MARIA REGINA

Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio, 

umile e alta più che creatura, 

termine fisso d'etterno consiglio,

Fra Angelico
Coronation of the Virgin

tu se' colei che l'umana natura
nobilitasti sì, che 'l suo fattore
non disdegnò di farsi sua fattura.
...
In te misericordia, in te pietate,
in te magnificenza, in te s'aduna
quantunque in creatura è di bontate.

Or questi, che da l'infima lacuna
de l'universo infin qui ha vedute
le vite spiritali ad una ad una,

supplica a te, per grazia, di virtute
tanto, che possa con li occhi levarsi
più alto verso l'ultima salute.

E io, che mai per mio veder non arsi
più ch'i' fo per lo suo, tutti miei prieghi
ti porgo, e priego che non sieno scarsi,

perché tu ogne nube li disleghi
di sua mortalità co' prieghi tuoi,
sì che 'l sommo piacer li si dispieghi.

Ancor ti priego, regina, che puoi
ciò che tu vuoli, che conservi sani,
dopo tanto veder, li affetti suoi.

Dante

Paradiso (c. XXXIII)

(Thou Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son / Humble and high beyond all other creature, / The limit fixed of the Eternal Counsel, / Thou art the one who such nobility / To human nature gave, that its Creator / Did not disdain to make himself its creature./... In thee compassion is, in thee is pity, / In thee magnificence, in thee unites / Whate'er of goodness is in any creature. / Now doth this man, who from the lowest depth / Of the universe as far as here has seen / One after one the spiritual lives, / Supplicate thee through grace for so much power / That with his eyes he may uplift himself / Higher towards the uttermost salvation. / And I, who never hurned for my own seeing / More than I do for his, all of my prayers / Proffer to thee, and pray they come not short, / That thou wouldst scatter from him every cloud / Of his mortality so with thy prayers, / That the Chief Pleasure be to him displayed. / Still farther do I pray thee, Queen, who canst / Whate'er thou wilt, that sound thou mayst preserve / After so great a vision his affections. - Transl.: Longfellow)

Plus: On the Feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin, one of our favorite sacred compositions of all time, des Prez's "Benedicta est caelorum regina", in its proper place: Most Holy Mass.

Discovering Cardinal Dechamps, Tradition made fresh and clear

The wealth of free material one finds on the web is truly astounding. I managed in my little free time in the past few days to find and read a work I can only characterize as magnificent.

While some may criticize one or other point in the work of the theologian Joseph Ratzinger, it cannot be denied that his writing style captivated many faithful Catholic readers. It is a free style, unencumbered by rhetorical exaggerations that often darken more than clarify. A style also familiar to readers of Romano Guardini and - let us be honest - one that may have been responsible for the popularization of the Nouvelle Théologie. How to present the truths of the faith in a fresh new way? The problem of some (many?...) Nouveaux Théologiens was, of course, that they presented many half-truths, or worse (those who dealt with liturgical matters frequently did so with the past, for instance); but how can one deny that they succeeded in implementing their agenda, both immediately before, during, and after the Council in great measure due to a writing style that is attractive, still today, in its freshness and (apparent) clarity?

Anyway, long before any of this, in 1857, a Redemptorist priest published a remarkable tome, Le libre examen de la vérité de la foi: Entretiens sur la démonstration catholique de la révélation chrétienne  (The Free Examination of the Truth of Faith) (Google Books, in French). The setting is as classical as it gets, a fictitious dialogue, on the footsteps of the greatest in Greco-Roman Antiquity. But what is new is the writing style, that presents the truth of the Catholic Faith in a fresh manner very unusual for its age. Fr. Victor-Auguste Dechamps would soon be named Bishop of Namur and then Archbishop of Mechlin and Primate of Belgium by Blessed Pius IX, and would remain throughout his life a stern defender of both the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception and, during and after the First Vatican Council, a strong advocate and defender of the dogma of the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff.

We hope to translate some excerpts of this great work in the near future - we have not been able to find a translation of it in English. But, if one is really not available, we earnestly recommend Catholic publishers make it available to English-speaking readers of our age.

While we were searching for a translation of the work to recommend it to our readers, we were in for another surprise: a book by the same author, Cardinal Dechamps, C.Ss.R., on another matter dear to all Catholics, our Most Blessed Lady the Ever-Virgin Mother of God. This one is indeed available in English, and we could not recommend it more highly: The Second Eve, or the Mother of Life (Internet Archive, in English), particularly recommended for the month of Our Lady, but quite useful throughout the year.

How could a Redemptorist, whose order was founded by none other than the author of The Glories of Mary, even attempt to write a new book on the Immaculate Virgin? He explains it:

It may, perhaps, be matter of surprise that one of his disciples and children should have thought of writing another book in honour of Mary, when S. Alphonsus himself has written a work on the glories of his Mother, so full of life and unction, that truly pious souls cannot read a single page of it without being deeply moved and enlightened thereby. We can enter into this feeling; but we believe, nevertheless, that S. Alphonsus loves to see us follow his steps, and that he desires to hear us speak of Mary after our poor fashion to the Christians of our own day, in their own language; so as to draw to their Mother souls which, in order to love her better, need chiefly to know her better, and who require to be led to the Glories of Mary.

