Virgo Potens

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 15th But those who have been long accustomed to meditation, and have thus become familiarized with the works and mysteries of God, may obtain their idea of God in a different manner. When we form to ourselves as perfect a picture of God as we are able, and then take it to pieces again to see how it is composed, we find it made up of nine mysteries, four in God Himself, and five outside Himself. The four in Himself are Innascibility, Generation, Procession and Unity, by which we express the doctrine of “Three Persons, One God.” The five mysteries outside Himself are Creation, Incarnation, Justification, Glorification, and Transubstantiation. You must not misunderstand me to mean that this picture forms an adequate representation of God, or one which is perfect in any other sense than relatively to ourselves. There are nameless attributes in the Most High, depths of perfection for which creatures have no name because they have no ideas of them. There are in Him summits of beauty and glory, whose shadows, if they cast any, would fall far beyond this present world of ours, or indeed any finite creation. There is nothing in God which is so simply a cause of delighted love and abounding joy as that He is incomprehensible, and beautiful, and glorious beyond the reach even of angelic conception. But the picture of God I am speaking of is perfect in that it embraces all we know of Him, all He has told us of Himself, all we require for an intelligent love and profound adoration of Him, while it includes also in itself a history of God’s works full to overflowing of motives for the most intense reverence and the most tender love. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 15th THE BLESSED SACRAMENT BOOK I. THE BLESSED SACRAMENT THE GREATEST WORK OF GOD. SECTION I. THE CANONS OF THE DIVINE WORKS. WE cannot make a picture of God to ourselves. We have no way of representing to ourselves by images or sensible figures, eternity or omnipotence. We should fall into grievous error if we even attempted to put God before ourselves in this way. Yet it is of great consequence to our spiritual life that we should have a clear idea of God ; for it belongs only to the higher stages of mystical union with God to contemplate Him in obscurity, to enter into clouds and darkness, and be able to find our rest and satisfaction there. Now we can bring God before ourselves with sufficient clearness by denying of Him every conceivable imperfection, or again by affirming of Him in the most superlative way every conceivable perfection. (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 14th Think how it makes over to us, as if they were, and they truly are, our own hereditary possessions, all the grandeurs of the universal Church, the famous Church, the martyr Church, the Church that is never old, but ever has a perpetual freshness like the Holy Trinity, ever-virgin as Mary herself, ever wet with blood as the martyrs were, ever teaching like the apostles and doctors, ever witnessing like the confessors, ever suffering innocently like the Holy Innocents themselves, and sending up a perpetual song of victory even out of the fires of persecution. O how we ought to bless God, now that we know Jesus, that we were not born in the poor times of the patriarchs and prophets before the Blessed Sacrament ! Ah ! how they desired to see our day and saw it not ! Nay we even seem privileged in our day beyond elder Christian times ; for the longer the Church battles with the world the more venerable she seems to become, and her victories of grace more brilliant, and the heavenliness more wonderful. Time “writes no wrinkles on her brow,” but adds line after line of glory and of freshness. She seems, because we know her better, to grow more beautiful, more powerful, more bright of face, more sweet of voice, more strong in arm, more mother-like in manner. Dear Church ! to-day is her great day, the Feast of Holy Faith ! ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

Is it not a magnificent thing to be a Catholic ? 1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 14th But see how long I am keeping you as it were outside our subject and in the vestibule of this glorious temple of Catholic doctrine. It is half because I fear to begin, because I am afraid of myself and my subject, because I almost wish I had not begun. Look now with the eye of faith at the Blessed Sacrament, and remember simply what our catechism teaches us about it. Is it not a magnificent thing to be a Catholic ? Faith is such a glorious gift. (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 13th There are saints with whom these moods are almost habitual, following far off, for the sake of Jesus and by His grace, that unbroken renunciation of self which was the characteristic of His Thirty-three Years. Now devotion to the Blessed Sacrament has a special power to communicate this divine spirit. The Eucharist is a sacrifice, as well as a sacrament : no wonder the spirit of sacrifice goes out from it, and is contagious among loving souls. But it is not out of the meekness and sweetness and