... the Virgin is Lady according to her worthiness, as being Mistress of all, since it was in virginity that she conceives and divinely gives birth to the One who by nature is Master of All. And of course she is still Lady as not only free from slavery, and possessed of divine lordship, but also as fount and root of the freedom of the race, and especially after the ineffable and joyful childbearing; for the woman who is yoked to a man is lorded rather than lady, and especially after after her sorrowful and painful childbearing according to the curse made against Eve ... the Virginmother, freeing the human race from this curse, receives joy and blessing from the angel; for he comes in and says: 'Hail Graced One, the Lord is with you, you are blessed among women'. The archangel is not proclaiming the future in saying 'The Lord is with you', but announcing what unseeing he sees at this very moment fulfilled. And knowing her to be the place of divine and human charisms, and adorned with all the charisms of the divine Spirit, truly he proclaims her Graced.
A little gem for you from the great and untranslatable hesychast father S Gregory Palamas. Sometimes I fantasise about the ecumenical day when Rome might feel able to add him to the Calendare Romanum Generale and to proclaim him a Doctor of the Church.
By the way, today, old Octave Day of the Assumption, is regarded by Dom Gueranger as quintessentially the day when we think of the Mother of God as Queen; among other quotations from the great masters of Christian spirituality, he gives us the passage from S Bernardine of Sienna which so enrages Marian minimalists: that even God obeys Mary. The post-Conciliar placing of Maria Regina on this day makes more obvious sense than the (Pius XII) Feast of her Immaculate Heart. Let nobody accuse me of being an unthinking critic of all post-Conciliar liturgical ideas. Although the Feast of the Immaculate Heart does bear with it notions of Divine Victory: her Immaculate Heart will triumph.
Today Blessed John Henry Newman began the wearing of the Miraculous Medal. And, centuries before, one of England's greatest bishops, John Grandisson of Exeter, chose to be enthroned this day and to order our Lady's Octave Day to be kept henceforth for ever as a feast of the highest rank. Furthermore, even though it was not the day of his death, he disposed that tomorrow be kept as his obit. I am sure that all right-thinking clerics will wish to remember him at Mass tomorrow. Grandisson was a Sound Bloke. Friend and protege of John XXII, he reacted to the threat of a Metropolitan Visitation by having the Archbishop of Canterbury repelled by his private army. Let nobody slander the Avignon Papacy in my hearing.
A very Anglican Patrimony Day. Perhaps the Ordinariate should bring in the cause for Grandisson's Beatification, as well as including the Miraculous Medal in our Mission Statement.
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