Virgo Potens

2 of 2 The Month of the Holy Rosary October 2nd 2nd DAY Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Luke 1:28 THE ROSARY "The Rosary," says the Roman Breviary, "is a certain form of prayer wherein we say fifteen decades or tens of Hail Marys with an Our Father between each ten, while at each of these fifteen decades we recall successively in pious meditation one of the mysteries of our redemption." (Cath. End., Art. ROSARY). Around the words of the Angel's salutation to Mary has been grouped the form of the rosary as approved and blessed by the Church, and familiar to us to-day. By the holy use of this vocal method of prayer a fuller knowledge of our Blessed Lady grows in our minds, a deeper love penetrates our hearts ; and a keener desire to imitate her virtues inspires our souls. Progress in the knowledge, love and imitation of Mary Our Mother is the object sought by these October Devotions.” ~ The Rev. Mark J. Smith, S.J., The Rosary Devotions: A Thought for Every Day in October (circa 1924)

HYMN Hail Mary, Mother mild, O sweet, sweet Mother, Hear, O hear, thy feeble child, O sweet, sweet Mother. Chorus O exult, ye Cherubim And rejoice, ye Seraphim, Praise her! praise her! O praise our spotless Mother. Tossed on life's tempestuous sea, O sweet, sweet Mother, Cast thy tender eyes on me, O sweet, sweet Mother. Chorus O exult, ye Cherubim, And rejoice, ye Seraphim, Praise her! praise her! O praise our spotless Mother. ~ The Rev. Mark J. Smith, S.J., The Rosary Devotions: A Thought for Every Day in October (circa 1924)

2nd DAY Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Luke 1:28 THE ROSARY "The Rosary," says the Roman Breviary, "is a certain form of prayer wherein we say fifteen decades or tens of Hail Marys with an Our Father between each ten, while at each of these fifteen decades we recall successively in pious meditation one of the mysteries of our redemption." (Cath. End., Art. ROSARY). Around the words of the Angel's salutation to Mary has been grouped the form of the rosary as approved and blessed by the Church, and familiar to us to-day. By the holy use of this vocal method of prayer a fuller knowledge of our Blessed Lady grows in our minds, a deeper love penetrates our hearts ; and a keener desire to imitate her virtues inspires our souls. Progress in the knowledge, love and imitation of Mary Our Mother is the object sought by these October Devotions.” ~ The Rev. Mark J. Smith, S.J., The Rosary Devotions: A Thought for Every Day in October (circa 1924)

1 of 2 2nd DAY Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Luke 1:28

HYMN O Blest for e'er the Mother And Virgin full of grace, Who bore our God, our Brother, The Savior of our race. Chorus Sweet Jesus, low before Thee, We bend in fear and love, O grant we may adore Thee, In Thy bright realms above. Pure as the light of heaven In meekness nearest Thee ‘Tis Thou hast Mary given Our guide, our friend to be. Chorus Sweet Jesus, low before Thee, We bend in fear and love, O grant we may adore Thee, In Thy bright realms above. ~ The Rev. Mark J. Smith, S.J., The Rosary Devotions: A Thought for Every Day in October (circa 1924)

2 of 2 The Month of the Holy Rosary October 1st 1st Day Behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Luke 1:48 INTRODUCTION Our Holy Mother, the Church, has set apart the month of October as the month of the Holy Rosary. The prophesy of Our Lady herself finds its most complete fulfilment in the daily devout recital of her little chaplet known as the beads. Men of every nation and tribe and tongue and generation repeat and reiterate the truth foretold in the prophesy, when they say of her "BLESSED ART THOU" in every recitation of the Hail Mary. It is an utterance easy to the tongue, familiar to the ear, soothing to the heart, comforting to the soul; and it comes to us hallowed by centuries of use by the clients of Our Lady, and especially approved and indulgenced by the most solemn decrees of the Catholic Church. Let us resolve today that our growth in devotion to the Rosary shall keep pace with the advance of the month of October. ~ The Rev. Mark J. Smith, S.J., The Rosary Devotions: A Thought for Every Day in October (circa 1924)

