Thursday 9 February 2017
Wednesday 8 February 2017
The Marian Saturdays. The Devotion Of The First Five Saturdays. Plus, The Five Masses In Honour Of Our Lady, According To The Season.
This Article is taken from, and can be read in full at,
CATHOLICISM PURE AND SIMPLE
Illustration: CATHOLICISM PURE AND SIMPLE
“I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the Graces necessary for Salvation, all those who, on The First Saturday of five consecutive months, shall Confess, receive Holy Communion, recite Five Decades of The Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while Meditating on The Mysteries of The Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
It may come as some surprise that this Devotion of The First Five Saturdays, requested by Heaven, through Sister Lucia of Fatima in 1925 at her Convent in Pontevedra, Spain, was not new; in fact, it is an ancient custom in The Church.
It fits precisely into the long Tradition of Catholic piety that, having devoted Fridays to the remembrance of The Passion of Jesus Christ and to honouring His Sacred Heart, found it very natural to devote Saturdays to His Most Holy Mother.
It is sometimes asked why Our Lady asked for Communions of Reparation on Five First Saturdays, instead of some other number. On 29 May 1930, Our Blessed Lord explained to Sister. Lucia, in another apparition to her, that it was because of five kinds of offenses and blasphemies against The Immaculate Heart of Mary, namely: Blasphemies against her Immaculate Conception, against her Perpetual Virginity, against The Divine and Spiritual Maternity of Mary, Blasphemies involving the rejection and dishonouring of her images, and the neglect of implanting in the hearts of children a knowledge and love of this Immaculate Mother.
It is sometimes asked why Our Lady asked for Communions of Reparation on Five First Saturdays, instead of some other number. On 29 May 1930, Our Blessed Lord explained to Sister. Lucia, in another apparition to her, that it was because of five kinds of offenses and blasphemies against The Immaculate Heart of Mary, namely: Blasphemies against her Immaculate Conception, against her Perpetual Virginity, against The Divine and Spiritual Maternity of Mary, Blasphemies involving the rejection and dishonouring of her images, and the neglect of implanting in the hearts of children a knowledge and love of this Immaculate Mother.
“My Soul waits for The Lord more than watchmen for the morning” (Psalm 130:6).
It is also an age-old Tradition that Jesus appeared to Mary on the Saturday, the day after His death, whilst the World lay in hushed waiting for The Resurrection. The great Theologians of the 12th- and 13th-Centuries, Saints. Bernard, Thomas, and Bonaventure, explained The Dedication of Saturdays to Mary by pointing to the time of Christ’s Rest in The Grave. Everyone else had abandoned Christ; only Mary continued to believe, demonstrating her deep Faith by never doubting for a moment her Son’s Promise of Resurrection. This was her day !
THE FIVE MASSES IN HONOUR OF OUR LADY,
ACCORDING TO THE SEASON.
The following Text is from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal.
The use of Consecrating the Saturday to Our Lady developed, not only in private, but also in Liturgical Devotion, during the 8th-Century - 12th-Century. The reason for this choice, however, remains unknown.
There are Five Masses in Honour of Our Lady, according to The Season.
They are said as The Mass of The Day on Saturdays when there are no Feasts or Greater Ferias, and can also be said as Votive Masses on other occasions.
Mass: Roráte, caeli.
Second Collect of The Feria of Advent.
Third Collect of The Holy Ghost.
Preface of The Blessed Virgin Mary. Et te in Veneratione.
God has sent us a Saviour (Epistle) and The Votive Mass of The Most Holy Virgin Mary, Proper to The Season of Christmastide, reminds us that it is by Mary that we have had the happiness of receiving The Author of Life (Collect).
The Gospel pictures her beside The Child in The Manger, and The Church declares her "Blessed, because she has borne in her womb The Son of The Eternal Father" (Communion), and truly worthy of all praise, because of her was born Christ Our Lord (Offertory).
The Collect and the Alleluia, in setting forth the Virginity of Mary, make manifest to us, as in all the Liturgy of Christmas, that Jesus has God for Father and that The Virgin, therefore, is, herself, The Mother of God.
Mass: Vultum tuum.
Second Collect of The Holy Ghost.
Third Collect against The Persecutors of The Church or For The Pope.
Preface of The Blessed Virgin Mary. Et te in Veneratione.
