Category Archives: Blessed Virgin Mary
Prayers of an Irish Mother
I’m indebted to jaykay for kindly sending these extracts from Prayers of an Irish Mother, which give a splendid insight into Irish popular piety in pre-conciliar times.
Patrician Year (1961): Missalette for Pontifical High Mass at Croke Park, 25th June
click above to read in full (pdf)
CLICK HERE to watch newsreel of the Mass.
CLICK HERE to listen to William Nelson presenting a silver trowel to His Eminence the Papal Legate. (“…a petition to Mary, the Mother of God, for her continued assistance in our struggle against atheistic communism…”)
Irish Hierarchy’s Statement on Our Lady’s Assumption
The following statement was issued by the Irish Hierarchy and read out from the pulpit at all public Masses on Sunday, October 29th, 1950.
Very Rev. and Rev. Fathers and dearly beloved Brethren:
The announcement that our Holy Father Pope Pius XII would solemnly proclaim and define the doctrine of the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady gave great joy to the hearts of the Irish people. In common with the faithful throughout the world they have for centuries held firmly to the belief that the virginal body of Mary, Mother of God conceived without sin, was not allowed to suffer corruption but was taken up into heaven and throned above the angels.
The doctrine of the Assumption is not new; it has been enshrined in the liturgy, the art and the teaching of the Church for long centuries. From the time when the Council of Ephesus defined that Mary is the Mother of God the devotion and belief of the Church unfolded the full meaning of the privileges of the Immaculate Virgin Mother and of the complete victory over sin and death won for her by her Divine Son. So it is that this doctrine has been firmly held even by the schismatic churches of the East.
The fact of Mary’s Assumption into heaven, like her Immaculate Conception, is a supernatural fact that can be guaranteed to us not by human testimony but by divine revelation.
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