1 of 2 1st Day Behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Luke 1:48

✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯ 2025 October ~ The Month of the Holy Rosary and The Month of the Holy Angels ✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯

2 of 2 Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 30th He was against the idea of Our Lady swooning. First, because St. John describes her as ‘standing’ at the foot of the Cross. Then, because the Virgin like her Son could bear suffering without wavering. If it is true that she is full of grace, we must deny all the corporeal infirmities which are an obstacle to the plenitude and perfection of grace. If the Virgin had swooned, she would have been unable to remain constantly united to her Son by the loving grieving contemplation of the Passion. This sorrowful contemplation was the highest and holiest form that her Com-passion could take. After the suffering of Christ, that of His Mother was unquestionably the most intense that has ever been; but it did not diminish the full domination of the soul over the body and the feelings. Cajetan concludes, therefore, while submitting his decisions to the judgment of the Holy See, that if it was desired to celebrate a feast of the Sorrows of Mary, this feast should not be called her ‘Swoon’. Another name should be chosen and another place assigned it in the liturgical calendar. The teaching Church has confirmed his judgment — completely as to the first point since it does not invoke Our Lady of the Swoon; and partially as to the second, since it limits the first feast of the Seven Sorrows to the Friday after Passion Sunday. In his work De festis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi , Beatae Mariae Virginis et quorumdam Sanctorum, Benedict XIV, discussing this first feast of the Seven Sorrows, cites with approval Cajetan’s treatment of the Swoon and criticizes the painters and preachers who make Our Lady’s sorrows too much like those of women in general or who represent her as sunk deep in despair. He reminds us of the great phrase of St. Ambrose about Our Lady: ‘She was not ignorant of the mystery that she had given birth to a child who was to rise from the dead.’ What St. Thomas Aquinas says commenting on St. Basil remains the last word: That while she was at the foot of the Cross and remembered past glories — Gabriel’s message, the ineffable revelation of the divine conception, the great series of miracles — the Blessed Virgin felt her soul ‘fluctuate’, for on the one hand she saw her Son in the depths of abjection, and on the other she remembered his triumphs. ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

1 of 2 Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 30th ‘THE SWOON’ A petition having been addressed to Pope Julius II asking him to authorize and indulgence the feast De spasmo Beatae Virginis Mariae — the French title was Notre-Dame de la Pâmoison (Our Lady of the Swoon) — which was being celebrated with an octave from Passion Sunday to Palm Sunday, the pope charged Cardinal Cajetan to examine the question whether such a feast could be accepted as canonical. We have Cajetan’s reply, written at Rome and dated July 17th, 1506. Let it be said to the great theologian’s glory, that if he was to be in error, some years later, in holding it as more probable that the Virgin was conceived with original sin, he deserved well of her in this present matter and showed the love he had vowed her. (continued)