But the motive which induced us to write will be better understood by the relation of a fact which suggested it.

One day, when we were visiting a learned and pious friend, we found the Glories of Mary among the books which covered his table. He saw that we had observed it, and took it up, saying: "This is my spiritual thermometer; when I am in some degree faithful to grace, a few words from this book enlighten and encourage me; when I am careless and lukewarm, it no longer suits me; it becomes, as it were, too strong for me. When I feel this, I look into myself, and I soon find that it is not the light which has grown dim, but the interior eye which is no longer able to bear its brightness. I then labour to restore this eye of the soul to its strength and purity; and the thermometer soon rises, or rather the soul rises, and soon finds itself in union with this precious book."

We have been careful not to draw from this isolated fact a general conclusion which would be incorrect, for experience proves daily that the Glories of Mary touches sinners and brings them back to God, as it consoles the just and encourages them to perseverance; but it is no less true that there is a certain spiritual state unhappily too often experienced, a state of languor and darkness, in which we find the necessity of varying our reading, and of being brought back gently to books which seem at those times to be beyond us.

We therefore offer this book to the world in the hope that it will be of service to those who have yet to learn to enjoy the Glories of Mary.

Thank God Almighty for the writings of Cardinal Dechamps. There is so much evil that is done online - but so much good can also come from online sources, and the discovery of this great author by new generations and in other languages could certainly be one of them. If you do not know his works, we hope you enjoy them!

Papal request: three Aves for him

At the end of his visit to Saint Mary Major today, the Pope greeted the crowd outside and asked them, "I pray for you, but I ask you to pray for me, because I have need of it. Three 'Aves' for me."

Ogni vostra richiesta è un ordine, Santità.

Queen of May 2013 IV - "Behold, Blessed Lady, I come!"

José María Vitier

Misa Cubana a la Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre (Ave Maria)

[T]he servant of God ... called Probus, used to tell of a little sister which he had, called Musa. He said that one night our Blessed Lady appeared unto her in vision, showing her several young maids of her own years, clothed all in white, whose company she much desired, but yet not presuming to go amongst them. The Blessed Virgin asked her whether she had any mind to remain with them, and to live in her service, to which she answered that willingly she would. Then our Blessed Lady told her not to behave herself lightly, nor to live anymore like a girl, to abstain also from levity and pastime, telling her that after thirty days she should  be amongst those virgins which she then saw and be admitted to her service. 

After this vision, the young maid forsook all her former behavior, and with great gravity reformed the levity of her childish years, which thing her parents perceiving, and demanding from whence that change proceeded, she told them what the blessed Mother of God had given her in commandment, and upon what day she was to go unto her service. 

Twenty-five days after, she fell sick with a great fever; and, upon the thirtieth day, when the hour of her departure was come, she beheld our Blessed Lady, accompanied by those virgins which before in vision she saw to come unto her, and being called to come away, she answered with her eyes modestly cast downward, and very distinctly spoke in this manner: "Behold, Blessed Lady, I come, behold, Blessed Lady, I come." In speaking of which words she gave up the spirit, and her soul departed her virginal body, to dwell forever with the holy virgins in heaven. 

Saint Gregory the Great

Dialogues (Book IV)

[Note: some of the images in the video are not exactly beautiful, but they are stylized versions of the story of the national patroness of Cuba, the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre.]

Queen of May 2013 III - Respice stellam, voca Mariam!

Alfonso X, the Wise
Cantigas de Santa Maria (C - Santa Maria, strela do dia)

________________________________

Our Lady is proposed by the Church as a model of life, a life lived according to the will of God. Her pilgrimage on the path of earthly existence was a decided, total and responsible "yes" to the Lord's indications. We recall Nazareth, Bethlehem, the flight into Egypt, Cana of Galilee, Golgotha, Pentecost in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. These are stages in a pilgrimage carried out with deep faith. Blessed are you, Mary, because you have believed... because of this all generations will call you blessed! (cfr. Lk 1: 45, 48).

You have decided to follow Jesus, the Son of God. How many times Our Mother has lovingly brought us to her Son! To Jesus through Mary! From heaven the Blessed Virgin looks down on you with affection and protects you in the difficulties of life. Mother of redeemed humanity, example of love, of self-denial and of service, grant that these children of yours who acclaim you as Mother may, after their earthly pilgrimage, be worthy to be with you in the Kingdom of life!

It is more and more necessary that, even in the most remote parts of the world, there be witnesses, young witnesses of the Gospel, who without fear or dread of difficult situations or circumstances, are able to live out the demands of the faith cohesively, with their gaze fixed on personal sanctification and the practice of fraternal charity.

May this day encourage you to collaborate decidedly in God's salvific plan, in a world which is religiously secularized and socially fragmented, so that the Good News of Salvation may reach all people. Proclaim the unique Truth of Christ with determination.

"Respice stellam, voca Mariam!"

Look at the star, invoke Mary!

