Recta Ratio

From The Glories Of Mary, by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori:

O my most sweet Lady, since thy office is, as William of Paris says, that of a mediatress between God and sinners ("Officium tuum est, mediam te interponere inter Deum et hominess"—De Rhet. Div. c. 18), I will address thee in the words of St. Thomas of Villanova: "Fulfil thy office in my behalf, O tender advocate; do thy work ("Eja ergo advocate nostra . . . officium tuum imple, tuum opus exerce"—In Nat. B. V. con. 3).

Say not that my cause is too difficult to gain; for I know, and all tell me so, that every cause, no matter how desperate, if undertaken by thee, is never, and never will be, lost. And will mine be lost? No, this I cannot fear. The only thing that I might fear is, that, on seeing the multitude of my sins, thou mightest not undertake my defence. But, on seeing thy immense mercy, and the very great desire of thy most sweet heart to help the most abandoned sinners, even this I cannot fear. And who was ever lost that had recourse to thee? Therefore I invoke thy aid, O my great advocate, my refuge, my hope, my mother Mary.

To thy hands do I entrust the cause of my eternal salvation. To thee do I commit my soul; it was lost, but thou hast to save it. I will always thank our Lord for having given me this great confidence in thee; and which, notwithstanding my unworthiness, I feel is an assurance of salvation. I have but one fear to afflict me, O beloved Queen, and that is, that I may one day, by my own negligence, lost this confidence in thee.

And therefore I implore thee, O Mary, by the love thou bearest to Jesus, thyself to preserve and increase in me more and more this sweet confidence in thy intercession, by which I hope most certainly to recover the divine friendship, that I have hitherto so madly despised and lost; and having recovered it, I hope, through thee, to preserve it; and preserving it by the same means, I hope at length to thank thee for it in heaven, and there to sing God's mercies and thine for all eternity.
Amen. This is my hope; thus may it be, thus will it be. Amen.

From The Glories O Mary, by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori:


O great Mother of my Lord, I see full well that my ingratitude towards God and thee, and this too for so many years, has merited for me that thou shouldst justly abandon me, and no longer have a care of me, for an ungrateful soul is no longer worthy of favors. But I, O Lady, have a high idea of thy great goodness; I believe it to be far greater than my ingratitude. Continue, then, O refuge of sinners, and cease not to help a miserable sinner who confides in thee.

O Mother of mercy, deign to extend a helping hand to a poor fallen wretch who asks thee for pity. O Mary, either defend me thyself, or tell me to whom I can have recourse, and who is better able to defend me than thou, and where I can find with God a more clement and powerful advocate than thou, who art his Mother. Then, in becoming the Mother of our Savior, wast thereby made the fitting instrument to save sinners, and wast given me for my salvation.

O Mary, save him who has recourse to thee. I deserve not thy love, but it is thine own desire to save sinners, that makes me hope that thou lovest me. And if thou lovest me, how can I be lost? O my own beloved Mother, if by thee I save my soul, as I hope to do, I shall no longer be ungrateful, I shall make up for my past ingratitude, and for the love which thou hast shown me, by my everlasting praises, and all the affections of my soul.

Happy in heaven, where thou reignest, and wilt reign forever. I shall always sing thy mercies, and kiss for eternity those loving hands which have delivered me from hell, as often as I have deserved it by my sins. O Mary, my liberator, my hope, my Queen, my advocate, my own sweet Mother, I love thee; I desire thy glory, and I love thee forever.

Amen. Amen. Thus do I hope.

From The Glories Of Mary, by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori:


I will address thee, O great Mother of God, in the words of St. Bernard: "Speak, O Lady, for thy Son heareth thee, and whatever thou askest thou wilt obtain" ("Loquere, Domina, quia audit Filius tuus; et quaecumque petieris, impetrabis"—Depr. Ad gl. V.)

