Before that great holy night they received catechetical instruction about the Sacraments, the doctrine of the Church, Catholic moral teaching, and prayer. In the ancient Catholic Church this period of catechesis could last for years and in all that time the future Catholics would not witness the mysteries of the Faith, the Sacrifice of the Mass. Under the current form of RCIA (the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) this period usually lasts from before Advent to Easter and beyond. Some RCIA programs do observe the dismissal from Mass before the Eucharistic Rites. But in the ancient Church this period of mystagogy was the time the neophytes learned about the mysteries they had received. The gift of God’s grace received in the sacraments was necessary for them to even begin to comprehend the graces they’d received. The normal means of mystagogical catechesis are the readings and the homilies at Sunday Mass, as they reveal more about the Paschal Mystery and the beginnings of the Church.

For those of us praying the Mass during the Easter Season who are not neophytes or even associated with the RCIA programs in our parishes, this is still a period of mystagogy, of deeper preaching and teaching on the Paschal Mystery. Although we may have been practicing the Catholic faith for years, attending Sunday Mass, receiving the Sacraments, and participating in our parish activities, we are still, to borrow the subtitle of a Scott Hahn/Mike Aquilina book, all “unfinished Christians.”

The book I reference above, Living the Mysteries: A Guide for Unfinished Christians, provides the reader with seven weeks of meditations based on the Fathers of the Church from St. Cyril of Jerusalem to Pope St. Leo the Great.

The term “Ordinary Time” is the English translation of the Latin name for this season on the Roman Calendar: Tempus per annum (literally “time through the year”). There are two periods of Ordinary Time through the year: the first (and shorter) begins Monday after the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (which is the end of the Christmas season) and ends on Tuesday before Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent); the second begins Monday after Pentecost (which is the end of the Easter season) and ends on the Saturday before the First Sunday of Advent. These two periods of Ordinary Time are designated by naming the Sundays of Ordinary Time numerically (the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, etc), although there are Sunday Feasts during Ordinary Time: Corpus Christi (moved in most dioceses in the United States to Sunday from Thursday), Trinity Sunday, and Christ the King, for example. Note that there is no First Sunday of Ordinary Time, since the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord preempts it. Most years, there are 33 weeks of Ordinary Time through the year. The term “Ordinary” could indeed refer to the ordinal numbering of the weeks of Ordinary Time.

With a title like “Ordinary” Time, it might seem this long season in the Liturgical Year is somehow dull or inconsequential—but nothing could be further from the truth. The Sundays of Ordinary Time celebrate the Paschal Mystery and focus on the active ministry of Our Lord. In addition to the Feasts listed above, other Feasts, like the Transfiguration, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and All Saints may pre-exempt the numbered Sunday. The Second Sunday of Ordinary Time is a continuation of Epiphany, as the Gospel tells the story of the Wedding Feast of Cana, the third manifestation of Our Lord (see my article, “Time in the Liturgy”, here on PraytheMass.org for more background).

Depending on what year it is (Year A, Year B, or Year C) the Gospel readings are drawn from the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke (respectively), with John’s Gospel supplementing Mark, which is shorter, in Year B. During Ordinary Time, we hear from the Gospels all about Jesus’ great miracles of healing, His teaching and the parables—everything the Evangelists tell us about the three years of His active ministry, proclaiming the Kingdom of God.

2013 is Year C, so we will be hearing exclusively from the Gospel according to St. Luke after the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (only St. John tells us about the miracle of water into wine at Cana). Thus we will hear the parables of the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, Lazarus and the Rich Man, and the Unjust Steward this year. We will hear more about the women who accompanied Jesus on his journeys and hear more about the Holy Spirit and prayer. Not ordinary things, at all.

