Wednesday
July 2, 2008
The Visitation of
Our Blessed Lady:
Ember Friday in Advent was the
original date for this feast. The
celebration by the Greeks on July 2
of the placing of the robe of the
Blessed Virgin in the Basilica of
Blachernae (A.D. 469) became in the
Latin church the commemoration of
the visit of Mary to the home of
Zachary and Elizabeth. It was kept by
the Franciscans as early as 1263; the
Council of Basil (1431) made it a holy
day of obligation.
In honor of this mystery, St. Francis
de Sales instituted the order of the
nuns of the Visitation. The original
design of this kindly saint was that the
nuns should imitate the Blessed
Virgin in her charitable assistance in
the house of her cousin who, though
well advanced in years, was
miraculously about to become a
mother. Providence, however,
thought fit to alter the plan while still
in the hands of the designer, so that
the latter was accustomed jestingly to
say that he had made something
which he had never intended to
make, whereas he could not make
that which he would in reality have
wished to have made.
(Source: The New Roman Missal,
Rev. F. X. Lasance)
Sts. Processus and
Martinian, Martyrs:
Sts. Processus and Martinian were
the keepers of the Mamertine prison,
during the imprisonment of Sts. Peter
and Paul, by whom they were
converted. Like them they suffered
martyrdom under Emperor Nero.
Their relics now repose in St. Peter’s;
during the Vatican Council the papal
throne occupied by Pius IX stood at
the tomb of these two gaolers of the
Princes of the Apostles.
(Source: The New Roman Missal,
Rev. F. X. Lasance)
Tuesday
July 1, 2008
The Feast of the
Most Precious
Blood of Our Lord
Jesus Christ:
The Missal gives to-day the Octave
of St. John the Baptist, which,
however, only appears in the Roman
Calendar during the late Middle
Ages. In the liturgical reform of Pius X
this day was chosen for the feast of
the Most Precious Blood, which had
already been fixed under Pius IX for
the first Sunday of July. Pius IX
instituted this feast in thanksgiving
for the deliverance of the Apostolic
See from the violent revolutionaries
who had expelled the Pope to Gaeta.
In 1849, with the assistance of the
French army, they were vanquished
and the pope was able to return to
Rome.
The meaning of this festival is closely
akin to that of the Sacred Heart. The
Precious Blood is the price of
universal redemption, which love
would not have to be anything less
than itself. There is a very close
connection between the Heart and
the Blood not only because,
according to St John, after the death
of Jesus, blood and water flowed
from His wounded Heart, but because
the first chalice in which that divine
Blood was consecrated and vivified
was precisely the Heart of the
incarnate Word.
The apostle of this special devotion
was the Blessed Gaspare del Bufalo,
founder of the congregation of the
Most Precious Blood.
The Mass is of quite recent
composition. In the ancient Roman
rite the Mass of Passion Sunday was
especially intended to recall to the
remembrance of the faithful the
infinite value of the Blood of Jesus
Christ.
(Source: The New Roman Missal,
Rev. F. X. Lasance)
Thursday
July 3, 2008
St. Leo II, Pope,
Pope, Confessor: This
feast was originally the second
commemoration of St. Leo the Great,
who was the object of very marked
devotion in the Middle Ages. It was
celebrated on the anniversary of the
removal of his body from the porch to
the interior of St. Peter’s. Later it
became the feast of Pope Leo II who
approved the acts of the Sixth
Ecumenical Council which
condemned the heresy of those who
asserted that Christ had only one will.
In his brief pontificate he gave an
example of earnest preaching and
devotion to the poor. He died in 683.
(Source: The New Roman Missal,
Rev. F. X. Lasance)
Saints
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