Speak, speak, then, O Mary, our advocate, in favor of us poor miserable creatures. Remember that it was also for our good that thou didst receive so great power and so high a dignity. A God was pleased to become thy debtor by taking humanity of thee, in order that thou mightest dispense at will the riches of divine mercy to sinners.

We are thy servants, devoted in a special manner to thee; and I am one of these, I trust, even in a higher degree. We glory in living under thy protection. Since thou dost good to all, even to those who neither know nor honor thee, nay, more, to those who outrage and blaspheme thee, how much more may we not hope from thy benignity, which seeks out the wretched in order to relieve them, we who honor, love, and confide in thee?

We are great sinners, but God has enriched thee with compassion and power far exceeding our iniquities. Thou canst, and hast the will to save us; and the greater is our unworthiness, the greater shall be our hope in order to glorify thee the more in heaven, when by thy intercession we get there.

O Mother of mercy, we present thee our souls, once cleansed and rendered beautiful in the blood of Jesus Christ, but, alas, since that time, defiled by sin. To thee do we present them; do thou purify them. Obtain for us true conversion; obtain for us the love of God, perseverance, heaven.

We ask thee for much; but what is it? perhaps thou canst not obtain all? It is perhaps too much for the love God bears thee? Ah, no! for thou hast only to open thy lips and ask thy divine Son; he will deny thee nothing. Pray, then: and we shall with the same certainty obtain the kingdom of heaven.
Amen.

Happily, the Archdiocese of Boston adheres to the old rule, that the Ascension falls 40 days after Easter, on a Thursday. And even if it didn't, since I follow the 1962 Ordo (with some exceptions and additions) today would still be Ascension Thursday, a holy day of obligation.

From The Glories Of Mary, by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori:


O my soul, see what a sure hope of salvation and eternal life our Lord has given thee, by having in his mercy inspired thee with confidence in the patronage of his mother; and this, notwithstanding that so many times by thy sins thou hast merited his displeasure and hell.

Thank thy God, and thank thy protectress Mary, who has condescended to take thee under her mantle; for of this thou mayest be well convinced, after the many graces that thou hast received by her means. O yes, I do thank thee, my most loving Mother, for all thou hast done for me who am deserving of hell. And from how many dangers hast thou not delivered me, O Queen! How many inspirations and mercies hast thou not obtained for me from God! What service, what honor, have I ever rendered thee, that thou shouldst do so much for me? I know that it is thy sole goodness that has impelled thee.

O, too little would it be in comparison with all that I owe thee, did I shed my blood and give my life for thee; for thou hast delivered me from eternal death; thou hast enabled me, as I hope, to recover divine grace; to thee, in fine, I owe all I have.

My most amiable Lady, I, poor wretch that I am, can make thee no return but that of always loving and praising thee. Disdain not to accept the tender affection of a poor sinner, who is inflamed with love for thy goodness. If my heart is unworthy to love thee, because it is impure and filled with earthly affecgions, it is thou who must change it. Change it, then. Bind me to my God, and bind me so that I may never more have it in my power to separate myself from his love. Thou askest of me that I should love thy Godk, and I ask of thee that thou shouldst obtain this love for me, to love him always; this is all that I desire.

Amen.

One of the glories of Catholicism is its ability to incorporate so many varying interests in aspects of our Catholic Faith under the same general rubric. Some Catholics are devoted to the Rosary, others to the Sacred Heart. Some especially revere Our Lady of Mount Carmel, others Our Sorrowful Mother. Some love the devotion of the Five Sacred Wounds, while others cling just as doggedly to the devotion of the Fifteen Os of Saint Bridget. Some are clients of this saint, some of that.

The Church's manner of accommodating so many varying interests has been to foster guilds devoted to these aspects of Catholic piety. The creation of a group of people devoted to a particular aspect of the Faith allows like-minded folks to interact, but at the same time keeps them within the bounds of our Mother the Church. The Church, in the modern parlance, is a "Big Tent." So long as you adhere to the Magesterium in matters of faith and morals, and live within the Church and its teachings, no one is going to make a fuss if you prefer to pray to St. Michael as the escort of souls, or to St. Joseph as the patron of a happy death, or to the general patronage of Our Blessed Lady, when you pray for a happy and holy death.