Just a note about the Roman Calendar before the changes of 1970: these two periods of Ordinary Time were called first, the season After Epiphany and second, the season After Pentecost, with sequentially numbered Sundays. Between the Sundays of Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, the Church observed—and those parishes that celebrate Mass according to the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite today observe—the season of Septuagesima (literally, 70) as a pre-Lenten penitential period 70 days before Easter. Neither the Alleluia nor the Gloria is sung during the Sundays of Septuagesima and the vestment color is purple. Anglican Use parishes (including those that are part of the Anglican Ordinariates established by the Holy See) also observe the period of Septuagesima, while Eastern Rite Catholics have a pre-Lenten season with a special liturgical book called the Lenten Triodion. The liturgy of the Catholic Church is indeed rich in variation of forms and uses of the different Rites (Roman and Eastern), and our increasing knowledge of these rites and variations will help us celebrate the Paschal Mystery more deeply as we pray the Mass.

Resource: Magnificat.net offers a devotional titled Praying with Saint Luke’s Gospel, appropriate for prayer and preparation for the Masses of Ordinary Time in 2013.

For example, we have just experienced the beginning of the liturgical year with the great season of Advent. Time was a major theme in Advent as we looked forward to the coming of Christ: His Second Coming at the end of time; His coming as an infant, born to the Blessed Virgin Mary at a particular time, in a particular place (as St. Luke’s Gospel tells us and as Pope Benedict XVI brilliantly elucidates in his study of the Infancy Narratives); and His coming to each of us at the end of our time on earth, when we face our particular judgment and enter eternity. At every Mass, in every Sacrament, Jesus is present to us in the present; thus we meditate on all the times Jesus comes during the Season of Advent.

In the Season of Christmas, as the secular world has taken down the tree and removed all the decorations that have been up since Thanksgiving (or Halloween!), time stands still in the Church. The liturgy of the Octave of Christmas continually celebrates the event of Christmas: every day in the Octave is the Christmas Feast. Time is out of time: the mystery of the Incarnation should make us stop and wonder.

Even the Feast of Epiphany celebrates the mystery of eternal time as St. Augustine sought it: three manifestations of Jesus Christ are present in that feast. We focus in the liturgy on the visit of the Magi to Jesus, Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, but in fact, Epiphany also celebrates the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan and His first miracle at the marriage feast of Cana (and the last two epiphanies are included for meditation in the Luminous Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, promulgated by Blessed John Paul II).

Liturgically, the Church has separated these manifestations: the Sunday after Epiphany celebrates the Baptism of Our Lord and the Sunday after the Baptism celebrates the Eucharistic miracle of water made into wine. Nevertheless, the prayers of the Divine Office for the Feast of Epiphany maintain the triune mystery of the epiphany of Our God. The nineteenth century hymn, “Songs of Thankfulness and Praise” describes it well:

Songs of thankfulness and praise,
Jesus, Lord, to Thee we raise,
Manifested by the star
To the sages from afar;
Branch of royal David’s stem
In Thy birth at Bethlehem;
Anthems be to Thee addressed,
God in man made manifest.

Manifest at Jordan’s stream,
Prophet, Priest, and King supreme;
And at Cana, wedding guest,
In Thy Godhead manifest;
Manifest in power divine,
Changing water into wine;
Anthems be to Thee addressed,
God in man made manifest.

The author of that hymn was Christopher Wordsworth, Anglican minister and nephew of the great Romantic poet William Wordsworth.

Lent and Easter come early in the year in 2013: Ash Wednesday is on February 13 and Easter Sunday on March 31. The great Holy Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, even though we experience it sequentially, is one celebration of the Paschal Mystery. Mass on Holy Thursday does not really end while the service of the Lord’s Passion and Communion on Good Friday does not really begin; Holy Saturday is one long day of vigil culminating in the Vigil of the Resurrection that night. Then the celebration of Easter is repeated in the Octave as each day, like every Sunday, is the Eighth Day, the eternal day of Resurrection.

