana, ed. R. Spiazzi, O.P. (Milano, 1954), pp. 615-628; Roschini, I sodalizi
mariani e Maria, in Maria nell’economia della salute ... (Milano, 1953), pp. 261-274.

724

A.A.S., Vol. 40, 1948, pp. 393-402. English translation in Acies Ordinata (Supplementum ad No. 8) (Rome,
1948).

725

Cf. Action Now!, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1954, p. 12, No. 9.

726

Cf. Acies Ordinata, April, 1954, p. 93. The forty-third community, not mentioned there, is the one founded
in Detroit, Mich., for work among Negroes. Cf. The Queen’s Work, Vol. 47, No. 2, 1954, p. 28.

727

Cf. E. Villaret, S.J., Les congrégations mariales. Petit abrégé d’histoire (Montreal, 1953), p. 34 ff.

728

Cf. Villaret, Les congrégations mariales, I: Des origines à la supression de la Compagnie de Jésus [1540-1773] (Rome, 1947), p. 43.

729

Cf. Villaret, op. cit., p. 23 ff.

730

Const. Bis saeculari, English trans., p. 2.

731

Cf. J. Wicki, S.J., Le Père Jean Leunis, S.J. (Rome, 1950), p. 39.

732

Cf. Villaret, Congrégations de la Sainte Vierge; esquisse général (Rome, 1950), p. 11.

733

Villaret, loc. cit.

734

Ibid.

735

Const. Bis saeculari, English trans., p. 10 ff., IV-XII.

736

Cf. Wicki, op. cit., p. 44 ff.

737

Cf. J. Sommer, S.J., Marian Catholic Action (St. Louis, Mo., 1953), p. 7.

738

Cf. J. Stierli, S.J., Devotion to Mary in the Sodality (St. Louis, Mo., 1953), p. 8.

739

Cf. Villaret, op. cit., p. 13.

740

Op. cit., p. 14.

741

Op. cit., p. 16.

742

Ibid.

743

Cf. A. Drive, S.J., The Sodality of Our Lady. Historical Sketches (New York, 1916), pp. 26-37, 85-86.

744

Cf. Drive, op. cit., pp. 62-63.

745

Cf. Villaret, op. cit., p. 17.

746

Op. cit., p. 20.

747

Cf. E. Besuttil, S.J., Commentarium in Constitutionem Apostolicam “Bis saeculari” (Romae, 1949), p. 88,
No. 166.

748

Sommer, op. cit., p. 22.

749

Sr. Mary Horence, S.L., The Sodality Movement in the United States [1926-1936] (St. Louis, Mo., 1939),
p. 17.

750

Op. cit., p. 19.

751

Op. cit., p. 21.

752

Cf. Sommer, op. cit., p. 22.

753

Op. cit., p. 41.

754

Cf. Drive, op. cit., p. 99.

755

Bis saeculari, English trans., p. 7.

756

Cf. G. Caprile, S.J., Al servizio della Chiesa (Roma, 1954), pp. 245-247.

757

Cf. Acies Ordinata, A. 22, No. 217, 1953, p. 226 ff.

758

Cf. Action Now!, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1954, p. 11 ff. For further literature on the Sodality see L. Brien, S.J., Valeur
et sens de la Constitution Apostolique sur les Congrégations Mariales, in Marie [Nicolet], Vol. 3, No. 1, 1949,
pp. 22-24; A. Cantens, La congregación mariana, impugnadora de las teorías del modernismo social, in
Actas del Cuarto Congreso Mariano Internacional celebrado en Zaragoza, 1908 (Madrid, 1909), pp. 496-501; C. Gómez Robeles, S.J., Acción social de las congregaciones marianas del siglo XVI al XVIII, ibid., pp.
770-774; J. Pascual Dodero, La vida interna de las congregaciones marianas, in Compte-rendu du premier
Congrès de la Fédération Mondial des Congrégations Mariales (Rome, 1955), pp. 55-50; A. González del
Valle, El apostolado social y las congregaciones marianas, ibid., pp. 105-110; P. Lefebvre, S.J., Les
congrégations de la T.S.Vierge dans les collèges, in Mémoires et Rapports du Congrès Marial tenu à
Bruxelles, 1921 (Bruxelles, 1922), pp. 642-645; L. Paulussen, S.J., Religious Formation in the Sodality of Our
Lady, in Lumen Vitae, Vol. 8, 1953, pp. 257-270; Id., Situation des congrégations mariales, in Christus, July,
1954, pp. 124-129; Id., Quelques réflexions sur la fédération mondiale, sa nature et sa tache, in Compte-rendu du premier Congrès de la Fédération Mondiale des Congrégations Mariales (Rome, 1955), pp. 77-80;
R. Plus, S.J., Les congrégations mariales (Nicolet, 1950), 26 pp.; P. Sträter, S.J., Die Marianische
Kongregation, in Katholische Marienkunde, ed. P. Sträter, S.J., Vol. 3 (Paderborn, 1951), pp. 247-293; J.
Dehergne, S.J., Les congrégations dans l’empire de Chine aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, in Maria. Études sur
la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 4 (Paris, 1956), pp. 967-980.

759

H. E. Riberi, as quoted in Official Handbook of The Legion of Mary, 6th. American ed. (Louisville, Ky., 1953),
p. 20. Hereafter abbreviated: Handbook.

760

Handbook, pp. 1-2.

761

For an excellent study of the Legion system, cf. L. J. Suenens, Spiritualité et rayonnement de la Légion de
Marie, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 3 (Paris, 1954), pp. 637-658.

762

F. Duff, Address to the New York Senatus, Dec., 1956, p. 2 (mimeo).

763

J. Murray, A Journey of a Thousand Leagues Begins, in Symposium on The Legion of Mary (Dublin, 1957),
p. 11.

764

Handbook, p. 2.

765

Ibid., p. 3.

766

Cf. Murray, art. cit., p. 10.

767

Handbook,p.98.

768

Ibid.,p.160.

769

Ibid., p. 37.

770

Ibid., p. 38.

771

For the role of the Spiritual Director, cf. Handbook, pp. 186-189.

772

Ibid., p. 73.

773

It may be well to note here that in order to foster a higher spiritual level among its members, the Legion has
established the Praetorians. This is not a distinct group, but simply a higher degree of active service in the
Legion. It comprises the following obligations: (1) The daily recitation of all the prayers contained in the
Tessera of the Legion; (2) Daily Mass and daily Communion; (3) The daily recitation of some form of Office
approved by the Church, such as the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin (cf. Handbook, p. 210).

774

Handbook, p. 4.

775

Pius XI, Non abbiamo bisogno, in A.A.S., Vol. 23, 1931, p. 287; cf. also Cum ex epistola, in A.A.S., Vol. 20,
1928, p. 296.

776

Handbook, p. 20.

777

Const. Bis saeculari, in A.A.S., Vol. 40, 1948, p. 393.

778

Handbook, p. 128.

779

Ibid., p. 130.

780

Loc. cit.

781

Ibid., p. 293.

782

L. J. Suenens, The Theology of the Apostolate (Chicago, 1955), pp. 1-12.

783

Suenens, art. cit., in Maria, Vol. 3, p. 649.

784

Handbook, p. 10.

785

Ibid.., p. 136.

786

Ibid., p. 137.

787

Loc. cit.

788

Loc. cit.

789

Art. cit., in Maria, Vol. 3, p. 637.

790

Bishop P. Flynn, La Légion de Marie, offprint from Lumen Vitae, Vol. 8, 1953, p. 4.

791

F. Duff, in his talk to the Montfort Fathers in Bay Shore, N. Y., on December 6, 1956. Cf. Queen of All
Hearts, Vol. 7, March-April, 1957, p. 3.

792

Handbook, p. 56.

793

Suenens, Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort et la Légion de Marie, in Marie, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1952, p. 86.

794

Handbook, p. 142.

795

Ibid., p. 142.

796

Loc. cit.

797

Ibid., p. 282.

798

Ibid., p. p. 308.

799

Ibid., p. 317.

800

Ibid., p. 316.

801

Ibid., p. 308.

802

Ibid., p. 179.

803

Ibid., p. 133.

804

Ibid., p. 140.

805

Frank Duff, The De Montfort Way (Bay Shore, N. Y., 1947), p. 35.

806

Loc. cit.

807

True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary (Bay Shore, N. Y., 1946), p. 23, No. 35.

808

Cf. M. Bélanger, O.M.I., Sociétés d’Études Mariales, in Ère mariale, Vol. 1, March, 1956, p. 2 ff.; A. Van Hove,
25 Jaar “Mariale Dagen,” in Mariale Dagen, Vol. 14, 1956, pp. 113-127; R. Spiazzi (ed.), Enciclopedia
Mariana “Theotocos” (Milano, 1954), pp. 630-631; J. B. Carol, O.F.M., The Mariological Movement in the
World Today, in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, p. 27.

809

The volumes of Mariale Dagen are published at Norbertijner Abdij, Tongerloo, Belgium.

810

After the year 1938, war and the preparation for war took their toll. It is worthy of note that in 1943 — shordy
before a French-Belgian session at Namur — the Mariale Dagen group met once more to discuss Consecration
to Mary. These proceedings, however, were published apart from the regular Mariale Dagen series, under the
title De Toewijding aan O.L. Vrouw (Tongerloo, 1944). Cf. the Editorial in Consécration Mariale (Louvain,
1948), p. 5.

811

In the year 1947, a National Marian Congress was held at Maastricht. This replaced the meeting of the
Belgian Flemish society for that year.

812

In the year 1954, a National Marian Congress again replaced the Mariale Dagen. These proceedings, dealing
with the Immaculate Conception, were published at Tongerloo in 1955 under the title Verslagboek der
Priester-Vergaderingen.

813

Issues of the Bulletin are obtainable through P. Lethielleux, 10 rue Cassette, Paris.

814

Cf. Bélanger, in Ère mariale, Vol. 1, March, 1956, p. 4; Spiazzi, op. cit., p. 631; and the introduction to the
first volume of Estudios Marianos, 1942.

815

Issues of Estudios Marianos are obtainable from Edit. Coculsa, Victor Pradera, 65, Madrid, Spain. The first
three volumes are now out of print.

816

A second volume covering the proceedings of this 1949 meeting, contains papers contributed by visiting
Mariologists from other lands.

817

Cf. the prologue of the volume Estudos Marianos (Congresso Mariologico Luso-Espanhol na Fátima),
Fátima, 1945. The constitution of the proposed society is found on pp. 197-199. This single volume represents
the work done by the Portuguese at the Fátima meeting, and was intended to be the first of a series of annual
volumes.

818

Cf. J. B. Carol, art. cit., p. 28.

819

Cf. M. Bélanger, Sociétés d’Études Mariales, in Ère mariale, Vol. 1, April, 1956, pp. 2-4.

820

For example, in the proceedings of the 1954 meeting, under the title L’Immaculée Conception de la
Bienheureuse Vierge Marie (Editions de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1955); the proceedings of the 1955 meeting,
under the title La Royauté de l’Immaculée (Editions de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1957); and the proceedings of
the 1957 and 1958 meetings, two volumes under the title La Maternité spirituelle de la Bienheureuse Vierge
Marie (Editions de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1958). We note that some of the papers read at the 1952 meeting
appeared in the periodical Marie (Nicolet), Vol. 6, No. 5, 1953.

821

For a fuller account, cf. The Foundation of the Society, in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, pp. 11-16.

822

Cf. J. C. Fenton, America’s Two Theological Associations, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 125,
1951, pp. 449-458.

823

The proceedings of the annual meetings have been published faithfully in a series called Marian Studies.
With the exception of the first three volumes, the series is still obtainable from the editor, Fr. Juniper B. Carol,
O.F.M., Franciscan Monastery, 174 Ramsey Street, Paterson 1, N. J.

824

The above information was gathered from the introductions to the first two volumes published by the
society, as indicated in footnotes 18 and 19. Cf. also the article Le mouvement marial en Belgique, in
Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 2, 1952, pp. 449-450.

825

These proceedings were published in 1948 by the Secrétariat de Marie Médiatrice, Boulevard de Diest, 121,
Louvain.

826

These doctrinal proceedings were published in 1952 by the Abbayé Notre Dame de Leffe, Dinant.

827

The papers delivered at the Journées Sacerdotales Mariales (session pratique) were published in the
periodical Évangéliser, Vol. 7, No. 40 (Bruxelles), 1953.

828

This latest available information is supplied by M. Bélanger, in Ère mariale, Vol. 1, April, 1956, p. 2.

829

The German society has published the 1952 and 1953 proceedings in one volume, edited by C. Feckes, and
entitled Die Heilsgeschichtliche Stellvertretung der Menschheit durch Maria, Paderborn, 1954.

830

No local meeting of the society took place in 1954, since some of its members participated in the
International Mariological Congress in Rome that year. The proceedings of the 1955 meeting were published
in the periodical Franziskanische Studien, Vol. 39, 1957, fasc. 2-4. Cf. also R. Graber, Arbeitsgemeinschaft
deutscher Theologen, in Lexikon der Marienkunde (Regensburg, 1958), fasc. 2, coll. 338-339.

831

In 1954, the Centro di Orientamento Pastorale held a Mariological week in conjunction with several Marian
Academies and Centers, under the presidency of Prof. D. G. Ceriani. At its close, the following resolutions were
passed: “Che anche in Italia, come già in altre Nazioni, si constituisca una Società Mariana allo scopo di
coordinare gli studi e i movimenti mariani italiani.” And again, “Promuoviamo la fondazione di una ‘Società
Mariologica Italiana’ che ha come scopo l’incremento degli studi mariologici in Italia e l’orientamento della
vita pastorale nella luce di Maria.” Cf. La Società Mariologica Italiana, in L’Osservatore Romano, 7 Nov.,
1954, p. 4. Later on, a Sacerdotal Marian Congress on Mary’s Queenship was held in Bologna in September,
1956, organized by the Centro Mariano Montfortano di Roma, under the presidency of His Eminence,
Cardinal G. Lercaro, Archbishop of Bologna. At its end His Eminence made another impassioned plea for the
foundation of an Italian Mariological Society like those of other nations. Cf. G. M. Barbera, S.M.M., in
Marianum, Vol. 18, 1956, pp. 420-422.

832

For this information on the Mexican Mariological Society, the author is indebted to Fr. Máximo Peinador,
C.M.F., and to Fr. Juniper B. Carol, O.F.M. Cf. likewise M. de L., C.M.F., Sociedad Mariológica Mexicana, in
Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 8, 1958, pp. 353-354.

833

Cf. Anon., Jasnogórskie Studium Mariologieczne, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 9, 1959, pp. 345-346.

834

As this chapter is submitted to the Editor, we learn of activities leading to the formation of a Mariological
Society in Colombia, South America. Headquarters of the organization will be the newly erected “Marian
Centre” attached to the famed national shrine of Nuestra Señora de la Peña, in Bogotá. For further
information, cf. R. Tisnés, C.M.F., Sociedad Mariológica Colombiana, in Virtud y Letras, Vol. 17, 1957, pp.
259-264.

