Text taken from "The Liturgical Year",
by Abbot Gueranger, O.S.B.
Translated from the French by
Dom Laurence Shepherd, O.S.B.
Volume 8, Paschal Time, Book II.
Re-published by St. Bonaventure Publications,
July 2000.
www.libers.com
OUR LADY, HELP OF CHRISTIANS.
(Feast Day, 24 May).
Our Lady Help of Christians Church, Santander, Cantabria, Spain.
Photo: 16 October 2008.
Author: Enrique López-Tamayo Biosca.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Ever since our entrance upon the joys of the Paschal Season, scarcely a day has passed without offering us some grand Mystery or Saint to honour; and all these have been radiant with the Easter sun.
But here has not been a single Feast of Our Blessed Lady to gladden our hearts by telling us of some Mystery or glory of this august Queen. The Feast of her Seven Dolours is sometimes kept in April - that is when Easter Sunday falls on or after the 10th of that month; but May and June pass without any special Solemnity in honour of the Mother of God.
It would seem as though Holy Church wished to honour, by a respectful silence, the Forty Days during which Mary enjoyed the company of her Jesus, after His Resurrection. We, therefore, should never separate the Mother and the Son, if we would have our Easter mediations be in strict accordance with Truth - and that we surely must wish.
During these Forty Days, Jesus frequently visits His disciples, weak men and sinners as they are: Can He, then, keep away from His Mother, now that He is so soon to ascend into Heaven, and leave her for several long years here on Earth ? Our hearts forbid us to entertain the thought.
We feel sure that He frequently visits her, and that, when not visibly present with her, she has Him in her Soul, in a way more intimate and real and delicious than any other creature could have.
No Feast could have given expression to such a Mystery; and, yet, the Holy Ghost, who guides the spirit of the Church, has gradually led the Faithful to devote, in an especial manner to the honour of Mary, the entire month of May, the whole of which comes, almost every year, under the glad Season of Easter.
No doubt, the loveliness of the month would, some time or other, suggest the idea of consecrating it to the Holy Mother of God; but, if we reflect on the Divine and Mysterious influence which guides the Church in all that she does, we shall recognise, in this present instance, a Heavenly inspiration, which prompted the Faithful to unite their own happiness to that of Mary, and spend this beautiful month, which is radiant with their Easter joy, in commemorating the maternal delight experienced during that same period, by the Immaculate Mother when on Earth.
But here has not been a single Feast of Our Blessed Lady to gladden our hearts by telling us of some Mystery or glory of this august Queen. The Feast of her Seven Dolours is sometimes kept in April - that is when Easter Sunday falls on or after the 10th of that month; but May and June pass without any special Solemnity in honour of the Mother of God.
It would seem as though Holy Church wished to honour, by a respectful silence, the Forty Days during which Mary enjoyed the company of her Jesus, after His Resurrection. We, therefore, should never separate the Mother and the Son, if we would have our Easter mediations be in strict accordance with Truth - and that we surely must wish.
MARIAN DEVOTION.
Available on YouTube at
Italiano: Santuario di Maria Ausiliatrice - Torino - Italia.
Photo: March 2007.
Source: fotografia personale.
Author: Franco56.
Permission: GFDL.
(Wikimedia Commons)
We feel sure that He frequently visits her, and that, when not visibly present with her, she has Him in her Soul, in a way more intimate and real and delicious than any other creature could have.
No Feast could have given expression to such a Mystery; and, yet, the Holy Ghost, who guides the spirit of the Church, has gradually led the Faithful to devote, in an especial manner to the honour of Mary, the entire month of May, the whole of which comes, almost every year, under the glad Season of Easter.
13th-Century Italian Acclamation
to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Available on YouTube at
A painting of Dom Prosper Guéranger
Printmaker was Claude-Ferdinand Gaillard (1834–1887).
Created 1874, published 1878 or earlier.
Photo: 2007-05-07 (original upload date).
Source: Transferred from en.wikipedia.
Author: Original uploader was Ikanreed at en.wikipedia.
Permission: This image is in the public domain due to its age,
(Wikimedia Commons)
Dom Prosper Louis Pascal Guéranger (4 April 1805, Sablé-sur-Sarthe, France – 30 January 1875, Solesmes, France) was a Benedictine Priest, Abbot of Solesmes Abbey (which he founded in the disused Priory of Solesmes) and founder of the
French Benedictine Congregation (now the Solesmes Congregation).
Dom Guéranger was the author of "The Liturgical Year", which covers every day of the Catholic Church's Liturgical Cycle in 15 volumes. He was well regarded by Blessed Pope Pius IX, and was a proponent of the Dogmas of Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception. Dom Guéranger is credited with reviving the Benedictine Order in France, and revitalising the Tridentine Mass.
Today, however, we have a Feast in honour of Mary. True, it is not one of those Feasts which are entered on the General Calendar of the Church; yet,it is so widely spread, with the consent of the Holy See, that our "Liturgical Year" would have been incomplete without it.
Its object is to honour the Mother of God as the Help of Christians - a Title she has justly conferred upon Christendom. Dating from that day whose anniversary we have just celebrated (Pentecost), when the Holy Ghost descended upon Mary in the Cenacle, in order that she might begin to exercise over the Church Militant her power as Queen - who could tell the number of times that she has aided, by her protection, the kingdom of her Son on Earth ?
MARIAN DEVOTION.
Available on YouTube at
Heresies have risen up, one after the other; they were violent; they were frequently supported by the great ones of this world [current Politicians take note - Editor]; each of them was resolved on the destruction of the True Faith; and yet, one after the other, they have dwindled away, or fallen into impotency; those of the present day are gradually sinking by internal discord [written at the end of the 19th-Century, but still relevant today - Editor]; and Holy Church tells us that it is Mary who "alone destroys all heresies throughout the whole world." [Gaude, Maria Virgo ! cunctas haereses sola interemisti in universo mundo (Office of the Blessed Virgin. Matins vii Antiphon).
If public scandals or persecutions, or the tyranny of secular interference (current Politicians take note - Editor], have at times threatened to stay the progress of the Church, Mary has stretched forth her arm, the obstacles were removed, and the Spouse of Jesus continued her onward march, leaving her foes and her fetters behind her.
All this was vividly brought before the mind of the Saintly Pontiff, Pope Pius V, by the Victory of Lepanto, gained by Mary's intercession over the Turkish fleet, and he resolved to add one more Title to the Glorious List given to Our Lady in the Litany of Loreto: It was "Auxilium Christianorum, HELP OF CHRISTIANS".