We are bound by time on this earth, as St. Augustine lamented and as we might complain that there just aren’t enough hours in the day for us to accomplish all our tasks. But through the Paschal Mystery and the Liturgical Year, as we pray the Mass, we gain an inkling of the eternity of time as God lives it—and as we will too, hopefully in Heaven!

As a citizen of the United States, I have always heard the common comment in homilies for the Solemnity of Christ the King that we Americans don’t really understand or connect with the idea of kingship. After all, our forefathers fought a Revolutionary War to free us from the control of a king. If we think of this feast only in the context of earthly kingship, with its hereditary succession and the possibility of tyranny and despotism, we will miss the point of the Solemnity of Christ the King.

Pope Pius XI established the feast of Christ the King in his encyclical letter, Quas Primas (“In the first which”) issued on December 11, 1925. He referenced his first encyclical letter at the beginning (thus the title) and continued to address “the chief causes of the difficulties under which mankind was laboring”. The source of those difficulties? “That the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives”; that they had decided Jesus and his holy law “had no place either in private affairs or in politics”.

Pope Pius XI emphasized that true peace can only be achieved in the Kingdom of God and then explored the Holy Bible for examples of Christ as King in the Old Testament and the New. He then compared Jesus’ spiritual and temporal authority, noting that He rules over both realms, and making the crucial connection that denial of Jesus’ authority coincides with the general rejection of His Church’s authority to teach in His name. Pius XI also notes that Christ’s Kingship delineates the Church’s “natural and inalienable right to perfect freedom and immunity from the power of the state” and that “she cannot be subject to any external power.”

While the pope urged nations to recognize the Church’s religious freedom, he also promised that the faithful, “by meditating upon these truths, will gain much strength and courage, enabling them to form their lives after the true Christian ideal.” Summarizing Our Lord’s authority in our lives, Pius XI stated:

He believed that establishing the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King on the last Sunday in October (just before the Feast of All Saints) would remind Catholics around the world that their first loyalty in both spiritual and temporal matters was to Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the World—not to their country, their political party, or to any other earthly authority. The pope asked bishops and priests around the world to preach clearly about these truths of Jesus’ reign in all aspects of Catholics’ lives.

One of the popular hymns for this feast, “To Jesus Christ our Sovereign King”, was composed in 1941 by Monsignor Martin Hellreigel, a German immigrant who was ordained in 1914 as a priest of the Precious Blood:

To Jesus Christ our Sovereign King
who is the world’s salvation,
All praise and homage do we bring
and thanks and adoration

Your reign extend O King benign,
to every land and nation;
For in your kingdom Lord divine
Alone do we find salvation

To you and to your Church, great King
We pledge our heart’s oblation;
Until before your throne we sing
In endless jubilation

Christ Jesus, Victor!
Christ Jesus, Ruler!
Christ Jesus, Lord and Redeemer

The hymn summarizes Pope Pius XI’s encyclical very well: it links Christ’s kingship to His role as Savior; it emphasizes the world-wide reach of His reign, and it reminds us of our ultimate goal as Christians to be united with Christ in Heavenly worship.

In 1969, Pope Paul VI reformed the Roman Calendar and moved the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King to the last Sunday of the Church Year, just before the First Sunday of Advent. He also changed the name of the feast to Our Lord Jesus Christ the King of the Universe and made it a Solemnity. The feast or Solemnity of Christ the King is not even one hundred years old, yet meditation on the truths Pope Pius XI highlighted in Quas Primas has already enriched the Church. Blessed Pope John Paul II, for instance, spoke of Christ the King as not only “the Lord of the World” but also as the Lord “of history”. As Catholics in the United States facing threats indeed to that “natural and inalienable right to perfect freedom and immunity from the power of the state” spoken of in 1925 by Pope Pius XI, we should find sure comfort in the fact that Jesus Christ is King. As the Cristeros in early twentieth century Mexico declared, even as they suffered martyrdom, “Viva Christo Rey!”