835

Cf. G. M. Besutti, O.S.M., La Biblioteca Mariana, and Movimento Mariano O.S.M. in Studi Storici
dell’Ordine dei Servi di Maria, Vol. 5, 1953, pp. 120-126, 127-130; L. W. Monheim, S.M., Some Marian
Collections in the World, in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, pp. 46-47; L. Di Fonzo, O.F.M.Conv., Istituti,
manifestazioni e centri mariani di studio e di cultura, in R. Spiazzi, O.P. (Ed.). Enciclopedia Mariana
“Theotocos” (Genova, 1954), pp. 631, 633; G. M. Roschini, O.S.M., La Biblioteca Mariana Pio XII (Roma,
1956); N. García Garcés, Instituto Mariológico, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 9, 1959, pp. 344-345.

836

Cf. Di Fonzo, art. cit., p. 631, and A. A. Maguire, O.F.M., The International Marian Academy, in The
American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 131, 1954, pp. 178-179. Since this chapter went to press, Pope John XXIII
has raised this Academy to the rank of “Pontifical.” Cf. Maiora in dies, of Dec. 8, 1959, in A.A.S., Vol. 52, 1960,
pp. 24-26.

837

Cf. Luis Borrás, La Pontificia y Real Academia Bibliográfico-Mariana de Lérida, in Ephemerides
Mariologicae, Vol. 4, 1954, pp. 499-503; and Di Fonzo, art. cit., p. 630.

838

Cf. La Croix, July 4, 1950, p. 3 (figures based on a personal letter from Pontmain).

839

Cf. L. Arendt, La bibliothèque de Banneux, Notre-Dame, in Evangéliser, Vol. 7, 1953, pp. 509-511; and
Monheim, art. cit., p. 47.

840

Cf. R. Brien, Autour du Centre Marial Canadien, in Marie, Vol. 7, 1953, pp. 96-97; Monheim, art. cit., p. 48;
Di Fonzo, art. cit., p. 631; and La Patrie, May 16, 1954, p. 69 ff. Cf. also M. Bélanger, O.M.I., Le centre marial
canadien, in Ère mariale, Vol. 1. September, 1956, pp. 1-4.

841

Cf. Monheim, art. cit., pp. 50-55; G. Besutti, Un’utile iniziativa della Marian Library di Dayton, in
Marianum, Vol. 12, 1950, pp. 472-476; and S. Mathews, S.M., La bibliothèque mariale de l’Université de
Dayton, U. S. A., in Marie, Vol. 8, 1954, pp. 114-121. Since October, 1960, the series Marian Reprints appears
under the title Marian Library Studies.

842

Cf. The Catholic News, August 7, 1954, p. 28; Monheim, art. cit., pp. 48-50.

843

After finishing our chapter we learn of a new Marian Center now being erected in Bogotá (Colombia) for the
same purpose as those previously mentioned. Cf. R. Tisnés, C.M.F., Sociedad Mariológica Colombiana, in
Virtud y Letras, Vol. 17, 1957, pp. 259-264. Cf. also E. Valentini, S.D.B., L’Accademia Mariana Salesiana, in
Salesianum, Vol. 20, 1958, pp. 492-507.

844

The Ave Maria is published by the Holy Cross Fathers at Notre Dame, Indiana; Fatima Findings by the
Reparation Society of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Baltimore, Md.; Immaculata, by the Conventual
Franciscan Fathers at Marytown, Kenosha, Wis.; Mary, by the Carmelite Fathers, Chicago, Ill.; Miraculous
Medal by the Association of the Miraculous Medal in Philadelphia; Perpetual Help, by the Redemptorist
Fathers in Esopus, N. Y. (There is another Perpetual Help published by the Redemptorists in Liguori, Mo.);
Soul, by the Ave Maria Institute, Asbury, Warren Co., N. Y.; and Our Lady’s Digest, by the Missionary Fathers
of La Salette, Olivet, Ill.

845

Not all publish a volume every year.

846

J. J. Bourassé, Summa Aurea de laudibus Beatissimae Virginis Mariae (J. P. Migne, Parisiis, 1862), 12
volumes.

847

Z. C. Jourdain (Ed.), Somme des grandeurs de Marie; ses mystères, ses excellences, son culte (H. Walzer,
Paris, 1900-1903, Nouvelle édition), 11 vols.

848

J. H. Schütz, Summa Mariana. Allgemeines Handbuch des Marienverehrung für Priester, Theologie-Studierende und gebildete Laien (Junfermannsche Buchhandlung, Paderborn, 1908-1921), 5 volumes and
supplement to Vol. 2.

849

Mariology, Volume I, p. 2, note 2, and p. 433, note 244. The most important are: A. Tondidi (Ed.), Le
Encicliche Mariane (Roma, 1950); R. Graber, Die marianischen Weltrundschreiben der Päpste in den letzten
hundert Jahren (Würzburg, 1950); W. Doheny and J. Kelly, Papal Documents on Mary (Milwaukee, 1954);
and Paul Palmer, S.J., Mary in the Documents of the Church (Westminster, Md., 1952).

850

H. Marín, S.J., (Ed.), Doctrina Pontificia IV, Documentos Marianos, in Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos
(Madrid, 1954).

851

Unfortunately, there are a few occasional small inaccuracies in the transcription of documents in the original
language.

852

R. Spiazzi, O.P. (Ed.), Enciclopedia Mariana, “Theotokos” (Bevilacqua & Solari, Genova: Massimo, Milano,
1954). A second edition appeared in 1958.

853

H. du Manoir, S.J. (Ed.), Maria, Etudes sur la Sainte Vierge (Paris, 1949, 1952, 1954, 1956, 1958), 5 vols.
(another is yet to appear.) Cf. also note 13 above.

854

P. Sträter, S.J. (Ed.), Katholische Marienkunde (Paderborn, 1947-1951) 3 vols. Cf. also note 14 above. This
set has been translated into Italian under the direction of Joseph Filograssi, S.J. It is entitled simply
Mariologia, 3 vols. (Roma, 1952, 1955, 1958).

855

K. Algermissen, L. Böer, C. Feckes, J. Tyciak, Lexikon der Marienkunde, published by F. Pustet, in
Regensburg, Germany.

856

G. M. Roschini, O.S.M., Mariologia (Belardetti, Romae, 2nd ed. 1947-1948), 4 vols.

857

Idem, La Madonna secondo la fede e la teologia (Ferrari, Roma, 1953-1954), 4 vols.

858

For a select list of modern general treatises on Mariology, see Volume I, note 233 on pp. 320-321, of this
set. We might add that the treatise of Merkelbach, long out of print, has now appeared in a revised edition in
Spanish, entitled Mariología (revision and translation by P. Arenillas, O.P., Desclée, Bilbao, 1954); and the
Volledige Marialeer of C. X. J. M. Friethoff, O.P., has appeared in an English translation as A Complete
Mariology (Blackfriars, 1958). Likewise, E. Neubert’s Marie dans le dogme has been translated as Mary in
Doctrine (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1954). The distinguished editor of this set, Father Juniper B. Carol. O.F.M., has
written also Fundamentals of Mariology (New York: Benziger, 1956), an excellent general treatise.

859

G. M. Besutti, O.S.M., La Biblioteca Mariana, in Studi storici dell’Ordine dei Servi di Maria, Vol. 5, 1953,
p. 126.

860

Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, Dec. 8, 1954, in Acta et decreta sacrorum Conciliorum recentiorum. Collectio
Lacensis, Vol. 6, p. 536.

861

Munificentissimus Deus, in A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 755.

862

A.A.S., Vol. 46, 1954, pp. 677-680; English translation, Mariology and the Standards Which Govern Its
Study, in The Pope Speaks, Vol. 1, 1954, pp. 343-346.

863

L’Osservatore Romano, September 19, 1958.

864

The author acknowledges a debt of gratitude for the use of indispensable materials to Father Juniper B.
Carol, O.F.M., to the Fathers and Brothers of the Marian Library at the University of Dayton, to Abbé L.
Arendt of the Bibliothèque Mariale, Banneux, Belgium. Thanks to their generosity it was possible to consult
firsthand printed proceedings, some of them extremely rare, from practically all the congresses here surveyed.
Secondary sources were: E. Campana, Maria nel culto cattolico, 2nd ed. by G. Roschini, O.S.M., Vol. 2
(Torino, 1944), pp. 485-652; G. Roschini, Mariologia, 2nd ed., Vol. 4 (Romae, 1948), pp. 185- 189; J.
Bittremieux, Marialia (Nijmegen, 1936), pp. 334-340; G. M. Besutti, O.S.M., I congressi mariani
internazionali, in Un Secolo di Storia Mariana, 1854-1945 (Napoli, 1953), pp. 51-60; Besutti, Bibliografia
Mariana, 3 vols. (Roma, 1950, 1952, 1958); also chronicles and reviews in the Mariological quarterlies
Marianum, Rome, since 1939, and Ephemerides Mariologicae, Madrid, since 1951.

865

Compte rendu du Congrès Marial tenu à Lyon les 5, 6, 7 et 8 septembre 1900 (Lyon, 1900-1901), Vol. 1, 662
pp., Vol. 2, 780 pp.

866

Op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 8-9.

867

Du 18 au 21 Août 1902 à Fribourg en Suisse. Congrès Marial. Compte rendu (Blois, 1903), Vol. 1, 612 pp.,
Vol. 2, 550 pp. Campana, op. cit., pp. 547-565, refers to a volume of German proceedings that the present
author was unable to examine personally: Vom 18 bis 22 August 1902, zu Freiburg in der Schweiz
International Marian Kongress. Pope Leo’s letter, here given only in part, is to be found in full in the
Saragossa acts, pp. 22-25, see note 14.

868

Atti del Congresso Mariano Mondiale tenuto in Roma l’anno 1904 (Roma, 1905). In addition, the Order of
Friars Minor published its own congress brochure: L’Ordine dei Frati Minori al Congresso Mariano
internazionale tenuto in Roma dal 30 nov. al 4 dec. 1904 per celebrare il cinquantenario del dogma
dell’Immacolata (Roma, 1905), 91 pp., containing, inter alia, D. Fleming, The dogma of the Immaculate
Conception and the Franciscan Order, pp. 15-21; see also the entries in the extensive Bibliography (1830-1957), in The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, ed. E. D. O’Connor, C.S.C. (Notre Dame, Ind., 1958), pp.
532-561.

869

Se è Nostro dovere, September 8, 1903, in A.S.S., Vol. 36, 1903-1904, pp. 65-66.

870

See B. Vaughan, S.J., Sinless Mary and Sinful Mary (London, 1905), pp. 7-42, for the text of this Roman
address.

871

Compte rendu du Congrès Marial International tenu à Einsiedeln en Suisse du 17 au 21 Août 1906 (Lyons,
1907), 844 pp. The writer has seen only references to the German acts: Internationalischer Marianischer
Kongress in Einsiedeln (Freiburg-i/B). The Spanish-American section of Einsiedeln published its own
proceedings, Actas de la Sección Hispano-Americana del Congreso Mariano Internacional de Einsiedeln,
290 pp., which could not be found in preparing this chapter, but which are referred to by J. Postíus in the
Saragossa acts, see note 14.

872

Compte rendu ... , pp. 9-11; the date of the letter was April 23, 1906, and it was sent to J. Kleiser and J.
Guyot who were in charge or the congress.

873

Ibid.

874

Actas del Cuarto Congresso Mariano Internacional celebrado en Zaragoza de España en los dias 26, 27,
28, 29 & 30 de Septiembre de 1908 (Madrid, 1909), 984 pp.

875

Op. cit., p. 249; Campana, op. cit., p. 600.

876

Bericht über den fünften Marianischen Welt-Kongress, abgehalten zu Salzburg vom 18 bis 21 Juli 1910
(Salzburg, 1911). In the enumeration of congresses we are following in this article, Salzburg is sixth in the
international list, not fifth, despite the title of its acts. The reference to the proceedings is from Campana, op.
cit., pp. 601-613; no copy of them could be obtained even for consultation.

877

As quoted by Campana, op. cit., pp. 609-610; the pontifical brief is apparently in the proceedings. The
present writer has been unable to find this document otherwise listed.

878

Sechster Internationaler Marianischer Kongress in Trier vom 3. bis 6. August 1912 (Trier, 1912), Vol. 1, 216
pp., Vol. 2, 327 pp., Vol. 3, 349 pp. Again, despite the title of the acts, this congress is seventh of our
international list, not sixth.

879

Op. cit., Vol. 3, pp. 337-338.

880

Catholicis hominibus, brief of St. Pius X, July 12, 1912, in A.A.S., Vol. 4, 1912, p. 578.

881

Alma Socia Christi, in 12 vols., 1951-1953, plus an index volume, 1958, Roma, Academia Mariana
Internationalis, Via Merulana 124; most are still in print as of January, 1959. The United States papers are in
Vol. 3, 1952, De praedestinatione et regalitate B. Virginis Mariae. For reviews, summaries, and further
information on the congress see particularly Marianum, the Roman quarterly published by the Servites, and
other theological journals. Some of the papers were separately published and do not appear in Alma Socia
Christi; e.g., the Redemptorist section is printed as Pietas Alfonsiana erga Matrem Gloriosam Mariam
(Lovanii, 1951), 189 pp.

882

Inter complures, in A.A.S., Vol. 46, 1954, pp. 677-680; see note 2, above.

883

Virgo Immaculata, in 18 volumes, 1955-1958, Roma, Academia Mariana Internationalis — all are in print
at this writing (January, 1959). See also the reports in Marianum, Ephemerides Mariologicae, and the
complete listing of the contents of the entire set of Virgo Immaculata in The Dogma of the Immaculate
Conception, ed. E. D. O’Connor, C.S.C. (Notre Dame, Ind.: 1958), pp. 611-621. Still other papers from the 1954
congress have been published apart from Virgo Immaculata, e.g., the section of the Discalced Carmelites,
which makes up a special number of Ephemerides Carmeliticae, Vol. 7, 1956, fasc. 1, pp. 1-228.

884

Le testimonianze, the pope’s homily of November 1, 1954, in A.A.S., Vol. 46, 1954, pp. 662-666, and Ad
Caeli Reginam, encyclical on the queenship, in A.A.S., Vol. 46, 1954, pp. 625-640.

885

An information bulletin, Nuntia Periodica, five numbers, 1957-1958, was sent periodically to those
interested in the congress; numbers 4 and 5 give the full program of the Mariological and Marian parts of the
meeting. This bulletin is being continued after Lourdes as the permanent organ of the International Marian
Congress Committee.

886

L’Osservatore Romano, September 19, 1958; the addresses of the papal legate to the general public on his
arrival, September 13, and to the final meeting of the Mariological congress, September 14, are in
L’Osservatore Romano, September 15-16, 1959.

887

These proceedings are entitled Maria et Ecclesia. Eleven volumes have been published so far. Since this
chapter went to press, Pope John XXIII has raised the International Marian Academy to pontifical rank; cf.
Maiora in dies, Dec. 8, 1959, in A.A.S., Vol. 52, 1960, pp. 24-26. The Academy has announced Canada as the
site of the fourth Mariological (Ottawa, Aug. 21-28, 1962) and eleventh Marian (Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Aug.
29 to Sept. 2, 1962) international congresses.

