Our Lady's Bird is Our Lady Bug

Picture source

Nice way to honor Our Lady on her day.

by Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.

          What insect has such a colorful and fascinating history as the ladybird, also known more popularly as the ladybug?  In an age of faith when people saw earth mirroring heaven, this tiny creature was thought to enjoy the special protection of the Virgin Mary.  Reversing its role in the last two centuries, this small symbol of Our Lady burst into prominence as a protector of people and their food supply.  As the enemy of aphids, the ladybird has rendered service calculated in the billions of dollars in the past century alone.  We have good reason to be grateful for this little beetle and to the Lady for whom it is named.

A problem of infestation

          Agricultural specialists first became interested in the ladybug when California orange groves were mercilessly attacked by a voracious insect pest in the latter half of the nineteenth century.  Already in 1880 agricultural experts discovered that a parasitic insect was infesting some orange trees in California’s Santa Clara Valley.  The infestation was known locally as “San Jose scale.”  Eventually it was traced to the flowering peach trees imported from China.  These trees were infected with tiny sap-sucking insects until then unknown in the western world. 

          The deadly visitor insect from Asia found the orange trees a delicious victim and spread quickly.  They multiplied so rapidly that they became a mortal threat to the citrus industry in all of California.  By 1893 horticulturalists were occasionally finding specimens along the Atlantic seaboard.  Five years later the havoc wreaked by these aphids was so grave that the German emperor forbade the importation of American fruits and living plants.

 

Finding an antidote

          In the meantime, the Department of Agriculture had its specialists launch a counterattack.  They tried a variety of pesticides, but with little success.  Orange trees were dying by the hundreds of thousands.

          Mr. C. V. Riley, chief entomologist of the Department of Agriculture, suggested that aphids could be controlled by introducing other insects which would prey on them.  In 1890 such a proposal seemed radical and preposterous, and drew scoffs even from close associates.

          But that did not daunt C. V. Riley.  Working against indifference and opposition, he was determined to find a creature to attack the aphids devastating the citrus trees of the nation.  He learned that aphids caused little harm in Australia, and concluded that some natural enemy was keeping them under control. 

          Mr. Albert Koebele was dispatched to discover that foe of plant lice.   He concluded that a variety of the harmless ladybug beetle was the antidote.  Gathering ladybugs from Australian plants by hand, Koebele shipped 140 of these plant-saving beetles to an associate in Los Angeles.  When set free in an infested orange grove on trees covered with gauze screens, the ladybug liberators cleared these trees of scale within a few days.

          More ladybugs were imported, and California scientists began to raise them in wholesale quantities.  In California citrus groves they brought cottony-cushion scale under control within two years.

          Following this success, this variety of beetle was introduced to more than thirty countries.  Without exception they reduced or eliminated that damage of scale insects which infest citrus trees.

          So dramatic and conclusive was the ladybird experiment that it marked a turning point in scientific agriculture.  From that time hundreds of experiments have been made to find insects which would control insect pests and noxious plants.  Economic entomology, now a major operation in several countries, is an outgrowth of the ladybird experiment to salvage California’s orange-growing business.

Significance of the name

          The ladybird, or ladybug, rose to the rescue as the protector of the human food supply.  Although this was a new role for the colorful beetle, the bright insect had been well known for centuries.

          How did it become known as “Our Lady’s Bird?”  No one seems to know exactly.  In Elizabethan times many common creatures were attributed names with a sacred association.  Such names were usually local in character.  In the case of the ladybird, another factor came into play.  Not only was it a colloquial name employed in a few areas of England, but it found its way into many languages in forms closely related.

          In German the tiny critter was called Marienhuhn (Mary’s chicken), Marienkafer (Mary’s beetle), and Marienwurmschen (Mary’s little worm).  Marienkuh was an earlier form related to the English “lady-cow.”  The Swedes used the name Marias Nyckelpiga, and the farmers still call the insect “the Virgin Mary’s golden hen.”  A slightly different tack is taken in French and in Spanish.  In these languages the names link the insect with the protection of God.  The French call it la bête a bon dieu (God’s animal), while the Spanish use the name Vaquilla de Dios (God’s little cow).

          Both coincidence and cultural exchange fall short in explaining so widespread a view concerning an insect.  Scientific names in Latin are common to many nations and languages.  But it is extraordinary for folk names to be so closely parallel.  Why should people in so many different lands envision the ladybug as enjoying heavenly protection, especially that of Mary?

          Here is the most reasonable guess.  Persons who have grown up in rural areas know that birds and animals almost always leave the ladybird strictly alone, for the ladybird is proficient in chemical warfare.  It produces a yellowish fluid which it discharges in time of danger.  Though seldom noticed by the blunted human sense of smell, this serum is highly repulsive to foes of the ladybird.  Consequently the bright bug goes about its business with virtual immunity from attack.

          Amazed at the beetle’s sheltered and protected life, the human observers probably concluded that it enjoyed the special favor of the Lady whom they themselves venerated and whose assistance they sought.  It seemed natural to call the insect Ladybird.  One might also conjecture that people saw a similarity in the creature’s charmed life to the preservation of Our Lady from sin.  In the England of that time the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was a popular belief and prominently discussed.  English dialects included variant titles like Lady-beetle, Lady-clock, and Lady-cow.  Standardization of speech erased these names, and gradually the capitalization of the first letter was discontinued.  Now only the scholarly reader continues to find in this insect’s name a reference to earlier reverence and Marian relation.

          Farmers of Elizabethan England may not have understood clearly the economic significance of the ladybird, but they knew that it fed on other insects.  Hops, long a major crop, are vulnerable to the attack of plant lice.  Ladybirds abound in hop fields.  They were probably observed in action more closely than the lack of written descriptions would indicate.  Not until 1861 did scientific records mention that ladybirds feed on the aphids which infest hops.

          Folk literature preserves some clues.  One is the fact that even today the children of many lands know some form of this rhyme.