2 of 2 Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 29th In consequence, when a man under the motion of grace suffers for justice he becomes, if we consider the motion of grace, worthy to receive eternal salvation; and if we consider the consent of his free will it is fitting that God, by a condescension of friendship, should grant him his just desires, for example the conversion of those he loves, provided these do not offer resistance to divine grace. Thus when Our Lady, under the impulse of love, suffered with Christ, she became, if we consider the impulse that came from heaven, worthy to receive the salvation that came from heaven; and if we consider the consent of her free will, it was further fitting that God, by His liberality, should grant her profoundest desire which was the desire of her Son, namely the salvation of the world. Thus the Virgin merited de condigno her own salvation, de congruo the world’s salvation. It is accurate to say in this sense that she laboured to merit for us the grace of redemption. Yet Christ merited for us in a manner altogether higher. He was constituted head of the great body formed by the human race. All that He did under the permanent impulsion of love rendered Him worthy in justice to obtain salvation for all those who are called to become members of His body — that is for all men. Thus He merited eternal life for us, not simply by a merit of congruity but by condign merit: that this merit may be applied to us, it only needs that we should not resist the grace that God sends us for our incorporation with Christ. Christ, and only Christ, has thus merited redemptive grace for us de condigno. Thus we see how Our Lady can be called Co-Redemptress, but only Christ can be called Redeemer. This glorious title of Co-Redemptress, and that of Mediatrix of all graces, which it implies, have been given her by the latest popes. On February 2nd, 1904, Pius X wrote in the encyclical Ad diem: ‘In virtue of the communion of sorrows and of will which attached her to Christ, Mary wanted to become the worthy Reparatrix of the fallen world, and in consequence the Dispenser of all the graces Jesus acquired for us by His bloody death . . . Because she surpasses all other creatures by her sanctity and by her union with Christ, and because she was called by Christ to participate in the work of our salvation, she merits for us de congruo, as the expression is, what Christ has merited for us de condigno , and she is the first steward in the dispensing of graces.’ Benedict XV writes similarly, March 22nd, 1918: ‘When her Son suffered and died, she so to say suffered and died with Him, renouncing for the salvation of men and the appeasement of the justice of God her maternal rights over her Son — and immolating her Son, as much as in her lay, so that we are entitled to say that she, with Christ, has redeemed the human race.’ And Pius XI writes, February 2nd, 1923: ‘The Virgin of Sorrows participated with Christ in the work of the Redemption.’ The actual word Co-Redemptrix appears in two decrees of the Holy Office, dated June 26th, 1913, and January 22nd, 1914. The consent Our Lady gave to the mystery of the Cross was already contained in the Fiat she had uttered to the angel. Speaking of this totally free acceptance Leo XIII quotes the great sentence of St. Thomas Aquinas according to which at the instant of the Annunciation, God waited for the Virgin to utter the consent of the human race in its entirety; and he adds that in consequence none of that immense treasure of grace and truth which the Lord has brought us is communicated to us apart from Mary. He calls her our Mediatrix with the Mediator. As we may see, the mystery of the Redemption stands in the Church like a great tree of doctrine which never ceases to flower. ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

1 of 2 Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 29th 3. Nor is that all. The Compassion of Our Lady is united to the Passion of Our Lord to merit the salvation of the whole world. Remember what merit is. When man, acting freely under the divine motion, achieves that towards which God, in pure goodness, had destined him, we say there is merit. Then if one considers the divine motion which proportions man to his goal, the merit is due in justice — it is called strict merit, condign merit; if one considers the consent of the free will moved by grace, it will be seen as suitable that God should grant his favours to the man who accepts the divine motion; this is the merit of congruity, not due in strict justice but founded upon the divine generosity and friendship. (continued)

2 of 2 Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 28th They bear upon the element of self that may be mingled with filial affection. We must keep no corner of our heart for ourselves. We must give our heart to God without reserve. Then God Himself, master of our dearest feelings, will make us love our kinsfolk as we ought. The first uprooting of affection would be merely inhuman; the uprooting God wants of us is superhuman. The blessed Virgin had from the first moment given every movement of her heart to God. In the very instant of the Incarnation she had renounced without reserve every possible element of self in her love for her Child. The ever more agonizing sacrifices demanded of her were not with the object of purifying her from the imperfections of her love, for there was in her no shadow of imperfection. Their sole end was to associate her with the redemptive suffering of her Son. The suffering of Jesus was not directed to His purification but to the redemption of the world. The sufferings of the Immaculate Virgin likewise were not for her purification: she could unite them with the sufferings that Jesus bore for the salvation of men. In this sense they were co-redemptive. 2. We must see both the likeness and the difference between the sufferings of Jesus and Mary. First, note that Jesus’ sufferings could not increase grace in His soul, whereas Mary’s sufferings merited for her a progressive elevation in charity. But above all, note that His sufferings and hers were not redemptive in the same sense. The sufferings of Jesus were the sufferings of One whom God had constituted the unique head of all humanity. Because of this, they were primarily and of themselves redemptive. Further, by reason of the infinite dignity of the person of Jesus, they had an infinite value; they constituted a superabundant atonement for the sins of all men and all ages. The sufferings of Our Lady, needless to say, had only a finite value. Further, all their redemptive efficacy comes to them from the sufferings of Jesus. They are redemptive only secondarily and by participation. Jesus so loved the Virgin, made her so like to Himself, that He willed to communicate to her material sufferings something of the worth of His own; He willed that hers should be mingled with His and reckoned with His in compensation for the iniquity of men. God acts in a similar fashion, though to a lesser degree, in regard to very great saints whom He calls to suffer for the sins of others. St. Paul says that he rejoiced in his sufferings for the Colossians, adding the mysterious words, ‘And fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church’ (Col. i, 24). The Compassion of Our Lady is thus united to the Passion of Our Lord in reparation for the sins of the whole world. ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