Guilds for a particular devotion have a long history, and were present in England before the protestant rebellion. They thrived in the 19th century, and were still going strong before the post-Vatican II tidal wave nearly wrecked everything. I believe, though I don't have any evidence to support this at the moment, that they are making a quiet comeback today. Where the Church is healthy, you will still find active St. Vincent de Paul Societies, and busy Holy Name Societies. The Spanish Penitents i profiled during Holy Week are modern devotional guilds.

As I said, the devotional guilds were a part of Catholic life well before the 1500s. And of course, as the parish community processed on important feast days, like the Rogation Days, the guilds took part. The processed together as a group (and one can imagine that the parish priest had to diplomatically allot the guilds' respective places in the procession).

Each group had some sort of banner. Often these banners were ephemeral, like the felt things one sees in churches today. But sometimes they were crafted symbols of the guild.

I have only found one image of surviving guild banners for procession. They are from France, and probably do not predate the French Revolution.


But one can see a Catholic community dividing itself into its "little platoons" and processing behind the Crucifix and the parish priest in small groups as they perambulate the parish, asking blessing on the crops, praying the Litany of the Saints, and beating the bounds of the parish.

Since Rogationtide processions went on during all three days before Ascension Thursday, and there is a practical limit to how many times the congregation can chant the Litanies, and participate in the various prayers offered for newly-planted crops, something else needed to be added to occupy those in the procession. And that is the beating of the bounds.

As time went by, with parish and property lines often marked by natural features like a protuberant stone, those boundary lines often became blurred and shifted, either through natural events (a stream drying up or shifting) or human action (moving a stone to move the property line). A parish might want to exclude a home from its territory if the inhabitants were poor and shiftless and likely to become a charge on the charity of the parish. Or it might want to include more affluent homes on the edge of the boundary.

So, over time, means were devised to create a living memory of just where the boundary line was, regardless of the natural features mentioned in any grants or deeds. What was devised was this. During one or more of the Rogation Processions, the young boys of the parish were brought along and enjoined to memorize the exact line of the boundary. The boys would be beaten with narrow sticks to ensure their proper memorization, and to chastise them if their memory was faulty. Thus, the "Beating of the Bounds."


Today, when a "Beating of the Bounds" occurs, it tends to be in England, and to be a High Church Anglican thing. They have the old territorial parishes and the parish churches, since the protestant rebellion. English Catholics today, having less official status and being more scattered, take little interest in such local displays. Also today, it appears that New Age pagans like to attach themselves to Beating of the Bounds processions during Rogationtide, since it is a seasonal fancy-dress occasion. And they are joined by morris dancers, town criers, handbell guilds, and so on.

But the origins of the procession and the beating of the bounds are firmly Catholic. Perhaps someday, the vehicle of the Rogation Procession will be reunited to the Catholic practice that gave rise to it.

From The Glories Of Mary, by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori:


O Queen and Mother of mercy, who dispensest graces to all who have recourse to thee with so much liberality, because thou art a Queen, and with so much love, because thou art our most loving Mother; to thee do I, who am so devoid of merit and virtue, and so loaded with debts to the divine justice, recommend myself this day.

O Mary, thou holdest the keys of all the divine mercies; forget not my miseries, and leave me not in my poverty. Thou art so liberal with all, and givest more than thou art asked for, O, be thus liberal with me.

O Lady, protect me; this is all that I ask of thee. If thou protectest me, I fear nothing. I fear not the evil spirits; for thou art more powerful than all of them. I fear not my sins; for thou by one word canst obtain their full pardon from God. And if I have thy favor, I do not even fear an angry God; for a single prayer of thine will appease him. In fine, if thou protectest me, I hope all; for thou art all-powerful.

