My dear parishioners,
Peace! On the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, 7 October, 2019, Pope Francis established the feast of Our Lady of Loreto, to be observed each year on the 10th of December. At the same time Pope Francis proclaimed a Lauretan Jubilee Holy Year to run from 8 December, 2019 through 10 December, 2020. There are fifty-one invocations in the Litany of Loreto. The following is a reflection on the twenty-second invocation: Virgin most faithful, pray for us.
What does it mean to call Saint Mary “Virgin most faithful”? How is the Blessed Virgin Mary most faithful? Faith is a theological virtue, together with hope and love (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:13). The theological virtue of faith has to do with belief in God and all that He has revealed. Saint Mary, the Blessed Virgin, believed in God and all that He revealed. Even before Saint Mary heard the Word of God proclaimed by the Archangel Gabriel (cf. Luke 1:28), she was virgin most faithful having heard the Word addressed to Israel of old “Hear, O’ Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” (cf. Romans 10:17; Deuteronomy 6:4).
When we consider the various mysteries of faith in the Holy Rosary or Our Lady, we see how she is Virgin most faithful. Mary is faithful in the annunciation. Mary is faithful in the visitation to Saint Elizabeth (and the unborn Saint John the Baptist) in Ein Karem (cf. Luke 1:39-56). Mary is faithful in the nativity at Bethlehem (cf. Luke 2:7). Our Lady is faithful at the foot of the Cross on Calvary (cf. John 19:25) and in the upper room at Pentecost (cf. Acts 1:14).
Saint Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mother of God is most faithful in that she is “Destroyer of all heresies.” Pope Saint Pius X (+1914) invokes her as such in his Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 58 (8 September, 1907). Heresy is a sin against Faith. To deny the Incarnation, the Redemption, the Providence of God are all heresies, over which Our Lady triumphs. The heresy called “modernism” which denies any and all dogmas of faith and is a “synthesis of all heresies” (PDG, 39) was denounced by Pius X. To deny miracles or revelation or the divine institution and efficacy of the sacraments are all heresies, which the Virgin Most Faithful opposes. Saint Maximilian Marie Kolbe, OFM Conv (+1941), in his prayer of Consecration to Mary insists that she alone has “destroyed all heresies in the world.”
Whenever we are faced with doubts or uncertainties, let us turn to Saint Mary, Virgin Most Faithful. Let us ask her to intercede with her Son for us, that we might believer, and be helped to overcome any unbelief (cf. Mark 9:24). When we read and listen to Sacred Scripture and receive the sacraments with devotion our faith is fed. we grow not only as adopted children of, brothers and sisters to Christ, and as children of the Virgin Most Faithful.
Father John Arthur Orr