Feast of St. Mary of Nazareth, Mother of God (August 15)

Above: The Madonna in Sorrow, by Sassoferrato, 1600s

Image in the Public Domain

“Holy Mary, Mother of God….”

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The Assigned Readings for This Feast:

Isaiah 61:10-11

Psalm 34 or Psalm 34:1-9

Galatians 4:4-7

Luke 1:46-55

The Collect:

O God, you have taken to yourself Blessed Mary, mother of your incarnate Son: Grant that we, who have been redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of your eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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One day in the middle 1990s, when I was late in my undergraduate college career, I sat in a mall food court in Brunswick, Georgia, with my parents and one my mother’s coworkers, a woman of the Protestant Pentecostal/Charismatic persuasion.  I had just purchased a two-CD set of settings of the Stabat Mater (a Roman Catholic devotional text about Jesus’ mother at the foot of the cross) composed in the 1600s and 1700s.  My mother’s coworker made a remark about the death of the Holy Mother of Our Lord, and I responded by affirming St. Mary’s assumption.  At that moment I realized how far I had moved from my Protestant upbringing and how glad I was to have done so.  I knew also that I did not live in the same theological universe as did many Protestants.

The Western Christian Church calendar contains multiple feasts of the Mother of God; this is the generic one on the Episcopal calendar.  (This is, however, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary on the Roman Catholic calendar.)  All such events are really feasts of Jesus, for St. Mary does not matter except within the context our Lord and Savior.  Jesus honored his mother; may we do likewise.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 13, 2010

THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST, YEAR C

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From the Stabat Mater text:

Love’s sweet fountain, Mother tender,

haste this hard heart, soft to render,

make me sharer in Thy pain.

Fire me now with zeal so glowing,

love so rich to Jesus flowing,

that I favor may obtain.

Holy Mother, I implore Thee,

Crucify this heart before Thee-

Guilty it is verily!

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