The month of May
is the full flowering of springtime and symbolizes the promise of spiritual
renewal and hope in the Christian mind and heart. According to John Henry Cardinal Newman, this
refreshing warmth and rebirth is what makes the month of May such an
appropriate time to consider the Blessed Virgin Mary: “For such gladness and
joyousness of external Nature is a fit attendant on our devotion to her who is
the Mystical Rose and the House of Gold.”[1] Moreover, many countries celebrate motherhood
in the month of May, and though Mothers’ Day is a secular holiday, it seems
entirely appropriate that the Church also celebrates May as the month of
special honor and devotion to Mary. As
we contemplate her motherhood during May, Cardinal Newman’s Meditations on the Litany of Loreto, For the
Month of May offers ideal reading for fostering mental prayer, as these
sacred titles of Our Lady give us deeper insight into her spirituality and the
mystical significance of the events of her earthly life.
The Litany of
Loreto is an ancient devotion dating back to the 1100s.[2] According to tradition, it is even older than
the Rosary itself.[3] Like the Rosary, the Litany is often recited
publicly in churches, yet can be adapted easily to mental prayer for private devotion. With brilliant insight and infinite tenderness,
Cardinal Newman applies the various titles of Our Lady into particular events
of her life and explains how each title and mystery correspond to one another. He begins with the doctrine of her Immaculate
Conception, drawing the following connections between it and her titles:
- Virgo Purissima (The Most Pure Virgin): Mary was never subject to the misery associated with the taint of original sin, as all other men are.
- Virgo Prædicanda (The Virgin who is to be proclaimed): since “[w]e are accustomed to preach abroad that which is wonderful, strange, rare, novel, important,” Mary is called “the Virgo Prædicanda; she is deserving to be preached abroad because she never committed any sin.”[4]
- Mater Admirabilis (The Wonderful Mother): the natural result of this preaching of Our Lady’s spotlessness is a sense of wonder and awe in the human heart.
- Domus Aurea (The House of Gold): Mary is called “golden” because of “that transcendent brilliancy and dazzling perfection”[5] that causes even the pure angels to marvel. She is the “House of Gold” because she was the dwelling place of God – not merely because her soul was a temple of the Holy Ghost, but also physically through her divine maternity. Cardinal Newman says that “[s]he was golden in her conception, golden in her birth.”[6] Later, in the Passion, “[s]he went through the fire of her suffering like gold in the furnace….”[7]
- Mater Amabilis (The Lovable or Dear Mother): just as the innocence of children makes them dear to us, so was the Blessed Virgin’s purity and innocence the cause of her exquisite amiability and loveableness. Writes Newman, “[W]ere we to see her now…our first thought would be, ‘Oh, how beautiful!’ and our second thought would be, ‘Oh, what ugly hateful creatures are we!’”[8]
- Rosa Mystica (The Mystical Rose): Mary is “the choice, delicate, perfect flower of God’s spiritual creation”[9] as a result of the fragrancy of the virtues she possessed. She is a flower without taint, blemish, or disease, but whole and fresh, and her beauty is preserved by her virtues.
- Virgo Veneranda (The All-Worshipful Virgin): though the word “venerable” is usually used to denote the wisdom of the elderly, it is applied to Mary because of her maturity in grace and divine wisdom, even from her tenderest years.
- Sancta Maria (The Holy Mary): the most comprehensive of Our Lady’s titles, “Holy Mary” reminds us of her absolute stainlessness, the fact that she is “full of grace” and was a greater saint than any of the men and women before or after her.
Cardinal Newman
uses the same technique with the other major mysteries of Our Lady’s life, including
her Annunciation, her sorrows, and her Assumption. Mary’s title as “Gate of Heaven,” for
example, is pertinent to the mystery of the Annunciation, not only because she
was the means by which Christ became physically present on earth, but also
because through her, heaven would be opened to man in the Redemption. She is called the “Ivory Tower” in reference
to her participation in the Passion, since she “stood upright to receive
the blows, the stabs, which the long Passion of her Son inflicted upon her
every moment,”[10] just as towers stand tall
and immovable above other buildings and as a defense against attacks. She is called an ivory tower because of her “brightness, purity, and exquisiteness”
and “the loveliness and the gentleness”[11] of
this steadfast Mother. Finally, Cardinal
Newman points out that if other saints should have been favored with assumption
of their souls into heaven, why should not Our Lady, who was the “Sancta Dei Genitrix,” the Holy Mother of
God? Why should “we suppose that
Abraham, or David, or Isaias, or Ezechias, should have been thus favoured, and
not God’s own Mother? [I]s it
conceivable that the law of the grave should admit of relaxation in their case,
and not in hers?”[12]
“May then,” writes
Cardinal Newman, “is the month…of promise;
and is not this the very aspect in which we most suitably regard the Blessed
Virgin, Holy Mary, to whom this month is dedicated?”[13] The Church sees it most fitting to turn to
Our Lady in a special way in May because of the appropriateness of the season. Indeed, the Church has every reason to have
recourse to the Blessed Mother in these difficult and dark times. More than ever, the Church needs the
fulfillment of God’s promise to save His Church through Mary’s hands. Pope Leo XIII wrote of Our Lady’s power as
intercessor:
When we have recourse to Mary in prayer,
we are having recourse to the Mother of mercy….[S]he is instantly at our side
of her own accord, even though she has not been invoked. She dispenses grace with a generous hand from
that treasure with which from the beginning she was divinely endowed in fullest
abundance that she might be worthy to be the Mother of God. By the fullness of grace which confers on her
the most illustrious of her many titles, the Blessed Virgin is infinitely
superior to all the hierarchies of men and angels, the one creature who is
closest of all to Christ.[14]
Thus, I would encourage and
challenge my fellow Catholics to take up Cardinal Newman’s meditations on the
Litany of Loreto this May, for two reasons.
Firstly, because it is her month, as Newman himself makes clear;
secondly, because Blessed John Henry Newman’s canonization is planned for this
year. There is no better time to begin
the habits of devotion to Our Lady and to her faithful servants like John Henry
Newman.
[1]
Cardinal John Henry Newman, Meditations
on the Litany of Loreto, For the Month of May, in Meditations and Devotions (Oil City, PA: Baronius Press, 2010), 5.
[2]
M. A. Clarahan, “Litany,” in New Catholic
Encyclopedia, ed. Berard L. Marthaler, 2nd ed., vol. 8 (Detroit:
Gale, 2003), 601.
[3]
Berard L. Marthaler, “Rosary,” in New Catholic
Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., vol. 12 (Detroit: Gale, 2003), 374.
[4]
Newman, Meditations, 12.
[5]
Newman, Meditations, 17.
[6]
Newman, Meditations, 18.
[7]
Newman, Meditations, 18.
[8]
Newman, Meditations, 21.
[9]
Newman, Meditations, 22.
[10]
Newman, Meditations, 61.
[11]
Newman, Meditations, 61.
[12]
Newman, Meditations, 63.
[13]
Newman, Meditations, 6.
[14]
Leo XIII, Encyclical On the Rosary Magnae
Dei Matris (8 September, 1892), §9.
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