At this Season, Consecrated to the great work of our Redemption, The Mass of The Blessed Virgin shows us Mary as Mother of Our Saviour.
She was pre-destined from All Eternity for the role of Co-Redemptress (Epistle), for, as Eve was the intermediary chosen by The Angel of Darkness to bring about The Fall of Adam, so, also, is Mary the intermediary to whom The Angel Gabriel (Tract) delivered The Message of Salvation from Heaven. She is also Blessed since she heard The Word of God and obeyed it (Gospel).
Mass: Salve, sancta parens.
Second Collect of The Holy Ghost.
Third Collect against The Persecutors of The Church or For The Pope.
Preface of The Blessed Virgin Mary. Et te in Festivitáte.
Mary is also The Queen of The Church Founded by The Risen Christ. "Her power is established in Jerusalem and her abode is in the fulness of The Saints" (Epistle).
At The Foot of The Cross, Jesus said to Saint John, who personified all Christians: "Behold thy Mother" (Gospel), and Mary "always and everywhere protects our Souls through her patronage (Postcommunion).
Mass: Salve, sancta parens.
Second Collect of The Holy Ghost.
Third Collect against The Persecutors of The Church or For The Pope.
Preface of The Blessed Virgin Mary. Et te in Veneratione.
Mass: Salve, sancta parens.
Second Collect of The Holy Ghost.
Third Collect against The Persecutors of The Church or For The Pope.
Preface of The Blessed Virgin Mary. Et te in Festivitáte.
Tuesday 7 February 2017
Saint Romuald. Abbot. Feast Day 7 February.
Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.
Saint Romuald.
Abbot.
Feast Day 7 February.
Double.
White Vestments.
Saint Romuald.
Abbot.
Painted for the Church of San Romualdo, Ravenna, Italy,
an Angel uses the Abbot's baton to chastise an errant figure.
Artist: Guercino (1591–1666).
Date: 1640.
Current location: Pinacoteca Comunale di Ravenna, Italy.
Source/Photographer: Web Gallery of Art:
(Wikimedia Commons)
Saint Romuald was born at Ravenna, Italy, and left the World at the age of twenty (Gospel) to give himself up in Prayer and Meditation (Introit) to the work of Penance undertaken by Jesus.
Attacked by Satan, who tried to ensnare him, he always drove him away in terror (Epistle). He enjoyed, over Princes and Kings, a great influence (ibid), which he used for the good of Souls.
Like the Patriarch, Jacob, he saw in a vision a ladder which reached from Earth to Heaven, on which ascended and descended Monks clothed in White. This happened in Tuscany, Italy, on the field of a certain Maldoli.
Romuald bought this "Campo Maldoli" and Founded there the Monastery of "Camaldoli" and "The Camaldolese" Branch of The Benedictine Order (Communion).
He died in 1027 at the age of 120 at Val de Castro, Piceno, Italy. His body, found intact five years later, was placed in the Church of the Monastery at Fabriano. Saint Romuald always showed, in the midst of his austerities, a face so full of joy that those who saw him rejoiced.
Let us imitate him in the Holy Season of Lent.
Mass: Os justi of Abbots.
In Lent, Commemoration and Last Gospel of The Feria.
Monday 6 February 2017
Saint Dorothy. Virgin And Martyr. Feast Day, Today, 6 February.
Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.
Saint Dorothy.
Virgin and Martyr.
Feast Day 6 February.
Simple.
Red Vestments.
Saint Dorothy.
Artist: The Workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553).
Date: Circa 1530.
Current location: Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria.
References: Web Gallery of Art.
Source/Photographer: [2]
(Wikimedia Commons)
Saint Dorothy, a Virgin of Caesarea, in Cappadocia, was condemned to be beheaded. She received The Double Palm of Virginity and Martyrdom towards the end of the 3rd-Century A.D.
Mass: Me exspectavérunt of The Common of Virgins.
Saint Titus. Bishop And Confessor. Feast Day, Today, 6 February.
Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise..
Saint Titus.
Bishop and Confessor.
Feast Day 6 February.
Double.
White Vestments.
Saint Titus.
Святой Апостол Тит Критский
Косово, XIV век. Печь Патриаршия. Церковь св. Николая
Date: 14th-Century.
