Sweet Name of Mary

AS A TRUE friar minor St Anthony praised and glorified the Virgin Mary from the pulpit, where with simple yet lofty doctrine he moved multitudes to savour her sweet name. Furthermore, he imitated her with such perfection that he became, as it were, an extension of the Virgin Mother on earth.

From the outset his life was markedly Marian, being born in Lisbon on the feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1195, and baptized in the Church of St Mary in Lisbon. At the age of 15 he completed his studies at the Cathedral School of St Mary. Appropriately his earthly life, ever pure and humble, was brought to a close in a similar Marian tone, for when death drew nigh he longed to be taken to the St Mary, Mother of God Friary in Padua. After receiving Extreme Unction he intoned his favourite hymn, O Gloriosa Domina... (O Glorious Lady). He lived and died with the Virgin Mary on his lips and in his heart. His devotion was founded on the solid foundation of Catholic doctrine, as all true devotion is. Consequently he has left the Church with a wealth of insights on our Lady in his sermons.

May and October are Marian months in the southern hemisphere as well, even though the seasons there are reversed. Here in the northern hemisphere it is autumn in October, which is the month of the Holy Rosary.

The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, kept now on October 7, was established by Pope St Pius V in thanksgiving for the Christian victory over the Turkish fleet at Lepanto in 1571. Originally the feast was called ‘Our Lady of Victory’, but Pope Gregory XIII changed the name in 1573. Despite its warlike associations, we think of the Rosary devotion as a peaceful meditation on the life of our Blessed Lady and her Divine Son. Can Saint Anthony help us to pray the rosary better? I think he can.

 

Rosary Mysteries

 

The Joyful Mysteries are easy. Besides the Festival sermon for the Annunciation itself, Anthony marks several sections of other sermons as suitable for the Annunciation. I will leave it to the reader to follow this up! The same is true for the feasts of the Nativity and Purification (Presentation). In the Festival Sermons he never reached the Visitation (kept then in July), but the Finding in the Temple occurs on the second Sunday after Christmas.

For the Sorrowful Mysteries there is a great deal of material on the Passion of Our Lord scattered throughout the Sermons, but of course more especially in those for Passiontide and the Holy Cross. Similarly, the first three Glorious Mysteries are found in various places. The Assumption is treated in the Marian sermons. As for the recently instituted Luminous Mysteries, there is material for these, but they are less obviously related to Our Lady.

On one occasion Anthony quotes the Book of Ecclesiasticus (Sirach): Look upon the rainbow, and bless him that made it: it is very beautiful in its brightness. He comments, “Look upon the rainbow: that is, consider the beauty, holiness and dignity of blessed Mary; and bless with heart and mouth and deed her Son, who made her thus. In the brightness of her holiness she is very beautiful, beyond all daughters of God. She has encompassed the heaven about (that is, she has enclosed the divinity) within the circle of her glory, her glorious humanity.”

 

The sweet voice

 

Saint Anthony’s devotion to the Mother of God is obvious. I will offer some more examples, related to some of the Rosary Mysteries. For instance, his prayer on the Annunciation: “We implore you, then, Our Lady and only hope, to enlighten our minds with the brightness of your glory; to cleanse them with the whiteness of your purity; to warm them with the heat of your visitation; and to reconcile us to your Son, so that we may be found fit to attain the brightness of his glory. May he grant this, who at the angel’s Annunciation took from you this day his glorious flesh, and willed to dwell nine months in your bride-chamber. To him be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

On the Visitation, when we remember how Mary’s voice caused the unborn Baptist to leap in his mother’s womb: “Let thy voice sound in my ears; for thy voice is sweet” [Cant 2.14]. The ‘sweet voice’ is the praise of the glorious Virgin, which most sweetly sounds in the ears of the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ the Son of that Virgin. Let each and every one of us lift up our voice to the praise of blessed Mary.

For the Nativity: “The child-bearing of the blessed Virgin has no parallel in the female sex, but it does have a likeness in the natural order. How did the Virgin bring forth the Saviour? As the vine-flower sends forth its scent. Just as you see the blossom to be unspoilt when it gives out its scent, so you must believe concerning the Virgin’s modesty when she brought forth the Saviour. What else is the flower of virginity but a sweet perfume?”

 

The three branches

 

Continuing the comparison of Mary to a vine, Anthony writes: “The three branches of the vine were: the angelic salutation, the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, and the ineffable conception of the Son of God. From these three branches there is brought forth and multiplied daily throughout the world a progeny of faithful souls. The buds of the vine are the humility and virginity of blessed Mary. The flowers are fruitfulness without stain and childbirth without pain. The three clusters of grapes on the vine are the poverty, patience and abstinence of the blessed Virgin. These are ripe grapes, from which there flows a full-bodied and sweet-scented wine, that inebriates (and yet in so doing makes sober!) the minds of the faithful.”

Mary is wholly sinless, yet she is the refuge of sinners. In ancient Israel, God appointed certain cities as places of sanctuary for those who had accidentally killed someone. The right of sanctuary in a church continued in the Middle Ages. It is in this light that Anthony writes, “Flee to her, O sinner, for she is a city of refuge. Just as once the Lord set apart cities of refuge, so now by the Lord’s mercy he gives the name of Mary as a refuge of mercy. The name of Our Lady is a strong tower. The sinner who flees to her will be safe. It is a sweet name, a name to comfort sinners, a name of blessed hope.”

 

Sinless woman



 

Even before Blessed Duns Scotus championed the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, Anthony quoted approvingly words of the great Saint Augustine in his discussion of sin and grace: “I make an exception of the Virgin Mary. When discussing sin, I do not wish (for the Lord’s own honour) to raise any question whatsoever about her. Greater grace was given her to overcome every kind of sin than simply to conceive and bear him who, as all agree, had no sin. Except for this Virgin, if all holy men and women could be gathered together and asked whether they had sin, what reply could they make other than that of John: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But that glorious Virgin was prevented by a singular grace, and filled with it, that she might have as the fruit of her womb Him whom from the beginning she acknowledged as Lord of the whole universe.”

Yet “Mary should be praised not just because she bore the Word of God in her womb, but still more because she kept the commandments of God in her action.” These commandments are, of course, to love God with all our heart and mind and strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. Mary is Queen of Heaven, but, to quote another October saint, Therese of Lisieux, “she is much more a Mother than a Queen.”

“We pray you then, Our Lady, star of the sea,” writes Saint Anthony, “to shine upon us when we are buffeted by the raging of the sea. Guide us to harbour, defend our going out with your watchful presence. So may we be found fit to go out safely from this prison, and come joyfully to unending joy.”