888

Campana, op. cit., pp. 632-642, gives the story and summaries of the Breton series. It might be noted in
passing that these volumes are, unfortunately, very rare.

889

Premier Congrès Marial Breton tenu à Josselin en l’honneur de l’Immaculée Conception, 21-24 Novembre
1904 (Paris, 1905), 600 pp. The cardinal’s letter of October 31, 1904, is on page 31.

890

Deuxième Congrès Marial Breton tenu à Rennes en l’honneur de la Maternité Divine et de l’Annonciation
les 22, 23, et 24 Mars 1908 (Rennes, 1908), liii & 613 pp.

891

J. V. Bainvel, S.J., is well known to English readers on this subject from his Catholic Encyclopedia article,
Heart of Mary, Devotion to, Vol. 7, pp. 168-169, and from his book And the Light Shines in Darkness (New
York, 1953).

892

Troisième Congrès Marial Breton tenu au sanctuaire de Notre-Dame de Bon-Secours de Guingamp en
l’honneur de la Corédemption mariale et de la Visitation (Saint-Brieuc, 1912), lviii & 484 pp.

893

Marie-Prêtre — La Corédemption Mariale realisée, in op. cit., pp. 61-132; R. Laurentin discussed this paper
of Belon at length in Marie, l’Église et le Sacerdoce, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1952), pp. 493 ff.

894

Quatrième Congrès Marial Breton tenu en Folgoät en l’honneur de Marie, Mère de Grace, 4, 5 & 6
Septembre 1913 (Quimper, 1915), xviii & 484 pp.

895

J. Le Rohellec, C.S.Sp., Mary, Mother of Divine Grace, trans. S. Rigby and D. Fahey (London, 1937).

896

Congrès Marial Breton. Cinquième Session tenue à Nantes en 1924: L’Assomption de la B. Vierge Marie
(Nantes, Paris, Vannes, 1925), xvi & 175 pp.

897

A survey article by A. Boucher, secretary-general of the committee in charge, L’Oeuvre du comité national
français des congrès marials, appears in Maria. Études sur la Ste. Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 3
(Paris, 1954), pp. 615-625.

898

Fêtes Mariales. Chartres, 31 mai-6 juin, 1927 (Chartres, 1927), 426 pp.

899

Cum feliciter, May 18, 1927; see also A.A.S., Vol. 19, 1927, p. 410.

900

2e Congrès Marial National de Lourdes, 23-27 juillet 1930. Compte rendu officiel (Lourdes, 1931), 316 pp.

901

Notre Dame de Liesse. 8ieme Centenaire 1134-1934. IIIe Congrès Marial National (Liesse, 1935), 272 pp.

902

Toutes les manifestations, May 3, 1934, appointing the legate, signed by Cardinal Pacelli; and Laetitia
singulari, July 2, 1934; the latter is also in A.A.S., Vol. 27, 1935, p. 73.

903

Souveraineté de Marie. Congrès Marial de Boulogne s/Mer (Juillet, 1938) (Paris, 1938), 572 pp. The papal
brief appointing the legate, Tertio decimo exeunte saeculo, July 2, 1938, is on pp. 38-40.

904

Le Voeu de Louis XIII, op. cit., pp. 9-25.

905

Marie Coredemptrice. Ve Congrès Marial National. Grenoble-La Salette (Lyon, 1948), xxxvii & 409 pp.

906

Notre dévotion vers la très sainte Verge Marie, October 8, 1945, op. cit., pp. xii-xiii, also in A.A.S., Vol. 38,
1946, p. 155.

907

Compte Rendu du VIe Congrès Marial National (Assomption de Notre Dame), (Rennes, 1951), 326 pp.;
Multiples et fécondes, June 30, 1950, the papal letter is on pp. 7-9.

908

Congrès Marials Nationaux. VIIIe Congrès, Lyons 1954. L’Immaculée Conception. Compte-Rendu in
Extenso (Lyon, 1954), 442 pp.; the pope’s letter, Auspicato sane, June 13, 1954, op. cit., pp. 26-27, also in
A.A.S., Vol. 46, 1954, pp. 366-367.

909

Surveys of the Franciscan Assumptionist congresses are to be found in: C. Balić, O.F.M., Il contributo dei
Frati Minori al movimento mariologico moderno, in Marianum, Vol. 11, 1949, pp. 440-460; R. Ohlmann,
O.F.M., The Assumptionist Movement and the Franciscan Marian Congresses, A Survey, in the acts of the
Washington congress (see below), Studia Mariana, Vol. 7, pp. 19-30; Melchior a Pobladura, O.F.M.Cap.,
Recent literature on Mary’s Assumption, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 120, 1949, pp. 376-387.

910

Atti del Congresso Nazionale Mariano dei Frati Minori d’Italia; Studia Mariana, Vol. 1 (Roma 1948), vii
& 732 pp. The congress held at Cracow, August, 1937, is sometimes listed among the Assumptionist
congresses, although its Latin and Polish papers ranged over many topics; one in Polish by B. Domagala,
O.F.M., was on the historical evolution of the Assumption: see Acta secundi Congressus Cracoviae, 25-29
augusti, 1937 in Collectanea Franciscana Slavica, Vol. 2 (Sibenici, 1940), xix-339 pp.

911

Actas do Congresso Mariano dos Franciscanos de Portugal, Lisboa, 9 a 13 outubro de 1947; Studia
Mariana, Vol. 2 (Lisbon, 1948), 212 pp.; also under the title Colectânea de Estudos, Numero 3, 1947,
suplementos do Boletin Mensal, Braga.

912

Actas del Congreso Mariano Franciscano-Español, Madrid, 21-26 octubre, 1947; Studia Mariana, Vol.
3 (Madrid, 1948), 396 pp. This appeared also as a special number of Verdad y Vida, Vol. 6, enero-septiembre,
1948.

913

Vers le Dogme de l’Assomption. Journées d’études mariales; Studia Mariana, Vol. 4 (Montreal, 1948), xi
& 445 pp. See J. B. Carol, O.F.M., Verso la definizione dommatica dell’Assunta, in Marianum, Vol. 11, 1949,
pp. 88-94.

914

Actas del Congreso Asuncionista Franciscano de América Latina; Studia Mariana, Vol. 5 (Buenos Aires,
1949), xxiv & 401 pp. Another South American congress concerned with the Assumption was the first Brazilian
theological congress held at São Paulo, January 23-29, 1950; the proceedings are to be found as a special
number of the Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira, Vol. 10, Margo, 1950, pp. 296; see the report in Marianum, Vol.
10, 1950, pp. 250-259.

915

Congrès Marial du Puy-en-Velay. L’Assomption de la très sainte Vierge; Studia Mariana, Vol. 6 (Paris,
1950), 291 pp. See J. B. Carol, O.F.M., The Recent Marian Congress at Le Puy-en-Velay, in The American
Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 123, 1950, pp. 273-283.

916

First Franciscan National Marian Congress in Acclamation of the Dogma of the Assumption, October
8-11, 1950; Studia Mariana, Vol. 7 (Burlington, Wisconsin, 1952), 315 pp.

917

Atti del Congresso Assunzionistico Orientale organizzato dalla Custodia di Terra Santa (Gerusalemme,
1951), xiii & 267 pp.

918

Crónica del Primer Congresso Mariano Montfortiano (Totana, 1920), 479 pp. J. Bittremieux, Marialia
(Nijmegen, 1936), p. 336, gives credit to the Capuchins; see also Campana, op. cit., pp. 648-649.

919

Mémoires & Rapports du Congrès Marial (Sections d’expression française) tenu à Bruxelles, 8-11
Septembre 1921 (Bruxelles, 1922), Vol. 1, lxxv & 252 pp., Vol. 2, pp. 253-682; Handelingen van het Vlaamsch
Maria-Congres te Brussel, 8-11 September 1921 (Brussel, 1922), Vol. 1, 367 pp., Vol. 2, 375 pp.

920

Pastoral letter of Pentecost, 1921, as reported in Mémoires & Rapports . . . , Vol. 1, p. lxx.

921

J. Lebon, À propos des textes liturgiques de la fête de Marie Médiatrice, in Marianum, Vol. 14, 1952, pp.
122-128, and also the obituary by G. Geenen, O.P., Monseigneur J. Lebon (1879-1957), in Marianum, Vol. 20,
1958, pp. 120-126.

922

Mémoires & Rapports, Vol. 2, pp. 653-679.

923

Crónica Oficial del Congreso Mariano Hispano-americano de Sevilla y de los actos complementarios del
mismo celebrado del 15 al 21 de mayo de 1929 (Madrid, 1930), 1062 pp.

924

By the letter, Cum valde equidem, February 20, 1929, in the Crónica Oficial, p. 144.

925

No printed proceedings for the Portland congress could be found, nor a reference to any. It is chronicled
briefly in Campana, op. cit., p. 651; Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 4, p. 187; and more fully in B. M. Morineau,
S.M.M., L’Année Mariale; Les Cahiers de la Vierge, No. 6 (Juvisy, 1934), pp. 34-40. Two books inspired by
the congress were: A. Lépicier, Behold Thy Mother (Rome, 1934), 68 pp., and A. M. Mayer, Advanced
Mariology (Portland, Oregon, 1934), xii & 168 pp.

926

The proceedings are in two volumes: one is an illustrated chronicle —Franciscan National Marian
Congress. The Story of an American Tribute to Our Lady Immaculate in California of the Padres (San
Francisco, 1957), 197 pp. The other volume is scientific: Second Franciscan National Marian Congress in
Celebration of the Marian Year in Honor of the Centenary of the Definition of the Dogma of the Immaculate
Conception, May 4-9, 1954 (San Francisco, 1957), 197 pp. Alfred Boeddeker, O.F.M., edited both volumes.

927

Crónica Oficial del Congreso Mariano Nacional, Zaragoza, Octubre, 1940 (Zaragoza, 1942), 358 pp.; Luis’
study also appeared separately, La Realeza de María (Madrid, 1942), 144 pp. A report on the meeting in the
form of a letter from N. García Garcés, C.M.F., to G. Roschini, O.S.M., is found in Marianum, Vol. 3, 1941, pp.
73-79.

928

The papal discourse was Nos sentimos, in A.A.S., Vol. 39, 1947, pp. 632- 634. There is a brief report on the
congress by A. Luis, C.Ss.R., in Marianum, Vol. 10, 1948, p. 298. In some listings, Barcelona, which had
representatives from twenty-seven nations, is placed among the international congresses, next after Trier,
1912, e.g., by Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 4, pp. 188-189.

929

The proceedings are bi-lingual, French and English on facing pages: Compte-rendu du premier Congrès
de la Fédération Mondials des Congrégations Mariales. Report of the First Congress of the Sodalities World
Federation (Rome, 1955), 175 pp. The purpose was “not a congress of studies but a world family gathering and
to apply the directives of the Church which we already possess in abundance. Everything must tend towards
a renewal of the spirit,” op. cit., p. 71. The first of the ten resolutions was a request for the definition of the
“dogma of Mary, Mediatrix of graces.”

930

C’est avec une grande joie, in A.A.S., Vol. 46, 1954, pp. 529-534.

931

Le premier Congrès Marial de Québec, du 12 au 16 juin, 1929. Compte rendu, discours, sermons et
rapports (Québec, 1931), 413 pp.

932

Ère mariale, Vol. 1, Avril, 1956, p. 3; this is the bulletin of the Canadian Mariological Society.

933

Le Congrès Marial d’Ottawa (Gardenvale, 1948), viii & 346, and the identical acts in English, same
publisher, date and number of pages: The Marian Congress of Ottawa, trans. Emmet O’Grady. These are no
more than extended chronicles; no summaries are given of the papers.

934

A.A.S., Vol. 39, 1947, pp. 254-256.

935

C’est avec une douce, in A.A.S., Vol. 39, 1947, pp. 268-272.

936

Le Congrès Marial National, 5-15 Août 1954. The National Marian Congress, August 5 to 15, 1954 (Trois-Rivières, 1954), 157 pp. in French, 151 pp. in English.

937

L’Immaculée, règle de vie des chrétiens, in L’Immaculée Conception de la Bienheureuse Vierge Marie.
Journées d’Études, Cap-de-la-Madeleine, 12-13 Août, 1954 (Ottawa, 1955), 197 pp., Ferland’s talk, pp. 165-172;
this was the first year the Canadian Mariological Society published its proceedings in book form.

938

Permagnus profecto, in A.A.S., Vol. 46, 1954, pp. 481-482; radio address, Le Seigneur a rendu, in A.A.S.,
Vol. 46, 1954, pp. 498-500, English translation, Mary Help of Christians: This World and the Next, in The
Pope Speaks, Vol. 1, 1954, pp. 277-279.

939

The Pope Speaks, for example, in addition to a number of full-length discourses, printed a series of
selections from ten messages to national Marian congresses all in the latter part of 1954: The World Pays
Its Honor to Mary, Vol. 2, 1955, pp. 53-64, representing the Philippines, Montevideo, Sicily, Mexico, Spain,
Nigeria, Lebanon, India, Peru, and Colombia.

940

IInd Marian Congress of the Philippines. Manila, December 1-5, 1954, Souvenir Program. No publisher
or page markings or date are indicated; only titles of the talks are given. See the report by F. Vacas, O.P., in
Marianum, Vol. 17, 1955, pp. 397-399.

941

Philippinae insulae, November 4, 1954, appointing the legate, is in A.A.S., Vol. 46, 1954, pp. 700-701, and
the pope’s address, Como el ágil viandante, ibid., pp. 718-721.

942

Bombay: National Marian Congress, Bombay, India, December 1954. Souvenir (Bombay, 1955), viii & 232
pp., an indexed report on devotional and doctrinal events with some of the talks given in full.

943

It would indeed, December 8, 1954, in A.A.S., Vol. 46, 1954, pp. 725-728; the letter naming the legate, In
latissimis, was in A.A.S., Vol. 46, 1954, pp. 706-707.

944

Dépuis le 8 décembre, in A.A.S., Vol. 46, 1954, pp. 540-543, English translation in The Pope Speaks, Vol.
1, 1954, pp. 281-284.

945

Actes du Congrès Marial, Septembre 1954 (Bruxelles, 1955), 157 pp., Nationaal Marial Congres, Brussel,
2-3-4-5 September 1954 (Brussels, 1955), 161 pp., Verslagboek der Priester-Vergaderingen (Tongerlo, 1955),
85 pp.

946

L’Osservatore Romano, September 15-16, 1958. The part played by the congresses in preparation for the
consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart is also brought out by G. Geenen, O.P., Les antécédents
doctrinaux et historiques de la Consécration du Monde au Coeur Immaculé de Marie, in Maria. Études sur
la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), pp. 825-873. Cf. J. M. Canal, C.M.F., La
consagración a la Virgen y a su Corazón Inmaculado, in Virgo Immaculata, Vol. 12, 1956, pp. 293-297.