gentleness and bashful humility of love that this ardent desire of sacrifice arises; but out of love’s boldness, its victory, its warlike prowess, its sense of triumph. Once more; the spiritual life requires also a generous filial love of Holy Church. People in these days often try to draw a distinction between what is spiritual and what is ecclesiastical in the Christian religion; and obviously for many purposes, and from many partial points of view, such a distinction is very capable of being drawn. But the two cannot be separated the one from the other; they lie together practically inseparable. Hence there is no interior or mystic life, not even in the cloister, which is not distinguished by a vivid interest in the vicissitudes of the Church, an inveterate attachment to her external and ceremonial observances, and quite a supernatural sympathy with the fortunes of the Holy See. Love of God and love of Rome are inseparable. To obey Peter is the same thing as to serve Jesus. Now the triumph of Corpus Christi is especially a triumph of our loyalty to Holy Church. The very thing I started by remarking brings it home to us. Here is this poor land of heresy and schism dark and desolate to-day. It has no response to the mighty acclamations of the catholic millions of other lands. It sees nothing in to-day but a common unhonoured week-day. So through the fair realms desolated by the Greek Schism there is the same lifeless silence. It is a Catholic feast, a monument of Rome. The very word triumph seems to express something more than an individual joy. It is a patriot thing, a national exultation ; and dear, most dear, as our native country is to us, the Church is a dearer and a truer country still, for it is more like that heavenly Country for which we are sighing, and out of which we are exiles at the best. We of all men need triumph ; for we are cowed all the year round by the dominance of heresy. It tarnishes our faith. It chills our love. It checks us, and galls us, and unmans us, at almost every turn of our spiritual life. No one comes quite unscathed out of the trial; least of all, those who think they do and have no fear. O we need the triumph of to-day, the feast of our loyalty and patriotism to the most ancient, the most godlike of all monarchies, the Holy Apostolic Roman Church. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 13th Again, in order to be spiritual, we need a thirst to sacrifice ourselves for God and Jesus Christ. Self sacrifice is of the very essence of holiness. Love is impatient of secrecy, at least of being concealed from its object. It longs to testify itself, and the stronger and purer it is, the more does it desire to testify itself in different and heroic ways. Nay, love needs self-sacrifice as an evidence to itself of its own earnestness and intensity. How little have we given up for our dearest Lord, and how we burn to sacrifice ourselves in some way for Him. There are times when we seem to desire nothing in life but to suffer for the sake of Jesus, times when pain and sacrifice appear, not desirable only, but absolute necessities, so vehemently does love work within us. (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 12th If it is unworldliness that we need, where shall we find it more completely than in that faith which is our triumph over the world? If self-forgetfulness, where shall we attain it so soon as beneath the shadow of faith’s tremendous mysteries ? If consolation, when the world and self and sin all press upon us, where does it spring so abundantly as in the continual inward triumph of a believing mind ? The love of the Blessed Sacrament is the grand and royal devotion of faith ; it is faith multiplied, faith intensified, faith glorified, and yet remaining faith still, while it is glory also. And out of it there come three especial graces which are the very life and soul of an interior life, an overflowing charity to all around us, a thirst to sacrifice ourselves for God, and a generous filial love of Holy Church. The very joyousness of having Jesus with us, of being in actual and delighted possession of Him, renders us full of love to others. Happy ourselves, and with a happiness so exquisite and abounding, we are anxious to make others happy also. To be full of love is in itself a pain, if we have no vent by which we can pour out our fulness over others. To our ignorance something of this sort seems the reason why God created the world, in order to communicate His own perfections to His creatures. Moreover, we want our love to touch Jesus Himself and to do Him good. We wish to satisfy our own love by showing our love to Him, in the ways which He Himself has ordained and honours with His acceptation. And all this points to the poor, the desolate, the afflicted, whom He has put in His own room since He ascended into Heaven. On days of joy and in moments of triumphant festivity, then it is that the skilful fathers of the poor know how to lay sweet siege to the hearts of men, and with gentle craft to win their wealth from them for the little ones of Christ; and none are such generous givers, whether it be to the adornment of the material shrines of God, or to those more beautiful living temples, the poor and sorrowing, as those who are distinguished by an especial devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Charity is the choicest as well as the most exuberant emanation from the Adorable Host. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

