Marian Devotions Through the Year: July

July is a simple month of heat and Marian florals that nevertheless hides a number of great feasts of Marian aid such as the Brown Scapular from Our Lady of Mount Carmel and occasions of victory against heathens through the intercession of the Woman arrayed like the dawn for battle, with a crown of stars and—as Chesterton eloquently writes—“seven swords…in her heart, but one…in her hand” (Song of Songs 6:10, Revelations 12:1, The Ballad of the White Horse).

Marian Virtue: Heavenly Wisdom

This month we focus on the tenth of the traditional Ten Virtues of Our Lady. Oftentimes as women and the heart of the home, we see the need for wisdom. Wherever our sphere of influence is, once we truly understand the scope and depth of our actions, words, and moods, it is a relief to be able to turn to the Immaculate Heart and Seat of Wisdom who was attuned perfectly to the heavenly gifts and intimations of the Holy Spirit. Surely she will teach us how to hear and heed Him, or even whisper to us herself while we’re seeking Him out. 

Marian Theme: Marian Devotion to Our Lord

July’s liturgical devotion is the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord. This devotion always brings to mind the utter reverence and safeguarding of Our Lady for the Body and Blood of our Lord. From her care starting at his Incarnation and Nativity all the way to her collection of His Precious Blood during the Passion, so beautifully described by many mystics and portrayed visually in Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ film when she has saved pure linen to soak up His Blood after the Scourging, Mary’s devotion is a witness and call to each of us from the way we treat sacramentals and religious artifacts representing Christ to our methods and attitudes surrounding reception of the Most Blessed Sacrament. While often hidden from the eyes of the world, if Mary’s deeds teach us anything, they teach us that the sanctification of a beautiful soul comes quietly in the daily, simple actions we take and the odors of the heavenly that we strive to surround ourselves with. 

Marian Antiphon: Salve Regina

Salve Regina

Salve, Regina, mater misericordiae;
vita, dulcedo et spes nostra, salve.
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevae.
Ad te suspiramus gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.

Eia ergo, advocata nostra, 
illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte. 
Et Iesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, 
nobis post hoc exsilium ostende. 
O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Virgo Maria.

V. Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix. 
R. Ut digni efficamur promissionibus Christi.

Oremus. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui gloriosae Virginis Matris Mariae corpus et animam, ut dignum Filii tui habitaculum effici mereretur, Spiritu Sancto cooperante, praeparasti, da, ut cuius commemoratione laetamur; eius pia intercessione, ab instantibus malis et a morte perpetua liberemur. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen

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Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
Hail our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry,
Poor banished children of Eve;
To thee do we send up our sighs,
Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate,
Thine eyes of mercy toward us;
And after this our exile,
Show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving,
O sweet Virgin Mary.

V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God, Who by the working of the Holy Spirit didst prepare both body and soul of the glorious Virgin Mother, Mary, that she might deserve to be made a worthy dwelling for Thy Son, grant that we who rejoice in her memory, may, by her loving intercession, be delivered from present evils and from lasting death, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

The liturgical year cycles through four Marian Antiphons, each having a Simple Tone and Solemn Tone in Gregorian chant. June is entirely given over to the Salve Regina which is the proper antiphon until Advent. Marian antiphons are typically chanted after night prayer and immediately before going to bed. 

The Salve Regina has been attributed to a couple different authors — Hermann Contractus, the Bishop Petrus of Monsoro (+ circa 1000 A.D.), the Bishop Adhemar of Podium who supposedly composed it as a war song asking intercession of the Queen of Heaven on Crusade, but most notably St. Bernard of Clairvaux who was said to have added the triple salutation, “O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!” when moved to do so. Many know the Salve Regina today particularly because of the Carmelites who have claimed it as their own in a special way with their singing of its Solemn Tone amid candlelit procession every Saturday evening on the way to Solemn Vespers.

Sheet music for the Simple Tone may be printed from here (page 232 of the Parish Book of Chant pdf). 

Sheet music for the Solemn Tone may be found on page 233 of the same pdf. 

Marian Feasts:

• July 2 - Feast of the Visitation of Our Lady to Elizabeth (Old Rite) (Instituted 1385 by Pope Urban IV)
• July 13 - Image of Our Lady of Chartres
• July 16 - Our Lady of Mount Carmel
• July 18 - Our Lady of Victory
• July 23 - Institution of the Order of Our Lady of Premontre by St. Norbert (1120) after a Revelation from Our Lady
• July 28 - Siege of Rhodes, Victory over the Turks by the Knights Hospitaller at Rhodes through the intercession of Our Lady (1480)
• July 29 - Our Lady of Deliverance 

Marian Devotion: The Brown Scapular

Many Catholics are familiar with wearing the Brown Scapular—most often bestowed upon children immediately following First Holy Communion—and of how Our Lady of Carmel appeared to St. Simon Stock and instructed him in the wearing of the scapular that all Carmelite friars, nuns, and monks now wear as part of their habit. For those not as familiar, July, since it contains the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (July 16), is an excellent month to find some books and articles about the Brown Scapular and receive investiture on her feast if one has not been invested yet. This article from EWTN is a good starting point. 

Marian Customs Highlight: Intercession of Our Lady in Childbearing

July 29 is a feast devoted to Our Lady of Deliverance, who is the lesser known origin of the St. Augustine, Florida, devotion to Our Lady of La Leche. During one of the Spanish wars, a peasant discovered a drunken soldier in possession of a statue of Our Lady from a Shrine in Madrid that he had pillaged and run off with. The peasant took the statue home and made a little altar in his home, where he and his wife would kneel every day to pray for her deliverance of difficulties she was experiencing during pregnancy and for a safe birth and healthy child. When mother and child were both subsequently safely delivered, he renamed the statue Mother of Safe Delivery and she subsequently became known as Our Lady of Deliverance. A chapel and later a church were built in her honor, and Spanish explorers carried this devotion with them to the New World in the 1600’s where they built the shrine of Our Lady of La Leche under the title of Nuestra Senora de la Leche y Buen Parto or Our Lady of the Milk and Safe Delivery.

Devotion to our Lady under this title is a particularly fitting and beautiful one to enshrine in one’s home, whether through an image of the Madonna somewhere in the home or through special devotion to that title during childbearing and nursing times.