As well as of the Lord, the Appendix pro Aliquibus locis contained many Masses of our Lady under various titles. Here I share with you a personal puzzlent.
When I was a tiny boy, I lived at Clacton on Sea; where there was a splendid Catholic Church in (unusually) the Romanesque style ... sanctuary and all. I found it very attractive; and I greatly enjoyed browsing through the booklets on sale. What a lot one could learn from them ... does that form of Apostleship survive anywhere now?
The Church was dedicated to Our Lady of Light ... not a feast on any Calendar. But, apparently, when Our Lady's shrine had been in Cornwall, request had been made to Bishop Graham to allow the formation of an Association. He granted this on May 14, 1893 ... that year, the Sunday in the Octave of of the Ascension. And the Titular was to be on: the Sunday within the Octave! And "Our Lady of Light, Spouse of the Holy Ghost", was (so the little book said) "recently granted by Rome".
That feast, to my knowledge, did not make it into Pro Aliquibus Locis. Or did it get in and then lose its position? Does anybody have the sort of links with the archivists at Plymouth or Westminster which would would enable the question to be asked?
Personally, I have wondered whether it was granted but not entered into PAL (the souces make clear that it is Sunday we are considering, not the Saturday). Papa Pecci ... Pope Leo XIII ... was a great client of the Mother of God; every year, in the autumn, he issued a document to the Universal Church urging upon the faithful the use of the Holy Rosary. Would he have said No ... especially when that Sunday is rather a suitable one for our Lady of Light, Spouse of the Holy Ghost?
Back to Clacton again ... in that (now sadly vandalised) Romanesque church, there is a statue of S Louis-Marie de Montfort, Missionary of Mary, Apostle of Brittany, Doctor of Marian devotion. I don't know when he entered PAL but it was after 1955 ... and he disappeared from it not long ago. You must remember that his cultus received a big oomph from the devotion of S John Paul II.
That is, I think the regular way in which that Saints retire from PAL ... promotion to universal status ...
3 comments:
There may be a Byzantine equivalent of Our Lady of Light in the Akathistos hymn, sung on the Fridays of Great Lent. It occurs in the Eirmos of Ode Nine:
"Most-holy Theotokos, save us.
"You were seen as our Light and surety, we therefore shout to you: Rejoice, O unsetting star which leads the great Sun into the world. Rejoice, O pure one, for you opened Eden. Rejoice, fiery pillar ushering humankind to life on high."
The entire Akathistos hymn has been translated into modern English by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America at this link, which also refers to recordings of the hymn in their Sacred Audio Collection:
https://www.themathesontrust.org/library/akathistos-hymn-salutations-to-the-virgin-mary
A visual of said church:
https://ourladyoflight.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/DSC01427-1-compressor-2048x1536.jpg
Our Lady also has the title of Our Lady of One-Hundred and Fifteenth Street (NYC) and there is a Vatican decree commanding that the Image of that name be adorned with a golden crown. But it is just another way to refer to Our Lady under her well-known title of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Both the image and the parish are called OLMC.
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