The following homily was given by Fr. Herbert Nicholls at the Mother of Light Convent on Wednesday, August 22.
When you do a little research, it’s interesting to find how customs begin and develop over the course of time. We usually associate Mary with its beautiful fresh flowers as the month of Mary and would hardly thick twice about August.
Yet two of the greatest feasts honoring Mary occur this month. Her assumption into heaven on the 15thof August. In earlier times it was referred to as the Dormition of Mary or Lady Day. It was the custom of the Bishop or Pastor to bless the fields and collect the harvest of flowers and first fruits.
On the Octave, our Blessed Lady is honored in the Coronation as Queen of heaven and earth. Certainly this is a more fitting day for the crowning of statues and honoring of Mary as queen and mother rather than the first Sunday of May which more often than not precedes even the Ascension of Jesus; thereby introducing confusion and ambiguity into the Liturgical calendar.
There are many other feasts during the month honoring devotees of Mary such as St. Dominic, who according to tradition received from the Blessed Mother the Rosary and instruction on how it is to be prayed. This tradition has been encouraged and continues to our present day.
Dominic was originally ordained as an Augustinian Monk, later organized his own society called the Order of Preachers. Along with a contemporary, St. Francis of Assisi, who began his Order of Friars Minor in the Chapel of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, where he also died. The chapel has a liturgical commemoration on August 2nd.
On the last day of July, we remember St. Ignatius of Loyola, who like St Paul was a soldier. He was not particularly religious. Wounded in battle with a shattered leg, he had a lot of time during his recovery to read. Unable to procure his more desirable romantic reading, he settled for the Scriptures and the lives of the Saints. He was also gifted with a visitation from Mary, in which she directed him to make a pilgrimage to her shrine in Montserrat. There he stayed for 11 months studying with the Dominicans. In 1534, Pope Paul II approved the formation of the Society of Jesus.
A little more than a century later, Alphonsus Liguori was born. He was a brilliant scholar and became a masterful lawyer in both civil and canon law. In 1726, he too was ordained in the Dominican Order, but 6 years later founded the Congregation of the Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists).
He was given a powerful ministry in moral theology which he reformed in light of Sacred Scripture. Among his famous works is his masterpiece, The Glories of Mary. His feast is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, August 1.
Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney was born in 1786. He was a slow student who experienced great difficulty with Latin. Ultimately overcome all obstacles and was ordained a parish priest and assigned a pastor in the village of Ars. A small town of about 500 lapsed Catholics. It was a very difficult assignment. The people were content and happy with their irreligious and materialistic way of living. His preaching seemed to fall on deaf ears. Then one day, John Vianney, reading the words of the Gospel: some devils can only be driven out by prayer and fasting, he began an intense vigil of prayer and fasting, eating only one potato a day. Slowly at first, they began coming to confession. To their amazement he often told them the sins which they had not confessed to him. Quickly word spread, and soon people came like flocks of sheep from all over France to make their confession to this holy man. He often spent 16 hours a day hearing confessions and reconciling sinners. His feast is also observed on the anniversary of his death on August 4.
August 5 commemorates one of the oldest liturgical appointments. It is the anniversary of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, built by Pope Sixtus II following the Council of Ephesus and the decree of Mary as Theotokos, Mother of God.
When the Holy Father in prayer asked our Blessed Mother where the Church was to be built, legend says that she showed him with a localized snowfall on the Palestine Hill. To this day, the Church is affectionately referred to as Our Lady of the Snow. Although the present edifice is the third building on this spot, it marks the site of the oldest Church in the western world dedicated to Our Lady.
So you see how one day in the future, the month of August may come to be celebrated as Mary’s month and May can be recognized for what it is – the month of her Son’s paschal mystery and the sending of the Paraclete.
There is room in the Church for all kinds of devotions and Vatican II did not intend to abolish them except for some which made frivolous, inauthentic and extravagant claims and were more superstitious than faithful.
So now is a time like no other to praise and honor Mary as our Queen and Mother, to bring flowers of the fairest and fruits of the rarest and crown our August Queen.