Arise, Mary

This evening my family and I completed our novena to Our Lady of Walsingham and recited the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary in preparation for tomorrow’s rededication of England as Our Lady’s Dowry. In normal circumstances, in the context of the parish’s Sunday worship, we would have done our bit to celebrate this historic occasion - the renewal of a personal promise of the English people, and of the entrustment vows made by King Richard II in 1381 - with formal devotions before the parish’s Image of Our Lady of Walsingham, and sprinkling with holy water from the village.

Alas, it is not to be. Instead, the rededication will now take place behind closed doors in churches and homes across England and the world, as indeed will be the case here in Victoria. Following the Noon Mass I will lead our prayers and conclude with the Act of Entrustment. It may, on the surface, seem the circumstances have rendered this day all a bit low key, but that would be to miss something of the essential nature of this timely consecration. The absence of a big ‘do’ should not be interpreted as a failure; rather it offers an opportunity to emphasise the personal and intimate character of this consecration; that it is about dedicating oneself and claiming Mary as my Queen and my Mother; that England, and its diaspora, are converted not by grand gestures but by small acts of witness and of love.
 
I’ll let Fr Christopher Hilton, Cong. Orat., a much-revered family friend and priest of the Manchester Oratory, have the last word on all of this. Listen to what he has to say. His memorisation of a section of Cardinal Newman’s introduction to his Second Spring sermon is a particular a joy to behold.

‘Arise, Mary, and go forth in thy strength into that north country, which once was thine own, and take possession of a land which knows thee not. Arise, Mother of God, and with thy thrilling voice, speak to those who labour with child, and are in pain, till the babe of grace leaps within them! Shine on us, dear Lady, with thy bright countenance, like the sun in his strength, O stella matutina, O harbinger of peace, till our year is one perpetual May. From thy sweet eyes, from thy pure smile, from thy majestic brow, let ten thousand influences rain down, not to confound or overwhelm, but to persuade, to win over thine enemies’.

St John Henry Newman, pray for us.
Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us.​