947

I. Valle, S.J., gave a report at the 1954 world congress of Marian Congregations in Rome on the movement
for the dogmatic definition of the mediation as initiated by Cardinal Mercier: Mouvement mondial pour la
definition dogmatique de la médiation universelle de Marie. Le Cardinal Mercier initiateur du mouvement,
op. cit., (see note 69); the same report appeared in Marie, Vol. 9, Jan.-Fev., 1956, pp. 389-392.

948

R. Laurentin, Conclusion, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 3 (Paris, 1954),
p. 735.

949

G. Montague, Ceremony of Crowning an Image of the Blessed Virgin, in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record,
Vol. 82, 1954, pp. 430-431; Alessio M. Rossi, O.S.M., Reine et souveraine, in Marie, Vol. 8, 1955, p. 521;
Edward Keating, How the Queen is Crowned, in Mary, Vol. 15, 1954, pp. 86-88. Since so many of the shrines
owe their origin to an apparition of Our Lady, the following articles may prove helpful: M. Castellano, La
prassi canonica circa le apparizioni mariane, in Enciclopedia Mariana, ed. R. Spiazzi, O.P. (Milano, 1954),
pp. 465-486; C. Staehlin, Apariciones, in Razón y Fe, Vol. 49, 1949, pp. 445-464 (I); 546-562 (II); C. Truhlar,
S.J., Principia theologica de habitudine christiani erga apparitiones, in Virgo Immaculata, Vol. 16 (Romae,
1956), pp. 1-17.

950

General bibliography on shrines throughout the world: Zsolt Aradi, Shrines to Our Lady Around the World
(New York, 1954); H. M. Gillet, Famous Shrines of Our Lady, 2 vols. (Westminster, Md., 1952); W.
Gumppenberg, S.J.,

951

E. Levesque, Annonciation, in Dictionnaire de la Bible, Vol. 1, cols. 650-654; F. Cabrol, Fête de
l’Annonciation, in Dictionnaire d’Archéologie et de Liturgie, Vol. 1, cols. 2241-2255; Paschal Kinsel, O.F.M.,
The Catholic Shrines of the Holy Land (New York, 1951), pp. 58-60.

952

Anthony Bruya, O.F.M., Basilica to Mark Spot Where Mary Conceived Jesus, in The Denver Register, October
3, 1954. Cf. De Vogiüe, Les églises de la Terre Sainte (Paris, 1860). Mauro Laconi, Luoghi e itinerari mariani
della Palestina, in Enciclopedia Mariana, ed. cit., pp. 138-150.

953

Sylvester J. Saller, O.F.M., Discoveries at St. John’s, Ain Karim, 1941-1942 (Jerusalem, 1946); B. Bagatti,
O.F.M., Il santuario della visitazione ad Ain Karim (Montana Judaeae), esplorazione archeologica e ripristino
(Gerusalemme, 1948); J. McDwyer, Our Lady’s Shrines in the Holy Land, in The Sign, Vol. 33, 1954, pp. 55-56; Libro d’oltramare. Part I. Text by A. Bacchi Lega, annotations by B. Bagatti, O.F.M. (Gerusalemme, 1955).
General titles: Donatus Baldi, O.F.M., Enchiridion locorum sanctorum, 2nd ed. (Jerusalem, 1955). An
appendix is dedicated exclusively to Marian shrines. Fr. Termes Ros, Santuarios marianos en Palestina, in
Cultura Bíblica, Vol. 11, 1954, pp. 412-421. On the Church of the Virgin at Gethsemane: P. Luis Suárez,
Sepulcro de María en Getsemaní, in Cultura Bíblica, Vol. 8, 1951, pp. 48-50. On the Church of the Dormition:
P. Barnabé, Le tombeau de la Sainte Vierge à Jérusalem (Jerusalem, 1903). For other Marian shrines in the
Middle East, cf. J. Goudard, S.J., La Sainte Vierge au Liban, 2nd ed. (Beyrouth [Liban], 1955).

954

Howard Rafferty, O.Carm., Loreto and the Holy House, in Mary, Vol. 15, 1954, pp. 64-69. The entire May-June issue of Miriam (Seville) deals with this shrine: Vol. 7, 1955. M. Battigelli, Il volo della Santa Casa di
Nazareth (Firenze, 1948); R. Riccardi, Loreto, in Enciclopedia Italiana, Vol. 21, cols. 504-506. In defense of
the shrine’s historicity: C. M. Henze, C.Ss.R., Andiamo a Loreto (Roma, 1954); Cassiano da Langasco,
Santuari e luoghi sacri mariani, in Enciclopedia Mariana, ed. cit. (Milano, 1954), pp. 593-595; A. Caillau,
Histoire critique de Notre-Dame-de-Lorete (Paris, 1843). I. Rinieri, La Santa Casa di Loreto, 3 vols. (Torino,
1910-1911). This is a refutation of Chevalier’s work (see below). Against the historicity: H. Leclercq, Lorette,
in Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et de Liturgie, Vol. 9, cols. 2473-2511; Canon Ulysse Chevalier,
Notre-Dame de Lorette. Étude historique sur l’authenticité de la Santa Casa (Paris, 1906).

955

John C. Glennon, St. Mary Major, in Mary, Vol. 15, 1954, pp. 16-23. Msgr. John K. Cartwright, The Catholic
Shrines of Europe (New York, 1954), pp. 39-42. M. Armellini, Le chiese di Roma, 2nd ed. (Roma, 1891), pp.
224-226.

956

Bartolo Longo, Storia del santuario di Pompei dalle origini al 1878 (Pompei, 1949); Idem, Histoire de
sanctuaire de Pompei (Valle di Pompei, 1900); Don Sharkey, The Woman Shall Conquer (Milwaukee, 1952),
pp. 86-91. On other famous Italian shrines cf.: A. R. Bandini, The Miracle at Syracuse [Sicily] (Fresno, Calif.,
1955); G. Badame, Madonna delle lacrime in Siracusa (Siracusa, 1953). An exhaustive account is given by the
director of El Iris de Paz: Cf. Thomas Pujadas, C.M.F., in all issues of Vol. 1 from January to June, 1955. F.
Gosso, La “Consolata” de Turin, in Marie, Vol. 9, 1955, pp. 18-19. Other articles on this shrine in the same
issue. P. J. Pascucci, Don Bosco’s Shrine to Mary, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 9, 1955, pp. 285-287; A. Addeo,
Le sanctuaire de Notre-Dame du Bon Conseil a Genazzano, in Marie, Vol. 2, 1948, pp. 6-9; H. Hussu, C.M.F.,
Il tempio votivo internazionale dell’Immacolato Cuore di Maria, in Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 6, fasc. 2
(Romae, 1952), pp. 203-216; C. Testore, S.J., I santuari mariani d’Italia, in Mariologia, ed. P. Sträter, Vol.
3 (Torino, 1958), pp. 80-92.

957

G. Duhamelet, L’enchantement de Chartres, in Marie. Vol. 8, 1955, pp. 428-433; K. Dugan, The Cathedral
Built by Love. The Story of Chartres, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 8, 1953, pp. 206-210. Favoring the Druid
tradition: A. Clerval, Guide chartrain, Chartres, sa cathédrale, ses monuments (Chartres, 1896); R. Merlet,
Les puits des saints-forts dans la crypte de Chartres (Caen, 1902); Idem, La cathédrale de Chartres et ses
origines, in Revue Archéologique, Vol. 41, 1902, pp. 236 sq. Against the tradition: H. Leclercq, art. Chartres,
in Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et Liturgie, Vol. 3, cols. 1019-1045.

958

G. M. Besutti, O.S.M., Alcune recenti publicazioni su Lourdes, in Marianum, Vol. 10, 1948, pp. 382-385;
Gustave Combes, Lourdes. Sanctuaire mondial de la prière (Albi, 1947); J. Curtain, Lourdes. Le domaine de
Notre-Dame de 1858 a 1947 (Rennes, 1947). An entire issue of Marie is on the shrine: Vol. 7, No. 5, 1954. For
a lively exchange of views: J. B. Haldane and convert-writer Arnold Lunn discuss the Lourdes’ miracles very
thoroughly through the medium of a series of letters in Science and the Supernatural (New York, 1935). J.
Belleney, Les apparitions de Lourdes (Paris, 1950); Michel de Saint-Pierre, Bernadette and Lourdes, transl.
from the French by E. Fitzgerald (New York, 1954); Henri Lasêrre, Les apparitions de Notre-Dame de
Lourdes (Paris, 1952); M. Gasnier, O.P., Le message de Lourdes (Paris, 1951); Dr. Bissarie, Heaven’s Recent
Wonders, or the Work of Lourdes, translated from the French by C. Van der Donckt, 3rd ed. (New York, 1915);
Anon., Orientación bibliográfica sobre Lourdes, in Revista de Espiritualidad, Vol. 17, 1958, pp. 423-453; L.
Cros, S.J., Lourdes 1858. Témoins de l’événement. Documents présentés par M. Olphe-Galliard, S.J. (Paris,
1957); R. Laurentin, Lourdes. Dossiers des documents authentiques, 4 vols. (Paris, 1957-1958). The last two
volumes are in collaboration with B. Billet. Other papers on the same subject may be found in Virgo
Immaculata, Vol. 16 (Romae, 1956).

959

John S. Kennedy, Light on the Mountain (New York, 1953); E. Ladoucer, M.S., Saga of La Salette, in Our
Lady’s Digest, Vol. 7, 1952, pp. 173-185; M. Massard, Pilgrimage to La Salette, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 7,
1952, pp. 98-100; Estienne Yvonne, La Vierge sur l’Alpe (Paris, 1946); J. Jaouen, M.S., La grace de La Salette
(Paris, 1946); Msgr. J. Giray, Les miracles de La Salette (Grenoble, 1946); René Duvillard, La grand nouvelle
de La Salette (Grenoble, 1946); Adrien Gamier, L’Expansion de La Salette dans le monde (1846-1946)
(Grenoble, 1946); E. Picard, L’apparition de La Salette. Glanes historiques (Lyons, 1946); G. Bernoville, La
Salette (Paris, 1946); V. Hostachy, Commentaire du message de La Salette pour le temps présent (Grenoble,
1947). On other French shrines, cf.: M. Aubert, La cathédrale de Notre-Dame de Paris (Paris, 1950); P. M.
Auzas, Notre-Dame de Paris (Grenoble, 1949); L. Lejeune, Notre-Dame de Boulogne (Paris, 1925); A.
Chatelle, Les grands heures de Notre-Dame de Boulogne (Boulogne-sur-mer, 1938); Marie André, La
magnifique histoire de Notre-Dame du Puy (Nicolet, Canada, 1951); Georges Paul, Notre-Dame du Puy. Essai
historique et archéologique (Le Puy, 1950); Marie Simone, Notre-Dame de Pontmain et son message à la
France (Paris, 1950); Bro. Ernest, Our Lady Comes to Pontmain (Notre Dame, Ind., 1954); Marcel Cardineau,
La Vierge vous parle [Pellevoisin] (Paris, 1946); Fr. Hubert, O.C.D., Our Lady at Pellevoisin, in Our Lady’s
Digest, Vol. 4, 1950, pp. 517-518. Of a more general character: Isabelle Couturier de Chefdubois, Mille
pèlerinages de Notre-Dame, 3 vols. (Paris, 1953-1954); Idem, Du Sud au Nord de la France: Douze
pèlerinages mariales historiques (Nicolet, Can., 1951); Petit lexique des pèlerinages de Notre-Dame en
France (Nicolet, Can., 1954); Sr. M. Dorcy, Lady Shrines of France, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 8, 1953, pp.
161-165; O. Engelbert, Les apparitions de la Vierge au XIXe et XXe siècles (Mulhouse, Haut-Rhin, 1948); Jean
Helle, Miracles, transl. by L. Sheppard (New York, 1952).

960

Ricardo del Arco, El templo de Nuestra Señora del Pilar en la Edad Media (Zaragoza, 1945). Extraordinary
number of El Pilar (Zaragoza), Vol. 70, 1954. Ribera-Floret, O.Carm., The Story of Zaragoza, in Mary, Vol.
16, 1955, pp. 38-41. Nuestra Señora del Pilar, in Miriam, Vol. 7, 1955, p. 234; C. McDonald, Our Lady of the
Pillar, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 7, 1952, pp. 162-166; F. Gutiérrez, La Virgen del Pilar (Zaragoza, 1954); Aina
Naval, El Pilar de Zaragoza (Zaragoza, 1939).

961

Luciano López, Covadonga (Oviedo, 1945); Felix de Aramburu, Asturias (Gijón, 1894); Zsolt Aradi, Shrines
to Our Lady Around the World (New York, 1954), pp. 43-45. Article, Covadonga, in Enciclopedia Universal
Ilustrada, ed. Espasa, Vol. 15, cols. 1406-1409.

962

M. S. Byne, Forgotten Shrines of Spain (Philadelphia, 1926); Carlos Villacampa, O.F.M., La Virgen de la
Hispanidad (Sevilla, 1942); Germán Rubio, O.F.M., Historia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Barcelona,
1926); Diego de Ecija, Libro de la invención de Santa María de Guadalupe (Cáceres, 1953). Cf. also entire
May-June issue of Miriam, Vol. 6, 1954. On other Spanish shrines, cf. A. de Maricuña, Santa Maria de Begoña
en la historia espiritual de Vizcaya (Bilbao, 1950); S. Echevarría, Historia del santuario e imagen de Nuestra
Señora de Begoña (Tolosa, 1892); Angel Frau, Santuarios marianos de Barcelona (extensive on Our Lady
of Montserrat) (Barcelona, 1954). On Marian shrines of Navarre cf. Jacinto Arangua, C.M.F., Iconografía y
santuarios de la Virgen en Navarra (Madrid, 1941). Of a more general nature: I. Allardyce, Historic Shrines
of Spain (New York, 1912); Nazario Pérez, S.J., Historia mariana de España, (Valladolid, 1948), 4 vols. so
far, and two more announced. P. Sanjulián, Historia de la Santísima Virgen y del desarrollo de su culto y de
sus principales advocaciones en España y en América (Madrid, 1902); Sánchez Pérez, El culto mariano en
España (Madrid, 1943); María de Echarri, Madones espagnoles. Sanctuaires de l’Espagne, in Marie, Vol. 8,
1953, pp. 88-94; V. de la Fuente, Vida de la Virgen María con la historia de su culto en España (Barcelona,
1877).

963

C. Barthas and G. da Fonseca, S.J., Our Lady of Light (Milwaukee, 1947); Thomas McGlynn, O.P., Vision
of Fátima (New York, 1948); W. T. Walsh, Our Lady of Fátima (New York, 1947); J. de Marchi, I.M.C., The
Crusade of Fátima (New York, 1948); C. C. Martindale, S.J., The Message of Fátima (London, 1950); C.
Brochado, Fátima in the Light of History (Milwaukee, 1955); Montes de Oca, C.S.Sp., More About Fátima
(Westminster, Md., 1950); F. Ryan, O.P., Our Lady of Fátima (Westminster, Md., 1944); J. Pelletier, A.A., The
Sun Danced at Fátima (Worcester, Mass., 1951); Idem, Fátima, Hope of the World (Worcester, Mass., 1954);
April and Martin Armstrong, Fátima, Pilgrimage to Peace (New York, 1954); L. G. da Fonseca, S.J., Fátima
e a crítica (Lisboa, 1951); Idem, Le meraviglie di Fátima (Rome, 1950); C. Barthas, Fátima, merveille du XXe
siècle (Toulouse, 1952); Idem: Autour de Fátima. Quelque documents (Toulouse, 1949); J. Rambaud, O.P.,
La Dame toute belle. Études objective et psychologique des événements de Fátima (Paris: Lyons, 1949).

