The folks organizing to build an “Arch of Triumph” Marian shrine in Buffalo even have a song about it now! I still like the idea of supersizing it, but if it comes off in just the regular version (below), it may actually be an interesting place to visit.
I worry a little when I hear talk about our Lady’s coming “triumph”, because a bunch of very kooky phony mystics in the ’80s and ’90s made it their theme. If we’d all sign on to the latest apparitionist’s messages, it seemed, Our Lady’s Triumph (gotta use that capital T) would be ever closer, and surely it was coming next year. All we needed was one more apparition movie with Martin Sheen.
Category: Devotions
Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday, from CCC 635
Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth
trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh
and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world
began. . . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as
for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in
darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from
sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him – He who
is both their God and the son of Eve. . . . “I am your God, who
for your sake have become your son. . . . I order you, O sleeper,
to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from
the dead, for I am the life of the dead.”
Zechariah 12:10
And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a first-born.
Happy Feast of the Annunciation!
And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.
Luke 1:26-30
The Annunciation is one of my favorite feast days, and it’s very popular with the Johnson kids, too. This is the day when God’s promise of salvation has begun to be fulfilled. Let us praise the Holy Virgin by whom that salvation comes.
Happy former feast of St. Gregory
Pope St. Gregory the Great (d. 3-12-604)
(His current feast is 9-3, to commemorate his ascendance to the papacy. Today is his dies natalis, though, and celebrating twice per year isn’t too much, is it?)