Marian Devotions Through the Year: June

As we move into the summer months of a year devoted to our Lady, June brings forth such devotions as the Immaculate Heart and the legend of how our Lady brings the first strawberries picked in the summer but not eaten by the mother to any lost children in Heaven. It’s a month of quieter devotions rather than sublime fanfare in it’s feasts, but one that brings us closer to the humanity of Mary.

Marian Virtue: Angelic Kindness

This month we focus on the ninth of the traditional Ten Virtues of Our Lady. Angelic Kindness follows closely on the heels of Heroic Patience, for patience often demands extra attentiveness in our deeds to the needs of others and likewise does kindness need the gentle, purposeful patience that makes it a balm. “Don’t be a street angel and a house devil,” is an old saying sometimes attributed to St. Francis de Sales. Our Lady, ever the gracious and giving balm in her many deeds of kindness, is the perfect inspiration to turn to. 

Marian Theme: The Immaculate Heart

While the feast day of the Immaculate Heart falls in June in the Novus Ordo calendar only, this theme meshes well with June being the month of devotion liturgically to the Sacred Heart.

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:

• June 6 - Institution of the Nuns of the Visitation of Our Lady by St. Francis de Sales (1610)
• June 15 - Our Lady of the Taper (England, Wales)
• June 20 - Our Lady of Consolation (built by Robert, Duke of Normandy, in 1054 after being saved from a sea storm, later visited by St. Therese when she prayed to enter Carmel)
• June 22 - The Immaculate Heart of Mary (Novus Ordo, August 22 in the Old Rite)
• June 25 - Divine Motherhood of Mary (declared at the Council of Ephesus in 431)
• June 27 - Our Lady of Perpetual Help
• June 28 - Institution of the Angelus of our Lady in Europe (1456, after Jan Sobieski won the battle against the Turks at Vienna)

Marian Devotion: Our Mother of Perpetual Help

There used to be a Tuesday custom that has endeared itself to me because my grandparents met for it when dating (even though my grandfather was not Catholic at the time) before going out for dinner and square dancing or a movie. Others might also be familiar with the weekly Tuesday devotions to Our Lady of Perpetual Help done in parishes after the daily Holy Mass or in the evening. They can be found by searching online or ordering pamphlets from the Redemptorists, who popularized it at one point. Below is another short prayer to Our Lady of Perpetual Help that is simple enough for the family to incorporate or even memorize in the home: 

O Mother of Perpetual Help, grant that I may ever invoke thy most powerful name, which is the safeguard of the living and the salvation of the dying.

O Purest Mary, O Sweetest Mary, let thy name henceforth be ever on my lips.

Delay not, O Blessed Lady, to help me whenever I call on thee, for, in all my needs, in all my temptations I shall never cease to call on thee, ever repeating thy sacred name, Mary, Mary.

O what consolation, what sweetness, what confidence, what emotion fill my soul when I pronounce thy sacred name, or even only think of thee.

I thank God for having given thee, for my good, so sweet, so powerful, so lovely a name.

But I will not be content with merely pronouncing thy name: let my love for thee prompt me ever to hail thee, Mother of Perpetual Help. Amen.

Marian Customs Highlight: First Saturdays Devotion

Current social networks talk of “May-cember” to describe the Sacramental and spring rush and, of course, July bring Independence Day for Americans and many other feasts. June, however, is fairly quiet with the Immaculate Heart feast for Novus Ordo parishioners and Our Lady of Perpetual Help on both calendars. This makes it the perfect time to start the Five First Saturday Devotion to Our Lady. (If started in June, it finishes the fifth Saturday in October around Our Lady of the Rosary.)

On the first five Saturdays of five consecutive months:

1. Go to Confession (may be 8 days before or after, if you are in a state of grace).
2. Receive Holy Communion (can be received at a Saturday evening anticipatory Mass).
3. Pray five decades of the Rosary.
4. Keep Our Lady company for 15 minutes while meditating on one or more of the mysteries of the Rosary.

Our Lord told Sister Lucia of Fatima that there are five ways that people offend and blaspheme against the Immaculate Heart of Mary:

1. Offenses against Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception – by denial or ridicule
2. Offenses against Our Lady’s Perpetual Virginity
3. Offenses against Our Lady’s Divine Maternity, refusing to accept her as the Mother of all mankind
4. Those who implant in children’s hearts, indifference, contempt and even hate against this Immaculate Mother
5. Insults directed against her sacred images – ridicule and the infliction of damage to them.

In private revelation Our Lady promised St. Lucia to assist all those who will practice the devotion of the first Saturday on five consecutive months with the graces necessary for salvation at the hour of their death.