Dom
Prosper Guéranger:
This, the eighth day from that on which we kept the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, is the Octave properly so called, whereas the other days were simply called days within the Octave. The custom of keeping up the principal Feasts for a whole week is one of those which the Christian Church adopted from the Synagogue. God had thus spoken in the Book of Leviticus: “The first day will be called most solemn and most holy, you must do no servile work therein... The eighth day also will be most solemn and most holy, and you must offer holocausts to the Lord, for it is the day of assembly and congregation; you must do no servile work therein” (Leviticus xxiii. 35, 36). We also read in the Book of Kings that Solomon having called all Israel to Jerusalem, for the dedication of the Temple, suffered not the people to return home until the eighth day. We learn from the Books of the New Testament that this custom was observed in our Saviour’s time, and we find Him authorising, by His own example, this solemnity of the Octave. Thus, we read in Saint John that Jesus once took part in one of the Jewish Festivals, about the midst of the Feast (John vii. 14) of Zachary opened, and He prophesied, saying, and the same Evangelist relating how our Lord cried out to the people: “If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink”: observes, that it was on the last and great day of the festivity (John vii. 37).
In the Christian Church, there are two kinds of Octaves: Privileged Octaves and Non-privileged Octaves. The first are so solemn that no feast of a Saint, occurring during them can be kept, but must be transferred to some other time out of the Octave. Neither, during these Octaves, can a Mass De Requiem be said unless the corpse be present for burial. Non-privileged Octaves admit the Feasts of Saints which occur during them, provided they are semi-doubles or of higher class. But a commemoration of the Octave must be made both in the Office and the Mass of the Feast, which thus takes precedence of the Octave, unless this Feast be itself one of a first or second Class. The Octave of the Immaculate Conception, the first that occurs in the Liturgical Year, is not privileged. It gives place, not only to the Sunday, but also to the feasts of Saint Damasus and Saint Lucy, and to the various local feasts which are of a double or semi-double rite.
Let us once more devoutly reverence the Mystery of Mary’s Immaculate Conception: our Emmanuel loves to see His Mother honoured. After all, is it not for Him and for His sake that this Bright Star was prepared from all eternity, and created when the happy time fixed by the divine decree came? When we honour the Immaculate Conception of Mary, it is really to the divine Mystery of the Incarnation that we are paying our just homage. Jesus and Mary cannot be separated, for Isaias tells us that She is the Branch, and He the Flower (Isaias xi. 1).
*****
We give you thanks, O Jesus our Emmanuel, because you have granted us to live during the time that the privilege of your Blessed Mother was proclaimed on this Earth: the glorious privilege with which you enriched the first instant of the life of the happy creature from whom you took upon yourself our human nature! This Definition of your Church has given us a clearer knowledge of your infinite holiness. It has taught us to see more distinctly the harmony there is in all your divine mysteries. But it also has impressed upon us the great truth that we ourselves, being destined to the most intimate union with you here, and to the face-to-face vision of your infinite Majesty hereafter, must labour without ceasing to purify ourselves from the smallest stains of sin. You have said: “Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God” (Matthew v. 8) and you show us by the dogma of your Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Conception, what is the purity which your sovereign sanctity demands of us. By the love which led you to preserve her from every stain of sin, have mercy on us who are her devoted children. You are so soon to be among us! Before many days are past, we will have yielded to yourinvitations and have presumed to approach your sacred crib. We are not yet ready, dear Jesus! The effects of original sin are still so plainly upon us, and, what is worse, there are so many of our own sins which we have added to this of our first parent: Oh prepare our hearts and our senses, for we will not approach to Bethlehem unworthily. The sinless purity of your Mother is not for us. We ask not for that , but we ask for forgiveness of our countless sins, for conversion, for hatred of the world and the world’s maxims, and for perseverance in your holy love.