May the Blessed Virgin be now and always your star and protection. Love her as the Mother that she is, Mother of Christ and our Mother! And may St James make you faithful and convinced witnesses; witnesses of pardon, peace and mercy; witnesses who choose to build upon the solid foundation of love and goodness; witnesses who await the coming of the Lord with patient and, at times, sorrowful confidence.

John Paul II

Angelus

Santiago de Compostela, August 20, 1989

Sacred Heart

The first Friday of the month dedicated to Our Lady is at hand - and since not a few Catholics are unaware of the traditional devotional exercises dedicated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, there are many good suggestions at Catholic Tradition. 

You are welcome to suggest other links, books, or whatever resources have helped you in your devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Queen of May 2013II - Mary, the foundation, the noblest after Christ

Giovanni Gabrieli
Sancta et Immaculata Virginitas
quibus te laudibus efferam, nescio:
quia, quem caeli capere non poterant,
tuo gremio contulisti.
Genuisti qui te fecit,
et in aeternum permanes Virgo.

_______________________

[C]an anyone fail to see that there is no surer or more direct road than by Mary for uniting all mankind in Christ and obtaining through Him the perfect adoption of sons, that we may be holy and immaculate in the sight of God? For if to Mary it was truly said: "Blessed art thou who hast believed because in thee shall be fulfilled the things that have been told thee by the Lord" (Luke i., 45); or in other words, that she would conceive and bring forth the Son of God and if she did receive in her breast Him who is by nature Truth itself in order that "He, generated in a new order and with a new nativity, though invisible in Himself, might become visible in our flesh" (St. Leo the Great, Ser. 2, De Nativ. Dom.): the Son of God made man, being the "author and consummator of our faith"; it surely follows that His Mother most holy should be recognized as participating in the divine mysteries and as being in a manner the guardian of them, and that upon her as upon a foundation, the noblest after Christ, rises the edifice of the faith of all centuries.

How think otherwise? Could not God have given us, in another way than through the Virgin the Redeemer of the human race and the Founder of the Faith? But, since Divine Providence has been pleased that we should have the Man-God through Mary, who conceived Him by the Holy Ghost and bore Him in her breast, it only remains for us to receive Christ from the hands of Mary. Hence whenever the Scriptures speak prophetically of the grace which was to appear among us, the Redeemer of mankind is almost invariably presented to us as united with His mother. The Lamb that is to rule the world will be sent - but He will be sent from the rock of the desert; the flower will blossom, but it will blossom from the root of Jesse. Adam, the father of mankind, looked to Mary crushing the serpent's head, and he dried the tears that the malediction had brought into his eyes. Noë thought of her when shut up in the ark of safety, and Abraham when prevented from the slaying of his son; Jacob at the sight of the ladder on which angels ascended and descended; Moses amazed at the sight of the bush which burned but was not consumed; David escorting the arc of God with dancing and psalmody; Elias as he looked at the little cloud that rose out of the sea. In fine, after Christ, we find in Mary the end of the law and the fulfillment of the figures and oracles.

And that through the Virgin, and through her more than through any other means, we have offered us a way of reaching the knowledge of Jesus Christ, cannot be doubted when it is remembered that with her alone of all others Jesus was for thirty years united, as a son is usually united with a mother, in the closest ties of intimacy and domestic life. Who could better than His Mother have an open knowledge of the admirable mysteries of the birth and childhood of Christ, and above all of the mystery of the Incarnation, which is the beginning and the foundation of faith? Mary not only preserved and meditated on the events of Bethlehem and the facts which took place in Jerusalem in the Temple of the Lord, but sharing as she did the thoughts and the secret wishes of Christ she may be said to have lived the very life of her Son. Hence nobody ever knew Christ so profoundly as she did, and nobody can ever be more competent as a guide and teacher of the knowledge of Christ.

Saint Pius X

Ad diem illum laetissimum

Queen of May 2013: Ora pro nobis, Sancta Dei Genitrix!

Fr. Claudio Monteverdi
Vespro della beata Vergine ("Sonata sopra Sancta Maria")

God the Father wishes Mary to be the mother of his children until the end of time and so he says to her, "Dwell in Jacob", that is to say, take up your abode permanently in my children, in my holy ones represented by Jacob, and not in the children of the devil and sinners represented by Esau. 

Just as in natural and bodily generation there is a father and a mother, so in the supernatural and spiritual generation there is a father who is God and a mother who is Mary. All true children of God have God for their father and Mary for their mother; anyone who does not have Mary for his mother, does not have God for his father. This is why the reprobate, such as heretics and schismatics, who hate, despise or ignore the Blessed Virgin, do not have God for their father though they arrogantly claim they have, because they do not have Mary for their mother. Indeed if they had her for their mother they would love and honor her as good and true children naturally love and honor the mother who gave them life. 

An infallible and unmistakable sign by which we can distinguish a heretic, a man of false doctrine, an enemy of God, from one of God's true friends is that the heretic and the hardened sinner show nothing but contempt and indifference for Our Lady. He endeavors by word and example, openly or insidiously - sometimes under specious pretexts - to belittle the love and veneration shown to her. God the Father has not told Mary to dwell in them because they are, alas, other Esaus.

Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

Treatise on True Devotion