                  

                  

Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home!

                   Your house is on fire,

                   Your children do roam.

                   Except little Ann, who sits in a pan

                   Weaving gold laces as fast as she can.

Children recite that rhyme after a ladybird has been placed on an outstretched finger.  This practice has changed little through the centuries as indicated by a woodcut which dates from the reign of King George II.  The woodcut depicts a child addressing a ladybird before flight.

          Having more rhyme than reason, the jingle’s significance is clearer in view of its historical setting.  Farmers often gathered hop plants and burned them when the harvest was finished.  Ladybirds swarmed and children enjoyed warning the little birds to flee from danger.  “Little Ann” was the name for a young grub of the ladybird attached to a leaf and shedding its skin, or “weaving gold laces.”

An important function

          When scientists determined that the ladybird is a natural foe of many plant parasites, they began raising them in special insectaries, especially along the Pacific Coast of the United States, since this region experienced the most devastating attacks by aphids and scales.

          Experts opine that the ladybird will never become obsolete and outlive its usefulness for agriculture.  The life-saver beetle is more efficient for many operations that any pesticide yet devised.  Those reared under natural conditions are more abundant and important than those produced by insectaries.  In the United States alone at least 350 varieties have been identified.  The protective work of the ladybird is responsible for a huge saving annually for the country’s farm economy.  Without it, growers would be at a loss to produce substantial crops of needed fruits.

          With no inkling of its significance in their own era or its future role in world agriculture, medieval farmers reverently named the little beetle Our Lady’s Bird.  How appropriate that the creature so named became a protector of our food supply and the symbol of a branch of applied science.  Eyes of faith allow us to see that Our Lady’s Bird is in fact a messenger from a provident God.    

THE LITANY OF LORETO

by Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.

What is a litany?

        A litany is a type of prayer in the form of a responsive petition.  This prayer form became popular in the Middle Ages.  A prayer leader proclaimed a series of invocations and the congregation alternated with responses.

        The litany form of supplication comes from the Litany of Saints, which was used in Europe as early as the seventh century.  In that litany Mary heads the list of saints and is invoked three times; these invocations are retained in her own litany. Over the centuries a number of litanies became popular prayers to honor the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Holy Name of Jesus, St. Joseph, and several directed to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  These are still used today and are found in official prayer books.

        Several different Marian litanies appeared in the twelfth century and became popular devotional practices over the following centuries.  Their origins are often uncertain, and from time to time additions and improvements were made. Besides being recited prayers, many litanies are also sung or chanted.  And today new litanies are still being composed.

        The alternation of admiring tribute and confident supplication makes the litany a prayer both simple and replete.

Litany of Loreto

        Many Marian litanies are in use, but the best known Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary is more commonly known as the Litany of Loreto.  Because this litany was adopted by the famous Marian Shrine of the Holy House in Loreto, Italy, as indicated by a 1558 shrine record, the pilgrims who visited the shrine took to their home countries around the world this popular name for the prayer.

        The origins of the Litany of Loreto are uncertain.  It may date from the fifth century, but more likely it was composed in its present form between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries and first printed in a prayer book influenced by St. Peter Canisius in 1551.  The original approval was granted in 1587 by Pope Sixtus V. 

        The list of praises to Mary owes much to the Akathist Hymn of the Byzantine Churches.  As circumstances changed, invocations were added or dropped, and the litany is still being revised in our lifetime.

Newest invocations: Mother of the Church and Queen of Families

        In 1980 “Mother of the Church” was inserted into the Litany of Loreto after “Mother of Christ” and before “Mother of Divine Grace.”  At the close of the third session of the Second Vatican Council in 1964 Pope Paul VI officially declared this new Marian title: “For the glory of the Blessed Virgin and our consolation, we proclaim Mary most holy as ‘Mother of the Church,’ that is, of the whole People of God, both of the faithful and of the pastors who all call her their most loving Mother.”  Pope John Paul II explained that this “stresses the complete motherhood of Mary toward Christ and toward the Church, as Mother of the Head and Mother of the members of the Mystical Body.”

        Saint John Paul II authorized in 1995 the use of “Queen of Families” to be inserted after “Queen of the Most Holy Rosary” and before “Queen of Peace.”  This flows naturally from the fact that Mary is Mother of the Church, including the Domestic Church – the family.  The pope pointed out that “Mary called herself the ‘handmaid of the Lord’ (Lk 1:38).  Through obedience to the Word of God she accepted her lofty, yet not easy vocation as wife and mother in the family of Nazareth.  Putting herself at God’s service, she also put herself at the service of others: a service of love….  We invoke her as ‘Queen.’ For her to reign is to serve.  Her service is to reign.”

        Holy Mary, pray for us!

MARY’S INFLUENCE ON CONVERTS

Picture source
Used with permission.

by Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.


Among the religious and cultural factors that influence converts to enter into full communion with the Church, the Blessed Virgin Mary holds particular prominence. Yet she is not the possession of the Catholic Church solely, for many Protestant churches are rediscovering the presence and role of Mary in life’s pilgrimage of faith.

Before embracing Catholicism, Blessed John Henry Newman, probably the most famous convert in the last two centuries, formulated an explanation of the development of doctrines in the Catholic Church, especially the Marian doctrines. He explained that the saving truths of revelation were not given by God in timeless and static expression, but as dynamic and life-giving truths which continue to unfold and develop. In An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine Newman wrote: “Growth is the only evidence of life.” Ideas live in our minds and continually enlarge into fuller development. “In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”
To believe in the ongoing prayer and care of Mary for the faithful is to find the Virgin Mother’s assistance in times of transitions, of new beginnings, of wandering and searching. Sacred Scripture shows us that Mary is the Virgin of beginnings and transitions (Annunciation, Cana, Pentecost), and the Virgin of spiritual searching (Presentation, Finding in the Temple, Cana, Calvary). It is quite natural then to experience her motherly presence in the struggles which accompany conversion, according to Father René Laurentin in A Year of Grace with Mary.