Author: Unknown.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Like The Divine Sower mentioned in the Gospel of Sexagesima Sunday, Titus, the well-beloved disciple of Saint Paul, "endured the fatigues of numerous and distant voyages on land and sea to go and sow The Divine Word among Nations of different Countries speaking different tongues" [Matins: Fifth Lesson].
Wherefore, The Church declares that "God had adorned him with the virtues of an Apostle" (Collect), and that he was one of the "husbandmen whom The Master of The Harvest had sent to gather it in" (Gospel.
Employed by Saint Paul in important circumstances [the name of Titus occurs ten times in the Epistles written by Saint Paul to the Corinthians and to Timothy], he landed with him in Crete and was made, by the Apostle, Bishop of the island (Introit, Epistle, Offertory). It was there that he received from his master a Letter included in The New Testament, of which we find extracts in the Epistle of certain Masses.
In today's Mass, we read, as Christ had already said (Communion), that the Bishop is "God's steward", and that "Jesus is The Saviour Who has given Himself to redeem us".
Saint Titus died at the age of ninety-four, towards the year 105 A.D., and his name is highly-praised by Saint John Chrysostom and by Saint Jerome.
Mass: Státuit, of a Confessor Bishop.
Commemoration: Of Saint Dorothy from Mass: Me exspectavérunt.
Sunday 5 February 2017
Saint Agatha. Virgin And Martyr. Feast Day, Today, 5 February.
Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.
Saint Agatha.
Attended in Prison by Saint Peter and an Angel.
Artist: Alessandro Turchi (1578–1649).
Medium: Oil on Slate.
According to an early Christian legend, when a 3rd-Century A.D. Roman official of Sicily desired
the Christian woman, Agatha, and she refused to yield to his advances, he had her tortured,
and even ordered her breasts cut off. At night, in prison, she was visited by a vision of
Saint Peter and an Angel, and her breasts were miraculously restored. The grey stone of
the prison wall was created by letting the slate show through, and it forms a background
for the night scene, illuminated by a torch. As opposed to canvas and wood, slate gave
a painting almost unlimited durability and the same kind of permanence as sculpture.
Date: 1640-1645 (Baroque).
Current location: Walters Art Museum, Baltimore,
Maryland, United States of America.
Credit line: Acquired by Henry Walters, before 1909.
Source/Photographer: Walters Art Museum.
(Wikimedia Commons)
English: The Parish Church of Saint Agatha of Sicily,
Bischofstetten, Austria.
Deutsch: Pfarrkirche Bischofstetten, Österreich.
Photo: 8 February 2012.
Source: Own work.
Author: BSonne.
(Wikimedia Commons)
She is The Patron Saint of: Catania, Sicily; Molise, Italy; Malta; San Marino; and Zamarramala, a municipality of the Province of Segovia, Spain. She is also The Patron Saint of breast cancer patients, Martyrs, wet nurses, Bell-Founders, bakers, fire, earthquakes, and eruptions of Mount Etna.
Agatha is buried at the Abbey Church of Saint Agatha (Badia di Sant'Agata), Catania. She is listed in the Late-6th-Century A.D. Martyrologium Hieronymianum, associated with Jerome, and the Synaxarion, The Calendar of The Church of Carthage, circa 530 A.D.
English: The Martyrdom of Saint Agatha.
Italiano: Martirio di Sant'Agata.
Artist: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.
This File: 17 April 2006.
User: Crux. This image was
copied from wikipedia:de.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Agatha also appears in one of the carmina of Venantius Fortunatus. Two early Churches were Dedicated to her in Rome, notably the Church of Sant'Agata dei Goti, in via Mazzarino, a Titular Church with Apse mosaics of circa 460 A.D., and traces of a fresco cycle, over-painted by Gismondo Cerrini, in 1630. In the 6th-Century A.D., the Church was adapted to Arian Christianity, hence its name, "Saint Agatha of Goths" (Sant'Agata dei Goti), and later re-Consecrated by Pope Gregory the Great, who confirmed her traditional Sainthood.
Agatha is also depicted in the mosaics of Sant' Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, where she appears, richly dressed, in the procession of female Martyrs along the North Wall. Her image forms an initial "I" in the Sacramentary of Gellone, from the end of the 8th-Century A.D.
English: Giovanni Battista Vaccarini (1702-1768),
was the Architect of The Abbey Church of Saint Agatha,
Catania, Sicily, Italy.
Italiano: Giovanni Battista Vaccarini (1702-1768),
la Chiesa della Badia di Sant'Agata a Catania (1767).
