ZEPHYRINUS.: The Blessed Virgin Mary. Mediatrix Of All Graces. Feast Day 31 May.

Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless otherwise stated.

The Blessed Virgin Mary.
Mediatrix of All Graces.
Feast Day 31 May.

(Local Feasts. Feasts kept
in some Religious Congregations
and in some places).

White Vestments.

Rose Illustration: AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM

The Blessed Virgin Mary.
Mediatrix of All Graces.
Illustration: SHUTTERSTOCK

A Feast and Mass granted by Pope Benedict XV to many Dioceses.

“The Will of God is that we should have everything through Mary,” says Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. The Father has sent us His Son, but His Will was to make His Coming depend upon The Fiat of The Virgin, which He commanded the Angel Gabriel to solicit on the Day of The Annunciation.

The Father and The Son send us The Holy Ghost, but it is through Mary that He comes down to men. On the Day of Pentecost, according to an ancient Tradition, the Heavenly Fire, which descended on the Cenacle, first rested on Mary, and then on the Apostles. This is a figure of what happens every day in The Church, where The Holy Ghost is sent invisibly into our Souls.

“All the Gifts of The Holy Ghost are distributed by Mary to those whom she chooses; whenever she wishes; and as much as she wishes”, says Saint Bernadine of Siena.

The Graces, which The Holy Ghost pours down on us, are due to the Merits of Christ on Calvary; but in order that God may bestow them on the World, it is necessary that Mary should intervene. Having co-operated by her Divine Maternity and by her sufferings at the Foot of The Cross in The Incarnation and Redemption, she has deserved to co-operate when they are continually applied to creatures by The Most High,

“By The Communion of Sorrows and of Will, between Christ and Mary,” says Pope Saint Pius X, “she has deserved to become the dispenser of all the Blessings which Jesus acquired for us by His Blood” (Encyclical, 2 February 1904).

Such is His Will, but it is essential that she should constantly intercede for each one of us. This, she does, relying on The Blood of Christ, by Whom she was herself saved, and Who alone saves us. This actual intervention of Mary plays a preponderating part in the Salvation of the World. It is important that we should realise this, and it is the object of the Feast of Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces. A clear idea of the fact may be obtained by simply reading the Texts of The Mass and Vespers.

“Through The Virgin,” says Saint Bernadine of Siena, “Life-Giving Graces flow from Christ, Who is The Head, into His Mystical Body”. “Through her,“ adds Saint Antoninus, “come from Heaven all the Graces granted to the World.” “What all the Saints united to thee may obtain for us by their intercession,” writes Saint Anselm, “thy pleading, alone, may obtain without the help of their Prayers.”

The Maternal Solicitude of Mary, for the whole Human Race, is therefore continual, and it is because of this that, unceasingly, through The Mass, The Sacraments, the hierarchy and other channels of Grace, the Merits of Calvary are applied to our Souls. “We may affirm,” declares Pope Leo XIII, “that, by the Will of God, nothing is given to us without Mary’s Mediation, in such a way that, just as no-one can approach The Almighty Father but through His Son, so no-one, so to speak, can approach Christ but through His Mother.” (Encyclical, 22 September 1891.)

Let us therefore not consider as of small importance the efforts made to establish this point of Doctrine of Mary’s Mediation, since this Doctrine enables us to understand the Divine Plan, and clearly manifests the Mediation of The Son of God, of which it is a corollary.

Mass: Adeamus.

Creed.

Preface: Of The Blessed Virgin: Et te in festivitáte.