SAINTS OF THE DAY - JULY 2nd, 2016

Saturday memorials of the Blessed Virgin Mary

‘On Saturdays in Ordinary Time when there is no obligatory memorial, an optional memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary is allowed.

  ‘Saturdays stand out among those days dedicated to the Virgin Mary. These are designated as memorials of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This memorial derives from Carolingian times (9th century), but the reasons for having chosen Saturday for its observance are unknown. While many explanations of this choice have been advanced, none is completely satisfactory from the point of view of the history of popular piety.

  ‘Whatever its historical origins may be, today the memorial rightly emphasizes certain values ‘to which contemporary spirituality is more sensitive. It is aremembrance of the maternal example and discipleship of “the Blessed Virgin Mary who, strengthened by faith and hope, on that ‘great Saturday’ on which Our Lord lay in the tomb, was the only one of the disciples to hold vigil in expectation of the Lord’s resurrection.” It is a prelude and introductionto the celebration of Sunday, the weekly memorial of the Resurrection of Christ. It is asign that the “Virgin Mary is continuously present and operative in the life of the Church”.’

  

Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2001), §188

Other saints: Our Lady of Budslau

Belarus

The multi-ethnic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was destroyed by the Prussian, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires in 1793. Budslau (Belarusian: Будслаў, Polish: Budsław) is in the Mińsk district, which was taken over by the Russian Empire. Between the wars it formed part of the restored Poland; after the Second World War it was ethnically cleansed and became part of the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1989. It is now part of the newly independent country of Belarus.

  The miracle-working icon of Our Lady of Budslau has been a focus of pilgrimage since the 16th century. A monastery grew up to serve the pilgrims, and was later destroyed in the wars and revolutions that swept the area; but the icon survived wars, revolutions, and even the attempts by the Soviet secret police to destroy it.

  Pilgrims have come from all the successor states of the Commonwealth: Belarus, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine: secretly in the late 20th-century times of oppression and persecution, but openly since 1992.

  This feast was traditionally celebrated on 2 July but in 2012 it was moved to the first, because “Many believers, including students and priests, expressed their wish to celebrate the feast of Lord’s Mother of Budslau on Saturday because they want to do it to the full. Previously that was not possible because the feast often occurred to be on a workday.”