Conversions to Catholicism develop from a complex of various factors. They result from conviction and personal experience. But also at play are conditions and developments in the Church and society that often help or hinder conversions. An instance of that scenario is nineteenth century England in which that period’s theological ferment and liberalism and the decision of the British government to suppress a number of Anglican bishoprics gave rise to the Oxford Movement, which questioned the Anglican Church’s legitimacy. The consequence was a number of conversions by prominent intellectuals from 1840-1920, the most noteworthy being John Henry Newman. These converts were usually imbued with an understanding of the Virgin Mary and their devotion to her often preceded their entry into the Catholic Church.

John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

Following his conversion in 1845, Blessed John Henry Newman journeyed to Rome. Upon his return as a Catholic priest he wrote that he “went round by Loreto.” As a pilgrim to the Holy House he wanted “to get the Blessed Virgin’s blessing.” Then he commented about Mary’s presence in his life. “I have ever been in her shadow, if I may say it. My college was St. Mary’s, and my church; and when I went to Littlemore, there, by my own previous disposition, our Blessed Lady was waiting for me. Nor did she do nothing for me in that low habitation, of which I always think with pleasure.”

As an Anglican, Newman thought that the Catholic Church’s Marian doctrine and devotion were exaggerated. But in his study of the development of doctrine, he discovered that it was consistent with the early church. “I was convinced by the Fathers,” he explained. The early Father and ancient Christian writers viewed Mary as the New Eve. Newman came to understand Mary in patristic terms. He understood the Immaculate Conception was based on Mary’s holiness, a concept present in the Fathers, and the Assumption was rooted in her dignity as Mother of God, another concept from the early Christian writers.

Although Newman had reservations about some teachings of the Catholic Church while an Anglican, he nevertheless was devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In his Apologia pro Vita Sua he proclaimed, “In spite of my ingrained fears of Rome, and the decision of my reason and conscience against her usages, in spite of my affection for Oxford and Oriel, yet I had a secret longing love of Rome, the Mother of Christianity, and I had a true devotion to the Blessed Virgin, in whose college I lived, whose altar I served, and whose Immaculate Purity I had in one of my earliest printed sermons made much of.”

Newman’s reluctance concerning the Virgin Mary, his “great crux” regarding Catholicism, were the “expressions of popular feelings toward the Blessed Virgin” and the intemperate statements of some Catholic authors concerning Mary. Later, when responding to Dr. Pusey’s Eirenicon, which contained numerous examples of exaggerated practices and devotions to Mary, Newman made a clear distinction between the Church’s doctrines and officially sanctioned prayers and practices, and the many expressions of popular devotions, sometimes questionable in taste and in theology. “Belief is separate from devotion; belief is the same everywhere, whereas expressions of devotion differ from place to place.” Newman also noted that cultural differences become manifest in expressions of devotion, indicating that there exists a legitimate “English style” in the expression of devotion. These distinctions between officially approved doctrine and devotion, and the many practices of popular devotion, which frequently reflect a cultural bias, have helped many along the journey of conversion.

Such was the experience of this famous convert and devotee of the Mother of the Redeemer.

Ronald A. Knox (1888-1957)

Another noteworthy English convert swayed by Mary’s influence is Ronald Arbuthnot Knox, a brilliant scholar and classicist. This Anglican clergyman embraced the Catholic Church in 1917, and was ordained a priest in 1919. Widely hailed as “Rome’s biggest catch after Newman,” his book,
A Spiritual Aeneid, ranks with Newman’s Apologia as a classic and impressive conversion story.

His interest in Mary stems from his fascination with English heritage and his attraction to Anglo-Catholicism. Among his earliest remembrances of the Blessed Virgin were his image on his school’s coat of arms and the prayers used in the chapel services.

“Thus although I did not ask for her prayers, I had a strong
sense of the patronage of the Mother of God. Her name was
part of our title; her lilies figure on our coat of arms; the blue of her robe you could easily see on the blazers of the Eight and the caps of the Eleven. And perhaps, after all, in the wide sympathies of her compassionate heart there is a special place for her children at Eton. I only know that it was the easiest thing in the world, on any of her feasts, to arrange for the singing at college prayers of that rather sentimental Ancient and Modern hymn which begins. ‘Shall we not love thee, Mother dear.’”

Although his father opposed his enthusiasm for Anglo-Catholicism, young Knox spent one college vacation with a group of Anglican Benedictines who “went over to Rome en masse.” It was his fond hope as an Anglican that one day England would reclaim its Marian heritage: “England will once again become the dowry of Mary, and the Church of England will once again be builded on the rock she was hewn from, and find a place, although it be a place of penitence and tears, in the eternal purposes of God.” In a sermon he delivered in 1913 he alluded to Mary’s interest in what was once her country:

“Mary…has not forgotten her children just because they have run away from their school master, and unlearnt their lessons, and are trying to find their way home again, humbled and terrified in the darkness.” When ordained a deacon in the Anglican Church he wrote: “I took a private vow, which I always kept, never to preach without making some reference to our Lady Mary, by way of satisfaction for the neglect of other preachers.”

The Anglican Church’s silence concerning Mary troubled Knox. Even before his conversion he wrote:

“I cannot resist making an appeal to all those who are attached to ‘old-fashioned views’ of the person of our Saviour, to reflect whether such views are afforded a proper devotional safeguard, so long as praises of, or prayers to, the Mother of God are either energetically repudiated or thrust away into a corner. Ever since the Nestorian controversy, the divine mystery of the Theotokos has been regarded with special honor, in protest against incomplete theories of the Incarnation.”