La caridad y purenza son el mas bello ornato del Corazon. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Charity and purity are the most beautiful ornament of the Heart. 1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 12th We must have something in our spiritual life to answer to the causes of joy and energy and trustfulness and support with which the world sustains her votaries. We must have something to supply for all those motives of action which we consciously abandon when we enter upon a spiritual life. Otherwise we shall become cowardly, languid, and mean-spirited. This is more especially true if we are aiming at anything like perfection. St. Theresa used to say that, if humility was to be considered the first grace for ordinary souls, we must consider that for souls aiming at perfection, courage is of more account at starting even than humility. And all this we find in the perpetual spirit of triumph with which faith supplies us. (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 12th If it is unworldliness that we need, where shall we find it more completely than in that faith which is our triumph over the world? If self-forgetfulness, where shall we attain it so soon as beneath the shadow of faith’s tremendous mysteries ? If consolation, when the world and self and sin all press upon us, where does it spring so abundantly as in the continual inward triumph of a believing mind ? The love of the Blessed Sacrament is the grand and royal devotion of faith ; it is faith multiplied, faith intensified, faith glorified, and yet remaining faith still, while it is glory also. And out of it there come three especial graces which are the very life and soul of an interior life, an overflowing charity to all around us, a thirst to sacrifice ourselves for God, and a generous filial love of Holy Church. The very joyousness of having Jesus with us, of being in actual and delighted possession of Him, renders us full of love to others. Happy ourselves, and with a happiness so exquisite and abounding, we are anxious to make others happy also. To be full of love is in itself a pain, if we have no vent by which we can pour out our fulness over others. To our ignorance something of this sort seems the reason why God created the world, in order to communicate His own perfections to His creatures. Moreover, we want our love to touch Jesus Himself and to do Him good. We wish to satisfy our own love by showing our love to Him, in the ways which He Himself has ordained and honours with His acceptation. And all this points to the poor, the desolate, the afflicted, whom He has put in His own room since He ascended into Heaven. On days of joy and in moments of triumphant festivity, then it is that the skilful fathers of the poor know how to lay sweet siege to the hearts of men, and with gentle craft to win their wealth from them for the little ones of Christ; and none are such generous givers, whether it be to the adornment of the material shrines of God, or to those more beautiful living temples, the poor and sorrowing, as those who are distinguished by an especial devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Charity is the choicest as well as the most exuberant emanation from the Adorable Host. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 11th But it seems to me that humility grows far more rapidly and blossoms more abundantly in the mere thought of the immensity of God’s love of us, and the unintelligible prodigality of His fatherly affection for us, where there is no thought of self at all, even in the way of merited self-reproach. This vision, for it is nothing but a beautiful celestial vision, overshadows our souls. The fires of our selfish passions go out in it. The glare of the world comes softened through it. There is nothing to distract us in the absorbing simplicity of this one sight which we are beholding. There is nothing to awaken self-love and to aim it against the nobler or better thoughts of self-forgetfulness. Humility is never more intense than when it is thus simply overwhelmed by love ; and never can our souls be more completely overwhelmed by love than when they rest, silent and wonder-stricken, beneath the shadow of the Blessed Sacrament. V. This leads me to one more remark on the spirit of triumph, which I have said the Blessed Sacrament produces in our souls and that concerns the relation between this feeling of triumph and the spiritual life. Almost all the provinces of the spiritual life are invaded by what, for want of a better word, I must call a holy discouragement. The word is stronger than I like and stronger than my meaning, but I do not know of any other. We are something more than dissatisfied, something less than disheartened. When we look at ourselves, at our defeats, nay, even our victories, we cannot help but be depressed. If