The Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary is an optional memorial celebrated in the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church on September 12. It has been a universal Roman Rite feast since 1684, when Pope Innocent XI included it in the General Roman Calendar to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.
It was initially removed from the current Church calendar in the liturgical reform following Vatican II. But it was restored by Pope John Paul II in 2002 along with the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus in January.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the feast is celebrated on September 7 in the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate.
Promoters of veneration of the Holy Name of Mary include St. Anthony of Padua, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, & St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori. A number of religious orders such as the Cistercian & the Servites, customarily give each member “Mary” as part of their religious name as a sign of honor & of entrustment to the Virgin.
The feast is a counterpart to the Feast for the Holy Name of Jesus on January 3. Its object is to commemorate all the privileges granted upon Mary by God & all the graces received through her intercession & mediation.
The feast day began in 1513 as a local celebration in Cuenca, Spain, celebrated on September 15. In 1587, Pope Sixtus V moved the celebration to September 17. Pope Gregory XV extended the celebration to the Archdiocese of Toledo (Spain) in 1622.
In 1666, the Discalced Carmelites received permission to recite the Divine Office of the Name of Mary 4x a year. In 1671, the feast was extended to the whole Kingdom of Spain. From there, the feast spread. It soon extended to the Kingdom of Naples.
In 1683, the Polish King John Sobieski arrived in Vienna with his army. Before the Battle of Vienna, Sobieski placed his troops under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In 1684, to celebrate the victory, Pope Innocent XI added to the Roman calendar, assigning to it the Sunday within the Octave of the Nativity of Mary. An octave, in this case, is the 8th day after a feast, counted inclusively. So this always falls on the same day of the week as the feast itself. The Nativity of Mary refers to a Christian feast day celebrating the birth of the Virgin Mary.
The reform of Pope Pius X in 1911 restored to prominence the celebration of Sundays in their own right, avoiding their being replaced by celebrations from the sanctorale. The sanctorale is 1 of the 2 main cycles that, running concurrently, comprise the Liturgical year in Roman Catholicism, defined by the General Roman Calendar, & used by a variety of Christian denomination.
The celebration of the Holy Name of Mary was moved to September 12. Later in the same century, the feast was removed from the General Roman Calendar in 1969 as part of its reform by Pope Paul VI. As something of a duplication of the September 8 feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
But it didn’t cease to be a recognized celebration of the Roman Rite, being mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on September 12. In 2002, Pope John Paul II restored the celebration to the General Roman Calendar.
William Joseph Chaminade chose the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary as the patronal feast of the Society of Mary (Marianists). Rather than a day commemorating a particular dogma or devotion in order to focus on the person of Mary.
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