964

Ludwig Raeber, O.S.B., Images d’Einsiedeln (Einsiedeln, 1949); Idem: Einsiedeln im Bild (Einsiedeln,
1949); Rudolph Henggeler, O.S.B., Das Gnadenbild Unsere liebe Frau von Einsiedeln (Einsiedeln, 1935); M.
Jungo, O.S.B., Notre-Dame d’Einsiedeln. Son monastère et son pèlerinage, in Marie, Vol. 8, 1954, pp. 190-192
(The entire issue is on Swiss shrines); Ethel Huegli, The Black Madonna of Einsiedeln, in Our Lady’s Digest,
Vol. 4, 1949, pp. 183-184; J. Landolt, Ursprung und erste Gestaltung des Stiftes Maria-Einsiedeln
(Einsiedeln, 1845). For other shrines cf. Ferdinand Andina, Santuari mariani nella Svizzera (Lugano, 1954).

965

Hans Geiselberger, Der Gnadenort Altötting, 5th ed. (Altötting, 1950); Msgr. John K. Cartwright, The
Catholic Shrines of Europe (New York, 1954), pp. 157-158; H. Gillet, Famous Shrines of Our Lady, Vol. 2
(Westminster, Md., 1952), pp. 131-146. J. Mehler, Unsere liebe Frau von Altötting (Altötting, 1902); A.
Landgraf, Geschicte Unserer liebe Frau in Altötting (Altötting, 1899); S. Beissel, S.J., Die Verehrung Marias
in Deutschland (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1909), pp. 25-27.

966

Fritz Dyckmans, Kevelaer. Das Marienheiligtum am Niederrhein (Kevelaer, 1951); Theodor Bergmann, Der
Wallfahrtsort Kevelaer (Kevelaer, 1949); H. Wester, Kevelaer, Wallfahrt und Pfarrei (Kevelaer, 1936).

967

Jan Mosmans, De St. Janskerk te ’sHertogenbosch (’sHertogenbosch, 1931). General titles: H. Minderop,
S.J., La Hollande catholique et mariale, in Marie, Vol. 7, 1953, pp. 55-62; H. M. Polman, Nederland —
Marialand, in De Standaard van Maria, Vol. 24, 1948, pp. 355-365; O. Förster, Niederlandische Madonnen
(Berlin, 1938).

968

Arthur Monin, Notre-Dame de Beauraing. Origines et dévelopements de son culte (Bruges, 1949); J.
Debergh, Virgin of the Golden Heart, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 7, 1952, p. 288; Canon Massart, La belle
histoire de Beauraing, (Bruxelles, 1948); G. Maes, Beauraing, le Coeur Immaculé de Marie (Louvain, 1946);
Paul Piron, Le message de Notre-Dame de Beauraing (Liège, 1946); D. Sharkey, I Will Convert Sinners. Our
Lady’s Apparitions at Beauraing, 1932-1933 (Techny, Ill., 1955); C. Lambot, O.S.B., Le “message” de
Beauraing, in Virgo Immaculata, Vol. 16 (Romae, 1956), pp. 152-163; F. Toussaint, Enquête canonique sur
les faits de Beauraing, ibid., pp. 164-181; E. Ranwez, Nos raisons de croire aux apparitions de Beauraing,
ibid., pp. 182-196; D. Sharkey and J. Debergh, O.M.I., Our Lady of Beauraing (New York, 1958).

969

L. Kerkhofs, Notre-Dame de Banneux. Etudes et documents (Louvain, 1950); Ludo Bastijns, Aux pieds de
la Vierge de Banneux (Liège, 1943); J. Speltz, The Virgin of the Poor (Middlesex, 1955); A. Geradin, Les
apparitions à Banneux (Louvain, 1933). On other Belgian shrines cf. Ademar Gits, La dévotion à Notre-Dame
de Basse-Wavre (Basse-Wavre, 1951); Précis historique de Notre-Dame de Basse-Wavre, in Revue de Basse-Wavre, Vol. 10, 1947 (the entire August issue); Aug.-M. Lépicier, O.S.M., Montaigu, palladium Marial de la
Belgique, in Marie, Vol. 7, 1953, pp. 51-58.

970

Cf. J. J. Coyne, Our Precious Lady St. Mary, in The Clergy Review, Vol. 39, 1954, pp. 257-266; G. M. Corr,
Ritorno a Walsingham, in Ragguaglio Mariano (Roma, 1949), pp. 69-71; W. Reany, The Shrine of Our Lady
of Walsingham (London, 1939); M. Gillet, The History of a Famous Shrine (London, 1950); Olivier Marault,
P.S.S., Les “Lady Chapels” d’Angleterre et Walsingham, in Marie, Vol. 8, 1954, pp. 100-103. On the shrine
of Our Lady of the Assumption at Aylesford, cf. Winifrede Kingston, The Story of a Vow, in Mary, Vol. 15,
1954, pp. 76-84; Fabian Cunliffe, O.Carm., Simon’s Home in England, in Mary, Vol. 16, 1955, pp. 81-90.

971

Daniel O’Keefe, The Story of Knock (Cork, 1959); Liam Cavan, Cnoc Muire in Picture and Story (Galway,
1945). Mrs. Thomas Concannon, The Queen of Ireland. An Historical Account of Ireland’s Devotion to the
Blessed Virgin (Dublin, 1938); W. J. Smith, The Mystery of Knock. Our Lady of Ireland (New York, 1954); F.
Carey, Knock and its Shrine (Dublin, 1937); W. Coyne, Our Lady of Knock (New York, 1948); Idem, Cnoc
Mhuire or the Irish Shrine of the Holy Rosary (Dublin, 1937); Fr. James, O.F.M.Cap., The Story of Knock
(New York, 1950); A. J. Reilly, Mary’s Hill in Ireland, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 7, 1953, pp. 377-380.

972

Franz Jantsch, Mariazell. Das Heiligtum der Gnadenmutter Österreichs (Graz-Vienna-Altötting, 1952);
F. Hattler, Pilgerreise nach Maria-Zell (Düsseldorf, 1898); J. P. Kaltenbäck, Die Mariensagen in Österreich
(Wien, 1845), pp. 24-28.

973

Robert McBride, Towns and People of Modern Poland (New York, 1938), pp. 215-235; M. André, Le Sainte
Vierge, Reine de la Pologne, in Marie, Vol. 7, 1955, pp. 442-443; Le culte de la Sainte Vierge en Pologne, in
Marie, Vol. 8, 1955, pp. 510-511; A. J. Rozewicz, C.S.C., Czestochowa and Fátima, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol.
7, 1952, pp. 125-127; A priest of the Congregation of the Holy Cross: Our Lady of Czestochowa (Chicago,
1953). Cf. also Roman Witoski, Our Lady of Wilno, in Mary, Vol. 16, 1955, pp. 38-42. R. de Journel, S.J.,
Marie et l’iconographie Russe, in Maria. Études sur la sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 2 (Paris,
1952), pp. 472-473.

974

J. B. Cazaunau, La basilique de Notre-Dame d’Afrique, in Marie, Vol. 8, 1954, pp. 105-107; La Vierge Marie
dans l’Église d’Afrique, by a missionary of Oran (Oran, 1904), pp. 164-210; L. Pavy, Histoire critique du culte
de la Sainte Vierge en Afrique (Algiers, 1858). General titles: A. L. Delattre, W. F., Le culte de la Sainte Vierge
en Afrique d’après les monuments archéologiques (Paris, 1907); Sr. M. St. Eucher, W. S., Our Lady in Central
Africa, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 4, 1949, pp. 225-227; Jean Perraudin, Marie, reine d’Afrique, in Marie, Vol.
8, 1955, p. 514. On Our Lady of Egypt cf. S. Guisasola, O.F.M., La Virgen de la Encrucijada, in Catolicismo,
No. 120, 1951, pp. 22-23; F. Anderson, The Shrine in Port Saïd, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 8, 1953, p. 198.

975

J. Mole, O.M.I., The Story of the Cape (Cap-de-la-Madeleine, 1950); J. Shaw, Canada’s Shrine to Mary
(Cap-de-la-Madeleine, 1952); Idem: Canada’s Shrine to Our Lady, in The Sign, Vol. 34, 1954, pp. 28-29; G.
Morin, O.M.I., La Madonne des Canadiens (Cap-de-la-Madeleine, 1952); R. Lawrence, Canada’s Shrine to
Mary, in Mary, Vol. 15, 1954, pp. 39-43; J. de Orleans, Notre-Dame du Cap (Montréal, 1949); P. Brenton,
Cap-de-la-Madeleine. Cité mystique de Marie (Trois Rivières, 1937).

976

M. Kenny, S.J., The Romance of the Floridas (New York, 1934), pp. 102-105; S. Bonano, C.M.F., Our Lady’s
Influence in the Discovery of America, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 5, 1955, pp. 47-86; J. Ebel,
America’s First Shrine to the Blessed Mother, in The Denver Register, October 31, 1954, p. 7; A. Burbank, Our
Lady’s First Shrine in America, in Queen of All Hearts, Vol. 4, 1953, pp. 20-23; C. Smith, Hallowed Acre, in
Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 4, 1949, pp. 26-29. On the first chapel dedicated to Mary in United States territory,
built by the Jesuits in 1570 in what is now the State of Virginia, cf. F. Zubillaga, S.J., Monumenta historica
Societatis Jesu. Monumenta antiquae Floridae (1566-1572), Vol. 3 (Romae, 1946), pp. 351 sqq. The first
mission church in honor of the Immaculate Conception was established at Hawikuh, New Mexico. Cf. Marion
Habig, O.F.M., The First Immaculate Conception Mission, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 131,
1954, pp. 73-80. The first church dedicated to the Immaculate Conception was that of the Franciscan Friary
in St. Augustine, Florida. Cf. M. Habig, O.F.M., Our First Church of Mary Immaculate, in The American
Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 131, 1954, pp. 313-319. Cf. also Wilfrid Parsons, S.J., Marian Devotion in the Early
United States, in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, pp. 236-250; V. A. Yzermans, Churches of Mary in the United
States, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 132, March, 1955, pp. 169-180.

977

W. Kennedy, The National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (Washington, D. C., 1927); J. Reilly,
Mary’s National Shrine; a Statement of Progress, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 120, 1949, pp.
458-462; V. Dore, Our National Marian Shrine, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 131, 1954, pp.
289-292; B. McKenna, National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, 2 vols. (Washington, D. C., 1925,
1928); A. McCarthy, O.Carm., Finish Her Shrine, in Mary, Vol. 15, 1954, pp. 69-71; J. Burke, A Nation’s
Prayer to Our Lady, in Columbia, Vol. 33, 1953, pp. 5 and 18; E. N. Grainer, C.M.F., The National Shrine of
the Immaculate Conception in the United States, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 10, 1960, pp. 295-302.

978

F. Van Eich, National Shrine of Our Lady of Victory (Lackawanna, 1955); Msgr. J. Maguire, Shrine Notes,
in Victorian, Vol. 61, 1955, pp. 55-56. The Victorian is published by the Shrine. Cf. also F. B. Thornton,
Catholic Shrines in the United States and Canada (New York, 1954), pp. 58-59; F. Anderson, Father Baker
(Milwaukee, 1960).

979

John Byrne, C.Ss.R., The Glories of Mary in Boston (Boston, 1921). (The entire work is on this shrine);
James Sullivan, The Catholic Church of New England, Archdiocese of Boston (Boston, 1895); W. Leucking,
C.Ss.R., Reminiscences of Four Redemptorist Fathers (Ilchester, Md., 1891).

980

The Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother, published by the Servite Fathers (Portland, Ore., 1952); F.
Thornton, op. cit., pp. 138-142. General titles: D. MacLeod, Devotion to the Blessed Virgin in North America
(New York, 1866. 1888); Daniel Sargent, Our Land and Our Lady (New York, 1939). A second edition of this
work was published by The University of Notre Dame Press in 1955.

981

Mariano Cuevas, S.J., Documentos inéditos del siglo XVI para la historia de México (México, D. F., 1914);
G. Lee, C.S.Sp., Our Lady of Guadalupe (New York, 1947); F. P. Keyes, The Grace of Guadalupe (New York,
1953); J. Romero, S.J., Breve historia de las apariciones y del culto de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (México,
D.F., 1945). Cf. the entire Nov.-Dec. issue of Miriam, Vol. 6, 1954; K. Campbell, María de Guadalupe (New
York, 1954); the entire May-June issue of Marie, Vol. 7, 1954; M. Cuevas, S.J., La Santa Sede y Nuestra
Señora de Guadalupe (México, D. F., 1945); Thomas Kaiser, From Tepeyac Hill, in Mary, Vol. 15, 1954, pp.
96-107; J. L. Cassidy, Mexico, Land of Mary’s Wonders (Paterson, N. J., 1958); Demarest-Taylor, The Dark
Virgin. The Book of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Freeport, Me., 1956). On other Mexican shrines cf. Albert
Santoscoy, Historia de Nuestra Señora de San Juan de los Lagos (Guadalajara, 1904); N. Quirós y Gutiérrez,
Breve historia de Nuestra Señora de Ocotlán (Ocotlán, Tlaxcala, Mex., 1953); S. Monroy, Rosary Chapel in
Puebla (Puebla, Mex., 1947).

982

Addison Burbank, The First Marian Shrine in America, in The [Brooklyn] Tablet, May 13, 1955, p. 17. Cf.
also the article Altagracia, in Enciclopedia Universal Ilustruda, Vol. 4 (Barcelona, 1929), col. 949. For other
Marian shrines and apparitions in the West Indies, cf. R. Vargas Ugarte, S.J., Historia del culto de María en
Iberoamérica y de sus imágenes y santuarios más celebrados, 2 vols., 3rd ed. (Madrid, 1956).

983

Victor Ortíz, La aparición de la imagen de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles (Cartago, Costa Rica, 1905);
Carlos Lewis, S.V.D., The Black Virgin of Costa Rica, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 4, 1949, pp. 136-137.

984

George M. Salvaire, Historia de Nuestra Señora de Luján, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires, 1882-1883); A. Tansey,
Our Lady of Luján, in Mary, Vol. 16, 1955, pp. 87-92; Paul Hallett, Our Lady of Luján vs. Perón, in Mary,
Vol. 16, 1955, pp. 68-73.

985

F. Cepeda, C.M.F., Miscelanea Mariana. Coronación de Nuestra Señora de Copacabana, in El Iris de Paz,
Vol. 42, 1925, pp. 844-846; F. Sanguines, O.F.M., Historia de Copacabana (La Paz, Bolivia, 1919); Alonso
Ramos, Historia de Copacabana, 3rd ed. (La Paz, Bolivia, 1886).

