THE DIFFERENT TITLES OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN

 What the customs of the Feast Day reveal about different characteristics of Our Lady

Our Lady’s different titles reflect particular facets of our relationship to her. The first aspect is exemplified by the blessings and customs of the day, accentuating her role as the source of beauty, fertility and bounty, both material and spiritual. This is apparent, both in the symbolism of flowers (beauty), the fruit (plenty) and herbs, (medicinal healing). Her role as our heavenly Mother, our Redemptrix and protectress and the source of our inspiration is illustrated by the passage of Eccles 24.23-31, applied to Her as the Epistle in the Votive Masses on Saturdays or Marian feast days:
“As the vine I have brought forth a pleasant odour, and my flowers are the fruit of honour and riches. I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue. Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits; for my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb. My memory is unto everlasting generations. They that eat me, shall yet hunger; and they that drink me shall yet thirst. He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded, and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting.”
In all Christian countries up to the Reformation, the clergy used to bless the countryside and animals, farms, orchards, fields and gardens on Assumption day. The most notable custom that has survived into modern times is the blessing of herbs, flowers and fruit at the Mass of the Feast of the Assumption. This custom derives from ancient practice where herbs picked at this time were believed to have greater healing powers and medical efficacy. The Roman Ritual contains a petition that God bless the medicinal powers of the herbs presented to make them mercifully efficient against diseases and poisons in humans and domestic animals.
In the Middle Ages, the period from 15 August to 15 September was called Our Lady’s thirty days. Her bounty was one of harvest and plenty. Francis X Weiser SJ, commenting upon religious customs in Europe in the 1950’s, observed that “[m]any Assumption shrines even today show Mary clothed in a robe covered with ears of grain.”
He noted that in France “a priest rides from pasture to pasture on Assumption Day or during the octave. Behind the priest on the horse sits an acolyte holding the holy water vessel. At every meadow the blessing is given to the animals, which are gathered around a large cross decorated with branches and flowers.” – That is, not only could the priest ride a horse, but he could ride double; the acolyte could not only double but hold a holy water vessel and, not insignificantly, the horse would tolerate two people on its back accompanied by intermittent flinging of water!
I cannot imagine that this custom is carried out in the same manner today, or that such horsemen or horses still exist.



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