1 of 2 Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 28th THE CO-REDEMPTRIX 1. ‘If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple’ (Luke xiv, 26). What Jesus is calling upon us to conquer is primarily, of course, whatever may be inordinate in the love of relations; and this may go further than is commonly thought. In any case the inordinate is the imperfect. The saints have eyes especially sharp for the discovery of imperfection, and they have followed these words of Our Lord with a docility that is frightening. The prescriptions of the Gospel, repeated by the Saints, must be taken without any attempt at watering-down. They do not, of course, bear upon the ontological reality of love: we are not meant to destroy in ourselves all feelings of filial affection and become hard and cold of heart. (continued)

2 of 2 Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 27th On April 22nd, 1727, this feast was extended by Benedict XIII to the whole Church under the name of Feast of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin. This is the feast we celebrate on the Friday after Passion Sunday. But the Servites had been permitted to celebrate a second feast in the year, in express commemoration of the Seven Sorrows. By a decree of September 18th, 1814, Pope Pius VII, freed from captivity shortly before, extended this second feast to the universal Church. This is the origin of the September feast, first fixed for the third Sunday of the month, later transferred to September 15th. It is in the office of this second feast that the Seven Sorrows are enumerated. The mass is identical for the two feasts. It is worth noting that as the custom had grown up among the Servites of representing Our Lady of Seven Dolours clad in a black mantle — the colour of their Order — the question was brought before the Sacred Congregation of Rites, February 21 st, 1643. Opinions differed and the reply was postponed. But certain consultors were of the opinion that it was unsuitable to clothe the Virgin in mourning, since she had borne her sorrows differently from other women. A decree dated March 21st, 1744, gives permission for the statue of the Blessed Virgin to be shown in churches on the eve of Maundy Thursday clad in black and holding the body of Christ on her knees. ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

2 of 2 Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 27th On April 22nd, 1727, this feast was extended by Benedict XIII to the whole Church under the name of Feast of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin. This is the feast we celebrate on the Friday after Passion Sunday. But the Servites had been permitted to celebrate a second feast in the year, in express commemoration of the Seven Sorrows. By a decree of September 18th, 1814, Pope Pius VII, freed from captivity shortly before, extended this second feast to the universal Church. This is the origin of the September feast, first fixed for the third Sunday of the month, later transferred to September 15th. It is in the office of this second feast that the Seven Sorrows are enumerated. The mass is identical for the two feasts. It is worth noting that as the custom had grown up among the Servites of representing Our Lady of Seven Dolours clad in a black mantle — the colour of their Order — the question was brought before the Sacred Congregation of Rites, February 21 st, 1643. Opinions differed and the reply was postponed. But certain consultors were of the opinion that it was unsuitable to clothe the Virgin in mourning, since she had borne her sorrows differently from other women. A decree dated March 21st, 1744, gives permission for the statue of the Blessed Virgin to be shown in churches on the eve of Maundy Thursday clad in black and holding the body of Christ on her knees. ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

