This year, for each day in the month of May, we will be posting excerpts of the book The May Book of the Breviary, by Father John Fitzpatrick, O.M.I., published by R&T Washbourne, London, 1904. Nihil Obstat: Father Thomas Dawson, O.M.I., and Imprimatur: Cardinal Francis Alphonsus Bourne, dated April 14, 1904.
The Second Eve
When the Lord came unto His own, and bore in His own person the nature which He had created – becoming obedient even unto the Tree, and doing away with the disobedience which had taken of a tree, thus atoning for the transgression whereby Eve, as yet a virgin spouse, had wickedly transgressed – the message of the Gospel truth was fitly brought by an Angel to the espoused Virgin, Mary. And just as the one was seduced by the words of an angel, and, having broken the commandment of God, fled from His face, so the other, from the message of an Angel, learnt the good tidings that, observant of His word, she should become the Mother of God. And as the one was induced to flee from God, so the other was persuaded to be obedient to God, that the maiden Mary might become the Advocate of the maiden Eve. As by one maiden the human race was bound with the bonds of death, so by one other was it again unbound: against a maiden’s disobedience in one scale of the balance – a Maiden’s obedience was cast into the other as counterpoise.
— Saint Irenaeus
May 1st – Mary, The Mirror of Righteousness
from Saint Ambrose
Let the virginity and the whole life of the Blessed Mary be before your eyes in a word-picture, as it were, from which, as from a mirror, is reflected the beauty of chastity and the loveliness of all virtue. Hence you may take the model for your life; for here, for your learning, all matters of right and exemplary conduct – what to correct, what to avoid, and what to hold fast by – are set forth and are seen. The first incentive to the learner is the position of the teacher. But who is more noble than the Mother of God? Who more glorious than she whom glory itself chose? What more chaste than she who gave birth to a body, while in her own person she remained inviolate?
What shall I say of the rest of her virtues? She was a virgin, not only in her body, but also in her mind, the purity of whose desires had not been deflowered by any deceitful wile. She was humble of heart, grave in word, prudent in thought, and sparing of speech, though fond of reading; she put her hope, not in the uncertainty of riches, but in the prayer of the poor; she was diligent at her work, modest in her conversation; she had no human respect, but only cared what God might think of her; she did harm to no one, and wished well to all; she shunned boasting, she followed reason, she loved whatsoever things were good.
Such was Mary that her single life is an example to every one of us. If, then, the doer displease us not, let us approve what she did; if any woman desires her reward, she ought to follow her example. In one only Maiden, how many virtues do shine forth! The secret of modesty was her own, and a high standard of faith, and a devotedness in good offices; she was a model maiden in her home, a model servant when away from it, a model mother in the Temple. Oh, to how many maidens shall she draw nigh! Oh, how many shall she take in her arms, and present to the Lord, saying, “Here is one, here is one who has kept pure from spot the couch and nuptial chamber of my Son!”
Let us pray
O merciful God! give strength unto our frailty, that we, who commemorate the holy Mother of God, may, by the help of her intercession, rise again from our sins. Through the same Christ, our Lord. Amen.
May 2nd – The Chosen of the Chosen Race
from Saint John Chrysostom
The Son of God chose not for His Mother a woman of wealth or property, but that blessed Maiden whose soul was adorned with all the virtues. It was because the Blessed Mary had preserved her purity more perfectly than any other of our human kind that she conceived Christ, our Lord, within her womb. Let us, then, have speedy recourse to this most holy Virgin, the Mother of God, that we may obtain the help of her patronage. Come, then, all you maidens, whosoever you may be, take refuge with the Mother of our Lord; for, under her protection, she will keep for you inviolate the fairest and most precious of all your possessions.
The blessed and ever-virgin Mary, my dearly beloved Brethren! was indeed most wonderful. For, what has ever been, or can at any time be, discovered greater or more illustrious than she? She, in her sole self, is greater than the heavens and the earth. And what is holier than she? Neither Prophets, nor Apostles, nor Martyrs, nor Patriarchs, nor Angels, nor Thrones, nor Dominations, nor Seraphim, nor Cherubim, nor, finally, any other creature whatsoever, whether visible or invisible, can be found greater or more excellent than she. She is both the handmaid and the Mother of God, and at one and the same time both maiden and mother.