Once he left the Anglican Church and his post at Shrewsbury, he was aware of “the loneliness of a soul forced by conscientious motives to detach itself from loved surroundings and familiar friends and launch out into the deep.” At that time he recalled a line from Virgil’s Aeneid, “land showed no longer; all about was sky and sea.” He took the Latin words for sea and sky, maria and caelum, to represent Mary and heaven. And he thought, “Perhaps I was not so lonely after all.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874-1937)

One more renowned English convert of Marian significance is Gilbert Keith Chesterton. A distinguished essayist, poet, novelist and outstanding apologist, Chesterton was raised in a family that did not share the typical Protestant antipathy toward the Virgin Mary. “Our Lady was respected, though of course not invoked.”

When a youngster he turned into a poem for Mary the blasphemous lines of Algernon Swinburne’s poem to the pagan queen of death.

“But I turn to her still, having seen she shall surely abide in the end.

Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.”

A poem of his youth, The Nativity of Botticelli, attests, to his understanding or Mary’s role in the Incarnation.

In a letter to Chesterton written in 1907, Hilaire Belloc suggested that he search for a “first certitude” on which everything else depends. Belloc told Chesterton they agreed on two points: the Incarnation and Mary. Belloc explained:

“…in looking up to our dear Lady, the blessed Mother of God, I recommend to you that you suggest to her a comprehension for yourself, of what indeed is the permanent home of the soul. If it is here, you will see it; if it is there, you will see it. She never fails us. She has never failed in my demand. If you say ‘I want this’ as in your case to know one way or the other, she will give it you, as she will give health or necessary money or success in pure love. She is our Blessed Mother.”

His early writings, such as Orthodoxy (1908) and Ballad of the White Horse (1911), led others to anticipate his entry into the Catholic Church in 1922. This final step was the result of a promise made at a Marian shrine in Italy.

Chesterton wrote in 1934 that Mary represented the “collective unity of Catholic life” about which Protestants had such strange notions.
“Now I can scarcely remember a time when the image of Our Lady did not stand up in my mind quite definitely at the mention of the thought of all these things. I was quite distant from these things; and then doubtful about these things; and then disputing with the world for them, and with myself against them. For that is the condition before conversion. But when the figure was distant, or was dark and mysterious, or was scandal to my contemporaries, or was a challenge to myself, I never doubted that this figure was the figure of my faith; that she embodied, as a complete human being still only human, all that this Thing has to say to humanity. The instant I remembered the Catholic Church, I remembered her; when I tried to forget the Catholic Church, I tried to forget her.”

When writing about Chaucer he commented that devotion to Mary, “far from being a temporary malady from which one needed to be cured,” was “generally chronic and (in some cases I have known) quite incurable.”

Chesterton’s Marian writings are found mainly in his poetry where he refers to the “seed of dogma and from that seed alone all that flowers of art and poetry and devotion spring.”

One of GKC’s poems in The Queen of Seven Swords expressed his notion of the “wholeness” which underlies all expressions of devotion.
“In all thy thousand images we salute thee,
Claim and acclaim on all thy thousand thrones
Hewn out of multi-colored rocks and risen
Stained with the stored-up sunsets in all tones –
If in all tone and shades this shade I feel,
Come from the black cathedrals of Castille
Claiming these flat black stones of Catalonia,
To thy most merciful face of night I kneel.”

This is the legacy of several prominent British converts to the ongoing Marian movement. From here we look at the witness of two American converts of our times.

Dorothy Day (1897-1980)

Although baptized an Episcopalian, Dorothy Day might be characterized as an evangelical Protestant because of her involvement in the “social gospel” movement. She was a talented journalist who espoused radical causes, wrote for socialist newspapers, and staunch in her support of labor unions and pacificism.

Her earliest contacts with Mary came from a rosary and a small statue. While anticipating the birth of her daughter through a common law marriage, Dorothy Day began taking instructions so that her daughter could be baptized in the Catholic Church. “I began to think, to weigh things,” she explained, “and it was at this moment that I began consciously to pray more.” She developed the habits of praying often, of carrying a rosary, and addressing the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary which had been given her.

Deeply concerned about her daughter, Dorothy wrote that she “turned her over to the Blessed Mother.”

“What kind of a mother am I going to be? I keep thinking to myself what kind of a Catholic home is she going to have with only me? I’m a failure as a homemaker, I’m untidy, inconsistent, undisciplined, temperamental, and I have to pray every day for final perseverance. It is only in these last few years that it has occurred to me why my daughter never called me ‘mother.’ The Blessed Virgin Mary is mother of my child. No harm can ever come to her with such a mother.”

With Peter Maurin, Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker Movement, which strove to establish solidarity with the working classes through a generous and convincing witness of hospitality for the homeless and of the works of mercy. She promoted the traditional devotions in all her communities. She prayed the rosary “on the picket lines, in prisons, in sickness and in health.” For her the rosary was not only a devotion to Mary but also a way of indentifying with the poor who had lost hope. “Who could have given me Our Lord but the Virgin Mary? It was easy to pray to her, repetitious though it may seem. Praying the rosary as I did so often, I felt that I was praying with the people of God, who held on to the physical act of the rosary as to a lifeline.”

The life and spirit of St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little flower, fascinated Dorothy Day, “perhaps because she was so much like the rest of us in her ordinariness.” In fact she authored a small book about St. Therese to offer hope to those who felt their lives were meaningless. She regarded Therese as Therese regarded Mary, for Therese abhorred writings and sermons that described “Mary’s life as totally different from ours.” Dorothy believed that Therese ‘”speaks to our condition.” Her approach, like that of St. Therese and the Blessed Virgin Mary, was to ask prayerfully at the beginning of each day, “What would you have me do?”

For Dorothy Day, Mary and Joseph shared in the plight and insecurity of the poor. During the Great Depression she wrote, “What security did the Blessed Virgin herself have as she fled in the night with the Baby in her arms to go into a strange country? She probably wondered whether St. Joseph would be able to obtain work in a foreign land, how they would get along, and anticipated the loneliness of being without friends, her cousin, St. Elizabeth, her kinfolk.” At another time she recalled, “St. Bonaventure says Our Lady worked in Egypt to earn the family’s daily bread because St. Joseph could not earn enough. It was all part of the humiliation of poverty for St. Joseph.” She realized that the Holy Family definitely shared the lot of the poor.

Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

The conversion of Thomas Merton led to a prolific writing apostolate and was widely followed and celebrated. His parents were artists with little religious interest. Educated in France and England, his interest in religious questions grew out of his study of literature and philosophy. In 1938 he entered the Catholic Church, and later became a Trappist monk at the Gethsemane Abbey in Kentucky. His talented pen produced voluminous writings in a personal style on topics pertaining to monastic spirituality, mysticism, racial justice, and peace.

Merton’s references to the Virgin Mary are personal and deep, a response to a mystical attraction. The Seven Storey Mountain is the autobiographical account of his early life and conversion. One passage concerns his departure from England to a new life in New York City. He describes his experience of Mary’s guidance at this turning point in his life in these striking words.

“Lady, when on that night I left the Island that was once your England, your love went with me, although I could not know it…. I was not sure where I was going, and I could not see what I would do when I got to New York. But you saw further and clearer than I, and you opened the seas before my ship, whose track led me across the waters to a place I had never dreamed of, and which even then you were preparing for me to be my rescue and my shelter and my home. And when I thought there was no God and no love and no mercy, you were leading me all the while in the midst of His love and His mercy, and taking me, without my knowing anything about it, to the house that would find me in
the secret of His face. Glorious Mother of God, shall I ever again distrust you?”

At crucial points in his life he actively sought the presence of Mary and her direction. When discerning his vocation to the priesthood he embarked on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Charity of Cobre in Cuba.
“There you are, Caridad del Cobre. It is you that I have come to see; you will ask Christ to make me his priest, and I will give you my heart, Lady; and if you will obtain for me this priesthood, I will remember you at my first Mass in such a way that the Mass will be for you and offered through you in gratitude to the Holy Trinity, Who has used your love to win me this grace.”
Bewildered in the struggle to decide about becoming a Trappist, he turned naturally to the Mother of Jesus as any child would turn to his mother. “I give this whole Advent, every minute, to the Blessed Virgin, begging her to help me and bring me to her house at Gethsemane to be her loving child and servant, a child of God in silence and labor and sacrifice and obscurity.” After ordination to the diaconate he wrote, “Our Lady has taken possession of my heart. Maybe, after all, she is the big grace of the diaconate.”

For Thomas Merton, Mary is always persuading from within. “Mary does not rule us from without, but from within. She does not change us by changing the world around us, but she changes the world around us by first changing our own inner lives.” Thus was Merton’s journey of faith with Mary.

This attached article about Mary and converts was originally published in Ephemerides Mariologicae, a polyglot Mariological journal, July-December 2011.

Our Lady's Day

Saturday!

Japanese Madonna and Child

EWTN Live Mysteries of the Virgin Mary Fr Pacwa with Fr Peter Came...

Our Lady - Protectress of the Unborn

Protectress of the Unborn, Blue Army Shrine, NJ

Mary, the Holy Mother of God

Picture source

On this day, O beautiful Mother,
On this day we give thee our love.
Near the, Madonna, fondly we hover,
Trusting thy gentle care to prove.

On this day we ask to share,
Dearest Mother, thy sweet care;
Aid us ere our feet astray
Waner from thy guiding way.

On this day, O beautiful Mother,
On this day we give thee our love.
Near the, Madonna, fondly we hover,
Trusting thy gentle care to prove.

Queen of angels, deign to hear
Lisping children's humble prayer;
Young hearts gain, O virgin pure,
Sweetly to thyself allure.

On this day, O beautiful Mother,
On this day we give thee our love.
Near the, Madonna, fondly we hover,
Trusting thy gentle care to prove.

Rose of Sharon, Lovely flow'r,
Beauteous bud of eden's bow'r;
Cherished lily of the vale,
Virgin Mother' Queen we hail.

On this day, O beautiful Mother,
On this day we give thee our love.
Near the, Madonna, fondly we hover,
Trusting thy gentle care to prove.

In_vain the flow'rs of love we bring,
In_vain sweet music's note we sing,
If_contrite heart and lowly pprayer,
Guide_not our gifts to thy bright sphere.

On this day, O beautiful Mother,
On this day we give thee our love.
Near the, Madonna, fondly we hover,
Trusting thy gentle care to prove.

Fast our days of life we run,
Soon the night of death will come;
Tower of strength in that dread hour,
Come with all thy gentle power.

On this day, O beautiful Mother,
On this day we give thee our love.
Near the, Madonna, fondly we hover,
Trusting thy gentle care to prove.

Lyric source

The Truth About Mary and Scripture: MUST SEE!

This is a well done video comparing the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The Blessed Virgin Mary

May Crowning Today

Photo of 2008 May Crowning by Esther G.

We will be attending the annual May Crowning sponsored by the Legion of Mary.

On Honoring Mary, the Blessed Mother of God

Photo by Esther G.

"We never give more honour to Jesus than when we honour his Mother, and we honour her simply and solely to honour him all the more perfectly. We go to her only as a way leading to the goal we seek - Jesus, her Son."

-Saint Louis Marie de Montfort

Quote source

Honoring Our Lady With Our Clothing

The other day was the Feast of the Annunciation, my mother noticed that at Mass only she and I were dressed with pastel blue.  She commented that it was sad that not many people knew about wearing Baby blue on Marian Feast Days or Saturdays.  As a way of getting the message out, I am sharing some photos of our family wearing Our Lady's color on either Saturdays, Marian Feast Days or when visiting a Marian shrine.

"O, Mama Mia!

The 10 Principal Virtues of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary

Photo by Esther G.

