[Rank] De V die Infra Octavam Concept. Immac. Beatae Mariae Virginis;;Semiduplex;;2.5;;vide Sancti/12-08 [Rule] vide Sancti/12-08; 9 lectiones; Doxology=Nat [Lectio4] !From the Dogmatic Bull of Pope Pius IX. The language used in public worship is the necessary offspring of the teaching which it expresseth, and the former can have no safety unless the latter be settled. Wherefore Our Predecessors the Roman Pontiffs, while encouraging the pious love of the faithful for the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, have taken care ceaselessly to inculcate the sinlessness of the same. They have always particularly insisted that the Feast should be observed not in honour of Mary's sanctification, a false opinion, most foreign to the mind of the Church (but which hath nevertheless been maintained by some,) but in honour of her Conception itself. [Lectio5] The same Our Predecessors have likewise resisted the dreams of those who have imagined that in the sinless Conception there were Two Instants, and that the Church celebrateth the Second and not the First. Indeed, Our said Predecessors have considered the sinlessness of the First Instant to be as much a truth for their assertion, protection, and promulgation, as the sinlessness of the Conception at all. Hence came those words in which Our Predecessor Alexander VII. in a decree declareth the mind of the Church, and saith, Christ's faithful people, drawn by love to His most blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, have of a long time believed that God, at the very First Instant in which He made her soul and joined it to her body, by a special grace and privilege granted to her, through the merits of His dear Son, Christ Jesus, the Saviour of the world, Whose precious death He foreknew, cleansed her from all sin, original as well as actual; and it is in this belief, and no other, that the said faithful of Christ have always kept with devotion and joy [Lectio6] It hath always been one of the most weighty cares of Our said Predecessors the Roman Pontiffs to protect the doctrine of the sinlessness of Mary's Conception from any sort of attack or corruption. Not only have they suffered no one to condemn and traduce it, but they have gone much further, and in public and repeated declarations have averred That that doctrine which holdeth that the Virgin was conceived without sin is a doctrine, the arguments in support of which are strong enough to enable the the time of public worship, which is ancient, which is almost universal, which is one of those which the Church of Rome encourageth and protecteth, and which is worthy even to be expressed in the Liturgy itself, and in the most solemn prayers of the Church. Our said Predecessors did not stop even here, but in order to preserve the doctrine of the Virgin's sinless Conception from an injury they strictly forbade that the opposite opinion should be maintained either in publie or in private, to the end that it might at length die out under disapprobation. [Lectio94] In the year 1531, according the religious tradition of Mexico, Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, appeared on Mount Tepeyac to a recently baptized Christian, Juan Diego, and gave him a message for Bishop Juan de Zumarraga - a commission which she urgently repeated that a church was to be built there in her honor. The bishop, however, asked for a sign. Two days later, the neophyte set out to get a priest to administer the Last Sacraments to his and he took a route that not bring him too near the place of the apparitions. But his loving Mother favored him with a third visit, assured him of his uncles good health, and had him gather some roses which had sprung out of season. These she arranged in his tilma or cloak, and she told him to take them to the bishop As the roses cascaded to the floor of the bishop's audience chain (so the story continues), the picture of Mary, miraculously imprinted on the tilma, was revealed to those present. The image was ut first kept in the bishop's oratory then moved to the hermitage that had been built on Mount Tepceyac, and finally placed in the great basilica which became the goal of crowds of Mexican pilgrims, drawn there by their devotion to Mary and by the reports ol frequent miracles. Having the Blessed Virgin Mary of Guadalupe as an ever present protectress, the Mexican bishops, with the approval of all the people, chose her as the primary Patron of the Mexican nation; and this choice was duly approved by the apostolic authority of Pope Benedict XIV. On Columbus Day, October 12, 1895, Pope Leo XIII, acting through the archbishop of Mexico, adorned the holy image with a golden crown. And St. Pius X declared Our Lady of Guadalupe Patroness of all of Latin America. &teDeum [Lectio7] From the Holy Gospel according to Luke !Luke 1:26-28 At that time the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And so on. _ Homily by St. Tarasius, Patriarch (of Constantinople.) !On the Presentation of the Mother of God. O Mary, where shall I find words to praise thee? Maiden undefiled, virgin