Stephanie A. Mann is the author of Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation, available from Scepter Publishers. She resides in Wichita, Kansas and blogs at www.supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com. Stephanie is working on a book about the English Catholic Martyrs from 1534 to 1681. Podcasts of her radio program, “The English Reformation Today” are available at Radio Maria US.

The personal encounter with Christ that comes with the sacrament produces a genuine sense of relief and joy that we are beginning again with a renewed spirit and a determination to avoid the near occasions of sin in a serious effort to be more faithful to Christ.  Why would Catholics avoid regular Confession or simply not make time out for it?  There are many possible answers to this question, but key among them is our loss of the sense of sin and its profound impact upon others, not least, ourselves and the price Christ paid for our sins! 

In order to prepare our minds, hearts and soul for the full, conscious, and active participation called for by the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, we must be willing to bring to the altar of God our best offering of ourselves.  That means, among other things, frequent sacramental Reconciliation with a regular confessor if possible. This allows one to take the time and make the commitment to work on our attachment to sin, work on reforming our lives and bringing to the altar our best self ready to make an offering of it to the Lord. As the Gospel of Matthew reminds us:  “So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Mt. 5:23).

As Pope Benedict XVI observed in 2008:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes sagely,

The Holy Father believes that this orientation towards the sacrament is necessary for “a life decisively committed to Christ,” [which] brings about “a sort of continuous ‘virtuous circle’ . . . in which the grace of the Sacrament may sustain and nourish the commitment to be a faithful disciple of the Lord.”   This is why it is a central feature of the renewal of faith in the Year of Faith he has proclaimed.  So let us faithfully and regularly confess our sins to a priest in order to orient our personal discipleship to a more fulfilling and joyful reception of the graces available to us in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass..Divine mercy is a gift we cannot afford to refuse.

At certain times in our lives we will be asked to do things we really do not want to do. Our human nature dictates that if we perceive something to be burdensome we will find a way not to do it. The natural inclination is to avoid performing the act requested by any means necessary. This is where our concupiscence tends to get in the way. So it would seem natural when a catechist volunteers to hand on the faith to children any reasonable requirement of the catechist especially participating at Mass on Sunday would not be met with much resistance.

You’re asking too much!

The resistance I alluded to unfortunately came in the form of a declarative statement “You are asking too much” by catechists to their parish director of religious education who had informed them of the catechist requirement to attend Mass on Sunday. The reasons these catechists balked at this requirement were far and wide i.e. “we have sports”, “I already went to Mass during the week”, “what’s the big deal, and I’m here aren’t I.” The Director of the program had quite a situation on her hands. She was left with the task of encouraging her catechist to set the right Catholic moral example for the students or face the challenging task of asking them to leave the program because of their unwillingness to accept one of the most fundamental teachings of the Church. Eventually, when these catechists were asked to attend Mass on Sunday as part of their catechetical, doctrinal, and moral responsibilities they left the program. Placing this situation into context, we have to look at the root of these catechists response to understand why they would respond in such an ignorant/ disrespectful manner.

A Mass Misunderstanding

The context of this disturbing situation can be drawn into perspective when we flush out the response cited for not attending Mass. There is root cause to most things. Citing several reasons why the request to attend Mass on Sunday was simply not possible, two reasons stood out that clearly define the state of affairs with these catechists and unfortunately with many within the Cradle Catholic world.

First cause

We already attend Mass during the week! Really! It goes without saying that what you assume somebody especially a catechist should know really doesn’t. The perceived logic from these catechists perspective was that every Mass is the same whether it’s during the week or on Sunday. In other words from a purely experiential and secular mindset they already attended the informational meeting during the week thus, they’ve covered their bases. You beg the question how this thought process developed in the first place? Many individuals have shared their Catholic upbringing with me as a “have to or else” catechesis without any specific explanation behind “why” one should attend Mass on Sunday. Nor were these individuals properly taught a “response of faith” as Catholics towards the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The Catechism lays out three powerful reasons why we celebrate the Lord’s Day:

Reason One

The command of Jesus to repeat his actions and words “until he comes” does not only ask us to remember Jesus and what he did. It is directed at the liturgical celebration, by the apostles and their successors, of the memorial of Christ, of his life, of his death, of his Resurrection, and of his intercession in the presence of the Father (CCC 1341).