1. Her profound humility

2. Her lively faith

3. Her blind obedience

4. Her continual Prayer

5. Her universal mortification

6. Her divine purity

7. Her ardent charity

8. Her heroic patience

9. Her angelic sweetness

10. Her divine wisdom

- According to St. Louis Marie de Montfort

MARY’S GOLD

By Brother John M. Samaha, S.M. and used with permission
 

      While the Virgin Mary probably possessed no gold to smooth her life in the household of the Holy Family, she wears a crown of gold that circles the earth.  Flower gardens around the world blaze with golden blossoms that honor her.  Every Marigold is s living memorial to her, a token of veneration and praise.

      We have no certainty how this small golden flower was named for Mary.  Perhaps some noble person found it growing in the garden of a Lady Chapel in the 12th century, and was inspired to give it a new name.  Or, missionaries to the Anglo-Saxons may have bestowed that title even earlier.  Or, reverent Normans may have brought an Old French version of the name with them when they attacked Britain from the continent.

      In any event, the name of this flower named for Mary was established early in the development of England as a nation, the England that came to be known as “Our Lady’s Dowry.”  The early origin of the flower’s title is indicated by the variety of ways in which it was spelled: Marygold, Marygowles, Marigolde, and much later Mary’s gold.  Slurred speech eventually shortened the name to a single word -- Marigold.


      In the late medieval period both the Dutch and Low German languages included equivalents of the English name: Marienbloemkijn in Dutch, and Marienblome in German.

      Why this particular flower was selected to honor Our Lady is unknown.  History does offer a few clues.  Perhaps the most important is that the plant called Marygold frequently appeared in bloom at Ladytide; that is, it bloomed during each of the festivals in honor of Mary.  At that time the flower given her name was the most abundant source of golden blossoms. 

      Later, botanists gave the plant the formal scientific name calendula oficinalis.  This seemed logical since Marygold was in almost continuous bloom.  It actually bore flowers on most or all of the calendulae, the first three days of the month.  From a botanical viewpoint, it was considered “the calendar flower.”

      A native of the Mediterranean region, the plant reached Britain early in the Christian era.  Angles and Saxons gave it guttural names which survived into modern times as “golds” and “rudds.”  But the flower came into prominence only after it was christened as a living memorial to Mary.  Few plants have achieved greater esteem.

      Flower petals, both fresh and dried, were used to give color and flavor to many types of soups and drinks.  When Macualay wrote his famous History of England, he described typical rural activities of his countrymen in this way: “They brewed gooseberry wine, cured Marigolds, and made the crust for venison pastry.”  This flower was so widely used as a condiment that is was known as the “herb-general of all pottage.”

      Shropshire housewives even made a special cheese from Marygold.  Their base was colored curds of skim milk, about the consistency of cream cheese. Then they added petals of the flower for both color and flavor.


      Medieval physicians listed the marigold as a medicinal plant.  Boiled with sugar, it was used both internally and externally.  A medical book dated 1578 declared, “The conserve that is made of the floures of Mary-goldes cureth the trembling of the harte.”  It was also recommended for sprains, wounds, and skin maladies. Even in the wars of the twentieth century, English soldiers were given medicinal oil extracted from modern varieties of the Marigold.

      Some superstitions arose, but such practices were local and have long since faded into oblivion. 

      Present-day scientists are still awed by the Marigold.  Some botanists believe the flower holds the key to a few baffling problems of the plant world.  People of science were interested in the golden flower centuries before it attracted the attention of western Christians. To a degree quite unique among medieval plants, Mary’s gold exhibited a strange sensitivity to light from the sun.  Every farmer and gardener knew the flower opened its half-shut eyes each morning about nine.  For about six hours it slowly turned its head to follow the bright sun.  About three in the afternoon it began folding its petals for another night of slumber.

      Early observers had some interesting theories, but no systematic body of facts.  Modern analysts have extended their knowledge of this phenomenon, but still stumble in a corridor enshrouded with mystery.


      Today botanists refer to the Marigold’s movement as phototropism (light-turning).  Most, if not all, plants arrange their leaves, blossoms, and stems in response to light.  
Conspicuous movements by the Marigold and Sunflower simply dramatize a process taking place more slowly among practically all green-leaf organisms.

      If the secret of the marigold could be unlocked, we would know how light energy stretching 93 million miles from the sun influences the movement of plants on earth.   But that riddle may not be solved in our lifetime.

      Today few gardeners grow the exact plant to which earlier generations gave Mary’s name.  Related varieties discovered in the New World were brought to Europe in the sixteenth century.  By 1542 it was recorded that only five American plants were established in Old World gardens.  Four of theses were vegetables.  The fifth was the Marigold.  Although it originated in Mexico, it reached England by two different paths -- one passed through Africa and the other through France.  Contemporary flower-lovers usually identify Marigolds into African and French varieties.  

      No matter what its variety, the Marigold is rich in symbolism of Our Lady.  The gold petals are likened to rays of light crowning her head, and the prodigal color related to the generous giving of herself to God’s plan.

      Sometimes described as “the flower of grief,” the Marigold actually weeps on occasion.  Droplets gather in the flower during the night, and drip off like tears when it opens in the morning.  This characteristic moved Shakespeare to write in A Winter’s Tale:
“The Marygold that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping.”


      Grief mixed with joy, poverty linked with abundance of good gifts -- that is the Marigold’s reflection of the Lady for whom it is named.  If peoples and nations could achieve the spirit of Our Lady, whom this flower commemorates, all life would take on a new meaning and purpose.  This ordinary and humble plant serves as a vivid and perennial challenge to new adventures of mind and spirit in fulfilling the Creator’s design.

OUR LADY’S BIRD IS OUR LADYBUG

by Brother John M. Samaha, S.M. and used with permission.


