The Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, or simply the
Holy Name of Mary, is a feast day in the Roman Catholic Church celebrated
on 12 September to honor the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 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.
Meaning of the name
In Hebrew, the name Mary is Miryam. In Our Lady's time,
Aramaic was the spoken language, and the form of the name then in use was
Mariam. In the book, The Wondrous Childhood of the Most Holy Mother of God, St.
John Eudes offers meditations on seventeen interpretations of the name
"Mary," taken from the writings of "the Holy Fathers and by some
celebrated Doctors". The name of Mary is venerated because it
belongs to the Mother of God.
Meanings ascribed to Mary's name by the early Christian
writers and perpetuated by the Greek Fathers include: "Bitter Sea,"
"Myrrh of the Sea," "The Light Giver," "The
Enlightened One," "The Light Giver," and especially "Star
of the Sea." Stella Maris was by far the favored
interpretation. These etymologies suppose that the Hebrew form of the name is
Maryãm, not Miryãm. The Hebrew name of Mary, Miryãm, (in Latin Domina) means
lady or sovereign.
Veneration
Mary’s name occurs in the first part and in the second part
of the Hail Mary.
At Rome, one of the twin churches at the Forum of Trajan is
dedicated to the Name of Mary (Santissimo Nome di Maria al Foro Traiano).
Promoters of veneration of the Holy Name of Mary include:
Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, and Saint Alphonsus Maria
de Liguori.
Feast day
The feast is a counterpart to the Feast of the Holy Name
of Jesus (January 3). Its object is the Blessed Virgin Mary;
the feast commemorates all the privileges given to Mary by God and all the
graces received through her intercession and mediation.
The entry in the Roman Martyrology about the feast speaks of
it in the following terms:
The Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a day on which the
inexpressible love of the Mother of God for her Holy Child is recalled, and the
eyes of the faithful are directed to the figure of the Mother of the Redeemer,
for them to invoke with devotion.
History
The feast day began in 1513 as a local celebration in
Cuenca, Spain, celebrated on 15 September. In 1587 Pope Sixtus V moved the
celebration to 17 September. 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 Kingdom of Spain.
Before the Battle of Vienna in 1683, John III
Sobieski placed his troops under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In
the following year, to celebrate the victory, Pope Innocent XI inserted the
feast in the General Roman Calendar, assigning to it the Sunday within the
octave of the Nativity of Mary.
In the reform of Pope Pius X, the liturgy of the Sundays,
which previously had been generally replaced by celebrations of saints, was
restored to prominence. The celebration of the Holy Name of Mary was therefore
moved to 12 September.
Later in the same century, the feast was removed from the
General Roman Calendar in 1969, as something of a duplication of the 8
September feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.but it did not cease
to be a recognized feast of the Roman Rite, being mentioned in the Roman
Martyrology on 12 September. In 2002 Pope John Paul II restored the celebration
to the General Roman Calendar.
The day was commemorated in Vienna by creating a new kind
of pastry and shaping it in the form of a half-moon. It was eaten along with
coffee which was part of the booty from the Turks.
A number of parishes and schools are dedicated in honor of
the Holy Name of Mary.
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