we consider the multitude and weight and ubiquity of our temptations, the scene is little less disheartening, especially when we add the consideration of our invisible spiritual foes. So also the world, and its effect upon us and power over us, are all facts of our Christian warfare. Indeed in all things our very safety consists in being afraid, in a sense of inferiority, in a conviction that we are no match either for our own poor selves or for evils from without. Yet for all this we must be joyous, gay, confident, secure; and as there are no fountains for these things either in self or circumstances, we can only find them in our faith ; and our faith, as the apostle tells us, is our victory over the world. We must have some cause for triumph, something to supply us with boldness and with more than hope, something to buoy us up and to make our heart strong within us, and our steps firm, and our eye upraised and keen, and our hand quick and unfaltering. We must have”songs in the house of our pilgrimage;” and those songs can only be “the justifications” of God. And the crown of all these is the Blessed Sacrament. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 11th But it seems to me that humility grows far more rapidly and blossoms more abundantly in the mere thought of the immensity of God’s love of us, and the unintelligible prodigality of His fatherly affection for us, where there is no thought of self at all, even in the way of merited self-reproach. This vision, for it is nothing but a beautiful celestial vision, overshadows our souls. The fires of our selfish passions go out in it. The glare of the world comes softened through it. There is nothing to distract us in the absorbing simplicity of this one sight which we are beholding. There is nothing to awaken self-love and to aim it against the nobler or better thoughts of self-forgetfulness. Humility is never more intense than when it is thus simply overwhelmed by love ; and never can our souls be more completely overwhelmed by love than when they rest, silent and wonder-stricken, beneath the shadow of the Blessed Sacrament. V. This leads me to one more remark on the spirit of triumph, which I have said the Blessed Sacrament produces in our souls and that concerns the relation between this feeling of triumph and the spiritual life. Almost all the provinces of the spiritual life are invaded by what, for want of a better word I must call a holy discouragement. The word is stronger than I like and stronger than my meaning, but I do not know of any other. We are something more than dissatisfied, something less than disheartened. When we look at ourselves, at our defeats, nay, even our victories, we cannot help but be depressed. If we consider the multitude and weight and ubiquity of our temptations, the scene is little less disheartening, especially when we add the consideration of our invisible spiritual foes. So also the world, and its effect upon us and power over us, are all facts of our Christian warfare. Indeed in all things our very safety consists in being afraid, in a sense of inferiority, in a conviction that we are no match either for our own poor selves or for evils from without. Yet for all this we must be joyous, gay, confident, secure; and as there are no fountains for these things either in self or circumstances, we can only find them in our faith ; and our faith, as the apostle tells us, is our victory over the world. We must have some cause for triumph, something to supply us with boldness and with more than hope, something to buoy us up and to make our hearts strong within us, and our steps firm, and our eye upraised and keen, and our hand We must have”songs in the house of our pilgrimage;” and those songs can only be “the justifications” of God. And the crown of all these is the Blessed Sacrament. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 11th How sweetly beneath the shadow of this overwhelming mystery may the soul grow in the grace of humility ! It is a humbling thing to feel how much we might have done for God that we have not done, how many opportunities have been wasted, how many graces not corresponded to, how poor and languid and ungenerous has all been that we have actually had the heart to do. It is humbling also to feel how little we have done for God in return for the greatness of what He has done for us, and how little we can do for Him at the best, even if we were saints, considering His Majesty and our nothingness; and it is painfully humbling to think how much we have positively done against Him by deliberate preference of ourselves to Him. (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 10th All mysteries gravitate to this, touch upon it and are crowned by it. Nowhere are the marvellous perfections of the Invisible God so copied to the life and displayed to His creatures. All the mysteries of the Incarnation are gathered into one in the Blessed Sacrament. All the lives and actions of Jesus are found therein. All the other sacraments subserviently minister to this, and it is the one only Sacrament which Jesus Himself received. It does His work better than anything else does, and answers