What insect has such a colorful and fascinating history as the ladybird, also known more popularly as the ladybug? In an age of faith when people saw earth mirroring heaven, this tiny creature was thought to enjoy the special protection of the Virgin Mary. Reversing its role in the last two centuries, this small symbol of Our Lady burst into prominence as a protector of people and their food supply. As the enemy of aphids, the ladybird has rendered service calculated in the billions of dollars in the past century alone. We have good reason to be grateful for this little beetle and to the Lady for whom it is named.
A problem of infestation


Agricultural specialists first became interested in the ladybug when California orange groves were mercilessly attacked by a voracious insect pest in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Already in 1880 agricultural experts discovered that a parasitic insect was infesting some orange trees in California’s Santa Clara Valley. The infestation was known locally as “San Jose scale.” Eventually it was traced to the flowering peach trees imported from China. These trees were infected with tiny sap-sucking insects until then unknown in the western world.

The deadly visitor insect from Asia found the orange trees a delicious victim and spread quickly. They multiplied so rapidly that they became a mortal threat to the citrus industry in all of California. By 1893 horticulturalists were occasionally finding specimens along the Atlantic seaboard. Five years later the havoc wreaked by these aphids was so grave that the German emperor forbade the importation of American fruits and living plants.
Finding an antidote


In the meantime, the Department of Agriculture had its specialists launch a counterattack. They tried a variety of pesticides, but with little success. Orange trees were dying by the hundreds of thousands.

Mr. C. V. Riley, chief entomologist of the Department of Agriculture, suggested that aphids could be controlled by introducing other insects which would prey on them. In 1890 such a proposal seemed radical and preposterous, and drew scoffs even from close associates.

But that did not daunt C. V. Riley. Working against indifference and opposition, he was determined to find a creature to attack the aphids devastating the citrus trees of the nation. He learned that aphids caused little harm in Australia, and concluded that some natural enemy was keeping them under control.

Mr. Albert Koebele was dispatched to discover that foe of plant lice. He concluded that a variety of the harmless ladybug beetle was the antidote. Gathering ladybugs from Australian plants by hand, Koebele shipped 140 of these plant-saving beetles to an associate in Los Angeles. When set free in an infested orange grove on trees covered with gauze screens, the ladybug liberators cleared these trees of scale within a few days.

More ladybugs were imported, and California scientists began to raise them in wholesale quantities. In California citrus groves they brought cottony-cushion scale under control within two years.

Following this success, this variety of beetle was introduced to more than thirty countries. Without exception they reduced or eliminated that damage of scale insects which infest citrus trees.

So dramatic and conclusive was the ladybird experiment that it marked a turning point in scientific agriculture. From that time hundreds of experiments have been made to find insects which would control insect pests and noxious plants. Economic entomology, now a major operation in several countries, is an outgrowth of the ladybird experiment to salvage California’s orange-growing business.
Significance of the name


The ladybird, or ladybug, rose to the rescue as the protector of the human food supply. Although this was a new role for the colorful beetle, the bright insect had been well known for centuries.

How did it become known as “Our Lady’s Bird?” No one seems to know exactly. In Elizabethan times many common creatures were attributed names with a sacred association. Such names were usually local in character. In the case of the ladybird, another factor came into play. Not only was it a colloquial name employed in a few areas of England, but it found its way into many languages in forms closely related.

In German the tiny critter was called Marienhuhn (Mary’s chicken), Marienkafer (Mary’s beetle), and Marienwurmschen (Mary’s little worm). Marienkuh was an earlier form related to the English “lady-cow.” The Swedes used the name Marias Nyckelpiga, and the farmers still call the insect “the Virgin Mary’s golden hen.” A slightly different tack is taken in French and in Spanish. In these languages the names link the insect with the protection of God. The French call it la bête a bon dieu (God’s animal), while the Spanish use the name Vaquilla de Dios (God’s little cow).

Both coincidence and cultural exchange fall short in explaining so widespread a view concerning an insect. Scientific names in Latin are common to many nations and languages. But it is extraordinary for folk names to be so closely parallel. Why should people in so many different lands envision the ladybug as enjoying heavenly protection, especially that of Mary?

Here is the most reasonable guess. Persons who have grown up in rural areas know that birds and animals almost always leave the ladybird strictly alone, for the ladybird is proficient in chemical warfare. It produces a yellowish fluid which it discharges in time of danger. Though seldom noticed by the blunted human sense of smell, this serum is highly repulsive to foes of the ladybird. Consequently the bright bug goes about its business with virtual immunity from attack.

Amazed at the beetle’s sheltered and protected life, the human observers probably concluded that it enjoyed the special favor of the Lady whom they themselves venerated and whose assistance they sought. It seemed natural to call the insect Ladybird. One might also conjecture that people saw a similarity in the creature’s charmed life to the preservation of Our Lady from sin. In the England of that time the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was a popular belief and prominently discussed. English dialects included variant titles like Lady-beetle, Lady-clock, and Lady-cow. Standardization of speech erased these names, and gradually the capitalization of the first letter was discontinued. Now only the scholarly reader continues to find in this insect’s name a reference to earlier reverence and Marian relation.

Farmers of Elizabethan England may not have understood clearly the economic significance of the ladybird, but they knew that it fed on other insects. Hops, long a major crop, are vulnerable to the attack of plant lice. Ladybirds abound in hop fields. They were probably observed in action more closely than the lack of written descriptions would indicate. Not until 1861 did scientific records mention that ladybirds feed on the aphids which infest hops.

Folk literature preserves some clues. One is the fact that even today the children of many lands know some form of this rhyme.

Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home!

Your house is on fire,

Your children do roam.

Except little Ann, who sits in a pan

Weaving gold laces as fast as she can.

Children recite that rhyme after a ladybird has been placed on an outstretched finger. This practice has changed little through the centuries as indicated by a woodcut which dates from the reign of King George II. The woodcut depicts a child addressing a ladybird before flight.

Having more rhyme than reason, the jingle’s significance is clearer in view of its historical setting. Farmers often gathered hop plants and burned them when the harvest was finished. Ladybirds swarmed and children enjoyed warning the little birds to flee from danger. “Little Ann” was the name for a young grub of the ladybird attached to a leaf and shedding its skin, or “weaving gold laces.”
An important function


When scientists determined that the ladybird is a natural foe of many plant parasites, they began raising them in special insectaries, especially along the Pacific Coast of the United States, since this region experienced the most devastating attacks by aphids and scales.