986

Maurice Bruni, O.Cann., Brazil’s National Temple, in Mary, Vol. 15, 1954, pp. 114-118; Felix Cepeda, C.M.F.,
América Mariana, Vol. 2 (Madrid, 1925), pp. 483-492.

987

Vicente Cornejo, O.P., and Andrés Mesanza, O.P., Historia de Nuestra Señora de Chiquinquirá, de su
ciudad y su convento (Bogotá, 1919); idem, Historia de la milagrosa imagen de Nuestra Señora de
Chiquinquirá (Bogotá, 1942); Alberto Ariza, O.P., Hagiografía de la milagrosa imagen de Nuestra Señora
del Rosario de Chiquinquirá (Bogotá, 1950); idem, The Rosary Virgin of Chiquinquirá, in Our Lady’s Digest,
Vol. 6, 1952, pp. 491-492. On Our Lady of Lajas: An article by the Marian Center of the Claretian Theologate
in Manizales; cf. Notre-Dame de Lajas, in Marie, Vol. 7, 1953, pp. 46-50; A. Mesanza, O.P., Célebres imágenes
y santuarios de Nuestra Señora en Colombia (Chiquinquirá, 1950).

988

P. Barola, S.J., La Santísima Virgen y Venezuela, in Revista de Orientación Católica (Caracas), Vol. 12,
1949, pp. 45-57, 89-94. A.A.S., Vol. 41, 1949, p. 318 (declared Patroness); Vol. 44, 1952, p. 739 (on coronation);
Vol. 42, 1950, p. 328 (raised to basilica). Other important South American shrines: In Chile: M. Munizaga, El
santuario y la fiesta de Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Andacollo (Barcelona, 1900). In Ecuador: C. Sono,
Nuestra Señora del Quinche (Quito, Ecuador, 1903). In Paraguay: Anonymous, La Virgen de los milagros
de Caacupé (Asunción, Paraguay, 1898). General titles: Felix Cepeda, C.M.F., América Mariana, 2 vols.
(Madrid, 1925); M. Cidad, Monumentos, santuarios, imágenes, y principales advocaciones con que se ha
honrado a la Virgen en los paises americanos, especialmente en Chile, in Primer Congreso Pan-Americano
de las Congregaciones Marianas (Santiago de Chile, 1922), pp. 503-508. A list of all the paintings and statues
of Our Lady in South America and Mexico which have been canonically crowned, has been drawn up by
Guillermo Rozo, C.M.F., La royauté de Marie dans l’Amerique Latine, in Marie, Vol. 8, 1955, pp. 512-513. For
further information, cf. R. Vargas Ugarte, op. cit.

989

Constantino Bayle, S.J., Santa María de Indias (Madrid, 1928), pp. 67-69; C. C. Martindale, S.J., Our
Blessed Lady (New York, 1940), pp. 180-185; M. Romero, Historia de Nuestra Señora la Virgen de Antipolo
(Manila, 1886).

990

Wu Ching Hsiung, Il culto della Madonna in Cina, in Marianum, Vol. 9, 1947, pp. 143-147; idem, Le culte
Mariale en Chine, in Marie, Vol. 8, 1955, p. 501; Stanislaus Lokuang, Il culto della Madonna in Cina, in Vita
e Pensiero, Vol. 31, 1948, pp. 326-331.

991

E. F. Hammo, Dévotion mariale au Japon, in Marie, Vol. 8, 1955, p. 38; Daniel Ehman, C.Ss.R., The
Nagasaki Story, in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 8, 1953, pp. 136-139.

992

Maurice Vloberg, Les types iconographiques de la Mère de Dieu dans l’art byzantin, in Maria, ed. H. du
Manoir, S.J., Vol. 2 (Paris, 1952), pp. 403-443; Rouët de Journel, S.J., Marie et l’iconographie russe, ibid., pp.
444-481; A. Anisimov, Our Lady of Vladimir (Prague, Seminarium Kordakovianum, 1928).

993

For a classic exposition of the foundations of devotion to Mary see Orestes Brownson’s The Worship of Mary,
in Brownson’s Review, Vol. 10 (Boston, 1853), pp. 1-25. The use of “worship” for “veneration” was common
at the time. Even certain magistrates were worshipful. Francis Patrick Kenrick, Archbishop of Baltimore (1851-1893) and a leading American theologian of the nineteenth century, writes in his Dogmatica Theologia, Vol.
4 (Philadelphia, 1840), p. 221 f., “Id quidem exploratum est, quo altior est de mysterio incarnationis sensus,
eo teneriorem plerumque et ardentiorem erga Deiparam esse devotionem.” R. Schimmelpfennig, Die
Geschichte der Marienverehrung im deutschen Protestantismus (Paderborn, 1951), makes the same remark,
p. 146.

994

W. L. Sullivan, one of the few American priests to apostatize during the Modernist crisis, has some criticism
of Catholic teaching on Mary’s privileges and sanctity in his posthumous Under Orders (New York, 1944), pp.
73 ff. Testem Benevolentiae, the letter on Americanism, is translated in The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope
Leo XIII (New York, 1903), pp. 441-453. The brief First Rule of the Paulists prescribes the daily recitation of the
Rosary and of the Litany of the Blessed Virgin as well as a visit to the Blessed Sacrament and to the Blessed
Virgin. Cf. J. McSorley, Father Hecker and His Friends (St. Louis, 1952), p. 191.

995

P. Blanshard, American Freedom and Catholic Power (Boston, 1949), pp. 13, 76, 110, 187, 211, 216, and 223;
Communism, Democracy and Catholic Power (Boston, 1951), pp. 164, 235, 238 ff.

996

B. J. Otten, S.J., Manual of the History of Dogmas, Vol. 2 (St. Louis, 1918), pp. 397 ff. Cf. S. Bonano, C.M.F.,
Mary’s Immunity from Actual Sin, in Mariology, ed. J. B. Carol, O.F.M., Vol. 2, pp. 179-195; Carr-Williams,
O.F.M.Conv., Mary’s Immaculate Conception, ibid., 109-178.

997

O. Brownson, op. cit., “The Love of Mary,” p. 230.

998

Ibid., p. 232.

999

Loc. cit.: “Qui juventutem, praesertim puellas, voluerit a labe saeculi servare immunem, et omni informare
genere virtutum, oportet ut Mariam proponat exemplar, et patronam, quam a tenerioribus annis venerari et
invocare discant, eam pari studio imitari haud praetermittentes. Peccatoribus etiam in vitiorum barathrum
demersis magno cum emendationis fructu Maria exhibetur advocata, quae Filii deprecetur iram, eaque
obtineat gratiae subsidia, quibus infirmae voluntati subveniatur.”

1000

D. A. Lord, S.J., Our Lady in the United States, in Lumen Vitae, Vol. 8 (Brussels, 1953), p. 314. Cf. P.
Blanshard in Communism, Democracy and Catholic Power, p. 164.

1001

W. Parsons, S.J., in America, Vol. 30, 1923-24, pp. 249 f., 273 f., and 297 f.

1002

J. Gresham Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ (New York, 1924), pp. 134, 144 ff. B. L. Conway’s, The
Virgin Birth (New York, 1924), contains a learned exposition of the Catholic position and a brief history of the
problem. The author avoids contemporary controversy. Martin J. Scott’s The Virgin Birth (New York, 1925)
is popular and wider in scope. He also avoids the Protestant controversy. Father Parson’s articles, already
referred to, meet the Protestant positions.

1003

Cf. A. J. Robichaud, S.M., Mary, Dispensatrix of All Graces, in Mariology, ed. J. B. Carol, O.F.M., Vol. 2,
pp. 453-488.

1004

Brownson, op. cit., p. 225. Cf. R. V. O’Connell, S.J., Our Lady Mediatrix of All Graces (Baltimore, 1926).

1005

This is the view of Father Cyril Vollert, S.J., Le mouvement mariologique aux Etats-Unis, in Maria. Études
sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 3 (Paris, 1954), pp. 593-614.

1006

Vollert, art. cit., lists a number of these works including J. D. Bryant, The Immaculate Conception of the
Most Blessed Virgin Mary (Boston, 1855), R. F. Quigley, Mary the Mother of Christ in Prophecy and Its
Fulfillment (New York, 1892), and the articles of Brownson referred to above.

1007

Unsigned note in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 53, 1915, p. 347 f.

1008

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, pp. 782 f. Vollert, art. cit., pp. 598 ff.

1009

J. de Concilio, The Knowledge of Mary (New York, 1878), a learned work by a Jersey City pastor. Cf. Abram
J. Ryan, A Crown for Our Queen (Philadelphia, 1882), an important work by the poet-priest.

1010

J. B. Carol, O.F.M., De Coredemptione Beatae Virginis Mariae disquisitio positiva (Vatican City, 1950).
Cf. Review by Monsignor J. C. Fenton in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 126, 1952, p. 79; and by
C. Vollert, S.J., in Theological Studies, Vol. 13, 1952, pp. 442-444.

1011

Preliminary steps were taken in 1949 by Father Juniper B. Carol, O.F.M., and the first national meeting of
the Mariological Society took place in 1950. Marian Studies is published annually. On the activities of the
Mariological Society, cf. S. G. Mathews, S.M., Mary in America, in The Ave Maria, Vol. 89, April 11, 1959, pp.
9-11 and 26. Among religious orders, the Franciscans have been active in studying Marian theology and
devotion as well as promoting it. The First Franciscan National Marian Congress was held in Washington, D.
C., in 1950 and listened to communications from the members of the principal branches of the Order. The
proceedings have been published: First Franciscan National Marian Congress in Acclamation of the Dogma
of the Assumption, October 8-11, 1950 (Burlington, Wis., 1952). Cf. Fr. Maurice Grajewski, O.F.M., The
Franciscan Marian Cult in the United States in Our Times, ibid., pp. 120-125.

1012

Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, Vol. 39 (Paris, 1907), p. 966.

1013

Mansi, Vol. 39, p. 377 ff.

1014

Mansi, Vol. 43, pp. 7-11. The invocation Regina sine labe originali concepta was also to be added to the
litanies.

1015

Mansi, Vol. 43, p. 409. Similar acclamations were used in the First and Second Plenary Councils of
Baltimore (1852 and 1866). Cf. Mansi, Vol. 44, p. 673, and Vol. 48, p. 830.

1016

Mansi, Vol. 48, p. 901.

1017

Acta et Decreta . . . (Baltimore, 1886), pp. cv ff., 74.

1018

The National Pastorals of the American Hierarchy (1792-1919), edited by Peter Guilday (Washington,
1923), p. 13 f.

1019

Ibid., p. 168 f.

1020

Ibid., p. 178 ff.

1021

Ibid., p. 279.

1022

Daniel Sargent, Our Land and Our Lady (New York, 1939), passim.

1023

The statistics on churches, etc., are the writer’s, made on the Official Catholic Directory, Anno Domini 1955
(New York, 1955). Anyone undertaking the task of ascertaining precise numbers will naturally be faced with
problems despite the excellence of this Directory. To give one example: mission churches, i.e., churches served
by no resident pastor, are not mentioned by title in some dioceses. In others there are no mission churches
or practically none. This may be due to the automobile in populous regions where distances are not great.
Some dioceses list missions under the parish where the priest in charge lives. In others they are listed with
reference to the place of residence. Father Vincent Yzermans (in Churches of Mary in the United States, in
The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 132, 1955, pp. 169-180) finds 3815 Marian churches. Father Daniel
A. Lord in a list made some years ago stated that there were 3114 parish churches, dedicated to Mary. Cf. the
list of Marian Churches made in 1862 by X. D. MacLeod and given by W. Parsons, S.J., Marian Devotion in
the Early United States in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, p. 241 f.

1024

Most doubtful among these statistics are those on convents. It is difficult to determine at times whether the
Sisters live where they teach. Still the numbers are probably fairly accurate. In the statistics on elementary
schools neither catechetical nor summer schools are included.

1025

Cf. M. Habig, O.F.M., Our Oldest Church of Mary Immaculate, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol.
134, January, 1956, pp. 5-9.

1026

Our Lady of Fátima already has 60 church-dedications. There are churches of Our Lady of Chartres, Our
Lady of Bethlehem, Our Lady of Monserrate (in Puerto Rico), Our Lady of Prouille, of Talpa, of Celle, des
Canadiens, etc.

There are also in the United States 281 Holy Family churches and 69 All Saints churches in which dedications
Our Lady shares. Indeed all Catholic churches honor Our Lady: the formula of the Pontificale reads, “In
nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, in honorem Dei, et gloriosae Virginis Mariae atque omnium
sanctorum, ad nomen et memoriam sancti N.” Cf. J. Catalanus, Pontificale Romanum prolegomenis et
commentariis illustratum, Vol. 2 (Paris, 1851), p. 170.

1027

Even Guadalupe is only secondarily American. Spain has an ancient and celebrated shrine under that title.
Indeed, Guadalupe Hidalgo in Mexico was so named because its Aztec name seemed to the Spanish
conquerors to resemble Guadalupe. Still because of the vision to Juan Diego, of December 9, 1531, it seems
legitimate to trace American titles directly to Mexico and indirectly to Spain.

1028

Notre Dame University itself is probably tbe best known Marian title in the country. Another way in which
some American prelates show their devotion to Mary is by the motto of their coat of arms. Among those of
living bishops we find: Maria, Spes Nostra; Ad Nutum Reginae; Maria, Impende Juvamen; Maria Me
Custodiat; Auspice Maria; Per Matrem Dei; Ad Jesum Per Mariam; Omnia Per Mariam, and not a few
others.

1029

Z. Aradi, Shrines of Our Lady Around the World (New York, 1954), p. 169 ff. Cf. M. Habig, O.F.M., The First
Marian Shrine in the United States, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 136, February, 1957, pp. 81-89.

1030

A. Chavez, O.F.M., La Conquistadora (Paterson, N. J., 1954).

1031

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 12, p. 88; also recent issues (1953, 1954) of the Pilgrim, the Shrine bulletin.

1032

Z. Aradi, op. cit., pp. 173 ff., 181 ff.

1033

For the Robinsonville Shrine see The Chapel: Our Lady of Good Help. A Wisconsin Shrine of Mary (Green
Bay, 1950). Also The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 7, p. 418.

1034

A. M. Melville, John Carroll of Baltimore: Founder of the American Catholic Hierarchy (New York, 1955),
p. 264 ff.

1035

We omit, for example, the notable Marian apostolate centered in St. Meinrad’s Monastery at St. Meinrad,
Indiana, the annual Marian Week of the Marian Fathers at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and the work done
by the De Montfort Fathers, Bay Shore, New York, in propagating True Devotion.

1036

P. J. Peyton, The Ear of God (New York, 1951). The statistics are taken from publications of the Family
Theatre (7201 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, California) and the Family Rosary (432 Western Avenue, Albany,
New York).

1037

Our information is taken principally from Soul (Asbury Park, New Jersey), official organ of the Blue Army.