Reason Two

From the beginning the Church has been faithful to the Lord’s command. Of the Church of Jerusalem it is written:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers…. Day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts. (CCC 1342)

Reason Three

Thus from celebration to celebration, as they proclaim the Paschal mystery of Jesus “until he comes,” the pilgrim People of God advances, “following the narrow way of the cross,” toward the heavenly banquet, when all the elect will be seated at the table of the kingdom (CCC 1343).

Second Cause (Our Response of Faith)

What’s the big deal? Our response of faith must echo a deep desire to love Christ and in turn share that love of Christ with others. Isn’t this the basic foundation of any catechist? Handing on this love (CCC 25) serves at the heart of the New Evangelization in tandem with sound Catechetical instruction that brings to life our evangelistic efforts (Heb 11:1-2). This is a very big deal!

The catechists who refused to attend Mass on Sunday may not have had the opportunity to fall in love with Christ. This is not a judgment on them but merely an observation to an obvious point reiterated in Sacred Scripture over and over again. See: Jn 6:66-72; Mt 7 13-15; Mt 22:34-40; Mk 6:1-6; Rom 13:8-10  Part of our response of faith is to preach Christ crucified (1 Cor 1:23), in a holy and convincing way. St. Paul reminds us of this:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into his death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (Rom 6:3-5).

As children of God, we are called to acknowledge a sufficiency that exists with Him and an insufficiency without Him. This was revealed in the fall when our first parents thought they were sufficient without Him. The Mass brings us to the forefront of our insufficiency without Christ because it is with Christ in the Holy Eucharist where we become sufficient. The centrality of the Mass as echoed in the Catechism is to draw us to a foretaste of heaven on earth (CCC 1344) relying on Christ crucified to bring us into full communion with our Father in Heaven.

O Son of God, bring me into communion today with your mystical supper. I shall not tell your enemies the secret, nor kiss you with Judas’ kiss. But like the good thief I cry, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. 
St. John Chrysostom

Pope Innocent XI added the feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary to the Roman Calendar in 1684, a year after the Christian victory at the Battle of Vienna the previous year. Pope St. Pius V added the feast of Our Lady of Victory to the Roman Calendar in 1571, the same year that the combined naval forces of The Holy League against the Ottoman Turks. The Turks, led by Soleiman the Magnificent and his son Selim II, had been invading Malta, Hungary, and Cyprus, slaughtering Christians and taking women and young girls as slaves.

The two best accounts of the Battle of Lepanto are Christopher Check’s narrative and G.K. Chesterton’s poem. Pope St. Pius V organized the Holy League of Spain, Genoa, and the Papal States, and dedicated the practical, military goals of the navy battling the Turks to the spiritual defense of Christians. As the naval battle of Lepanto raged in the Adriatic, the Pope asked the Catholics of Italy to join in praying the Holy Rosary for the victory of the Holy League.

Now, we may stand back a little from this spectacle of a Pope praying for military victory against a foe, even a foe who had been murdering innocents and committing terrible atrocities against military combatants who had surrendered (read Check’s account of the torture and death of the governor of Cyprus, if you dare!). But many Catholics today are joined in prayer and fasting, attending Mass and Holy Hours before the Blessed Sacrament, praying for the defense of religious liberty and the end to the legalized, protected and even tax payer funded murder of innocent unborn babies—we are praying for a certain end of this year’s Election Day. We hope for God’s intercession that our nation will elect pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-family candidates even as we wrangle over other prudential issues of the common good.