Photo: 4 July 2008.
Source: Own work.
Author: Giovanni Dall'Orto.
(Wikimedia Commons)
One of the most-highly-Venerated Virgin Martyrs of Christian antiquity, Agatha was put to death during the Persecution of Decius (250 A.D. - 253 A.D.) in Catania, Sicily, for her steadfast profession of Faith.
Her written legend comprises "straightforward accounts of interrogation, torture, resistance, and triumph, which constitute some of the earliest hagiographic literature", and are reflected in later recensions, the earliest surviving one being an illustrated Late-10th-Century passio, bound into a composite volume, in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, originating, probably, in Autun, Burgundy; in its margin illustrations, Magdalena Carrasco detected Carolingian or Late-Antique iconographic traditions.
According to Jacobus de Voragine's, Legenda Aurea, of circa 1288, having dedicated her Virginity to God, fifteen-year-old Agatha, from a rich and noble family, rejected the amorous advances of the low-born Roman Prefect, Quintianus, who then persecuted her for her Christian Faith. He sent Agatha to Aphrodisia, the keeper of a brothel.
English: Church of Saint Agatha, Rabat, Malta.
Italiano: Chiesa di Sant'Agata, Rabat, Malta.
Photo: 31 August 2009.
Source: Own work.
Author: Cruccone.
(Wikimedia Commons)
English: Interior of Saint Agatha's Chapel, Mdina, Malta.
Italiano: Interno della cappella di Sant'Agata, Mdina, Malta.
Photo: 31 August 2009.
Source: Own work.
Author: Cruccone.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Saint Agatha's Church,
Yorkshire, England.
The Church is next to Easby Abbey.
Photo: 15 June 2008.
Source: Own work by uploader.
Author: Greenjettaguy.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The following Text is from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal.
Saint Agatha.
Virgin and Martyr.
Feast Day 5 February.
Double.
Red Vestments.
Saint Agatha.
Virgin and Martyr.
Feast Day 5 February.
Double.
Red Vestments.
English: Cathedral of Saint Agatha, Catania, Sicily, Italy.
Deutsch: Italien, Sizilien, Catania, Dom Sant' Agata.
Photo: 6 October 2012.
Source: Own work.
Author: Berthold Werner.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr (Collect), was born in Sicily of noble parentage, but she estimated that, for her, the highest nobility would be to belong to Jesus, Whom she took as her Spouse (Gospel).
Endowed with remarkable beauty, she had to resist the solicitations of the Roman Governor, Quintianus, who, unable to attain his end by persuasion, had recourse to violence. Her breast was torn by his order, but was healed on the following night, by the Apostle, Saint Peter, who appeared to her in prison (Communion).
Then, the body of the Saint was rolled on pieces of broken pottery and on burning coals, and, when she was brought back to her cell, she expired while Praying.
This happened at Catana (Catania), Sicily, in 251 A.D., during the Persecution of the Emperor, Decius. God Almighty, by granting the victory of Martyrdom to a feeble woman (Collect), wished to show that He alone is our Redeemer, for it is with this "end in view that He chooses what is weak, in the World, to confound with their nothingness those who trust in their own strength" (Epistle).
English: Interior of the Church of Saint Agatha, Hausleiten, Austria.
Deutsch: Innenansicht der katholischen Pfarrkirche hl. Agatha
in der niederösterreichischen Gemeinde Hausleiten.
Photo: 29 September 2011.
Source: Own work.
Author: Bwag.
(Wikimedia Commons)
On several occasions, the virginal veil, which covered the tomb of Saint Agatha, held up the torrents of burning lava rushing down from Mount Etna and threatening to ruin the town. God thus honoured the resistance that her very pure Soul had shown to all the assaults of passion.
Her name is mentioned in The Canon of The Mass (Second List). Her Feast was already Celebrated at Rome in the 6th-Century A.D. The Church of Saint Agatha, in Rome, was made a Stational Church by Pope Pius XI in 1934 (Third Tuesday in Lent).
Let us invoke Saint Agatha to preserve our homes from fire and to extinguish, through the Spirit of Penitence, the impure flames that consume our bodies and our Souls.
Mass: Gaudeámus omnes in Domino.
[Editor: The Introit "Gaudeámus", which is used for many Feasts, is taken from The Mass of Saint Agatha.]
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