@Contra Mundum@ Volume XVIII, Issue 1 August 2015 The Congregation of St. Athanasius A Congregation of the Pastoral Provision of Pope John Paul II for the Anglican Usage of the Roman Rite http://www.locutor.net THE GAINS OF AUGUST Wherefore seeing we also our Blessed Savior was born into are compassed about with the world. so great a cloud of witnesses, We can think of this month as let us lay aside every weight, one of plenitude and growth, and the sin which doth so one filled with a richness of easily beset us, and let us saints and feasts, and indeed run with patience the race augustus actually derives its that is set before us. Hebrews 12:1 meanings from the notion of ‘growth’3 or ‘increase’, the stem augere ‘ In 27 BC the Roman Senate conferred of to make something ’ the special epithet augustus grow cf. augment and more ‘majestic, sublime’ on Gaius distantly augur and auxiliary. So in English we have two Octavianus, the grandnephew, homographs which differ in adopted son and heir of Julius meaning, pronunciation and Cæsar, whose name he also had stress: the month of Aúgust and incorporated into his own. The the adjective augúst. The Coronation of the Virgin, apse mosaic Senate did this out of gratitude (Jacopo Torriti, sæc.XIII) from Santa Maria The Assumption of the Most Blessed and in recognition of Octavian’s Maggiore. Virgin occupies the very center having restored stability to the of the month of August, as a octave day of the Assumption to empire after the fifteen years of major feast and holyday of the feast of the Immaculate Heart of war and civil strife which had obligation. In many traditions Mary. That feast has since moved ensued upon the assassination of this time serves for the blessing to a memorial on the day (always Julius Cæsar. of the first harvest of grapes. a Saturday) following the feast In 8 BC the Roman Senate renamed 4 The Feast of the Assumption of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. ‘ ’ 1 the sixth month , Sextilis, as used even to have its own Augustus. And so we find ourselves octave, and even today the One cannot help but view the mid- ‘ here in the noble, distinguished, calendar of the Roman Church August feast of the Assumption of ’ exalted month, named after the has designated 22 August, the the Most Blessed Virgin as a rock- Emperor whose reign intiated an eighth day, as the feast of the solid bastion bewteen Catholic ‘ extended period when all the Queenship of Mary. From 1944 belief and Protestant rejectionism. ’2 world was in peace and in which Pope Pius XII had dedicated the On the one hand Martin Luther 1 In earliest Roman times the calendar dismissed it soundly, for example had ten months and began in March, traditional chant of the Christmas in a 1544 sermon on Luke 2: hence what became our August occupied proclamation phrases it. the sixth position. 3 In very rough semantic terms: 4 This always falls on the Friday after 2 Toto urbe in pace composito as the ‘bigger’ becomes ‘better’. the Octave of Corpus Christi. Page 2 Contra Mundum The celebration of the Interestingly, and speaking of the ascension of Mary current month of August, the Holy into Heaven is totally Father’s text cannot resist listing papist, full of idolatry as one of the three accompanying and established without goals of this proclamation: the ground in the Scriptures. phrase ad eiusdem augustae Matris For that reason we ‘ have dropped it in augendam gloriam for the increase our churches…But we of the glory of that same august Mother’ with a play on the Christians know of no SOLEMN EVENSONG ON ascension into Heaven common origin of augustus and which we can celebrate augere as mentioned above. CAPE COD except the one, that of our Anglican Use Evensong & dear Lord, Jesus Christ.5 In our country, sadly, the third great Sermon Whereas, on the other hand, we Marian feast in August passes have the solemn proclamation almost unnoticed on the fifth Sunday, August 2, 2015 of the Asssumption of Mary into of August: the Dedication of the Saint Anthony of Padua Church Heaven as infallible Catholic Basilica of St Mary Major, the most East Falmouth, Massachusetts doctrine in 1950 by Pope Pius beautiful and largest of all the 26 5:00 o’clock XII: Marian churches in Rome. Under Father Bradford will be [B]y the authority of Pope Liberius the altar of Juno, officiant and preacher. our Lord Jesus Christ, queen of the pagan gods, on the Music provided by The Schola of the Blessed Apostles Cantorum of Falmouth and friends Peter and Paul, and by Esquiline yielded to a first church on the site, hence the still common Pat Harcourt, director our own authority, we James S. Reedy, organist. pronounce, declare, and designation Basilica Liberiana. We also know it as the Sixtina after define it to be a divinely established as their heir. revealed dogma: that the pope who built the present Giovanni related this the Immaculate Mother structure, as ad Præsepe (of the to Pope Liberius, who of God, the ever Virgin Manger, after relics brought there confirmed that he had Mary, having completed in the seventh century), and, in experienced the same in a the course of her earthly its most miraculous cast, ad Nives dream.7 life, was assumed body (Our Lady of the Snow): This magnificently appointed and soul into heavenly So on the Nones of August, glory. church, contains overwhelming which tend to be the hottest Hence if anyone, which fifth-century mosaics informed in the City, snow covered God forbid, should dare by the declarations of the a part of the Esquiline hill. willfully to deny or to Council of Ephesus (431 AD ) On that night the Mother of call into doubt that which which affirmed the cherished God told Giovanni [Patrizio] we have defined, let him and his wife separately that status of Mary as Mother of know that he has fallen they should build a church, God (Theotokos). Since at least away completely from which would be dedicated the sixth century the much the divine and Catholic in the name of Virgin Mary, beloved icon Salus populi Romani Faith.6 on the place which they (the Protectress of the Roman 5 Das Fest von der Hymelfart Marie saw covered in snow. For ist durch auß Bäpstisch, das ist vol thus did she desire to be 7 Nonis igitur Augusti, quo tempore in Abgötterey unnd one grundt der Schrifft urbe maximi calores esse solent, noctu eingesetzt. Derhalben haben wirs in revelatum dogma esse : Immaculatam nix partem collis Exquilini contexit. Qua unsern Kirchen fallen lassen…Aber wir Deiparam semper Virginem Mariam, nocte Dei Mater separatim Joannem et Christen wissen von keiner Hymelfart, expleto terrestris vitae cursu, fuisse corpore conjugem in somnis admonuit, ut quem der wir geniessen können, denn von et anima ad caelestem gloriam assumptam. locum nive conspersum viderent, in den eynigen unsers lieben Herrn Christi Quamobrem, si quis, quod Deus avertat, id eo ecclesiam ædificarent, quæ Mariæ Jesu. WA52.681 vel negare, vel in dubium vocare voluntarie Virginis nomine dedicaretur: se enim 6 [A]uctoritate Domini Nostri Iesu ausus fuerit, quod a Nobis definitum ita velle ab ipsis hæredem institui. Quod Christi, Beatorum Apostolorum Petri est, noverit se a divina ac catholica fide Joannes ad Liberium pontificem detulit, et Pauli ac Nostra pronuntiamus, prorsus defecisse. —Constitutio apostolica qui idem per somnium sibi contigisse declaramus et definimus divinitus Munificentissimus Deus (1950-10-30) affirmavit. Contra Mundum Page 3 people) has resided in this church. department, themed on St their own feast days but grouped Ignatius Loyola said his first Mass Petersburg, has at its door an together on 8 August as a popular here, and Pope Francis personally icon of St Peter freed from his and local devotion, especially in visted here almost immediately chains, as a symbol of Communist Germany. Here their names and after his election. Leningrad liberated and returning associations: In this way the month of August to its Christian heritage and to the Agathius (headache), receives a basic framework of three protection of St Peter. Barbara (lightning, fire, explosion, fever, sudden death), Marian feasts separated by eight Blaise (throat illness, domestic and six days respectively and set But the August connections continue animals), toward the beginning, middle and because that same Pope Sixtus III Catherine of Alexandria (philosophers, end of the month: carried on correspondence (Epp. wheelwrights, sudden death) 5 Dedication of the Basilica of St Mary 191, 194) with another August Christopher (bubonic plague, travelling) Major saint, the great church father 15 Assumption of the Most Blessed Cyriacus (deathbed temptations) Virgin Augustine (Augustinus, Austin, Denis (headache, rabies) 22 Immaculate Heart/Queenship of 28 August). The whole question Erasmus (Elmo, intestinal ailments) Mary of Pelagianism in all its forms, Eustace (epilepsy, insanity, sterility ) The inscription over the apse of St George (soldiers, domestic animals) the interrelation of grace and Giles (Aegidius, plague, good Mary Major reads: Xystus episcopus predestination, finds a full airing confession, cripples, beggars, 8 plebi Dei . This dedication refers to in the correspondence related to blacksmiths) Sixtus III, who restored the church Sixtus III, he of St Mary Major Margaret of Antioch (childbirth, beginning in 432 and who has a and St Peter in Chains. To this we demonic possession) Pantaleon (physicians, cancer, feast in the month of August, on owe the great observation that in tuberculosis) th the 19 . This same pope brings crowning our merits, God crowns Vitus (Guy, epilepsy, lightning, a second August connection His own gifts.