It’s hard to imagine
that the Blessed Mother has many more feasts than Jesus himself in the
Liturgical calendar. In one week between August 15 and September 15, there are five
celebrations honoring Mary. August 15 is the Assumption, while August 22 i the
Queenship of Mary. September 8 is the Nativity of Mary, September 15 is the feast
of Our Lady of Sorrows, and today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Name of
Mary, a feast only recently introduced, even though this was made officially a
universal feast by Blessed Pope Innocent XI to commemorate victory over the
Turks at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. The feast was only a local one at
its inception in 1513, when it was instituted in Cuenca, Spain. It was
initially celebrated on September 15th and later on the 17th. Pope Gregory XV
extended the celebration to the Archdiocese of Toledo in 1622. In 1666 the
Discalced Carmelites received the faculty to recite the Office of the Name of
Mary four times a year. In 1671 the feast was extended to the whole of Spain.
After the victory of the Christians, lead by King John III Sobieski of Poland, over
the Turks in the Battle of Vienna in 1683, the feast was extended to the whole
Church by Pope Innocent XI, and assigned to the Sunday after the Nativity of
Mary. Before the battle King John had placed his troops under the protection of
the BVM. Even in the past 60 years, there has been some
controversy over the date of this festivity. In 1954, it was re-instated at
September 12, but was removed temporarily as many thought it was duplication of
the Nativity of Mary, but in 2001, the feast of the Holy Name of Mary was once
again set to be celebrated today.
Mary is Mariam in the Holy Land. The Hebrew
variant of the name is Miriam. The name may have originated in the Egyptian Meri-Amun, "beloved of the God". It was
incorporated in the Exodus narrative as Miriam, the name of Moses' sister. It
became common in ancient Israel, hence its appearance in the gospel narrative
as the name of Jesus' mother and several other women. The name is very common
among Arabs, Iranians and other Muslim cultures.
However, Mary is called by an innumerable number
of names that denote a connection with something special, Our Lady of Lourdes,
Fatima, Queen of Peace, Angels, Perpetual Help, Our Lady of Snows, even Refuge
of Migrants, a title added by Pope Francis in the Litany of Loreto.
Thursday 12 September 2024
Holy Name of Mary
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