1038

Our information on the Block Rosary was furnished by Mr. N. J. Schorn, of the Block Rosary Lay Apostolate,
651 Marlborough Avenue, Detroit 15, Michigan, and taken from a pamphlet by A. Gargan, The Block Rosary
(St. Louis, 1953).

1039

Information on the National Radio Rosary Organization was furnished by A. J. Cummings, founder of the
group (4101 State St. Drive, New Orleans 15, Louisiana). An advance in this line has been made by the Servite
Fathers of Chicago who produce a weekly television program. The Servites also put out automobile windshield
stickers with a picture of Our Lady and the legend: “Ride with Mary. Pray the Rosary. The Soul You Save May
Be Your Own.”

1040

Information on the Reparation Society of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is taken from a pamphlet available
at headquarters (720 N. Calvert St., Baltimore 2, Maryland). Nocturnal adoration societies often sponsor
Marian devotions. Outstanding in this respect is the work of Fred Niehaus, of Cincinnati, Ohio.

1041

Cf. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 10, p. 115.

1042

M. E. Mott, The Green Scapular and Its Favors (Emmitsburg, 1942). The statistics were kindly furnished hy the
Marian Center, Emmitsburg, Maryland.

1043

First National Marian Congress of the Children of Mary (Emmitsburg, 1949).

1044

Information on the Rosary Making Club is taken from publications of the Club (118 West Broadway,
Louisville 2, Kentucky).

1045

In the Early Days. Pages from the Annals of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (St. Louis,
1925); A. C. Minogue, Loretto: Annals of the Century (New York, 1912); Sister M. Rosalita, No Greater
Service. The History of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 1845-1945 (Detroit, 1948);
Sister Maria Alma, Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Philadelphia, 1937); Sisters of the I.
H. M. (New York, 1921); R. A. Lane, The Early Days of Maryknoll (New York, 1951).

1046

Cf. Chapters XII, XIII, XIV, XV, and others in this volume.

1047

Our Lady’s Digest is published at Olivet, Illinois, under the editorship of Rev. Stanley Matuszewski, M.S.,
J. W. Lynch, A Woman Wrapped in Silence (New York, 1941). I Sing of a Maiden. The Mary Book of Verse,
edited by Sister M. Thérèse (New York, 1947), contains many American lyrics on Our Lady. Some American
devotional works on Mary are: Bishop Fulton Sheen, The World’s First Love (New York, 1952); D. A. Lord,
S.J., The Song of the Rosary (St. Louis, 1953) and Our Lady in the Modern World (St. Louis, 1940); H. Blunt,
Mary’s Garden of Roses (New York, 1939); W. Most, Mary in Our Life (New York, 1954) with a new edition
in 1959; Mary and Modern Man, edited by T. Burke, S.J. (New York, 1954); and E. F. Garesche, S.J., The Most
Beloved Woman (New York, 1919). Father Paul Palmer’s Mary in the Documents of the Church, a help to both
devotion and theology, has been reprinted in England. The Gallery of Living Catholic Authors has popularized
a new title, Our Lady of Letters. The University of Dayton, conducted by the Society of Mary, has assembled
a large library of Marian books and manuscripts. Marian College, Poughkeepsie, New York, also has an
important Marian Library under the direction of Brother Cyril Robert, F.M.S., and publishes the Bulletin
Board of Our Lady’s Library. Cf. Chapter XVII in this volume.

1048

Father Xavier D. MacLeod, a converted Protestant minister, Devotion to the Blessed Virgin in North
America (New York, 1866), p. 22.

1049

Cf. Lumen Vitae, Vol. 8, 1953, p. 312, article by Father Daniel A. Lord, S.J.

1050

H. Hermelink, Die katholische Kirche unter den Pius-Päpsten des 20. Jahrhunderts (Zürich, 1949), p. 126.

1051

O. Brownson, op. cit., p. 235.

1052

Cf. The Education of Henry Adams. An Autobiography (Boston, 1918), p. 469. Cf. J. Brodrick, The Quest
of Henry Adams, in The Month, Vol. 170, 1937, pp. 301-309, 397-406.

1053

New York, 1950.

1054

In the symposium Mary and Modern Man, ed. by Th. J. M. Burke, S.J. (New York, 1954), p. 84.

1055

B. A. U. Ten Brink, Early English Literature, Vol. 1, p. 200; quoted by G. R. Owst, Literature and Pulpit in
Medieval England (Cambridge, 1933), p. 17.

1056

C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love, a Study in Medieval Tradition (Oxford, 1936), p. 8.

1057

Ibid.

1058

E. Mâle, L’art religieux du XIIe siècle en France, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1928); L’art religieux du XIIIe siècle en
France, 7th ed. (Paris, 1931); L’art religieux de la fin du Moyen Age en France, 4th ed. (Paris, 1931). A
summary of the three volumes has recently been published in a Harper paperback Torchbook, The Gothic
Image (1958).

1059

L’art religieux de la fin du Moyen Age, p. 86.

1060

Loc. cit.

1061

Op. cit., pp. 91-122.

1062

Op. cit., p. 123.

1063

Cf. footnote 3, above.

1064

Owst, op. cit., p. viii.

1065

London, 1932; Introduction to Harpsfield’s Life of More, pp. cxxi-cxxiv.

1066

Loc. cit.

1067

Owst, op. cit., p. 19.

1068

Owst, op. cit., pp. 19-20.

1069

Since this chapter is concerned only with Our Lady in English literature, this may be the place to refer to
other literatures. The classic work on French miracle and mystery plays is L. Petit de Julleville’s Les Mystères
(Paris, 1880). The same field is covered, with special reference to Germany, in W. Greinzenach’s Geschichte
des neueren Dramas (Halle, 1893-1916). In these and similar works covering the medieval stage in other
countries, reference to the name “Maria” or “Virgin” or similar titles will reveal how often Our Lady was
presented on the stage to the people of the times. Much research has gone over the dam since the present
writer published his Mysteries’ End (New Haven, 1942), but some indication of the influence of the popular
medieval stage on the building Elizabethan drama is given in his pages.

1070

Representative Medieval and Tudor Plays, translated and edited by H. W. Wells and R. S. Loomis (New
York, 1942), pp. 93-94.

1071

Wells and Loomis, op. cit., p. 23.

1072

Ludus Coventriae, or the Playe Called Corpus Christi, ed. by K. S. Block (Oxford, 1932), pp. 106-108. The
spelling has been modernized, except where the old form is necessary for the rhyme.

1073

Wells and Loomis, op. cit., pp. 65-66.

1074

A. W. Pollard, English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes (Oxford, 1927), pp. xxii-xxiii.

1075

H. Adams, Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (Boston, 1913), p. 183.

1076

Op. cit., p. 258. Those who would like to pursue further the thoughts in this essay would do well to consult
Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 2 (Paris, 1952). This is a rich treasure-house,
treating (in Book 5) the place of Our Lady in letters and arts in almost all Old World countries. The chapter
on Our Lady in English literature, by C. C. Martindale, S.J., is a little sketchy (pp. 97-123), consisting mainly
in recalling the many English writers who have referred to her. This, as I have said in the body of this chapter,
is one way of tracing Our Lady’s influence, but not, I feel, the way to get at any real seminal influence.

1077

Cf. E. Dickerson, Music in the History of the Western Church (London, 1902); G. Reese, Music in the Middle
Ages (New York, 1940); P. H. Lang, Music in Western Civilization (New York, 1941).

1078

Cf. G. M. Dreves, S.J., Aurelius Ambrosius (Freiburg, 1893), p. 111.

1079

Cf. A. Fortesque, The Mass. A Study of the Roman Liturgy (New York, 1937), p. 205 ff.

1080

Cf. J. Braun, Liturgisches Handlexikon, 2nd ed. (Regensberg, 1924), p. 121. It should be recalled that the
monasteries were observing the canonical hours centuries before they were made a part of the Roman liturgy.
In that respect a good number of Marian hymns were current and regularly used.

1081

Cf. F. Cabrol, art. Marie, Mère de Dieu, in Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et Liturgie, Vol. 10[2], Col.
2035.

1082

Cf. M. Gerbert, De cantu et musica sacra, Vol. 1 (Typis San-Blasianis, 1774), p. 80.

1083

Hymnum dicat turba fratrum, lines 11-13; cf. J. S. Phillimore, The Hundred Best Latin Hymns (London,
1926), p. 3.

1084

Jesu, corona virginum; cf. M. Britt, O.S.B., The Hymns of the Breviary and Missal (New York, 1924), p. 339.

1085

Cf. J. Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (London, 1892), p. 383.

1086

Cf. Cabrol, art. cit., Col. 2038.

1087

Cf. L. Duchesne, Christian Worship (London, 1923), pp. 269-275.

1088

Cf. A. Gastoué, Les origines du chant romain (Paris, 1907), p. 48.

1089

Cf. J. Gajard, O.S.B., Notre Dame et l’art grégorien, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du
Manoir, S.J., Vol. 2 (Paris, 1952), p. 341 ff. It may be well, at this point, to refer the reader to the excellent
album of chants released by the monks of Solesmes through London ffrr, containing a 36-page descriptive
booklet with commentary by Dom Gajard. The set consists of five 12 inch LP recordings offering a great
number of Marian chants and hymns sung with admirable artistry by the monks. Among the outlets through
which this set may be obtained is the Gregorian Institute of America, 2132 Jefferson Avenue, Toledo 2, Ohio.
Many other Marian chants may be found likewise in Gregorian Chants by the choir of Our Lady of
Consolation Abbey, Stanbrook, Worcester, England. The set has two 10 inch LP records. Address Gregorian
Institute, etc., as above.

1090

Cf. Gajard, loc. cit.

1091

Art. cit., p. 370.

1092

Cf. Julian, op. cit., p. 99.

1093

Cf. Gajard, art. cit., p. 372.

1094

Chaucer’s Tales; Works, ed. Walter Skeat (Oxford, 1894).

1095

Found in St. Alban’s Book (twelfth century); Munich ms. (thirteenth century); Sarum Breviary (fourteenth
century); York and Roman Breviaries (fifteenth century).

1096

Cf. Gajard, art. cit., p. 373.

1097

Reese, op. cit., p. 192. Cf. E. Lapierre, Comment les musiciens chantent leur psaume à Marie, in Marie, Vol.
1, March-April, 1948, pp. 34-35.

1098

Cf. Reese, op. cit., p. 216.

1099

Paris, 1903.

1100

Cf. Reese, op. cit., p. 357.

1101

Cf. E. Krenek, Joannes Ockeghem (New York, 1953).

1102

Hymni totius anni secundum S. Romanae Ecclesiae consuetudinem (Romae, 1581).

1103

Cf. H. Coates, Palestrina (New York, 1938), appendix B.

1104

Cf. Dufourcq-Spycket, Esquisse d’une histoire de la musique en l’honneur die la Vierge, in Maria. Études
sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 2 (Paris, 1951), pp. 385-400.

1105

Cf. Lang, op. cit., p. 364 ff.

1106

Cf. Dufourcq-Spycket, art. cit., p. 396. For further reference to this type of Marian music, cf. Guido Anichini
and Cassiano da Langasco, La Madonna nella musica, in Enciclopedia Mariana, ed. R. Spiazzi, O.P. (Milano,
1954), pp. 689-699.

1107

Oxford Dictionary of Music, Vol. 3 (Oxford, 1902), p. 184. The same should be said for his Salve Reginas
and Ave Reginas.

1108

Ibid.

1109

Cf. The Catholic Choirmaster, Vol. 6, October, 1920, pp. 122-123.

1110

Cf. H. M. Miller, An Outline History of Music (New York, 1947), p. 149.

1111

Cf. K. Weinmann, History of Church Music, trans. from the German (Ratisbon, 1906), p. 169 ff.

1112

Further references to recordings of Marian music: RCA VICTOR, LM-6015 History of Music in Sound, Vol.
2 (Pre-Gregorian chant to early Renaissance). Available in set of two 12 inch records with Oxford University
book of music. — CONCERT HALL SOCIETY, CHS 47, Josquin de Prés, Ave Maria, etc., one 12 inch record;
CHS 1107, Machaut, Mass of Notre Dame, one 12 inch record. — PERIOD MUSIC COMPANY, P 513,
Palestrina, Magnificat, one 12 inch record. See also record list given by Reese, op. cit., p. 465 ff.

1113

E. Mâle, Religious Art from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1949), p. 132.

1114

Cf. Anichini-Belvederi, Maria “Mater Dei” nelle catacombe e nella basilica liberiana (Roma, 1931); G.
Belvederi, La “Mater Dei” nelle catacombe di Priscilla (Roma, 1954); M. Belvianes, La Vergine nella pittura
(Novara, 1951); P. Buondonno, S.M.M., La mariologie des catacombes romaines (Nicolet, 1954); C. Cecchelli,
art. cit., pp. 67-75; J. Ferretto, Vestiges du culte de la Sainte Vierge dans certaines fresques des catacombes,
in Marie, Vol. 3, No. 5, 1950, pp. 10-20; Hertling-Kirchbaum, The Roman Catacombs and Their Martyrs
(Milwaukee, 1956); V. M. O’Shea, O.S.M., The Most Ancient Picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in The Age
of Mary, Vol. 3, May, 1956, pp. 5-7; G. Sartoris, O.S.M., La più antica pittura di Maria SS. La Madonna di
Priscilla, in Marianum, Vol. 2, 1940, pp. 109-113.

1115

Cf. Proud Byzantium’s Christian Treasure, in Life, Vol. 29, No. 26, 1950, p. 57.

1116

Cf. S. Bettini, Mosaici antichi di San Marco a Venezia (Bergamo, 1944); E. M. Jones, O.S.B., The
Iconography of the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God in Byzantine Tradition, in The Eastern Churches
Quarterly, Vol. 9, 1951, pp. 101-112; G. P., The Hodegetria Eikon, ibid., Vol. 5, 1944, pp. 277-284; V. Lasareff,
Studies in the Iconography of the Virgin, in The Art Bulletin, Vol. 20, No. 7, 1938, pp. 26-65; M. Vloberg, Les
types iconographiques de la Mère de Dieu dans l’art byzantin, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H.
du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 2 (Paris, 1952), pp. 405-443.

1117

The Praeger Picture Encyclopedia of Art (New York, 1959), p. 199.

1118

Mâle, op. cit., p. 94.

1119

P. Gay, Giotto (Paris, 1949), p. 5.

1120

G. Vasari, Lives of the Artists (New York, 1946), p. 101.

1121

Cf. H. de Cardonne, L’art marial du XIIe au XVIe siècle, in Compte rendu du Congrès Marial tenu à
Fribourg, 1902, Vol. 2 (Blois, 1903), pp. 479-484; Canon Van den Gheyn, La Vierge de Van Eyck, in Mémoires
et rapports du Congrès Marial tenu à Bruxelles, 1921, Vol. 2 (Bruxelles, 1922), pp. 504-508. Specifically on
the cathedrals, cf. R. G. Anderson, The Biography of a Cathedral (New York-Toronto, 1946); idem, The City
and the Cathedral (New York-Toronto, 1948); A. Temko, Notre-Dame of Paris (New York, 1955); Henry
Adams, Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (Boston-New York, 1933).

