“The Presentation Of The Virgin Mary
In The Temple Of Jerusalem”.
Artist: Titian (1490 – 1576).
Collection: Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.
Source/Photographer: Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Feast Day 21 November.
From: “The Liturgical Year”.
By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.
Volume 15.
Time After Pentecost.
Book VI.
But Our Lady’s Presentation also opens new horizons before The Church. On The Cycle of The Saints, which is not so precisely limited as that of The Time, the Mystery of Mary’s sojourn in the Sanctuary of The Old Covenant is our best preparation for the approaching Season of Advent.
By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.
Volume 15.
Time After Pentecost.
Book VI.
The Presentation of The Blessed Virgin Mary is one of the Minor Solemnities of Our Lady, and was inscribed at a comparitively late date on The Sacred Cycle: It seems to court the homage of our silent contemplation.
The World, unknown to itself, is ruled by the secret Prayers of The Just; and The Queen of Saints, in her hidden Mysteries, wrought far more powerfully than the so-called “great men”, whose noisy achievements fill the annals of the human race.
The East had been Celebrating for seven Centuries, at least, “The Entrance of The Mother of God into the Temple of Jerusalem”, when, in 1372, Pope Gregory XI permitted it to be kept for the first time by the Roman Court at Avignon.
[This is to be understood only of The Feast properly so called; for the marble of Berre, reproduced by Le Blant in “Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule,” proves that the fact of Mary’s sojourn in the Temple of Jerusalem was recognised and honoured in The West in the 5th-Century A.D.]
Mary, in return, broke the chains of captivity that had bound the Papacy for seventy years; and, soon, the successor of Saint Peter returned to Rome.
The Feast of The Visitation, as we saw on 2 July, was in like manner inserted in the Western Calendar to commemorate the re-establishment of unity after the Schism which followed the exile.
“The Presentation of The Blessed Virgin Mary”.
Feast Day 21 November.
From “Butler’s Lives of The Saints”.
Available on YouTube
In 1373, following the example of the Soverign Pontiff, King Charles V of France introduced the Feast of The Presentation into the Chapel of his Palace.
By Letters dated 10 November 1374, to the Masters and Students of The College of Navarre, he expressed his desire that it should be Celebrated throughout the kingdom: “Charles, by The Grace of God, King of The Franks, to our dearly beloved: Health in him who ceases not to honour His Mother on Earth. Among other objects of our solicitude, of our daily care and diligent meditation, that which rightly occupies our first thoughts is, that The Blessed Virgin and Most Holy Empress be honoured by us with very great love, and praised as becomes the Veneration due to her.
“For it is our duty to glorify her; and we, who raise the eyes of our Soul to her on high, know what an incomparable Protectress she is to all, how powerful a Mediatrix with her Blessed Son, for those who honour her with a pure heart . . .
“Wherefore, wishing to excite our faithful people to solemnise the said Feast, as we ourselves propose to do by God’s assistance every year of our life, we send this Office to your devotion, in order to increase joy.”
The new Feast, enriched with Indulgences by Pope Paul II, had gradually become general, when Pope Saint Pius V, wishing to diminish the number of Offices on the Universal Calendar, included this one among his suppressions. But, Pope Sixtus V restored it the The Roman Breviary in 1585m and, shortly afterwards, Pope Clement VIII raised it to the Rank of Double-Major.
Soon, the Clergy and Regulars adopted the custom of renewing their Holy Vows on this day, whereon their Queen had opened before them the way that leads by sacrifice to the special love of Our Lord.
But Our Lady’s Presentation also opens new horizons before The Church. On The Cycle of The Saints, which is not so precisely limited as that of The Time, the Mystery of Mary’s sojourn in the Sanctuary of The Old Covenant is our best preparation for the approaching Season of Advent.
Mary, led to the Temple in order to prepare in retirement, humility, and love, for her incomparable destiny, had also the mission of perfecting at the foot of the figurative Altar the Prayer of the human race, of itself ineffectual to draw down The Saviour from Heaven.
She was, as Saint Bernardine of Siena says, the happy completion of all the waiting and supplication for the coming of The Son of God; in her, as in their culminating-point, all the desires of the Saints, who had preceded her, found their consummation and their term.