Experts opine that the ladybird will never become obsolete and outlive its usefulness for agriculture. The life-saver beetle is more efficient for many operations that any pesticide yet devised. Those reared under natural conditions are more abundant and important than those produced by insectaries. In the United States alone at least 350 varieties have been identified. The protective work of the ladybird is responsible for a huge saving annually for the country’s farm economy. Without it, growers would be at a loss to produce substantial crops of needed fruits.

With no inkling of its significance in their own era or its future role in world agriculture, medieval farmers reverently named the little beetle Our Lady’s Bird. How appropriate that the creature so named became a protector of our food supply and the symbol of a branch of applied science. Eyes of faith allow us to see that Our Lady’s Bird is in fact a messenger from a provident God.

Source for photo of ladybug

St. John Vianney on the Blessed Mother

...The Holy Virgin is often compared to a mother, but she is much better still than the best of mothers; for the best of mothers sometimes punishes her child when it displeases her, and even beats it: she thinks she is doing right. But the Holy Virgin does not so; she is so good that she treats us with love, and never punishes us.
The heart of this good Mother is all love and mercy; she desires only to see us happy...

...The most Holy Virgin places herself between her Son and us. The greater sinners we are, the more tenderness and compassion does she feel for us. The child that has cost its mother most tears is the dearest to her heart. Does not a mother always run to the help of the weakest and the most exposed to danger?...

Source

Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God - Daily Resolution

In Mary’s presence, I will strive to “sing this new song” (the Christian virtue I have determined to cultivate) today by making a special effort in one aspect of living this virtue.

Regnum Christi Daily Meditation

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

"...Oh my Mother, how ashamed I feel in your presence, weighted down as I am with faults!

You are most pure and immaculate from the moment in eternity when you were conceived in the mind of God. Have pity on me! May one compassionate look of yours revive me, purify me, and lift me up to God; raising me from the filth of this world that I may go to him who created me, who regenerated me in Holy Baptism, giving me back my white stole of innocence that original sin had so defiled.

Dear Mother, make me love him!

Pour into my heart that love that burned in yours for him. Even though I be clothed in misery, I revere the mystery of your Immaculate Conception, and I ardently wish that through it you may purify my heart so that I may love your God and my God.

Cleanse my mind that it may reach up to him and contemplate him and adore him in spirit and in truth. Purify my body that I too may be a tabernacle for him and be less unworthy of possessing him when he deigns to come to me in Holy Communion.
Amen".

- Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina

December 2009 Issue Magnificat

Our Lady of Sorrows

Mary's Greatest Sufferings:

What caused Mary the greatest pain was to see that by her presence and her sorrow she was increasing the suffering of her son. "The grief which filled Mary's heart," says St. Bernard, " flowed like a torrent into the heart of Jesus and aggravated His martyrdom to such an extent that on the cross Jesus suffered more from compassion for His Mother than from His own torments." Speaking in the name of our Blessed Lady, St. Bernard says: "I stood with my eyes fixed on Him, and His on me, and He was more sorry for me than for Himself." And then speaking of Mary beside her dying Son, he says: "She stood there dying, without being able to die."

Nocturnal Adoration Letter December 2009

THE ANGLICAN OUTLOOK ON THE VIRGIN MARY

Picture Source



THE ANGLICAN OUTLOOK ON THE VIRGIN MARY

Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.

Although progress toward full Catholic and Anglican unity has been impeded by tensions caused by the ordination of an openly gay Anglican bishop, the Anglican blessing of some same-sex unions, and the acceptance of women bishops in some Anglican provinces, there is an enthusiastic meeting of the minds regarding the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in salvation history. While the dialog is strained on some considerations, it is rich in reaching a Marian consensus. Yet, as some Traditional Anglicans seek reunion with Rome, significant progress toward full communion is evident

The Anglican perspective on Mary -- and also that of the Lutherans, Presbyterians, and some other Protestant Churches -- has been consistently drawing closer to that of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. This is especially evident in the liturgical and devotional life of these Churches.

A brief, historical overview of Mary’s place in Anglican practice clearly attests to this. In the 16th century Reformation, England, previously known as “Our Lady’s Dowry,” experienced a gradual elimination of devotion to Mary in opposition to Catholicism until almost nothing was left. The few remaining vestiges later enabled a rebirth of interest in Mary when an improved theological climate prevailed.

The movement of the “Caroline Divines” in 17th century England saw a return to many Catholic values. This movement exerted a definite influence, but was not able to make significant changes in the liturgical prayers.

Came the 19th century and the Oxford Movement expressed the desire to enrich the devotional and liturgical life of Anglicanism. Gradually this gave rise to the demand for a complete reform and revision of liturgical texts in the 20th century in the various Anglican Churches, especially in the Church of England. For example, the observance of August 15 was authorized as the principal feast of Our Lady in most Anglican Churches, but the title of the Assumption is avoided.

Several influences have contributed in modern times to this revival and advance. Certainly the change in ecumenical climate, especially since the Second Vatican Council, has been a major factor. In the forefront has been the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary founded in England in 1967, and its counterpart in the United States. The restoration of the ancient and revered sanctuary of Our Lady of Walsingham has played no little role. This shrine is a frequented place of pilgrimage for Anglicans, Orthodox, and Roman Catholics. The revival of sacred art and music to bring Mary to the eyes and ears of Anglican worshipers has also been effective. Even the feminist movement has led to an increase of interest in the figure of Mary in circles not touched by High Church renewal.

The coast is clear in this area of reunion. The Blessed Virgin Mary is most definitely a bridge to reunion among these Churches.

Our goal and prayer: To the greater glory of God and the Virgin Mother of God.

Used with permission.