“Tota Pulchra Es, Maria, Et Macula Originalis Non Est In Te”. “Thou Art All Fair, O, Mary, There Is No Spot Of Original Sin In Thee”.

Miniature (Illuminated Manuscript) from: Liber choralis parvus

continens missas vesperas et alia officia par S. Leonardi confes.

Date: 6 January 2015.

Source: Liber choralis parvus continens missas

vesperas et alia officia par S. Leonardi confes.

Author: Unknown.

This File: 16 July 2016.

User: Fulvio314

(Wikimedia Commons)

“Tota Pulchra Es, Maria”.

Composed by: Bruckner.

Sung by: Lincoln Cathedral Choir.

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Text is taken from, and can be read in full at, VULTUS CHRISTI

unless stated otherwise.

The Immaculate Conception.

Year after year, I open my Antiphonal, to prepare The Office of The Immaculate Conception of The Blessed Virgin Mary, and I am stunned by the beauty of the Antiphons that The Church places in our mouths to sing of this Mystery. These Antiphons diffuse a certain Luminous Whiteness, a fragrance of Divine Purity, a Penetrating Grace.

All Lovely.

The Divine Office gives me the very words that The Holy Ghost would have us pronounce, and the very melody that best carries them. I have only to take a breath, and sing what The Church wants me to sing. Her words, not mine: Words crafted by The Church under the overshadowing of The Holy Ghost; words for all of Eve’s hapless children who know not how to Pray as they ought.

“Tota pulchra es, Maria, et macula originalis non est in te”. “Thou art all fair, O, Mary, there is no spot of original sin in thee” (Ct 4, 7). Tota pulchra: All fair, all lovely, all beautiful or, to use the words of The Angel Gabriel: “Gratia plena”, “Full of Grace”.

In Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot,” one of his characters comments on the portrait of a woman, named Nastassya Filippovna, saying: “One could turn the World upside down with beauty like that.”

The beauty of The Immaculate Conception does not turn the World upside down; it is more radical than that. It is the beginning of a new World. It is the beauty of a new genesis, of Paradise re-invented in a little girl, conceived, as Bernanos put it, “younger than sin.”

The Heartbeat Of Hope.

Immaculate Beauty crushes the head of the ancient serpent. Read Genesis 3: 9-15, 20. The Human Race receives in the person of The Immaculate Conception a new “Mother Of All The Living.” The Heartbeat Of Hope begins its rhythm in the womb of Saint Anne. Nothing will ever again be the same.

The second Antiphon describes Mary as she appeared to Bernadette in 1858, in the grotto overlooking The Gave River: “Vestimentum tuum candidum quasi nix, et facies tua sicut sol”. “Thy raiment is White as Snow, and thy countenance as The Sun” (Ct 1:3, 4).

It was 155 years ago that the young woman, robed in White, with her countenance indescribably radiant, said to Bernadette: “I am The Immaculate Conception.” The Virgin revealed to Bernadette the Mystery of her identity, hidden in God from before The Creation of The World, and unspoiled in time, untouched by the ravages of sin.

This Antiphon is a key to understanding what The Apostle wrote to The Ephesians 1:4: He (The Father) chose us in Him (Christ Jesus) that we should be holy and unspotted (that is, immaculate) in His sight in Charity, (that is, in The Holy Ghost, The Living Flame of Love).

Look at Mary, and discover what The Father wants for you in Christ. Look at Mary, and marvel at what The Father will do for you, by The Blood of Christ, in The Power of The Holy Ghost. If you would advance steadily — however slowly, and notwithstanding the occasional fall — toward holiness, keep your eyes fixed on Mary.

Jubilancy In The 8th Mode.

The third Antiphon begins, not as most 8th Mode pieces do, on Fa, or Sol, or La, or Re, but, rather, in the heights of The Church’s jubilancy, on Do. The Church not only gives us words in her Liturgy; she interprets them for us. She communicates their mystic secrets by means of the melodies with which she clothes them. “Tu gloria, Jerusalem, tu lætitia Israel, tu honorificentia populi nostri”. “Thou art the exaltation of Jerusalem, thou art the great glory of Israel, thou art the great rejoicing of our Nation.”

This Antiphon is The Church’s response to The Introit of The Mass of The Immaculate Conception in which Mary sings her joy: “I will greatly rejoice in The Lord, and my Soul shall be joyful in my God” (Is 61:10).

The Church, having listened to Mary, sing her joy, holds that joy in her heart, and, then, turning to Mary, honours her with a triple Title:

— Exaltation of Jerusalem: High point of The Church, the pinnacle of the new creation;
— Glory of Israel: Everything, and everyone in salvation, history, looks to The Immaculate Conception and, in her, is gloriously lifted up;
— Great rejoicing of our Nation: Where Mary is present, there will always be joy. Where Mary is absent, there cannot but be sadness and gloom.

We Will Run After Thee.

The fourth Antiphon catches hold of my heart and does not let it ago. It is a Prayer of Petition, a pleading addressed to Mary. It is the expression of the Soul’s deepest longings, the perfect complement to The Gospel of the Annuciation (Lk 1:26-2 :38). “Trahe nos, Virgo immaculate, post te curremus, in odorem unguentorum tuorum”. “Draw us, Maiden undefiled, we will run after thee in the odour of thy perfumes.”

True devotion to The Blessed Virgin Mary is not static and sedentary. It is dynamic. It obliges us to get up and run. What is more elusive than the scent of a sweet fragrance borne on the wind ? It is the fragrance of Mary, sweet beyond all imagining; pure, and purifying; irresistible, drawing Souls after her, even Souls once sunk in the putrefaction and stench of habitual sin.

Mary is, for all of us sinners, the way upward and forward; the way out of sin, and into holiness; the way into a whole new order of things in which an Angel says: “No word (no thing) shall be impossible with God” (Lk 1:37), and in which each of us is called to say: “Behold the handmaid of The Lord; be it done to me according to thy word (Lk 1:38).

Consecration To The Immaculata.

How can we go about appropriating for ourselves The Graces of The Feast of The Immaculate Conception ? The Saints teach us the inestimable value of making an Act of Consecration to The Immaculata, to Mary, The “Tota Pulchra”, and of renewing it, frequently.

It is a way of saying: “Everything that I see in thy eyes, O, Mary, everything that thy Immaculate Heart desires for me, I too desire, and so that the will of The Father and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit may be realised in me, I hand myself over to thee. I give thee my past, my present, and my future, holding nothing back, reserving no times, or places, or things for myself.

All is thine.”

The following Text is from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia.

“Tota pulchra es” is an ancient Catholic Prayer, written in the 4th-Century A.D. It is one of the five Antiphons for The Psalms of Second Vespers for The Feast of The Immaculate Conception.

The Title means: “You are completely beautiful” (referring to The Virgin Mary). It speaks of her Immaculate Conception. It takes some Text from The Book Of Judith, and other Text from Song of Songs, specifically 4:7.

Composers to set the Prayer to music, include: Robert Schumann; Anton Bruckner, Pablo Casals; Maurice Duruflé; Guillaume du Fay; Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki; Heinrich Isaac; James MacMillan; Ola Gjeilo.