✝️ 🧵As if the beginning of St Michael's Lent isn't enough, today is also The Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Mary’s life points us to Jesus:
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour” (Luke 1:46-47)
Her humility and trust show what it means to say ‘yes’ to God.
🖼️The Virgin in Prayer
Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato
1640-50
Anglicans honour Mary not as a distant figure, but as the faithful servant who bore Christ into the world, the one who treasured God’s Word in her heart.
🙏🏻In today’s liturgy we pray:
O God,
who hast taken to thyself the blessed Virgin Mary, mother of thine incarnate Son:
Grant that we, who have been redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of thine eternal kingdom; through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Ghost,
ever one God,
world without end.
Amen.
🖼️The Virgin Mary in Prayer
Albrecht Dürer
1518
🙏🏻And The Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God,
who stooped to raise fallen humanity
through the child-bearing of blessed Mary:
grant that we, who have seen your glory
revealed in our human nature
and your love made perfect in our weakness,
may daily be renewed in your image
and conformed to the pattern of your Son
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
🖼️The Head of the Virgin in Three-Quarter View Facing Right
Leonardo da Vinci
1508–12
As we remember Mary, we also remember her words at Cana: “Do whatever he tells you.”
May we, like Mary, say:
Be it unto me according to thy word.
Her life is an invitation to trust Christ completely.
🖼️Madonna of the Magnificent
Sandro Botticelli
c1445
How to Celebrate the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin:
- Read Luke 1:26-38 and recite the Magnificat - Luke 1:46-55.
- Place rosemary on your dining table, either by cooking with it or arranging a small bouquet in a vase. According to tradition, rosemary flowers were once white until, during the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt, Mary paused to wash their clothes. She spread her blue cloak over a rosemary bush to dry, and from that day, the blossoms turned blue.
- Add marigolds to your table or garden. The name “marigold” blends “Mary” and “gold,” and their bright colour is said to represent Mary’s golden virtues—purity, love, humility, and obedience.
- Lay a blue tablecloth or serve a dish with blue ingredients, as blue is the colour traditionally associated with Mary. This shade symbolises purity, humility, and fidelity, virtues closely linked to her life and example.
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