The feast of Our Lady of Victory was named the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary by Pope Gregory XIII in 1573, and Pope Clement XI extended it to the Roman Calendar in 1716, after another victory against the Turks in Hungary. He set it on the first Sunday in October, so Pope St. Pius X, in his efforts to focus on Sunday Mass, moved the feast to October 7 in 1913. (This year, because October 7 is on a Sunday, we don’t celebrate the feast.)

The month of October is dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary; outside of the liturgical celebration and prayer of the Church (the Holy Mass and Divine Office), the Rosary is the most popular Catholic prayer. The Holy Rosary, being so focused on the mysteries of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, has become a badge of Catholic identity. It has been woven into our lives: prayed before Mass, in Adoration and Holy Hours, at the vigils of Catholic funerals, and at any moment of need and intercession. Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

Stephanie A. Mann is the author of Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation, available from Scepter Publishers. She resides in Wichita, Kansas and blogs at www.supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com. Stephanie is working on a book about the English Catholic Martyrs from 1534 to 1681. From August 4 through October 20, she will host a weekly radio program, “The English Reformation Today” on Radio Maria US.

The Feast of the Triumph of the Cross was observed in Rome in the late seventh century to commemorate the recovery of the Holy Cross by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in 629. St. Helena, Constantine’s mother, had found the True Cross in Jerusalem in the fourth century but the Persians had captured it and returned it after Heraclius defeated the Persian king Khosrau. The emperor returned it to Jerusalem, and this feast recalls that event.

But on a deeper level, of course, the Feast recalls Jesus’ triumph over death and the fulfillment of His great statement, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” (John 12:32, which serves as the Communion Antiphon). The liturgy of the Mass for this Feast includes both triumph and sorrow in the readings and prayers, since Jesus both suffers His Passion and defeats sin and death. From the Book of Numbers, the First Reading recalls the story of Moses and the bronze Seraph, raised on a pole—when the people Israel who had been grumbling against God for their sufferings, looked up to the serpent, they were healed of the serpent bites God had sent to afflict them.

The Responsorial Psalm is a poetic reminder of how God has forgiven His people for their betrayal:

But they flattered him with their mouths
         and lied to him with their tongues . . .

But he, being merciful, forgave their sin
         and destroyed them not . . .

The Second Reading is the great hymn of Jesus’ humility and exaltation from St. Paul’s Letter to Philippians, “Though he was in the form of God . . .  he emptied himself . . . he humbled himself . . . becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” After this falling movement in the reading, Jesus rises:

Because of this, God greatly exalted him
And bestowed on him the name
That is above every name,
That at the name of Jesus
Every knee should bend,
Those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
And every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
To the glory of God the Father. 

(In the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite, also known as the Tridentine Rite, the congregation genuflects at the words “Every knee should bend”.)

And finally in the Gospel from St. John, Jesus makes the connection between Moses and the Seraph and Himself, as He tells Nicodemus that He must be lifted up so that those who believe in Him will have eternal life. From that passage comes the great John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” Just to continue this paradox of suffering and triumph, the Church used to mark the Ember Days of fasting that followed this feast on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

September 15 then recalls the sorrow of Our Lady at the foot of the Cross as the fulfillment of Simeon’s prophecy at the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple: “and you yourself a sword shall pierce so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:35). The Gospel for Mass that day may be either the description of “his mother and the disciple . . . whom he loved” standing by the cross of Jesus (John 19:25-27) or the Presentation in the Temple (Luke 2:33-35). The sequence “Stabat Mater”–often sung while praying The Stations of the Cross–may be chanted after the Psalm. The readings and prayers of the Mass focus on Mary’s special sorrows, but also on her glory, as the Alleluia verse proclaims, “Blessed are you, O Virgin Mary; without dying you won the martyr’s crown beneath the Cross of the Lord.”

Devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows became very popular in the monastic Cistercian and mendicant Servite orders in the thirteenth century. The memorial was first celebrated by the Servites; then Pope Pius VII added it to the Roman Calendar in 1814; Pope St. Pius X moved the memorial to September 15 in 1913.The Servites gave us the Chaplet of Our Lady of Sorrows encouraging meditation on seven events in the life of Mary:

• The Prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:34-35)
• The Flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:13)
• The Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:43-45)
• Mary Meets Jesus on the Way to Calvary (from the Stations of the Cross)
• Jesus Dies on the Cross (John 19:25)
• Mary Receives the Body of Jesus in Her Arms (Matthew 27:57-59)
• The Body of Jesus Is Placed in the Tomb (John 19:40-42)

In religious art, Our Lady of Sorrows is depicted in three ways: as the Stabat Mater, standing by the cross, in the Pieta as an object of pity (most famously in Michelangelo’s sculpture, but also very movingly in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ), and as the Mater Dolorosa, Mother of Sorrows, often with seven swords (the seven sorrows) piercing her Immaculate Heart.

            As the Entrance Antiphon for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross proclaims, “We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection, through whom we are saved and delivered” (based on Galatians 6:14) even as we mourn with Our Lady: “At the Cross her station keeping/Stood the mournful Mother weeping/Close to Jesus to the last.” 

Watch this video on YouTube.

Stephanie A. Mann is the author of Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation, available from Scepter Publishers. She resides in Wichita, Kansas and blogs at www.supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com. Stephanie is working on a book about the English Catholic Martyrs from 1534 to 1681. From August 4 through October 20, she will host a weekly radio program, “The English Reformation Today” on Radio Maria US.

a) A bow of the head is made when the three Divine Persons are named together and at the names of Jesus, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of the Saint in whose honor Mass is being celebrated.

The General Instruction defines the general gesture of the head bow. These are for three instances: God, at the mention of the Trinity and Christ’s name, second, Our Lady, at the mention of her name, and, thirdly, the saints. Traditionally, there are three forms of the head bow that correspond to these three categories and, consistently, to the three forms of honor or praise. 
The first category, reverence for God, is the most profound head bow (note: a profound bow is different from a profound head bow). This bow involves the bending of the head and neck from a vertical to a horizontal position, requiring a slight movement of the shoulders as well. This profound head bow is only for God, at name Jesus or mention of the Trinity. Accordingly, this bow corresponds to the notion of latria or worship, which is offered to God alone.
The third category, reverence for the saints, is, by contrast, the slightest bow. This is a simple movement of the head forward and down by a few inches and occurs at the mention of the name of the saint “in whose honor Mass is being celebrated.” This corresponds to the theological term duliaor praise. Just as we congratulate family and friends for accomplishments and, often in the public sphere, recognize citizens for great achievements, most especially do we owe praise to the saints, who have “run the race” and, after a virtuous life, see God face-to-face.
The second category, reverence for our Lady, is a bow that is right between the other two. At the mention of the name Mary, we are to perform a medium head bow. This act of reverence corresponds to a concept that is greater than dulia called hyperdulia, or a lot of praise. Of all the people on earth, our Lord chose our Lady for a singular mission. Prepared for that mission by the grace of the Immaculate Conception, our Lady has been the “highest honor of our race” who lived so conformed to her Son that she serves as the greatest example of a holy life, second only to her Son.
Now, you may say, none of that is mentioned in the liturgical documents. True, the delineation of the three forms of the head bows is not prescribed and therefore is not required. I do not mean that people have to perform head bows in this way. But it is a more specific practice that fulfils the more general rule. Of course, this is not my own practice, but is the traditional practice of the Church. It is a practice that offers a ‘teaching moment’ as well as a daily reminder for us. This practice and understanding then equip us to answer a common question from protestants: “Why do you worship Mary?” Sometimes, it just takes a bow.