O Mother of mercy, I know that thou takest pleasure and dost glory in helping the most miserable, and, provided they are not obstinate, that thou canst help them. I am a sinner, but am not obstinate; I desire to change my life. Thou canst, then, help me; O, help me and save me. I now place myself entirely in thy hands. Tell me what I msut do in order to please God, and I am ready for all, and hope to do all with thy help, O Mary—Mary my Mother, my light, my consolations, my refuge, my hope.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

From The Glories Of Mary, by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori:


Behold at thy feet, O Mary my hope, a poor sinner, who has so many times been by his own fault the slave of hell. I know that by neglecting to have recourse to thee, my refuge, I allowed myself to be overcome by the devil. Had I always had recourse to thee, had I always invoked thee, I certainly should not have fallen.

I trust, O Lady most worthy of all our love, that through thee I have already escaped from the hands of the devil, and that God has pardoned me. But I tremble lest at some future period I may again fall into the same bonds. I know that my enemies have not lost the hope of again overcoming me, and already they prepare new assaults and temptations for me.

O, my Queen and refuge, do thou assist me. Place me under thy mantle; permit me not again to become their slave. I know that thou wilt help me and give me the victory, provided I invoke thee; but I dread lest in my temptations I may forget thee, and neglect to do so.

The favor, then, that I seek of thee, and which thou must grant me, O most holy Virgin, is that I may never forget thee, and especially in time of temptation; grant that I may then repeatedly invoke thee, saying, "O Mary, help me; O Mary, help me."

And when my last struggle with hell comes, at the moment of death, then, my Queen, help me more than ever, and thou thyself remind me to call on thee more frequently either with my lips or in my heart; that, being thus filled with confidence, I may expire with thy sweet name and that of thy Son Jesus on my lips; that so I may be able to bless thee and praise thee, and not depart from thy feet in Paradise for all eternity.
Amen.

From a University of Chicago site:


The Rogation Days are three (or four) days focused on agriculture and nature, where we pray for a good harvest, fruitful crops, good weather, and protection from flood, tornado, earthquake, and other natural disasters. Traditionally the Church offers these requests on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before the Feast of the Ascension, although some churches also add the Sunday before Ascension, before Rogation Monday. (The Catholic Church marks April 25 as the Major Rogation, and the days before Ascension as the Minor Rogation.)

Rogation comes from the Latin rogatio and French rogare, meaning "to ask." Fifth-century France was beset with a number of natural disasters, including floods, failing harvests, and an earthquake on Ascension (which always falls on a Thursday). In response to these calamities Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne, called for three days of prayer, fasting, and repentance, and this quickly became the custom for the three days preceding Ascension.

The observance of Rogation Days spread throughout Europe (In England, the days are also known as Gang-Days, Gang-Week, or Cross-Week.) Many churches led a procession around the town or parish boundaries on one of the Rogation Days, chanting a litany to the saints and offering prayers for a good year. This practice became known as "beating the bounds." George Herbert recommends this practice in A Country Parson (see chapter 25).

Many churches in farming communities continue to observe a traditional Rogation.Other churches are adapting the Rogation services to a technology-based society.

Read more about Rogation Days here, here, here, and here.

From The Liturgical Year, by Abbot Prosper Gueranger, OSB:

In the Greek Church, the fifth Sunday after Easter is called the Sunday of the man born blind, because her Gospel for the day contains the history of that miracle of our divine Lord. She also calls it Episozomene, which is one of the names given by the Greeks to the mystery of the Ascension, the feast of which is kept with them, as with us, during the course of this week.




The holy apostle, whose instructions these are, had received them from our risen Jesus: hence the authoritative tone wherewith he speaks. Our Saviour, as we have already seen, honoured him with a special visit. This proves that he was particularly dear to his divine master, to whom he was related by the tie of consanguinity on his mother's side, whose name was Mary. This holy woman went on Easter morning to the sepulchre, in company with her sister Salome, and Magdalene. St. James the Less is indeed the apostle of Paschal Time, wherein everything speaks to us of the new life we should lead with our risen Lord. He is the apostle of good works, for it is from him that we have received this fundamental maxim of Christianity, that though faith be the first essential of a Christian, yet without works it is a dead faith, and will not save us.



