SOME SAINTS FOR SEPTEMBER
SAINTS PUT A MAGNIFYING GLASS ON CHRIST'S CHARACTER
Assembled by Fr. Gregory Tipton, pastor of St. Aelred Catholic Church, Athens, GA
ST. GREGORY THE GREAT, SEPTEMBER 3
POPE AND DOCTOR 540-640 AD
Raised in a wealthy family, he reached the highest civil station in the Empire by 33, Prefect of Rome, before leaving behind this prestigious life to join a monastery, before being chosen as the first monastic Pope. He is known as the legendary inventor of Gregorian Chant, who crystallized the Roman Canon (the main eucharistic prayer in the Roman Rite, the one you hear at St. James with all the saints mentioned). He fed the poor of Rome, and sent St. Augustine to Canterbury, England to re-evangelize the Britons especially the Angles, Saxons, & Jutes.
Pope St. Gregory added to the Roman Canon the 9-fold Kyrie into the Mass, the Alleluia before the gospel all year (not just Eastertide), moved the placement of the Our Father, and added to the Hang igitur “order thou our days in thy peace.” The result was a new Roman Canon that remained in use and untouched from 590-1970. From this precedence it becomes clear that the Church is free to adapt, add, remove, or change the Roman Canon or Forms of the Mass in general. She can even remove Forms of the Mass if she wishes and has done so in the past.
Pope St. Gregory is the forerunner or father of the Ordinariate. In his letter to St. Augustine of Canterbury, Pope St. Gregory the Great answered questions about the different uses of the Mass in various Churches. Pope Gregory wrote to Augustine: "Your Fraternity knows the use of the Roman Church, in which you have been nurtured. But I approve of your selecting carefully anything you have found that may be more pleasing to Almighty God, whether in the Roman Church or that of Gaul, or in any Church whatever, and introducing in the Church of the Angli, which is as yet new in the faith, by a special institution, what you have been able to collect from many Churches. For we ought not to love things for places, but places for things. Wherefore choose from each several Church such things as are pious, religious, and right, and, collecting them as it were into a bundle, plant them in the minds of the Angli for their use."
Conformity to Rome does not mean complete uniformity in matters Liturgical, Spiritual, or Pastoral. This means precedence for Divine Worship or Ordinariate use of the Mass goes back as early as 597 AD. Saint Gregory is one of the patrimonial saints of the Ordinariate which is why the Ordinariate Prayer Book bears his name.
THE NAVITY OF OUR LADY, SEPTEMBER 8
BIRTH OF THE BLESSED MOTHER, 18-14 BC
The birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary or "Marymas" commemorates the birth of the Blessed Mother. According to pious tradition, on September 8, 430 AD a man heard the angels singing in heaven and when he asked the reason, he was told that they were rejoicing because the Virgin was born on that night. This commemoration was taken up with fervour and praises by medieval English speakers. Such was their love of the Blessed Mother that the country became known as Our Lady's Dowry. It was believed that England belonged in some special way to Mary, who was seen as the country's "protectress" and who through her powers of intercession acted as the people's defender and guardian.
HOLY CROSS DAY, SEPTEMBER 14
"ROODMAS" 320 AD
The True Cross was lost sometime after Christ’s death. It was found by St. Helena, Emperor Constantine’s mother on September 14, 320 AD. It was lost again to the Persians and retrieved in the 7th c. by Heraclius, the Byzantine Emperor, who removed his regal vestments to carry the Cross back to Jerusalem as Our Lord did. The poem Dream of the Rood is the earliest English poem and it speaks of True Relics of the Cross. King Alfred of England was said to have received a piece which he sent to a monastery in Shaftesbury, England. At the Reformation, Calvin said if everyone’s pieces of the “True Cross” were gathered we could make an ark out of them (i.e. they’re mostly false). Research since then has shown this exaggeration entirely false, and that if we gathered all the pieces that are claimed, we’d only have a third of the True Cross. The Faithful genuflect to a relic of the True Cross if seen, which has been preserved in the “Creeping of the Cross” at the Good Friday Rite.
ST. MATHEW, SEPTEMBER 21
APOSTLE & EVANGELIST, 1ST C. AD
An Evangelist comes from the Greek “euangelion,” which means “Gospel” or “Good News.” So an Evangelist is not someone who goes knocking from door to door, but a Gospel writer, i.e. St. Matthew’s Gospel makes Matthew an Evangelist. St. Matthew was an ex-publican who was martyred while saying Mass at the Altar of Christ.
OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM, SEPTEMBER 24
PATRONESS OF OUR DIOCESE, 1061 AD
The appearance of Our Lady of Walsingham is one of the earliest Marian apparitions in history. Richeldis de Faverches, a noble widow living in Norfolk during the reign of Edward the Confessor, petitioned the Blessed Virgin to inspire her to a notable work of charity. In answer, Our Lady gave her a vision, taking Richeldis to the house in Nazareth where the Annunciation occurred. She instructed her to build a replica in Walsingham to commemorate Mary's joy at the Angelic Salutation of Gabriel, the heralding of the Incarnation.
The Holy House became a shrine, a place of pilgrimage and miracles. Ballads were penned in praise of Our Lady of Walsingham, and many kings made pilgrimage there. This included Henry VIII, but after his break with the Church he ordered the shrine destroyed. This event too became the subject of ballads, now of lament. The place lay silent until the 1890s, when the ruins of the wayside Slipper Chapel were restored for Catholic use. Then in the 1930s, the Anglican Church built a new shrine and Catholic Slipper Chapel was declared the English National Shrine of Our Lady.
When the Word was made Flesh, the universality of God came into the particularity of a little house in the village of Nazareth. The Incarnation means that God meets us not in an abstracted existence, but directly, within the particular places and circumstances of our lives. As Our Lady guided Richeldis to make a Nazareth in England, every chapel and shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham is a particular, local Nazareth, an encounter with the joy of the Incarnation in that special place. One such shrine is in Houston, TX, at the Cathedral of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter: Our Lady of Walsingham.
For this year’s observance of the Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham, the Cathedral parish has prepared a novena in the form of a series of Lectio Divina, reflecting on various Marian passages in Sacred Scripture. Following the format of the first novena, that of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, this scriptural novena begins nine days ahead of and in preparation for the Feast. Thus, the first day of the novena is September 15, Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows (St. Mary of Cross).
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