O Mary! Created Mirror of divine Justice and purer than the Cherubim and Seraphim, in return for the homage paid you by this our generation, on that blissful day when the glory of your Immaculate Conception was proclaimed throughout the world, give us that abundant richness of your protecting love which you reserved till now. The world is shaken to its very foundations: your hand can help it to rest again. Hell has let loose upon mankind the most terrible of its spirits of wickedness who breathe but blasphemy and destruction, but at the same time the Church of your Jesus feels that her youth has been renewed within her, and that the seed of the divine word is broadcast and healthy in a thousand fresh portions of the Earth. Never was the battle more fierce on both sides: so that we need all our hope to make us feel that Hell will not prevail. Is this the great struggle which is to be followed by the day of judgement ?
O Blessed Mother of Jesus! O Queen of the universe! Can it be that the Star of your Immaculate Conception has shone in the heavens only to light up the ruin and wreck of this Earth? The sign foretold by the Beloved Disciple Saint John of the Woman that appeared in the heavens clad with the Sun, bearing on her head a crown of twelve stars, and crushing the Crescent beneath her feet (Apocalypse xii. 1) — has it not more brightness and power than that other which appeared in the heavens telling men that God’s anger was appeased, and that the deluge was over?
The light which shines upon us is from a Mother. It is our Mother that comes to console and heal us. It is Heaven that smiles upon poor guilty Earth. We have deserved the chastisement we have received, and more than we have received but the anger of God will give way, and He will spare us. The graces which God poured out upon the world on that great Day of the Church's Definition of Mary’s Immaculate Conception were not to be without their effect: a new period then commenced. Mary, on whom heresy had heaped its blasphemies for [four] hundred years, will again reign in the love of those whom her Son redeemed. Countries will abandon those errors which have made them slaves and dupes of men’s doctrines. The old serpent will again writhe under that crushing pressure which God set up from the beginning, and the divine Sun of Justice will pour out on the regenerated world the floods of a light more than ever dazzling and resplendent. We may not live to see that time but we have signs of its near approach.
It was in the last century that your devout servant whom the Church has placed upon her altars, Leonard of Porto-Maurizio, predicted that when this dogma of your Immaculate Conception should be defined, the world would enjoy a long period of peace. The troubles of the present time in which we are living are, we doubt not, a prelude to that happy peace during which the divine word will traverse the whole world unimpeded, and the Church Militant will reap her harvest for the Church in Heaven. Sweet Mother of our Jesus! The world was also in agitation in those times which preceded the birth of your divine Son, but peace reigned throughout the whole Earth when you gave it its Saviour in Bethlehem. Until that grand time comes when you will show to the world the magnificence of the power which God has given to you, assist us, each year, to prepare for the glorious solemnity of Christmas: pray for us that we may be cleansed from all our sins when that splendid Night comes, during which will be born of you Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Light eternal.
On
this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
The consecration of St. Eusebius (315‒371
AD), bishop of Vercelli, whose birthday is commemorated on the first
of August. His feast is kept on the sixteenth of this month by order
of Pope Benedict XIII.
At Rome, the holy martyrs Irenaeus, Anthony,
Theodore, Saturninus, Victor and seventeen others, who suffered for
Christ in the persecution of Valerian.
In Africa, the martyrdom of the Saints Faustinus,
Lucius, Candidus, Caelian, Mark, Januarius and Fortunatus.
In the same country, the holy bishop Valerian,
who, being upwards of eighty years old, in the persecution of the
Vandals under the Arian king Genseric, was asked to deliver the
vessels of the church, and as he constantly refused, an order was
issued to drive him all alone out of the city, and all were forbidden
to allow him to stay either in their houses or on their land. For a
long time he remained lying on the public road, in the open air, and
thus, in the confession and defence of the Catholic verity, closed
his blessed life.
In the diocese of Orleans, St. Maximinus,
confessor.
In Georgia, beyond the Euxine sea, St. Christiana,
who, though a slave, was so gifted with the power of working miracles
that she converted the inhabitants of that country to the faith of
Christ in the time of Constantine.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs,
confessors and virgins.
Thanks
be to God.