He also lays great stress on our being attentive to the truths we have been taught, and on our guarding against that culpable forgetfulness, which plays such havoc with thoughtless souls. Many of those who have this year received the grace of the Easter mystery, will not persevere; and, the reason is, that they will allow the world to take up all their time and thoughts, whereas they should use the world as though they did not use it. [I Cor. vii. 31.] Let us never forget, that we must now walk in newness of life, in imitation of our risen Jesus, who dieth now no more.



The two Alleluia-versicles celebrate the glory of the Resurrection; but they also contain an allusion to the approaching Ascension. Jesus was born eternally from the Father; He came down to us; but now, in a few days, He is to return to his Father.



When, at His last Supper, our Saviour thus warned His apostles of His having soon to leave them, they were far from knowing Him thoroughly. True, they know that He came forth from God; but their faith was weak, and they soon lost it. Now that they are enjoying His company after His Resurrection, now that they have received such light from His instructions, they know Him better. He no longer speaks to them in proverbs; He teaches them everything they require to know in order to become the teachers of the whole world. It is now they might truly say to Him: We believe that thou camest forth from God! So much the more, then, do they understand what they are going to lose by His leaving them.



Our Lord begins now to reap the fruit of the word He has sown in their hearts: oh! how patiently has He waited for it! If He praised them for their faith, when they were with Him on the night of the last Supper, He may surely do so now that they have seen Him in the splendour of His Resurrection, and have been receiving such teaching from His lips. He said to them, at the last Supper: The Father loveth you, because ye have loved Me; how much more must the Father love them now, when their love for Jesus is so much increased! Let us be consoled by these words. Before Easter our love of Jesus was weak, and we were tepid in His service; but now that we have been enlightened and nourished by His mysteries, we may well hope that the Father loves us, for we love Jesus better than we did before. This dear Redeemer urges us to ask the Father, in His name, for everything we need. Our first want is perseverance in the spirit of Eastertide; let it be our most earnest prayer; let it be our intention now that we are assisting at the holy sacrifice, which is soon to bring Jesus upon our altar.



The Offertory is taken from the Psalms; it is an act of thanksgiving which the Christian, united with his risen Jesus, offers to God for having brought him to the new life, and made him the object of His choicest graces.

From The Glories Of Mary, by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori:


O Mother of God, Queen of angels and hope of men, give ear to one who calls upon thee and has recourse to thy protection. Behold me this day prostrate at thy feet; I, a miserable slave of hell, devote myself entirely to thee. I desire to be forever thy servant. I offer myself to serve and honor thee to the utmost of my power during the whole of my life.

I know that the service of one so vile and miserable can be no honor to thee, since I have so grievously offended Jesus, thy Son and my Redeemer. But if thou wilt accept one so unworthy for thy servant, and by thy intercession change me, and thus making me worthy, this very mercy will give thee that honor which so miserable a wretch as I can never give thee.

Receive me, then, and reject me not, O my Mother. The Eternal Word came from heaven on earth to seek for lost sheep, and to save them he became thy Son. And when one of them goes to thee to find Jesus, wilt thou despise it?

The price of my salvation is already paid; my Savior has already shed his blood, which suffices to save an infinity of worlds. This blood has only to be applied even to such a one as I am. And that is thy office, O Blessed Virgin; to thee does it belong, as I am told by St. Bernard, to dispense the merits of this blood to whom thou pleasest. To thee does it belong, says St. Bonaventure, to save whomsoever thou willest, "whomsoever thou willest will be saved" ("Quem vis, ipse salvus erit").

Oh, then, help me, my Queen; my Queen, save me. To thee do I this day consecrate my whole soul; do thou save it. O salvation of those who invoke thee, I conclude in the words of the same saint, "O salvation of those who call upon thee, do thou save me" ("O Salus te invocantium!").
Amen.