unstained, exaltation of women, glory of daughters! Holy Maiden Mother, blessed art thou among women, thy glory is in thy guilelessness, and thy name is a name of purity. In thee the curse of Adam is done away, and the debt of Eve paid. Thou art the clean offering of Abel, chosen out of the firstlings profession thereof to be made at of the flock, a pure sacrifice. Thou art the hope of Enoch, that firm hope that he had in God, and was not ashamed. Thou art the grace that was in Enoch in this life, and his transit to a better. Thou art the Holy Ark of Noah, and the bond of reconciliation with God in a new regeneration. Thou art the exceeding glory of the kingdom and Priesthood of Melchisedech. Thou art the unshaken trust of Abraham, and his faith in the promise of children that were to-be. Thou art the renewed oblation and the reasonable burntoffering of Isaac. Thou art the ladder that Jacob saw going up to heaven, and the most noble of all his children throughout the twelve tribes of Israel. According to the flesh thou art the daughter of Judah. Thou art the modesty of Joseph, and the overthrow of the old Egypt, yea, and of the Synagogue of the Jews. O purest! Thou art the book of Moses the Lawgiver, whereon the new covenant is written with the finger of God, for the new Israel, fleeing from the spiritual Egypt, even as the old law was written upon Sinai, for the old Israel, that Israel which was fed in the wilderness upon manna and water from the rock, whereof both were types of Christ, which was yet to come from thy womb, as a bridegroom from his chamber. Thou art Aaron's rod that budded. Thou art David's daughter, all glorious within, clothed in a vesture of gold, wrought about with diverse colours. [Lectio8] Thou art the vision of the Prophets and the fulfilment of those things which they foretold. Thou art the gate whereof Ezekiel spake, when he prophesied, and said, This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut (xliv. 2.) Thou art the Rod of Jesse, whereof Isaiah spake, ~(xi. I,) even that Rod whose Flower is Christ, and whose offshoots shall choke out all the seedlings of sin, and fill the earth with plants of grace. Thou art the Covenant foretold by Jeremiah when he said (xxxi. 31) Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers thereby signifying the coming of thy Son, and calling upon all nations to worship Him for their God, even to the uttermost parts of the earth. Thou art the great mountain spoken of by Daniel, the man greatly beloved, wherefrom is cut without man's hands the corner-stone, that is, Christ, which hath smitten in pieces the parti-coloured image of the old serpent. I honour thee as the unpolluted fountain, I proclaim that thou art full of grace, I praise thee as the clean and undefiled tabernacle of God. Verily, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. As by a woman death entered into the world, by a woman came the power to rise again. The serpent gave us to eat deadly fruit, but that fall hath ended in the lifegiving Bread of Immortality. Eve, our first mother, brought forth Cain the first murderer; thou, O Mary, hast brought forth Christ, the first-fruits of life and of the resurrection. Ear hath not heard the like. It hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive this new thing. Blessed be the unspeakable depths of the Wisdom of God. [Lectio9] And now we, the people of God, a holy generation, an acceptable congregation, the nestlings of the dove of peace, children of grace, do with purified minds and unpolluted lips, praise God in the tongues of all nations in this joyful solemnity of the Virgin. This is a noble Feast wherein the Angels keep holiday and men do most fitly offer praise, even a feast wherein we echo with reverence and joy that salutation first spoken by Gabriel. Hail Mary! Hail, thou Paradise of God the Father, whence the knowledge of Him floweth in broad rivers to the ends of the earth! Hail, Dwelling-place of God the Son, whence He came forth clothed in flesh! Hail, mysterious Tabernacle of God the Holy Ghost! Hail, thou that art holier than the Cherubim! Hail, thou that art more glorious than the Seraphim! Hail, thou that art nobler than the heavens! Hail, thou that art brighter than the sun! Hail, thou that art fairer than the moon! Hail, manifold splendour of the stars! Hail, light cloud, dropping the dew of heaven! Hail, holy breeze, clearing the air of the vapours of sin! Hail, royal theme of the Prophets! Hail, sound of the Apostles gone out into all the earth! Hail, most excellent confession of the Martyrs! Hail, just hope of the Patriarchs! Hail, peculiar honour of all the Saints! Hail, source of health to dying creatures! Hail, O Queen, ambassadress of peace! Hail, stainless crown of motherhood! Hail, advocate of all under heaven! Hail, restoration of the whole world! Hail, thou that art full of grace, the Lord is with thee, even the Lord that is before thee, and from thee, and that is with us. To Him, with the Father, and the most holy and Life-giving Spirit, be ascribed all praise, now and ever, world without end. Amen. &teDeum