III. Feasts of Mary

The development of the cultus of the Virgin is marked all along its course by the multiplication of festivals in her honor. The feast of the Annunciation, the annual commemoration of the Incarnation, was probably observed as early as the fourth century (see Annunciation, Feast of the). The feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, or of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (known in old English usage as Candlemas), based on Luke ii. 22 sqq., and thus reckoned also among the feasts of Christ, occurs forty days after Christmas (Feb. 2), according to Lev. xii. 2-7. It is said by Georgius Hamartolus and Cedrenus to have been instituted under Justin I. (c. 526), by Nicephorus under Justinian in 541. Western writers (Ildephonsus, and later Durand) connect it with the ancient Roman lustrations which Numa is said to have instituted in February in honor of Februus, the purifying god, and to take the place of which the Christian festival was established. In the West, its celebration was specially referred to the Virgin. In Bede's time it was usual to go in procession through the towns with burning candles. The feast of the Nativity was unknown in the time of Augustine. Early evidences for its existence are Andrew of Crete (c. 650), for Rome the Galendatlurn Frontonis, for Spain Ildephonsus, for France Paschasius Radbert. The reason for its assignment to Sept- 8 is unknown. The feast of the Assumption commemorates the assumption or corporal translation of Mary into heaven after her death. The festival in its later signification is based on Apocryphal sources, dating from about 400. The legend contained in these writings (whose ecclesiastical use was forbidden by Gelasius I.) ryas accepted as true by the pseudo-Dionysius and by Gregory of Tours, the latter of whom gives it in the following form. All the apostles were assembled in the house of Mary to watch by her death-bed, when Jesus appeared with his angels, received her soul, and gave it over to the archangel Michael. When on the following day they were about to carry her body to the grave he appeared again and took it up in a cloud to paradise, there to be reunited with the soul. The legend appears in a more extended form in John of Damascus; not only the angels but the patriarchs stand around the death-bed with the apostles, and even Adam and Eve are there, calling their descendant blessed for removing the curse which through them came into the world (see Assumption, Feast of the). The feast of the Presentation, attested in the ninth century by the homilies of George of Nicomedia, was ordained in the twelfth for the whole Eastern Empire by Manuel Comnenus. In 1372, at the request of King Charles IV., it was sanctioned by Gregory XI. for France, and fixed on Nov. 21. It commemorates, following the Apocryphal gospels, the presentation of Mary in the Temple at the age of three, in pursuance of a vow of her parents. The Visitation, found only in the Western Church, commemorates the visit of Mary to Elisabeth, and is first found in the list of festivals drawn up by the Synod of Mans in 1247. After the Franciscans had adopted it as a feast of the order in the general chapter at Pisa in 1263, Urban VI. extended it to the whole of Christendom in 1389. The feast of the Espousal of Mary with Joseph has apparently been celebrated on Feb. 23 since the fourteenth century. It was extended to the whole of Christendom by Benedict XIII. in 1725. The Seven Dolors are celebrated on the Friday before Palm Sunday. These are variously enumerated as beginning either with the prophecy of Simeon and the flight into Egypt, or with the parting between Jesus and his mother at the commencement of the Passion, ending in both cases with the crucifixion and burial. Among the numerous hymns written for this festival from the thirteenth century, in which it seems to have originated in the Servite order, the most famous is the Stabat Mater of the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi (q.v.). The feast of the joys of Mary (Sept. 24) is a parallel commemoration suggested by the "joyful mysteries" of the rosary. The festival of St. Mary of the Snows is a local Roman feast celebrated on Aug. 5 in memory of the foundation of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. The legend relates that the patrician John and his wife were directed by a vision to build the church in a certain spot on the Esquiline, designated by a miraculous fall of snow in mid-summer. Other festivals, such as the Expectation of Mary (Dec. 18), the Holy Name of Mary (Sunday after her Nativity), Our Lady of Mt Camel or of the Scapular (July 16), Our Lady of Ransom (Sept. 24), the Patronage o`f Our Lady (third Sunday in November), are of minor importance. The feast of the Immaculate Conception, which has assumed great importance since the Reformation, is purely western (see Immaculate Conception).