1 of 2 Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 27th 3. LITURGY The feast of the Compassion of Our Lady was celebrated at first in individual churches under different names — Compassion of the Virgin, Lamentation of the Virgin, Tears of the Virgin, Transfixion or Martyrdom of the Heart of the Virgin, Our Lady of Seven Dolours, Our Lady of Pity (and even Our Lady de Spasmo or Our Lady of the Swoon, see Appendix III). On April 22nd, 1423, a synod of the Province of Cologne had prescribed and indulgenced the feast of the Compassion, in reparation for the impieties of the Hussites. (continued)

PRAYER to the HOLY VIRGIN Mother of Sorrows MOST holy Mother of Sorrows, by that intense martyrdom which thou didst suffer at the foot of the cross during the three hours of the agony of Jesus, deign to aid us all, who are the children of thy sorrows, in our last agony, that by thy prayers we may pass from our bed of death to adorn thy crown in Paradise. Glory be to the Father, etc. [three times]. V. From sudden and unprovided death. R. Deliver us,O Lord. V. From the snares of the devil. R. Deliver us, 0 Lord. V. From everlasting death. R. Deliver us, O Lord. LET US PRAY O GOD, who, for the salvation of the human race, hast, in the most bitter death of thy Son, made for us both an example and a refuge, grant, we beseech thee, that in the last peril, at the hour of our death, we may be made worthy to experience the effect of this great charity, so as to be associated in the glory of the Redeemer himself: through the same Jesus Christ thy Son. Amen. ~ The Catholic Prayerbook (1883)

2 of 2 Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 26th A miniature of the period shows the Virgin with a sword in her heart. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, there are representations of the seven swords ‘buried in Mary’s breast and forming round her a sinister aureole’. These pictures are not of high artistic value, but this mode of representation is not condemned by the Liturgy. 2. HISTORY The devotion to the Seven Sorrows developed considerably in Flanders at the end of the fifteenth century. Confraternities of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows were organized by Jean de Coudenberghe, secretary to Charles V. He gives our present list of sorrows, which by that time was fixed. He tells us that in those dark years, lovers of Our Lady recited a Pater and an Ave, meditating on each of the Seven Sorrows, and praying that the Virgin whose sufferings were changed into joy should change their own tears into rejoicings. The literary treatment of the Devotion has been undertaken by Dom A. Wilmart, O.S.B., in a work entitled Auteurs spirituels et textes devots du moyen age latin. Dom Wilmart establishes that the devotion to Our Lady’s Joys came earlier, going back to the eleventh century. It was much in favour in the Middle Ages and gave rise to an abundant literature. It still remains, though under a rather different form, in the devotion to the Joyful and Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary. To the five or seven Joys of Our Lady correspond the five or seven Sorrows. Dom Wilmart holds that the first traces of the devotion to Our Lady of Compassion are in St. Anselm in the eleventh century. He follows its progress to the twelfth century, then to the thirteenth, in St. Bonaventure and the Franciscan School. He goes on to give four groups of texts which represent the peculiar effort of the fourteenth century to give a new literary form to the devotion. These are prayers and meditations composed to recall the Seven Sorrows, the seven pities, or ‘hours’, the seven sadnesses of Mary during the Passion, and the seven swords that pierced her heart. But it was the fifteenth century which was the age par excellence of the devotion. ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

1 of 2 Month of the The Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 26th THE COM-PASSION OF OUR LADY 1. ICONOGRAPHY M. Emile Male , studying the devotion to our Lady’s Sorrows from the point of view of its appearance in art, finds the first traces of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady in a French manuscript of the end of the fourteenth century. Already for a long time there had been devotion to the Joys of Our Lady. The seven sorrows are not at first a constant list. But the list as we now have it made its appearance early: (1) Simeon’s Prophecy, (2) The Flight into Egypt, (3) The Disappearance of the Child Jesus, (4) The Carrying of the Cross, (5) The Crucifixion, (6) The Taking Down from the Cross, (7) The Placing in the Tomb. (continued)