She is the Mother of Him who was begotten of the Father before all ages, and who is acknowledged as the Lord of all by Angels and by men. Would you know how much more eminent is this Maiden than the heavenly Powers? They stand by, in fear and trembling, veiling their faces, while she presents the human race to Him whom she brought forth. Through her also we obtain the remission of our sins. Hail, then, O Mother! – heaven! damsel! virgin! throne! – ornament, and boast, and buttress of our Church! pray for us assiduously to Jesus, thy Son and our Lord, that through thee we may find mercy in the day of judgment, and may attain to the good things which are reserved for them who love God, by the grace and bounty of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be glory and honour and empire, now and for ever and ever. Amen.
Let us pray
O God! who didst vouchsafe to choose the Blessed Mary to be Thy court and Thy virginal dwelling-place, grant, we beseech Thee, that, strengthened by her protection, we may, through Thee, joyfully take part in commemorating her: who livest and reignest with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
May 3rd – The Immaculate Conception
from the Dogmatic Bull of Pope Pius IX
The ineffable God, whose ways are mercy and truth, whose will is omnipotence, and whose wisdom “reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly” (Wisdom 8:1), foreseeing from all eternity the most woeful ruin of all the human race which would follow on Adam’s transgression, and decreeing in His mysterious purpose before the worlds were that the primal work of His bounty should be completed by the still more hidden mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, and that man who, through the wicked wiles of the devil and despite His own merciful designs, had fallen into sin, should not perish, but that what had fallen in the first Adam should be still more happily re-established in the second, from the beginning and before all ages elected and ordained for His only-begotten Son a Mother, from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, taking flesh, He should be born; and with so great a love did He love her beyond all creatures that in her His will was wholly and well pleased.
To which end He bestowed upon her from the treasure of the Divinity so marvellous an abundance of all the heavenly gifts of grace, and so far exceeding anything bestowed on any Angel or Saint, that, always absolutely free from every stain of sin, she showed forth in herself such a plenitude of innocence and sanctity, that short of God no greater can at all be imagined and only the thought of God Himself can comprehend. And, in sooth, it was most fitting that this most worshipful Mother should always be bright with the brightness of the most perfect holiness, and that, by her absolute freedom from even the stain of original sin, she should gain so complete a victory over the ancient serpent, since to her God the Father designed to give His only Son – whom, begotten in His own bosom and equal to Himself, as His own self He loves – that He, one and the same, might be by nature both the Son of God the Father and the Virgin’s Son. . . .
The Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, learned in celestial lore, have made it their first care in their books explanatory of Scripture, or written in defense of dogma and for the instruction of the faithful, eagerly and in many and divers ways to preach and to set forth the Virgin’s supreme sanctity and dignity, and her freedom from every stain of sin and glorious victory over the most dreadful enemy of the human race. And thus, when commenting on the words, “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed” (Genesis 3:15), by which God, fore-announcing in the beginning of the world the remedies prepared in His mercy for the restoration of mortal man, repelled the audacity of the wily serpent, and marvellously raised up a hope for our human kind, they taught that, by His divine pronouncement, the merciful Redeemer of the human race – namely, the only-begotten Son of God, Christ Jesus – was clearly and openly pointed out, that His most Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, was also indicated, and that by these words signal expression was given to the enmity against the devil which is common to both of them. And thus as Christ, the Mediator between God and man in our human nature which He had assumed, blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, fastened it like a victor to the Cross, so the most holy Virgin – bound up with Him in the most close and indissoluble bond, and together with Him and through Him giving vent to her sempiternal enmity against the venomous serpent – triumphing fully over him, has crushed his head beneath her immaculate foot. . . .
Wherefore having, in all lowliness and in fasting, offered up without intermission our own private prayers and the public prayers of the Church to God the Father through His Son, that He would deign to guide and strengthen our mind by the power of His Holy Spirit, having implored the aid of all the court of heaven, and having with groans called upon the Holy Ghost the Paraclete – now We, inspired by Him, to the honour of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, for the praise and glory of the Virgin-Mother of God, and for the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the increase of the Christian religion, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and of our own authority, declare, pronounce, and define that: The doctrine which maintains that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first moment of her Conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed of God, and therefore to be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful. Wherefore, if any shall dare – which God forbid! – to think in their heart anything other than that which we have defined, let them know and understand that they are condemned by their own judgment, have suffered shipwreck of the faith, and have fallen away from the unity of the Church.
Let us pray
O God! who, by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, didst prepare a worthy dwelling for Thy Son, and by the foreseen death of the same, Thy Son, didst preserve her from every stain, grant, we beseech Thee, that, by her intercession, we also made pure may come unto Thee. Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