as nothing else does all the ends He had in view. With the Body and the Blood and the Soul of Jesus it brings with it His Divine Person, and the Persons of the Father and of the Holy Ghost, in a way so real and sublime as to be beyond expression, but which we signify by the theological word “concomitance,” as if the Holy Trinity came in the train of our Saviour’s Body, as its equipage and company. It is the greatest work of God, and the sabbath of all His works; for therein the Creator’s love and power and wisdom find their rest. The Church can never triumph except in what crowns, completes, and satisfies the vast nature of an immortal soul; but was ever triumph like to this ? It is the triumph of Creation, the triumph of Redemption, the triumph of the Sacred Humanity of Jesus, the triumph of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. What I have to do is to prove all this, not in a controversial way, but by the authority of the Church, to loving souls. O what unfathomable sweetness there is in Jesus ! Everything that leads to Him, that stands in sight of Him, that in any way belongs to Him, or after the most indirect fashion can be coupled with Him, how sweet it is, how soul-soothing and soul-satisfying, even though it be not Himself ! Earth has nothing like to it, and withers away and gives out no scent when it comes near it. The very odour of His Name is as ointment poured forth. The very sign of His Cross is stronger than hell. The very fringe of His garment can undo curses. Formalities become all life and spirit, if they so much as catch His eye, or point a finger at Him. What then must those things be which are near and dear to Him, on which the golden light of His love and choice is ever resting like a diadem, His blessed Mother, His foster-father, His great precursor, His glorious apostles, the little Innocents that died instead of Him ? Has the world a love or a devotion which is enough for the least of these things? What a world of heavenly beauty there is all around Jesus ; and simple souls, how happy, how intensely happy they are made by it ! But when we get beyond this, when we press through the rings of saints and angels and apostles, through the calm majesty and divine magnificence of that vast city of God, which is none other than Mary herself, when we reach the very Jesus, what can we do but weep for sheer excess of joy at the height and depth and length and breadth of His incomparable sweetness; and what is this but the Blessed Sacrament itself ? Ah ! then the Blessed Sacrament is not one thing out of many; but it is all things, and all in one, and all better than they are in themselves, and all ours and for us, and it is Jesus ! ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 10th IV. I said before that the Blessed Sacrament was the triumph of the Church over the world, of spirit over matter, of grace over nature, of faith over sight. Now I will say more. The Blessed Sacrament is everything to us. If we wish to be all for Jesus, there is our way, there is Himself. If we desire to see how Jesus is all for us, or which is another thing, how He is all in all to us, the Blessed Sacrament is at once that double revelation. All the doctrines of the Church, creation, incarnation, grace, sacraments, run up into the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament, and are magnificently developed there. All the art and ceremonial, the liturgical wisdom and the rubrical majesty of the Church are grouped around the Blessed Sacrament. All devotions are united and satisfied in this one. (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 9th Date after date of the infallible destruction of the Papacy passes on with the harmless course of the four grateful seasons, and the calender of heretical prophecy is left disdainfully, cruelly unfulfilled; and they will figure in the half antiquarian novels of our posterity as the vagaries of the Rosicrucians, and the sabbaths of the Lancashire witches do in ours, emblems and monuments of the undignified weaknesses of the human mind. Still souls are lost meanwhile, and the Christian’s eye is fixed far more on that lamentable fact than on the successive extinction of her foes, which it is as natural and common-place a thing for her to expect as that the sun shall rise, or the harvest, plentiful or scarce, shall come in its appointed season. Neither does she triumph because the Blessed Sacrament is to her a foretaste of the joys of heaven and of its eternal satisfactions. Men do not triumph in anticipations, and the feast of victory must be something more than the pleasant ardour of desire. Nay, truly, if I shall not seem to be uttering a conceit, I will say that this one day is the only day in the year in which she does not seem to think of heaven ; rather, she acts as if it had come to her, and she needed not to go to it. And this brings me at once to the real cause of her spiritual triumph. It is because she has Jesus Himself with her, the Living God, in the Blessed Sacrament. It is no commemoration of Him; it is Himself. It is no part of the mystery of the Incarnation; it is the whole mystery, and the Incarnate One Himself. It is not simply a means of grace; it is the Divine Fountain of Grace Himself. It is not merely a help to glory; it is the glorified Redeemer Himself, the owner and the source of all glory. The Blessed Sacrament is God in His mysterious miraculous veils. It is this real presence of God which makes Catholicism a religion quite distinct from any of the so-called forms of Christianity. It is this possession of her God which is of necessity the lifelong triumph of the Church. Nothing short of this could be a real or sufficient triumph to the Bride of Christ. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 9th Neither again is she triumphing because she has outlived so many foes who at one time seemed to be actual conquerors : though this phenomenon must be a daily subject for her devout thanksgiving and renewed confidence in God. The turbid flood of protestantism, daily subsiding and leaving waste tracks of dismal mud behind, never covered the earth so dreadfully as Arianism in the early centuries; and as the one passed, so will the other. Protestant prophecies are coming untrue, and making their rash authors a laughing-stock year after year. (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 9th emblems and monuments of the undignified weaknesses of the human mind. Still souls are lost meanwhile, and the Christian’s eye is fixed far more on that lamentable fact than on the successive extinction of her foes, which it is as natural and common-place a thing for her to expect as that the sun shall rise, or the harvest, plentiful or scarce, shall come in its appointed season. Neither does she triumph because the Blessed Sacrament is to her a foretaste of the joys of heaven and of its eternal satisfactions. Men do not triumph in anticipations, and the feast of victory must be something more than the pleasant ardour of desire. Nay, truly, if I shall not seem to be uttering a conceit, I will say that this one day is the only day in the year in which she does not seem to think of heaven ; rather, she acts as if it had come to her, and she needed not to go to it. And this brings me at once to the real cause of her spiritual triumph. It is because she has Jesus Himself with her, the Living God, in the Blessed Sacrament. It is no commemoration of Him; it is Himself. It is no part of the mystery of the Incarnation; it is the whole mystery, and the Incarnate One Himself. It is not simply a means of grace; it is the Divine Fountain of Grace Himself. It is not merely a help to glory; it is the glorified Redeemer Himself, the owner and the source of all glory. The Blessed Sacrament is God in His mysterious miraculous veils. It is this real presence of God which makes Catholicism a religion quite distinct from any of the so-called forms of Christianity. It is this possession of her God which is of necessity the lifelong triumph of the Church. Nothing short of this could be a real or sufficient triumph to the Bride of Christ. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 9th Neither again is she triumphing because she has outlived so many foes who at one time seemed to be actual conquerors : though this phenomenon must be a daily subject for her devout thanksgiving and renewed confidence in God. The turbid flood of protestantism, daily subsiding and leaving waste tracks of dismal mud behind, never covered the earth so dreadfully as Arianism in the early centuries; and as the one passed, so will the other. Protestant prophecies are coming untrue, and making their rash authors a laughing-stock year after year. Date after date of the infallible destruction of the Papacy passes on with the harmless course of the four grateful seasons, and the calender of heretical prophecy is left disdainfully, cruelly unfulfilled; and they will figure in the half antiquarian novels of our posterity as the vagaries of the Rosicrucians, and the sabbaths of the Lancashire witches do in ours, (continued below)

2 of 2 April 8th ~ FEAST of the ANNUNCIATION of the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Transferred from March 25th At the High Mass on this day, the celebrant and his ministers kneel on the altar-steps at the singing of the Et incarnatus est, in the Nicene Creed. Should the feast fall on Passion Sunday, it is celebrated on the following Monday. If it falls in Holy or Easter week it is celebrated on the Monday after Low Sunday. The Mass, although we are in the middle of Lent, carries us straight back to Advent. Yet this white winter blossom which recalls the snows of Christmas has its own deep significance, for it reminds us of Gideon’s fleece — that gracious symbol of the spotless virginity of the Mother of God — which was found by the Prophet newly wet with the dew of spring in the midst of a sun-baked plain in Palestine. ~ The New Roman Missal, 1937

1 of 2 April 8th ~ FEAST of the ANNUNCIATION of the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Transferred from March 25th This ancient feast, like that of Christmas, was considered originally as a feast of Our Lord, rather than of the Blessed Virgin. It has been fixed on the date of March 25, since the Seventh Century. (continued below)