1122

The Praeger Picture Encyclopedia of Art, p. 310.

1123

Council of Trent, sessio 25; D.B., 986.

1124

T. Bodkin, The Virgin and Child (New York, 1959), p. 5. Cf. likewise A. Weis, La Madonna nell’arte
occidentale, in Mater Christi, ed. G. Filograssi, S.J. (Roma, 1958), pp. 486-504; Vloberg, art. cit., pp. 511-519.

1125

The Praeger Picture Encyclopedia of Art, p. 334.

1126

Cf. F. Rios, Las Inmaculadas de Murillo. Estudio crítico (Barcelona, 1948); I. Elizalde, En torno a las
Inmaculadas de Murillo (Madrid, 1955).

1127

Cf. Vloberg, art. cit., pp. 521-527; Weis, art. cit., pp. 504-510.

1128
J. Maritain, Art and Scholasticism (New York, 1949), p. 56. Cf. also G. Perocco, La Madonna nell’arte
moderna, in Enciclopedia Mariana, ed. R. Spiazzi, O.P., 2nd ed. (Milano, 1958), pp. 743-751; M. A. D’Arcy,
S.J., L’art religieux en Angleterre, in L’art de l’Eglise, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1955, pp. 5-10. Further literature: On the
Immaculate Conception: V. Alce, O.P., L’Immacolata nell’arte della fine del sec. XV al sec. XX, in Virgo
Immaculata, Vol. 15 (Romae, 1957), pp. 107-135; Anon., La Inmaculada Concepción y la pintura española,
in Estudios, Vol. 10, 1954, pp. 217-222; P. Cancani, La più antica icone dell’Immacolata in Roma, in
L’Osservatore Romano, Dec. 4, 1954; C. Cecchelli, Note sulla più antica iconografia della Immacolata, in
Virgo Immaculata, Vol. 15 (Romae, 1957), pp. 199-203; M. Gómez Moreno, La Inmaculada en la escultura
española (Comillas, 1955); F. de Hornedo, S.J., La pintura de la Inmaculada en Sevilla (primera mitad del
s. XVII), in Miscelanea Comillas, Vol. 20, 1953, pp. 169-198; Aug.-M. Lépicier, O.S.M., L’Immaculée
Conception dans l’art et l’iconographie (Spa, 1956); M. Vloberg, The Iconography of the Immaculate
Conception, in The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, ed. E. D. O’Connor, C.S.C. (Notre Dame, 1958),
pp. 463-506. On the Assumption: T. Bodkin, The Assumption in Art, in The Furrow, Vol. 1, 1950, pp. 517-522;
L. Di Stolfi, O.F.M., La morte e l’Assunzione di Maria SS. nell’arte, in Atti del Congresso Nazionale Mariano
dei Frati Minori d’ltalia (Roma, 1948), pp. 163-193; M. Gavriloff, The Dormition and Assumption of the
Blessed Virgin in Slav Iconography, in The Eastern Churches Quarterly, Vol. 9, 1951, pp. 113-119; N. Pérez,
S.J., La Asunción de Nuestra Señora en el arte, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 5, 1947, pp. 457-466. On the
Queenship: E. Amadei, La royauté de Marie dans la peinture, in Marie, Vol. 8, 1955, pp. 531-532; G. Geppetti,
O.S.M., La royauté de Marie dans l’archeologie, ibid., p. 530; P. Indekeu, Maria-Koningin in de kunst, in
Mariale Dagen, Vol. 5, 1935, pp. 187-196; M. Lawrence, Maria Regina, in Art Bulletin, Vol. 7, 1924-1925, pp.
150-161; M. Lefrançois-Pillion, La souveraineté de Marie dans l’art, in Souveraineté de Marie. Congrès
Marial de Boulogne s/M (Paris, 1938), pp. 436-440. On the New Eve: J. De Mahuet, S.M., Le thême de Marie
Nouvelle Eve dans l’iconographie chrétienne, in Bulletin de la Société Française d’Études Mariales, Vol. 14,
1956, pp. 27-48. On these and various other Marian prerogatives cf. G. Fallani, Interpretazioni artistiche del
dogma mariano, in Enciclopedia Mariana, ed. R. Spiazzi, O.P., 2nd ed. (Milano, 1958), pp. 751-758.

1129

E. L. Mascall, The Dogmatic Theology of the Mother of God, in The Mother of God. A Symposium by
Members of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, ed. by E. L. Mascall (Westminster, 1949), pp. 37-50;
T. M. Parker, Devotion to the Mother of God, ibid., pp. 64-75; H. Asmussen, Maria, die Mutter Gottes, 2nd
ed. (Stuttgart, 1951); id., Maria, die Mutter Gottes, und die Lehre der evangelischen Kirche, in Liturgie und
Lehrwort, ed. by Th. Bolger, O.S.B. (Maria Laach, 1954), pp. 80-93; M. Thurian, Ways of Worship. A Report
of a Theological Commission of Faith and Order (London, 1951); id. Marie dans la Bible et dans l’Eglise, in
Dialogue sur la Vierge, ed. by P. Couturier (Paris, 1951), pp. 107-130; id. Das Assumptio-Dogma, in
Oekumenische Einheit, Vol. 2 [3], 1951, pp. 240-255.

1130
Cf. e.g., C. Crivelli, S.J., Notre Dame et les protestants, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du
Manoir, S.J., Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), pp. 677-693; J. Hamer, O.P., Marie et le protestantisme à partir du dialogue
oecuménique, ibid., Vol. 5 (Paris, 1958), pp. 985-1006; idem Protestants and the Marian Doctrine, in The
Thomist, Vol. 18, 1955, pp. 480-502; S. Bonano, C.M.F., Mary and United States Protestantism, in
Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 6, 1956, pp. 369- 424; idem Protestant Reaction to the Definition of the
Assumption, ibid., Vol. 1, 1951, pp. 282-284; Y. M. J. Congar, O.P., Marie et l’Eglise chez les protestants, in
Bulletin de la Société Française d’Études Mariales, Vol. 10, 1952, pp. 87-106; A. Bea, S.J., Maria e i
protestanti, in Enciclopedia Mariana, ed. R. Spiazzi, O.P., (Milano, 1954), pp. 367-373; Th. Sartory, O.S.B.,
Maria und die getrennten Brüder, in Gloria Dei, Vol. 9, 1954, pp. 210-225; P. Palmer, S.J., Mary in Protestant
Theology and Worship, in Theological Studies, Vol. 15, 1954, pp. 519-540.

1131

Ways of Worship. A Report of a Theological Commission on Faith and Order (London, 1951), p. 531 ff.

1132

Op. cit., p. 282.

1133

Op. cit., p. 289.

1134

Op. cit., p. 312 ff.

1135

Op. cit., p. 317.

1136

Cf. G. Bareille, art. Gnosticisme, in D.T.C., Vol. 6, Cols. 1434-1467.

1137

Mt. 12:47 ff.

1138

Cf. R. Schimmelpfennig, Die Geschichte der Marienverehrung im deutschen Protestantismus (Paderborn,
1952), p. 9.

1139

Luther Werke, Vol. 7 (Weimarer Ausgabe, 1883), p. 544 ff.

1140

Luther, Evangelium von der Geburt Mariä 1522, in Luther Werke, Vol. 10, p. 321.

1141

Luther, Evangelium am Tage der heiligen drei Könige 1527, ibid., p. 368.

1142

Luther, Evangelium am anderen Sonntag nach der Erscheinung Christi, Winterpostille 1528, op. cit., Vol.
21, p. 65.

1143

Luther, Evangelium am 24. Sonntag nach Trin. 1526, op. cit., Vol. 10, p. 429.

1144

Cf. Schimmelpfennig, op. cit., p. 18.

1145

Luther, Vom Shem Hemphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi, 1543, in Luthers Werke, Vol. 53, p. 640.

1146

Ibid.

1147

Am Tage der Himmelfahrt Mariä, 1522, op. cit., Vol. 10, p. 268.

1148

Cf. Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, 2nd ed. (Göttingen, 1952), p. 54.

1149

Ibid., p. 1024.

1150

Cf. Corpus Reformatorum, Vol. 45 (Breaunschweig, 1827), p. 35; cf. also Vol. 46, pp. 106-107.

1151

H. Zwingli, Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 6, Part 1 (Berlin, 1905), p. 205.

1152

E. Bicknell, The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (London, 1955), p. 74.

1153

Cf. L. Bouyer, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, tr. A. Littledale (Westminster, Md., 1956), p. 59 ff.

1154

K. F. Dougherty, S.A., Contemporary American Protestant Attitudes Toward the Divine Maternity, in
Marian Studies, Vol. 6, 1955, pp. 137-163.

1155

Ibid., p. 144.

1156

This term originated in America in 1909 to describe a Protestant reaction to Liberal religious thought.

1157

G. Miegge, The Virgin Mary, tr. W. Smith (Philadelphia, 1956).

1158

Miegge, op. cit., p. 183.

1159

Op. cit., p. 184.

1160

Rev. E. R. Hardy, The Chosen Instrument, in The Living Church [Milwaukee], June 3, 1956, p. 9.

1161

The Abbot of Downside, The Church and Our Lady, in The Tablet [London], Vol. 207, April 28, 1956, p. 397.

1162

G. W. Shea, Triple Anti-Marian Fiasco, in The Marianist, Vol. 47, June, 1956, pp. 3-6, 31; cf. also E. R.
Carroll, O.Carm,, A Waldensian View of the Virgin Mary, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 135,
December, 1956, pp. 380-397.

1163

Miegge, op. cit., p. 8.

1164

P. Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 (Chicago, 1951), p. 128.

1165

Card. J. H. Newman, Mary, the Mother of Jesus (New York, n.d.), Chapters 8 and 9, especially p. 80. Cf.
also F. J. Friedel, S.M., The Mariology of Cardinal Newman (New York, 1928), pp. 345-384.

1166

Cf. E. L. Mascall, art. cit., in the symposium The Mother of God, p. 48.

1167

Mascall, art. cit., pp. 48-49.

1168

Cf. K. F. Dougherty, Our Lady and Christian Unity, a paper read at the International Mariological Congress
in Lourdes, September, 1958.

1169

Cf. A. Drummond, German Protestantism Since Luther (London, 1951), pp. 260-261.

1170

F. Heiler, Jungfrau Mutter, in Hochkirche, Vol. 12, 1930, p. 352.

1171

G. Glinz, Marientag, in Una Sancta, Vol. 1, 1925, p. 150.

1172

H. Asmussen, Maria, die Mutter Gottes, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1951).

1173

Op. cit., p. 13.

1174

Op. cit., p. 31.

1175

Op. cit., p. 59.

1176

K. Barth, Dogmatics, tr. O. Wyon, Vol. 2 (Philadelphia, 1952), pp. 200, 185, 197.

1177

Barth, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 153-154.

1178

Barth, Esquisse d’une dogmatique (Paris, 1950), p. 127.

1179

Op. cit., pp. 132-133.

1180

Barth, Dogmatics, Vol. 2, p. 139.

1181

Op. cit., p. 141 ff.

1182

Op. cit. p. 143.

1183

Ibid.

1184

Op. cit., p. 146.

1185

M. Thurian, Le dogme de l’Assomption, in Verbum Caro [Taizé lès Cluny], Vol. 5, 1951, p. 36.

1186

Thurian, in Ways of Worship ... , p. 311.

1187

Thurian, Le dogme de l’Assomption, p. 30.

1188

Ways of Worship ... , pp. 318-319.

1189

Cf. Thurian, Marie dans la Bible et dans l’Eglise, in Dialogue sur la Vierge, ed. Couturier (Paris, 1951), p.
122.

1190

Ways of Worship ... , p. 312 f.

1191

Cf. K. F. Dougherty, S.A., Seminary Study of American Protestantism, in The American Ecclesiastical
Review, Vol. 135, 1956, pp. 313-322. Further references: J. Amstutz, Die Verehrung Marias vom freien
Protestantismus gesehen, in Eine Heilige Kirche, 1955/56, fasc. 1, pp. 37-42; P. Schäfer, Marienverehrung
in der anglikanischen Kirche, ibid., pp. 16-20; O. Schröder, Die Diskussion über die wahre Marienverehrung
in der römisch-katholischen Kirche von heute, ibid., pp. 42-60; H. D. Béchaux, O.P., La Mère entre les frères
séparés, in La Vie Spirituelle, Vol. 84, January, 1951, pp. 17-21; G. M. Besutti, O.S.M., Segnalazione di alcune
pubblicazioni assunzionistiche dei Fratelli Separati, in Marianum, Vol. 13, 1951, pp. 187-190; V. M. Buffon,
O.S.M., La Vergine Maria nel protestantesimo. Rassegna ai alcune recenti pubblicazioni della Chiesa
Riformata, ibid., Vol. 19, 1957, pp. 523-567; G. Philips, L’opposition protestante à la Mariologie, ibid., Vol.
11, 1949, pp. 469-488; P. Van Essen, O.F.M.Cap., Protestantism and the Virginity of Mary, ibid., Vol. 19, 1957,
pp. 79-89; Boscu-Bourguet-Maury-Roux, Le protestantisme et la Vierge Marie (Paris, 1950); F. Cavalli, S.J.,
Echi del dogma dell’Assunzione tra i protestanti, in La Civiltà Cattolica, a. 102, Vol. 1, 1951, pp. 31-46; G. M.
Corr, O.S.M., La doctrine mariale et la pensée anglicane contemporaine, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte
Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 3 (Paris, 1954), pp. 713-731; N. García Garcés, C.F.M., Puntos sobre las
íes, en que se comentan algunos juicios sobre “La Vergine Maria” del protestante Miegge, in Ephemerides
Mariologicae, Vol. 3, 1953, pp. 103-116; L. Giussani, Attegiamenti protestanti ed ortodossi davanti al dogma
dell’Assunta, in La Scuola Cattolica, Vol. 79, 1951, pp. 106-113; K. Goldammer, Reaktionen der öffentlischen
Meinung in den USA auf das neue Mariendogma, in Oekumenische Einheit, Vol. 2 (3), 1951, pp. 174-193; J.
Gonsette, S.J., L’attitude des anglicans devant la doctrine mariale, in Journées Sacerdotales Mariales, 1951
(Dinant, 1952), pp. 149-157; J. Granero, S.J., El nuevo dogma frente al irenismo, in Razón y Fe, Vol. 144, 1951,
pp. 100-110; B. Grimley, Protestantism and Our Lady, in Our Blessed Lady. Cambridge Summer School
Lectures for 1933 (London, 1934), pp. 251-260; S. Pauleser, O.F.M., Maria und die Reformation (Würzburg,
1951); H. D. Preuss, Maria bei Luther (Gütersloh, 1954); B. D. Dupuy, O.P., La Mariologie de Calvin, in Istina,
Vol. 5, 1958, pp. 479-490; K. Algermissen, Mariologie und Marienverehrung der Reformatoren, in Theologie
und Glaube, Vol. 49, 1959, pp. 1-24; S. Cwiertniak, S.M., La Vierge Marie dans la tradition anglicane (Paris,
1958).